Ann-Julie Aubry - I'm obsessed, you probably know that by now... Cue the Paypal button for you to leave me tips (!), so that I can invest in Ann-Julie's art, that so echoes my feelings at this time...
At this point, the doors are locked. I fear her family still has spare keys. I wouldn't put it past them.
I still don't know whether the, of no intrinsic value, treats and treasures that I so want from that house, my house, are there.
Do I know, do I care? You are right, my fond and fabulous friends, I do still have my memories, even if I can no longer run a finger over a picture frame, a maudlin china trifle.
Should I string myself out so over something that I have no control of? They've had four months, do you see? Time enough to rip out anything of value from the property. To exercise what they felt was their right.
To trample on my Fluttering fragile Dreams...
I have love enough in my heart, to ride these rough waves. I have the love of my parents ever drawn about me like a silver gossamer shawl. My friend herself said that to me just recently, when I told her of this squall, this new news..., "You have your memories, Fhina. They can't take those away..." And I've been humming Sinatra like a mantra,
"...The way you haunt my dreams
No they can't take that away from meWe may never never meet again, on that bumpy road to love
But I'll always, always keep the memory of
The way you hold your knife
The way we danced till three
The way you changed my life
No they can't take that away from me"
I who danced as a child on the toes of my father, holding his hands. He who taught me to polish the floor with his soft-shoe steps... He really could glide across a dance floor like a dream...
People who know me, who really know me -- They love me, or at least like me -- A lot...
I swear.
I'm a nice person. A decent person. I'm mostly loyal. Patient... Sometimes I can be funny. I love to make people laugh.
My dad did that. A lot. As a teenager, he would take the bus with me into town to get the week's provisions in, before my mother had a car. She was invariably on a shift, driving buses about the county, to the city. He'd walk the aisles of the small supermarkets in our town then; Mimicking the cluck and gobble of frozen chickens, turkeys. He'd not worry about who was looking. He had such joy in life, 'joie de vivre', as the French say...
I wish I'd been able to show him France. I so wanted to.
He (and she, my Mutti) paid for this education of mine... My edumacation...
Instead, their playground together on their rare holidays was Spain and Greece. I never managed to show them the beauties, the pleasures, of France or Germany... Instead, they took my French - and then my, more loyal, German pen-pal - Silvia, to their hearts...
Silvia is my German sister. Violaine was the French/Italian doll I could never have been. People who see Silvia and I together believe us to be sisters, we are so alike... Blonde, pale, myopic... In later years, I've almost passed for Silvia's mother, she looks so slim and so fresh in comparison with me now. I am more Punch-and-Judy-Finnigan-bloated, post-childbirth, and have always looked older than Silvia's and my own years...
Anyhoo, I digress. I've got some impromptu time off work this week to deal with things, to search further into the house and its contents, to secure what's rightfully mine, and decide whether and when to get the solicitor involved once more...
Otherwise, I've passed the cemetery where she, his last partner, lies, and I've resisted the urge to spit on her grave. I told GJ that I felt 'somewhat stabby', that day! And he laughed, and felt, I think, that we had turned another corner.
We should never speak ill of the dead, and yet some of them do not deserve our pains, our love, our high blood pressure, nor our living concerns...
Please take note, mes braves, and refuse to bash yourself up about their issues and their lies... They're not worth it... They're working off some great karmic record, in my humble opinion... We, on the other hand, we've got little to worry about. We're coming back next time as, much-treasured, prize Siameses! Je vous jure.
At present, I look longingly at sleep, and want to procure fluttering dreams of peace and tranquility, of Easter Lambs and peaceful, safe, lambing, of Hot Cross Buns and Easter Bonnets...
What haunts me are Beauty and the Beast, and Fickle, Fluttering Dreams... Tumultuous REM dreams where my dad comes back to me, alive but somehow quiet. Not quite himself. He would never have put me through this.
I know that and he, and you, give me such shelter.
Thank you for continuing to offer me your succour. It means so much to me, merci mille...
