the astral audience
There are certain moments that I’ll always remember. Joanne and Francis visited our 50-square-meter apartment on Rue de Wattignies. Our tiny kitchen had bright orange walls. Joanne, who was very overweight, waddled more than she walked. I recall that the coffee we served her was too strong — we liked our coffee strong — and instead of saying anything, she gave a displeased look and discreetly watered down the coffee herself. She thought no one noticed, but I was watching her out of the corner of my eye. That look and gesture are imprinted in my brain. Somehow, my neural circuits unanimously decided this was a moment worth saving. Fifteen years later, the image still flashes somewhere behind my frontal lobe, vividly clear, as if it were yesterday.
Next to the looping image of Joanne rejecting our coffee, another image appears: Joanne’s corpse, sprawled like a beached whale on a queen-sized bed under a duvet cover. Francis was tucking in her body as if she were a child he was wishing goodnight. In the South of France, it’s customary to keep the body in the home. I caught a glimpse of her skin, a blue-grey color I had never seen before. He kissed her forehead. He didn’t know I was watching him out of the corner of my eye.
I drank a glass of "Oasis" from her refrigerator, wondering if it was one of her final purchases. Food and drink taste different when they were bought or prepared by someone who has died. In the face of death, it might be a psychological phenomenon that makes sugar taste less sweet, or perhaps it's a physical change, where the molecular structure of sugar seems to bend in mourning.
also have an image of Francis’ corpse, but it’s less like a short, looping reel and more like a fixed portrait of his face, deflated and finally deprived of the ego that worked so hard to hide his suffering. It seemed to me that the mortician had done some stitching around his lips, as if hastily repairing torn denim. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Francis’ dead face for more than a nanosecond because Francis wasn’t my family. I felt like an intruder. Staring at his body felt sacrilegious according to my own traditions about the dead, of which I had none.
The only instincts I could muster must have been from a past life. As I write, Joanne and Francis are somewhere in the astral, an undefined infinite space where I imagine the consciousness is blasted wide open and is no longer subjected to a corporeal vessel, a beating heart, a brain, or any other attachments. Other dead people are there, but they don’t treat each other like company: they treat each other as one.
I hope Joanne is screaming in some other dimension at the taste of strong coffee. I hope she is not only audibly aghast, but she’s also throwing the coffee in someone’s face.
I wonder what image Joanne held onto of me as her life passed before her. If only I could peer into her prism, into what remained. What traces were left of the young and uptight American fidgeting around a pot of coffee, clumsily speaking French like a cat with a dead bird in its mouth?
In the same vein, I recently realized that my life is a stage, with all my ancestors and a handful of other departed souls watching me from the audience. Some are eagerly awaiting the next plot twist: when will I unbox the transgenerational trauma of an ancestor who was burned at the stake? Up until now, no one in the audience knew what to do with that tragedy. Like a game of “hot potato,” it was passed from one person to another. Sometimes, the hot potato manifested as compulsive behavior; other times, it showed up as a sore hip, a knot in the shoulder, or even cancer.
Are they disappointed that I had no impulse to bear children? I’m nearly 41 now; those days are behind me.
It’s just me and this hot potato.
I didn’t think much of my maternal grandmother when she was alive, but she has returned in my midlife not to haunt me, but to remind me of her joyful essence and playful innocence. When I was young, I might have confused her whimsy with a lack of intelligence — I used to value intelligence, but today I value courage. The kind of courage where no fear of madness, sadness, or isolation will prevent one from sitting with oneself. The kind of courage that breaks rusty old patterns. The kind of courage that recognizes that life, even with a decaying body and brain, is an opportunity to be born over and over again.
Perhaps she’s here to tell me that there’s no disgrace in living an uneventful, simple life. The more I concede to a kind of mundanity, the more I feel a kind of extraordinary relief.
I was recently awarded French citizenship after living here for over 15 years. It is both the most and the least I’ve ever done to achieve anything. I don’t even know if I would classify citizenship as an achievement. This may seem completely unrelated to the legend of Joanne and Francis, but it raises a fundamental question: What is a life? Is it defined by the passports you possess and the languages you speak? Is it a series of (forgettable) achievements?
Or is it simply
The imprints we make:
a strong cup of coffee.
a cross look.
a hidden gesture.
Next to the looping image of Joanne rejecting our coffee, another image appears: Joanne’s corpse, sprawled like a beached whale on a queen-sized bed under a duvet cover. Francis was tucking in her body as if she were a child he was wishing goodnight. In the South of France, it’s customary to keep the body in the home. I caught a glimpse of her skin, a blue-grey color I had never seen before. He kissed her forehead. He didn’t know I was watching him out of the corner of my eye.
I drank a glass of "Oasis" from her refrigerator, wondering if it was one of her final purchases. Food and drink taste different when they were bought or prepared by someone who has died. In the face of death, it might be a psychological phenomenon that makes sugar taste less sweet, or perhaps it's a physical change, where the molecular structure of sugar seems to bend in mourning.
also have an image of Francis’ corpse, but it’s less like a short, looping reel and more like a fixed portrait of his face, deflated and finally deprived of the ego that worked so hard to hide his suffering. It seemed to me that the mortician had done some stitching around his lips, as if hastily repairing torn denim. I couldn’t bring myself to look at Francis’ dead face for more than a nanosecond because Francis wasn’t my family. I felt like an intruder. Staring at his body felt sacrilegious according to my own traditions about the dead, of which I had none.
The only instincts I could muster must have been from a past life. As I write, Joanne and Francis are somewhere in the astral, an undefined infinite space where I imagine the consciousness is blasted wide open and is no longer subjected to a corporeal vessel, a beating heart, a brain, or any other attachments. Other dead people are there, but they don’t treat each other like company: they treat each other as one.
I hope Joanne is screaming in some other dimension at the taste of strong coffee. I hope she is not only audibly aghast, but she’s also throwing the coffee in someone’s face.
I wonder what image Joanne held onto of me as her life passed before her. If only I could peer into her prism, into what remained. What traces were left of the young and uptight American fidgeting around a pot of coffee, clumsily speaking French like a cat with a dead bird in its mouth?
In the same vein, I recently realized that my life is a stage, with all my ancestors and a handful of other departed souls watching me from the audience. Some are eagerly awaiting the next plot twist: when will I unbox the transgenerational trauma of an ancestor who was burned at the stake? Up until now, no one in the audience knew what to do with that tragedy. Like a game of “hot potato,” it was passed from one person to another. Sometimes, the hot potato manifested as compulsive behavior; other times, it showed up as a sore hip, a knot in the shoulder, or even cancer.
Are they disappointed that I had no impulse to bear children? I’m nearly 41 now; those days are behind me.
It’s just me and this hot potato.
I didn’t think much of my maternal grandmother when she was alive, but she has returned in my midlife not to haunt me, but to remind me of her joyful essence and playful innocence. When I was young, I might have confused her whimsy with a lack of intelligence — I used to value intelligence, but today I value courage. The kind of courage where no fear of madness, sadness, or isolation will prevent one from sitting with oneself. The kind of courage that breaks rusty old patterns. The kind of courage that recognizes that life, even with a decaying body and brain, is an opportunity to be born over and over again.
Perhaps she’s here to tell me that there’s no disgrace in living an uneventful, simple life. The more I concede to a kind of mundanity, the more I feel a kind of extraordinary relief.
I was recently awarded French citizenship after living here for over 15 years. It is both the most and the least I’ve ever done to achieve anything. I don’t even know if I would classify citizenship as an achievement. This may seem completely unrelated to the legend of Joanne and Francis, but it raises a fundamental question: What is a life? Is it defined by the passports you possess and the languages you speak? Is it a series of (forgettable) achievements?
Or is it simply
The imprints we make:
a strong cup of coffee.
a cross look.
a hidden gesture.