Miettes

Je n’y pense plus. Ou si peu. Juste assez pour que ce soit facile à balayer de mon esprit, facile comme on dégage une mèche de cheveux qui obstrue la vue.
****
I felt like talking to you the other day. Then I realized I can’t remember your phone number. Not that I would’ve called, you know. Not for real.
****
I hate that
there has to be an asshole
to every story
‘cause that means I get to be one too
once in a while
and I really hate assholes
****
Surprised or amused stares while I write. With a pen and paper. In the metro. And once our eyes meet, you know I was writing about you. No need to get self conscious, I got the good stuff before you noticed me. Once you know, you’re not as interesting honestly.
****
But sometimes the words I write survive only in hurt and sads of all kinds. One day in January I decided they needed to go. They went, I stayed. Of course it’s just a symbol but who cares? It felt fantastic.

 

(pas) disciplinée

Curieux comment il y a moins de cinq and j’avais une carrière bâtie essentiellement sur ma force de caractère, ma drive, mon leadership et ma rigueur professionnelle. Aujourd’hui, à 41 ans, ces qualités sont reléguées au deuxième rang alors qu’on me sert un avis disciplinaire pour mon mauvais caractère. Un avis avec une date d’expiration. Si les choses ne changent pas d’ici six semaines, je me retrouverai au chômage. J’ai rarement eu plus envie de l’être. Le corporate speak me répugne. Alors que certains me félicitent de mon travail et m’encouragent dans mes initiatives de façon non-officielle, directement au dessus de moi on me tape sur la tête par écrit, parce que je dis exactement ce que je pense, mais surtout, directement aux personnes concernées et pas nécessairement sur le ton de Passe-Partout.

Je n’ai pas envie de changer. Je sais que j’ai très mauvais caractère, et je comprend ce qu’on me demande, mais je n’ai aucune, AUCUNE intention de me conformer. Si je n’ai que ça dans la vie, et bien c’est mon identité. On m’a dit “tu sais, perception is reality”, no shit Sherlock. Ce qu’on m’a appris aussi, c’est que je pourrais être 50% moins compétente et avoir une meilleure attitude (ver-ba-tim) et je ne serais pas dans le trouble dans lequel je suis présentement.

Me voici donc devant un dilemme absolument déchirant. Faker une volonté d’être autre chose pour ne pas offusquer les ostis d’eunuques avec qui je travaille, ou bien simplement attendre que les six semaines passent et me faire montrer la porte.

A definition of attention – excerpt

“When life is in good trim, when the line which strings our successive words together is galvanized into proper working action, the tale is quite other. The words surge pell-mell. In minute observation they form short, fascinating, tight-packed rings and loops, but in vast generalizations, with more than lightning’s swiftness and force they fling their nervous line wide and net whole hemispheres of meaning. They sweep through every corner of the heavens. With a giant’s ease they balance entire worlds against each other, unite them, divide them, make clean division through minutenesses and confusions at which the finest non verbal tool would retire helpless, and put the whole plastic universe through figures of differentiation and comparison as smooth and harmonious as those of a ballet. The width, splendour, and variety of this stream are, in fine, just what makes life an intoxicating and lordly thing.”
-Dora Marsden, The Egoist Vol. 4, No. 8 p. 114

Taken at the Modernist Journals Project. A huge thank you to Chris for sending this wonderful link my way.

And when she walks, she walks

A very long time ago, when I was all that (not!), Steve Faguy from The Gazette did a profile on An Unexamined Life… I was reading his post about getting a permanent job at the newspaper and through his memories I was reminded of that very special time in my life, that place I was in.

One of the things he wrote that I always remembered was this: (…) writes about emotions the way a political junkie talks about parliamentary procedure.

Through the years since then I’ve lived a whole lot more than I could’ve imagined. What I thought was the worst of times, in hindsight, might not have been that bad. Yet again, in a couple of years from now I might feel the same way about the last few ones.

Years. Cycles. It should be frightening to be talking in years and not in months, weeks, days. But as I emerge, as a human being, as a woman, from a multi layered and armored cocoon, I can see, accept, that things take time. And that we have to take it. Take the time to cry, to suffer, oh so much and when will it ever end? But also to screw up, to not give a fuck and to just say fuck it all, fuck all that fucking bullshit.

And in the midst of all this, I lost faith in my worth. Thinking about myself first, about my own happiness only made me feel guilty. It’s a long, very long, very hard battle. But I am closer to its end than to its beginning. I wish I could send thanks flying around to everyone involved, but if you don’t mind, I’ll thank myself first.

Lui: L’important, c’est d’être heureux.
Moi: J’ai de la difficulté avec ça, faire des choses qui me rendent heureuse.
Lui: Tu ne devrais pas, il faut prendre soin de ton bonheur.
Moi: Oui, mais je veux être certaine de la justesse de chacun des gestes que je pose pour ça. Il est trop facile de confondre le bonheur, la liberté, avec la fuite. Alors que l’on croit qu’on avance, lorsque l’on fuit on ne fait que tourner en rond!

And so it goes. Full circle? Not quite. But the past is not so far that I can’t see it’s ugly face. As I tread along, it will remain visible, but only as a reminder that I will not hang around his lot anymore.