This Isn't Deneuve's Life, Is It?
Your Grief
Your grief is like a broken stopwatch
tarnished gold filigree
ticking the same
minute to death.
Your grief is like a broken stopwatch
tarnished gold filigree
ticking the same
minute to death.
The thought that just flitted through my brain two minutes ago is "What would Deneuve have done in my place?". I wonder if she has conducted all her relationships with as much class as I imagine? The thought that is going through my head right this very second like a hot poker is "Did mother Theresa ever have a toxic friendship in her life, and if so, what the hell did she do about it?" I thought this because I strive to be a person with both class and grace. I think "class" is a misleading word though because it smacks of social order which is where the expression "having class" comes from. The idea of me having grace is a bit hard to swallow too, because there is nothing bumbling about it, nothing out of bounce, out of rhythm, or silly.
I believe that even the craziest and goofiest individual is capable of having spiritual grace. To me this has absolutely nothing to do with a person's relationship with God (though if one is religious it certainly would apply). Grace, as I perceive it is a state of being in which your spirit has a quiet flow and flexibility. It's about not needing to seek retribution. It's about healing. It's about walking softly and loving loudly. It's about being pliant without being weak. It's about allowing every person you meet a chance to impress the crap out of you and not minding if they don't.
I have not been a completely brave girl. Even now I am frightened of the shadows of the past. How long can they possibly nick me in the heels? When I keep so few secrets, what power does it hold over me? Things come rushing back to me tonight. Not my own grief or sorrow. Other people's. First cups of coffee. I am remembering my first cup of coffee and the hundredth crush I ever felt. Sixteen and still alive. Like a miracle I ought to have lit a candle for in the Notre Dame. I smell clove cigarettes, (not mine). I smell rice powder for Kabuki faces.
Did I see myself in the mirror or not? Was there any part of me then that knew I would be looking back through time at who I was, did we send each other glances in that ever elastic mental world from which we both sprang? What would I tell my old self now if she could hear me? Some sweet letter of love and nostalgic ultimatums to enjoy youth while I have it and not to squander it on sorrow or madness or another pack of cigarettes? Would I suggest that I have sex a little more often like everyone else? Would I tell myself to relax, that I'm just fine sitting here at my desk in 2007, not yet dead? See how it all worked out? See how much time you waste on investing in death?
I think I used to know who I was going to become back when I was sixteen, saw myself aged in the mirror, how much lighter I was with life in my eyes in the reflection, and I think I didn't recognize myself at the exact same time. Who, looking into the future, recognizes their own corpse?
I am at least three of those things.
But I won't say which ones.
But I won't say which ones.
I believe that even the craziest and goofiest individual is capable of having spiritual grace. To me this has absolutely nothing to do with a person's relationship with God (though if one is religious it certainly would apply). Grace, as I perceive it is a state of being in which your spirit has a quiet flow and flexibility. It's about not needing to seek retribution. It's about healing. It's about walking softly and loving loudly. It's about being pliant without being weak. It's about allowing every person you meet a chance to impress the crap out of you and not minding if they don't.
I have not been a completely brave girl. Even now I am frightened of the shadows of the past. How long can they possibly nick me in the heels? When I keep so few secrets, what power does it hold over me? Things come rushing back to me tonight. Not my own grief or sorrow. Other people's. First cups of coffee. I am remembering my first cup of coffee and the hundredth crush I ever felt. Sixteen and still alive. Like a miracle I ought to have lit a candle for in the Notre Dame. I smell clove cigarettes, (not mine). I smell rice powder for Kabuki faces.
Did I see myself in the mirror or not? Was there any part of me then that knew I would be looking back through time at who I was, did we send each other glances in that ever elastic mental world from which we both sprang? What would I tell my old self now if she could hear me? Some sweet letter of love and nostalgic ultimatums to enjoy youth while I have it and not to squander it on sorrow or madness or another pack of cigarettes? Would I suggest that I have sex a little more often like everyone else? Would I tell myself to relax, that I'm just fine sitting here at my desk in 2007, not yet dead? See how it all worked out? See how much time you waste on investing in death?
I think I used to know who I was going to become back when I was sixteen, saw myself aged in the mirror, how much lighter I was with life in my eyes in the reflection, and I think I didn't recognize myself at the exact same time. Who, looking into the future, recognizes their own corpse?
I would like to dine with Dylan and Deneuve tonight. I have questions that I imagine only they can answer. The poet and the grace. Both of them with the kind of cheekbones that make people fall over themselves to touch. To consume. I don't know which one of them is more beautiful to me. Which one is more deliciously iconic.
Metal edges come naturally to me. Like my skin is magnetic. Attracting all the metal shop shavings. They come and I didn't always walk away.
Sometimes I am my own secretary, secretary to the crazy boss upstairs who dictates while my pen screeches across imaginary pages. I am my own Girl Friday. Where's my pencil skirt and scarlet lips? You are present on my tablet. A rare glimpse of a mind in full motion. Evaluating itself in real time.
Is there a ship sailing out there on the high seas full of every person I've cut loose? Do they sit around eating maggoty bread while setting their hair afire with gin like voodoo demons throwing darts at my likeness against the moon? Am I on someone else's ship of cut loose souls? Are we all organized according to whose ship of demons we are scouring with our metal brushes and our locks full of crows?
Has someone cut Deneuve loose? Will we pass each other under dark waves and white froth? Will she still be wearing her lipstick? Will her hair still be perfect? Will we throw each other biscuits across the planks?
I know plenty of people have cut Dylan loose. You can't write like that, sing like that, live like that, without ending up on some one's ship of cut loose souls. I love him for his words. Because he said what no one else was saying until he was saying it.
Sometimes you have to ask yourself who you really want to be: Dylan or Deneuve? And then you have to know who you really are. I have always wanted to be Deneuve. I have always been like Dylan, only without the cheekbones or a voice that reaches Viet Nam from here. If I crawl down the barrel of someone else's gun, please tell Dylan to write my eulogy. He's the only one who can do it. He'll tell you how it really was. He never lets the common man fade into anonymity.
I used to ask the universe what was waiting for me on the other side of youth. What the hell was the point in staying alive when soul-ache threatened to eviscerate me anyway? Why walk across that great big wasteland of my nightmare to the boundary where I can't see past? What makes all the pain worth enduring? I no longer ask this question. The answer is in the living. The answer is breathtakingly simple. You walk across the wasteland of your nightmare because on the other side you will find wine, bread, and pesto. You traverse those dark distances because the most simple joys will heal. Because everyone has love to put out there, if they choose, and if you put love out there you will taste the world as though it was all inside of you.
And you can still crack wildly inappropriate jokes. If you really love not only yourself, (and first yourself), and then as many people as you can. Love being the most open smile you can flash at a complete stranger. Love being able to look in any human being's eyes and see what is human in them and see that even if they are unlovable now they weren't always that way and may not always be that way. Love being a great walk in the pouring rain and a face turned to the prettiest angle of the sun. It's everywhere when you cross that wasteland. If you keep your expectations low but your hopes high you will find it everywhere. How can you not find it everywhere if you are throwing it into the air yourself like a flock of magic doves?
Metal edges come naturally to me. Like my skin is magnetic. Attracting all the metal shop shavings. They come and I didn't always walk away.
Sometimes I am my own secretary, secretary to the crazy boss upstairs who dictates while my pen screeches across imaginary pages. I am my own Girl Friday. Where's my pencil skirt and scarlet lips? You are present on my tablet. A rare glimpse of a mind in full motion. Evaluating itself in real time.
Is there a ship sailing out there on the high seas full of every person I've cut loose? Do they sit around eating maggoty bread while setting their hair afire with gin like voodoo demons throwing darts at my likeness against the moon? Am I on someone else's ship of cut loose souls? Are we all organized according to whose ship of demons we are scouring with our metal brushes and our locks full of crows?
Has someone cut Deneuve loose? Will we pass each other under dark waves and white froth? Will she still be wearing her lipstick? Will her hair still be perfect? Will we throw each other biscuits across the planks?
I know plenty of people have cut Dylan loose. You can't write like that, sing like that, live like that, without ending up on some one's ship of cut loose souls. I love him for his words. Because he said what no one else was saying until he was saying it.
Sometimes you have to ask yourself who you really want to be: Dylan or Deneuve? And then you have to know who you really are. I have always wanted to be Deneuve. I have always been like Dylan, only without the cheekbones or a voice that reaches Viet Nam from here. If I crawl down the barrel of someone else's gun, please tell Dylan to write my eulogy. He's the only one who can do it. He'll tell you how it really was. He never lets the common man fade into anonymity.
I used to ask the universe what was waiting for me on the other side of youth. What the hell was the point in staying alive when soul-ache threatened to eviscerate me anyway? Why walk across that great big wasteland of my nightmare to the boundary where I can't see past? What makes all the pain worth enduring? I no longer ask this question. The answer is in the living. The answer is breathtakingly simple. You walk across the wasteland of your nightmare because on the other side you will find wine, bread, and pesto. You traverse those dark distances because the most simple joys will heal. Because everyone has love to put out there, if they choose, and if you put love out there you will taste the world as though it was all inside of you.
And you can still crack wildly inappropriate jokes. If you really love not only yourself, (and first yourself), and then as many people as you can. Love being the most open smile you can flash at a complete stranger. Love being able to look in any human being's eyes and see what is human in them and see that even if they are unlovable now they weren't always that way and may not always be that way. Love being a great walk in the pouring rain and a face turned to the prettiest angle of the sun. It's everywhere when you cross that wasteland. If you keep your expectations low but your hopes high you will find it everywhere. How can you not find it everywhere if you are throwing it into the air yourself like a flock of magic doves?
At the end of all these thoughts is this last one:
This isn't Deneuve's life, is it?
