portrait of a diary of a woman

i had forgotten how beautiful it was.

12 dècembre

george sand once said, i felt suffocated when i was married, and now my freedom frightens me more.

i had come home and written him a letter. what’s in my head. my fears, my anxieties, my hopes. there was a christmas when i wished him the bubonic plague. there was a time i would sit in the bath surrounded by candles and tea leaves, reading erotica while he was on the other side of the door.

i wished him a life of purple roses and oversized tubs in oversized rooms.

27 dècembre

i spend my first christmas alone. the boats in the harbour are lit up with carolers. i miss those blue blue dusks and wide open skies; white days that melt deliciously into each other. snow is falling still. silent.

hush.

i peel off layers of clothing, murmuring. wondering aloud how i am feeling today.

3 mars

i spend the week taking photographs. my sister has her second child. i am love with the baby. i visit the fortuneteller and have a particularly enlightening session with her. who would guess that 90.00 could afford such calm and absolution? i whitewash the walls and walk the seawall every day. we all decide to take a trip to the island. our entourage of eleven left in the pouring rain; we stood and sang our anthem crossing the waves, soaked through and spend the next two hours drying out at the pub. simon keeps imitating the man who stood near us, taking off his hat and trying in vain to rearrange his hair. stealing glances. later on the boys do cannonballs into the freezing water. the hat man gives them a baleful stare.

the rest of the days were full of wine and too many late nights, catching up on each other’s lives in the kitchen with just the light from the stove. later we draw straws for rooms and i sleep in the boathouse where i lift my head in the morning and can gaze at the ocean. i take the fishing rod and make my way to the dock. near the pacific, the air is crisp and salty and my mind is quiet. there is no one waiting for me and this coastal life might just be the thing. but i’m never completely free, i realize, casting, badly into the sea.

on the ocean

in the fall

the shadows stretch long

gold light

blur of umber and sienna your

chalk blue eyes

making a

seafarer of me

in my boat of solitude

i rest my oars

26 mai

the bolsheviks are running amok.

today i want a companion to fix me supper, hold my hand, wash my back and curl into me while the skies explode. today i miss having a lover. i want to run, but i don’t know which way to go.

i end up in the east end and pull the cord that is hanging three stories down outside the abandoned building. benjamin’s doorbell. he runs down and opens the door. he takes off my boots and washes my feet.

he has been collecting, and has created a massive chandelier from thousands of keys. watch this he says intently. a switch is flipped and it starts to gently, rhythmically shake. i smile.

it sounds like metal rain.

he drinks water from a plastic bottle. ‘glacial water’. likely tap water chilling under false pretenses he scoffs. the blinds make light zebras on the walls.

farthest kiss

fragile will

into morning

sweet standstill

breath defies

empires end

silence breaks

i

descend

14 septembre

i have coffee every morning with anne. what a day it was, spent digging vegetables out of the soil with her. rows of purple concorde grapes and raspberries. the dinner party is sublime. a peculiar and eccentric array of people. they are here because we are parting for the winter. laughter peals out of the windows and the wax has melted onto the tables. anne reads us the song of solomon in her slip. i get up to take a photograph as stanley plays the piano. the morning after brings us to the bank, bedraggled and in need of sleep. jeremy is dancing in the queue, overtired and we laugh at everything.

later on, we pack up the last of our things. anne and i walk backwards up the hill, home, to see the orange purple pink blue black sky.

she drives a citroen

through rolling fields of artichokes

opens the window

to smell the sea

and stops at the crest of a hill.

a town of stone

built on the shore

where the monks gathered salt

and bowed their heads to get through

the impossibly small doors.

she is looking for the castle on the

twinkling sea

where she will bathe alone.

originally published in 'Womanity' a blog by French fashion designer Thierry Mugler, and subsequently through Grape Press, New York.