|
neesh
|
a day or two ago i asked on top_five, top five moments? and i thought i don't really have top moments. there were times when things were good, but no real top moments, nothing like when i felt infinite, no instances of beautiful euphoria, nothing that was just perfect, you know, that just felt so right. i don't have those. or so i thought. but lying in bed after reading whitechocolatewalrus's, where she'd branched out into general moments, things that have happened more than once, things that could also go on the_simple_pleasures_in_life perhaps, like finishing a good book, i thought up a couple. in no order, there's making someone laugh when they've just been crying, having children's stories read to me, stargazing in west dulwich park and saying just the right thing at the right time (i said "i see one now"), being a free man in paris, and reading a poem written for me.
as far as i remember i only stopped harriet crying once. most times she was really upset, but not crying. and one time she was crying, and i couldn't help her. just sport's day, when i turned up with a teddy bear in pink wrapping paper, a book by winterson and a diskman with blue in it (the album not the band), that i stopped her crying, got her to laugh, watched her start crying again, a wholly different kind of crying. before it had been the desperate sobs, and now it was so quiet i didn't even realise till i looked up into her eyes. and that time i was so stunned i didn't even do anything. i was just cut right through. and she said the bleakest thing i've ever heard, though i forget what it was. then we listened to blue and i tested her on the lyrics ("you're the worst person in the world to do this with!"... it was the way every now and then looking through the lyrics i'd go "ooooooh, that's what it is", and i didn't want to ask her anything too easy, except for my favourite lines), and she told me i'm a little bit of a miracle. just a little bit. and i mocked being offended to cover how touched i was. we started walking back to the school hand in hand, and she was laughing at my jokes again.
and then there was the time i made lili laugh after she'd been crying, on the phone to her in borders, when she'd calmed down a bit, and i realised i'd been staring intently at the gay and lesbian section for the duration of the phonecall, in particular at a notice that said "magazines available at the front desk". and we talked nonsense. and it was ok again.
but it's just the utter relief of getting them to laugh, the first clear sign that the mood has shifted, hasn't settled down into melancholy, but has actually shifted out of sadness. that relief, that's a good moment.
being read kids' books to, happens all the time. harriet must have read me dozens, the bed book and sea-cat and dragon king being the first to come to mind. and other kids poetry, rosen possibly. and harry horse. i don't really remember being read any as a kid, i distinctly remember the pleasure of anjali making one up for me and a friend called charlie, when i was somewhere under the age of 5. but once when i was feeling quite ill and having my first run-ins with the tribulations of love, at the age of 14, 15, anj read me "bad jelly the witch" (something she discovered at uni, and her nickname, for obvious reasons, was "jelly" for a while, then "jelly-head"), and she put on her story-telling voice, and it was such a silly story, and i loved that. i think it's the voice i love most of all. harriet puts on her story-time voice too, and i love it. the sheer simplicity of it all. i love kids' books anyway, but to be read one, all the better.
stargazing, well there's not much more i could write about that. she was wearing my glasses to see the stars through the cloudy light-polluted sky, saw some, and said "look, can you see them?" i looked at her and said "i see one now", and she smiled. it was cheesy, but it seemed so right, it fit the moment so perfectly. and it was spontaneous. that evening i also tried to fix one of the swings by climbing up the smooth frame it was on, showing off my flexibility, only to find it was inexplicably padlocked in place. then sitting on the other swing i fell off backwards and smacked my head against the ground. i said my head really hurts, and harriet went "awww" and smacked me over the back of the head. we also play fought. and she let me try out something i'd just learnt in karate, wrist-locks. which aren't a pleasant thing to have practised on you. and she talked a little bit about something nikhil had done recently that showed just how different they are, and she said "i can't believe i went out with him, we have absolutely nothing in common", and i tried hard not to say "duh". and we hugged a lot, and she slept across my chest under the stars. every three seconds either a train or a plane or a lorry would go by and make a ridiculous amount of noise, so after a bit i tried to dig up her ear from under her hair and cover it with my hand. surprisingly hard to find ears under long hair by feel alone. you wouldn't suspect that.
and finally, reading a poem written for me, there aren't many, and there are some which might be for me and might not, but my partner in crime and funeral pyre are mine all mine, and i'm just the kind of sucker who will bawl his eyes out at that kind of message. and those two came at the best times too, when what i really needed was exactly that kind of touching sentimentality, that kind of affection and care.
oh wait, being a free man in paris. the first time i went to paris was with my parents, anjali and anita, and it was boooring, and stressful. the second time was the L6 school trip, where i saw harriet and nikhil come together and start going out. excuse me for not enjoying that one, lovely as paris was (i particularly loved the galleries, but the surrealist play after a whole day of travelling and walking was hard to stay awake through, and the view from montparnasse was incredible, but the view of nik and hatty making out in the corner... not so great). the third time, things had got so complicated with harriet it boggled my head, but the night before i left, i was on the phone to her for a good few hours, and it was nice, simple, like it had used to be, and she asked me to bring her a leaf (it was autumn), and recommended i look in second-hand bookshops, because that's what she loves most in paris. and at the time i was taking a lot of time off school, whole weeks straight, not that any of my teachers minded, but i had some nondescript health issue which meant on the trip i had absolute freedom. if i didn't feel like joining the group, i would just say i didn't feel like going and go back to my room, where i would read or write or dream. i alone had that priviledge. everyone else would be up at 7 in the morning for the first part of the schedule, but i would join them in the afternoon when they were going somewhere i wanted to go, like the musee d'orsay, sacre coeur or the latin quarter. at the musee d'orsay i turned up on time, on my own and the group turned up late, mr coquelin leading the way, and saying "look everybody, it's aneesh, isn't he amazing?" i toured with an english teacher, one of my favourite teachers, though i didn't have any lessons with her, just chatted philosophy with her every now and then, and we got to know each other - it's funny to think she's the same age as my sister - and we discussed art and literature, and uni and every other thing. then when everyone else went shopping in la fayette, i said, actually, i'll head back now, and she was all concerned about me, which i thought was really sweet. in the evening we saw a play, and the play we saw this time was la cantatrice chauve, which i'd seen some people in our school perform in english a few months before, and never got over how hilarious it is. it was done on the tiniest possible stage, it only just fit the four of them on it, and our seats were the front row. i could have kicked the actors i was so close. and it was so damn funny, even though they didn't perform the story of the snake and the fox, my favourite bit. after that everyone else went to some over-priced loud bar and made like they were friends, i hung around for a bit then went for a walk on my own. on the last day, everyone was watching england beat france in the rugby, but it's not really my sport, i went and looked in second hand book shops (i hadn't forgotten my leaf, of course), and found some really cool things. then i went to an ordinary bookshop and bought les fables de la fontaine and a french dictionary of synonyms. and when i got back i had the worst 18th birthday in the world and within the month my entire life had fallen apart. but that time in paris, it was simple, and i was free, and happy.
and then in february this year, i return to the scene of the crime, while on my way home from a job in laval. i only had from 8pm to 3pm, so i decided not to sleep. i checked myself into a hotel right across from the station i'd need to be at the next day, dumped my luggage, and walked and walked and walked. all the way up past sacre coeur, which was so beautiful, i got slightly lost an hour or so beyond some famous place (by which i mean square), took a tube all the way down to the bottom of paris, below the seine, and carried on walking, i saw everything that night, which is no small walk, for two hours i was simply walking the length of the seine, and then i returned to sacre coeur, and then i tried to find my way back to my hotel. and there weren't many people on the roads at that time (in fact there were probably more people sleeping on the roads at that time than walking them), but quite a few of the few i did come across, asked me for directions, mistaking me not only for french but for parisian. i do enjoy being mistaken for a local. i don't look indian, and have passed myself off as french, spanish and chilean so far. except i don't speak spanish, so the act only lasts until i open my mouth, but french, especially as i'd just been living in france, i could muster, and that was fun. i slept a couple of hours, then in the morning i returned to the musee d'orsay to see my favourite monet, only to find it was no longer there! at least degas' ballerinas hadn't moved. and on my former english teacher's recommendation i looked for the orangery, only to find it was under renovation until next year! at least while i was around there i saw cleopatra's needle. then i went to my sister's, because she lives in waterloo, then the whole family, including my brother and his wife, who usually live on an island off the coast of malaysia met for a really swanky, delicious dinner, one of the nicest i've ever eaten, and i'm no fan of food. and they commended me on my new french fashion sense. and the day after next i went in for surgery on my jaw, and then followed three months of physical hell. also, before that night in paris, i'd had a pretty hard time, rapidly descending into depression in laval, the sheer loneliness of it all damaging me far more than i'd anticipated. so again, that night in paris, just me and the beauty of the city, came just in time to set me free, and was fondly remembered in the trials that followed.
those were my moments in paris.
|
050721
|
