Outlived and Remembered

We thought it was fun although we looked a bit odd. Two males and the others were females. In our late 20s and they were barely adults. Foreigners but the girls were nationals. Besides, each one held an umbrella, but we both held one umbrella. We took our places in the queue though. Rain and curious looks did not want to stop.

I wondered few times before about those men and women who sat individually, in silence, on chairs in the empty streets of downtown at night. A small table was usually set in front of him/her on which a lonely lamp sent out a weak light. I could not understand then what they were supposed to do.

I was with my friend standing in line next to the one who seemed, judging by the long queue, the most popular. We also choose him because of the bilingual sign set on his table.

The shops were closed and the street did not have restaurants or cafes, so everything was dead.

The line moved slowly and when we became the first in line there was some distance, effective enough to keep the revealing stream of the unknown unheard, separating us from the forty something man with the untidy beard and moustache. I let my friend goes first. Less than 10 minutes later came my turn.

“Did he tell you something?” my friend asked me when we hurried to the subway station. “I am not quite sure” I added “He said when I reach 38 years old, a big change will occur in my life”. “Let us run, I hear the sound of the train coming” he said.

Knack of Existing

“I wanted the knack of existing. I did not know the rules”

These words were said by the main character in Jennifer Dawson's novel The Ha Ha.
I think it is about time to re-read this novel for maybe the fourth or fifth time. Every few years I do, and the novel never failed to have its effect on me or to lessen the compassion I feel for the main character. It s not the same sort of compassion I felt when I, in a tender age, read classics like "Tess" or "Resurrection". It is different. More conscious? Maybe.


Another re-reading I do these days, almost because it reminds me of the old days when I did the first reading, is Emile Zola's "Une page d'Amour". A Parisian bookstore in Boulevard St. Michel had its August knock-off prices taking old classics and used books out on the sidewalk for sale. I found the novel that I once stumbled on in my father's library and read long time ago. I did not know back then it was a part of series of novels.

It might not be the sort of novel I like to read these days anymore, but a classic is a classic ,never dies or loses its charm. I started to re-read it this week and I enjoy it now as I did in the past. Days in that past were simple and joyful. Or maybe this is how every “old days” are remembered.

....

* Norfolk Island Pine is the majestic tree I meant in my Nightstand post.

* First weekend in September was the last weekend of my long summer vacation. I spent the week-end near the sea. Nice weather although there was no trace of that end-of-summer breeze. I love it when the very first discreet chill is felt in the air after a long hot summer.

* I was scammed out of 150 $. The scheme involved calls on my mobile phone claiming they were from the mobile telecom. company. Without undermining my foolishness, the caller really mastered his role. 150$ is no big deal but the feeling itself that I was fooled is warming my heart!

* Last month I met an old friend whom I haven’t seen for almost 11 years. A good sign of any friendship is the lack of even this very thin shadow of reservation that comes naturally with the long absence.

Days of Room 812

Last month and for the first time after many years I revisited the university hostel in which I lived for 2 years when I was a student. The main tree-lined street brought back vivid memories. Everything looked the same as I last laid my eyes on, except a new metro line that was recently constructed in the middle of the street.

Inside the hostel I had the same feeling I used to have whenever I visited my parents’ house after long absence. Everything looked significantly smaller than what was left of it in my memory. At my parents’ house I asked myself why my room looked smaller, the hallway dimmer, the living room less spacious? And in the hostel I also felt that roads between dormitories became narrower, buildings shorter and the green areas more limited.

I never understood why my mind keeps a bigger/brighter-than-reality visual memory of places.

This is different from the visual perception we preserved from childhood of the sizes of objects. When I was a child my parents’ closet looked huge, and my sister and I could easily hide in it. Their king size bed stood like a playground where we rolled over from one edge to another. But as our bodies grew bigger, the closet and the bed grew smaller.

In my visit to the hostel, all memories came up. My tiny but back-then freshly renovated room on the eighth floor, my circle of friends, the up and down states of mood, and the different languages and faces around. Ah… I still can also recall a pale picture of a skinny shy person who once resembled me.