The five-cat or how cats tamed themselves 

This entry is part 2 of 2 in the series Contes de l'Arbre-Monde
She-Of-The-Lashing-Claws by Sid

T’was long and ago, Best Beloved, in the time before time, before the cats changed to the little furry things that purr on your knees.

In that time, cats were wild and fierce and they really could live nine lives. They were so wild they could barely live within ten miles of one another. As you can guess Best Beloved, kittens were becoming scarce.  One of them, by the name She-Of-The-Lashing-Claws, was a five-cat : she had lived a few of her lives already and only had five left. She had died the first time under the fangs of her mother, as was customary, as soon as she was weaned. It had toughened her and she had fought many battles against her kind but not so much that she wouldn’t see how few of them were left, without enough birth to replenish their numbers. Continue reading « The five-cat or how cats tamed themselves « 

Prince Scarring 

This entry is part 14 of 14 in the series Rencontres

Now that I’m in better shape emotionally, I really want to have my own little family. So I keep looking for my « ideal mate » (you know, the prince charming we’ve been brain-washed with forever : they-had-many-children-and-lived-happily-everafter-prince ?) the one who’s gonna be a fantastic father and will also accept that I am everything but ordinary, conformist, monogamous, straight and so on. My favourite meeting place still is OKcupid -for all sorts of reasons I developed in a post that was unfortunately French only. Whatever the qualities of the site, you can still meet some not so nice guys, as you can see by this message I received after a few exchanges :

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More seriously, each time I learn more about you, I discover you have a passion for « inexact sciences ». I think you’re not very good at thinking. You say you’re an intellectual but the result of your thoughts doesn’t seem very coherent. Farewell. And good luck to anyone who’s gonna choose you as the mother of his children.

My first reaction was WTF ? Then I felt upset (who do you think you are ?) Then I wanted to thank him for sparing me his company. In the end, instead of trading insults, I decided to answer the form rather than the substance :

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Well, I wonder what I said to earn such an aggressive message ! You are entitled to your own opinion and to think I am not rational (that seems perfectly logical given we don’t take the same facts into account) but I don’t appreciate much being insulted without cause. If you don’t want to talk anymore you just have to say so, there’s no need to be unpleasant. Farewell to you too, I hope some day you’ll understand the value of taking more into account than « hard science » -they make your mind and your heart hard.

All this to say I’m rather proud of how I’m now capable handling this kind of event, emotions-wise as well as conversation-wise 🙂

Heureuse qui comme Ulysse !

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Je jure solennellement (sur ma tête de sorcière) qu’on n’a pas touché un seul cheveu de fée lors de cette mue impromptue.

I solemnly swear (and I give you my word as witch) that not a single fairy hair was harmed during this impromptu moult.

La chevelure d’or brun de Mélusine, comme les feuilles, tombe. Il n’y a pas eu de cliquetis, ni d’ombre, pas de grincement, de craquement, de cri dans la nuit. Les ciseaux étaient d’argent et le soleil haut dans le ciel.

As the leaves fall, so does the golden brown hair of Mélusine. There was no creaking, no sneaking, no shadow nor cry in the dead of night. The scissors were silver and the sun high in the sky.

Voyons le bon côté : maintenant que mes cheveux ne me volent plus dans la figure, je vais enfin pouvoir utiliser mon stock de rouge à lèvre 🙂

On the bright side, now that hair won’t fly in my mouth anymore, I’ll get to use my stash of lipstick 😉

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Chanson d’automne

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l’automne
Blessent mon cœur
D’une langueur
Monotone.

Tout suffocant
Et blême, quand
Sonne l’heure,
Je me souviens
Des jours anciens
Et je pleure

Et je m’en vais
Au vent mauvais
Qui m’emporte
Deçà, delà,
Pareil à la
Feuille morte.

Paul Verlaine, Poèmes saturniens

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Autumn

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry’s cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.

The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I’ll put a trinket on.

by Emily Dickinson

 

Figurehead

In the beginning was speed and the pure joy of the wind beneath my wings.

I reacquainted myself smoothly with how to ride a powerful bike, feeling each acceleration in my bones, my legs instinctively tightening around the rider, while still seeking the best position for my arms.

I anchored my claws on my mount, a solid and unwavering embrace, my serpentine tail coiled in its usual place, secret kundalini in the belly of The-Figurehead. I stretched my neck to the zenith and yelped the sheer pleasure of the race.

The intense, animal joy of speed overcame me. I closed my arms around the man in front of me, letting myself be carried on the asphalt river, into the eternal moment of sensuality and the warm embrace of trust. My whole body tense for the race, I breathed the warm smell of the fields. Far left, a fox stopped caught my eye and was left behind, distanced by the roaring symphony of the engine. I felt my femininity vibrating in rhythm with the accelerator and barely held back an animal cry by my silent lips.

I opened my wings wide and the wind lifted me at once. I hovered a while above The-Figurehead. Planing lazily in the sun, I carelessly plucked a few leaves  from the canopy. I felt the surprise of The-Figurehead ‘You are a veggie?’ Amused, I dived into the forest.

I felt her frolic in the vegetal ocean, playing with the wind and bathing in hot sun. I smelt with delight the scents of damp undergrowth, moss and mushrooms, received the brief downpour with a smile and finally discovered the medieval heart of the village. As always the sight of centuries old houses sent images of those who lived, loved and died there spinning in my head. The river, eternal impermanence, laid her languid canals, ponds and waterfalls, deserted in this late summer peppered with rain. I was looking for the wyvern but she concealed her presence well, artful magician that she was. Only when I was alone did she finally reveal herself, blissful creature, triple whimsical, emerging from deep water without a wrinkle. Her golden green body melted into the bronze vase and algae background, reflections of her inner fire mixed in the glow of the setting sun. Her wings reduced to thin fins, she was betrayed only by her ice-blue eyes. I admired the abandonment of her wild nature, the magic that welled from her presence, observed her movements and how fluidly she played with water and wind.

I was dazed by her rugged, powerful beauty. It was the first time I could really see her and she looked amazing. I averted my eyes just a moment from the fabulous display and she took the opportunity to slip away. In my head a question stayed: ‘What is your name?’

I am you, once, water,
I am you, twice, air
I am you, thrice, fire
Blissful trine beast, Beatrice…

As I rode away from the village, I saw, nestled in the dale, the tip of an old steeple. Around was winding, tail of serpent, and above beating, wings of wind, the blissful fiery beast, the melusine.


Written at Moret-sur-Loing… my muse was a Ducati 800cc

Rise of the Wyvern

We are late and for once I want to see the basement of the museum so we probably won’t write the way we use to. My guide show me to a room where the foundations of the Middle-Age castle are visible. I barely step in the room that I feel uneasy. Would that be my part-time claustrophobia playing tricks on me ? But the ceiling is at least 10 metres high and the walls are anything but oppressive.

Continue reading « Rise of the Wyvern »

Oranges galore

About a year ago, I made a strange encounter.

I’d been talking all evening with a friend, Myriam, about the afterlife and paranormal things and I was stranded in Paris at night with no train to get back home. I was waiting for a night bus when a huge homeless guy insisted to engage conversation. I tried to avoid him but he insisted so much I was unable to shake him off. At the time, I’d been overwhelmed with coincidences involving oranges and was already thinking of becoming a masseuse.
The guy said he was a kinesiologist and masseur and was finally quite interesting. As I was about to get in my bus, he changed subject suddenly and said this :

Life is like an orange, at the end one sheds the skin and keeps the best.

It struck me as a very odd thing to say, it was completely off subject and echoed strongly with the earlier things I’d been talking about with my friend.

La vie est un torrent d’amour, votre participation est requise.

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That was a year ago. Two days ago, I was talking with a friend and the conversation came upon children. He told me he had had to decide to let go of a child once, chose not to have him (or her). And it reminded me that something similar happened to me. Then again, I went on with my day. I was going to a family event where I told this story of orange skins to the godmother of my niece. A few minutes later, my niece unwrapped a gift : it was a comic depicting the life of one Benoît Labre, the title was « Quelques écorces d’orange amère »

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which could translate as « a few bitter orange skins ». I skimmed through the album and found that the title referred to what the poor guy had in his pockets at the time of his death. Once again, oranges were associated to life and death.

Meanwhile, unknown yet to me, Myriam’s father was dying in Corsica, a place known for farming Clementine which are hybrids of bitter oranges.

Add to this the fact that a good friend of mine, Benoît (same name as in the comic), had been initiating me into tantra, sacred sexuality and that for tantra practitioners, orange color is by essence associated to sexual energy. It seemed the message was still the same, to live, to love and I thought no more of it.

The next day, I was relaxing home, having quite forgotten about all of it. I was watching the latest episode of Elementary when suddenly Sherlock said something completely unrelated to the pitch :

Sometimes, one must bite the orange before peeling it.

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Odd and odder…
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The days after that, I kept thinking of my unborn child. I couldn’t be sure but I thought it would have been a girl. I did some math and realised it would have been her tenth birthday on June 11th. That she’d been conceived on my father’s birthday, September 13th. I thought I should give her a name but nothing seemed to fit. Then I found the medical file and saw the scan had been done on November 23rd, St Clement’s day.
And then I knew.
My daughter’s name was Clémentine.
I told some friends and went to bed thinking I would finally be able to hold a little ceremony to name her and say goodbye.
The next day, I was talking with yet another (new) friend. He insisted to tell me he had been in a relationship since 10 years and that his girlfriend’s name was…

Clémentine

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In a cavern
in a canyon
excavating for a mine

lived a miner
forty niner
and his daughter Clementine.

Oh my Darling
oh my Darling
oh my Darling Clementine

you are lost and gone
forever dreadful
sorry Clementine.

Light she was and like a fairy
and her shoes were number nine.
Herring boxes without topses sandals were for Clementine.

Oh my Darling …

Drove she ducklings to the water every morning just at nine

stubbed her too against a splinter
fell into the foaming brine.

Oh my Darling …

Ruby lips above the water
blowing bubbles soft and fine

but
alas
I was no swimmer
so I lost my Clementine.

Oh my Darling …

How I missed her
how I missed her
how I missed my Clementine

till I kissed her little sister and forgot my Clementine.

Oh my Darling …

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Thomas

I never knew I would miss you so when you said you’d go. 
We were not lovers, we never even acknowledged we were friends but we spent seven hours a day, five days a week together, wandering aimlessly in the streets of our city. We talked and laughed, we said the most silly things and discussed the meaning of the universe. We were silent together. 
Now I miss you, you go to work with someone else. Do you laugh together ? Are you silent together ? 
Every day I see a ghost of you, acting like you, speaking like you would, fading, as soon as I look at you. You were the first of our kind I met and as such you will always be special to me. I remember fondly, sadly, the days that will be no more.

Tu es parti.
Même tes silences me manquent.
C’est maintenant, avec ton absence comme un trou béant là ou se trouvait un chêne solide que je m’aperçois de la place que tu avais pris dans ma vie. Nous n’étions pas amants, j’ignore même si nous étions amis. Non, nous passions seulement ensembles nos heures d’ennui, à rouler sans but, équipiers.
Oui, ce sont tes silences qui me manquent le plus, ceux qui montraient bien que tu comprenais à demi-mot ce que je n’osai pas dire. Les autres ont retenu ce grain de folie qui nous rapprochait aussi. Mais aucun d’eux ne comprend cette douleur lancinante, ce vide que tu as laissé.
Comment sauraient-ils que chaque moment avec eux, je vois ton fantôme agir, réagir, rire. Ils ignorent que chaque feu qui passe au vert me donne envie de hurler « Une grenouille » à ta mémoire, me donne envie de pleurer car tu dis maintenant cela à d’autres.
Les jours où nous errions sous la pluie, silencieux, sont révolus. Te souviens-tu de ces moments ? Ton nouvel équipier saura-t-il se taire quand tu cherches tes mots ?

Farewell, Thomas, my partner, my friend,
I will always love you.