At Least Afloat

I am seriously behind on this journal. My evenings have suddenly become full, and I may need to review my plans on how to write…

Hi again 🙂 I missed you.

Day 38:

I woke up really early on my birthday, and took the morning quite slowly. I half entertained the possibility of getting to work at 8am and skedaddling off even earlier than I thought (but my boss did tell me later that day that finishing before 4pm is not really permissible). I thought I would dress casual, in my bicycle t-shirt, but I ended up wearing my midnight blue silk shirt, one with masses and masses of bows, like a 17th century gentleman. The caption “Roxane’s renegade” was well justified 😉 Dark blue and a black suit – the perfect combo à la YSL. Apparently before Saint Laurent paired navy and black it was as anathema as pink and red – but goodness is it classy now. Goodness am I classy now.

My landlady surprised me as I was about to head out – “It’s a special day today, isn’t it?” and pointed to the table, where a beautiful pot of Sempervivens sat, along with a large Jeff de Bruges rocher and a birthday card. I was really touched. My landlady said it would maybe add a bit of green to my room, and said I I loved these plants, it was perfect! I told her about my succulent back at Home, that another friend gave me for my 21st last year, which, my mother informed me, is so happy in Oxford that it has produced a baby offshoot! I have some potting to do when I return.

I got to Saint Maur and went into a patisserie to get a cake. I went for this rather small but very lovely dome-shaped chocolate cake. I say that – that’s a vast oversimplification: The cake was imbibed financier biscuit, layered with chocolate mousse, chantilly, and hazelnut mousse, with baked whole almonds embedded within, coated with a dark chocolate glaze, and decorated with vanilla and lemon white chocolate shavings and medallions. The lady serving me also put a dark chocolate tablet on it with “Joyeux Anniversaire” written in gold. It was very special. I also took a pink praline escargot (like a pain au raisin, but with pink praline), and being wished a happy birthday, disappeared into the heart of my office (the kitchen), where I ate the escargot and put the cake away for later. My colleague came in to give me his good wishes, and when I went into my office I came to find a large brown paper bag in my desk containing candles (!) from my boss, as well as a white and baby blue bag of chouquettes. For anyone unaware of what chouquettes are, they are the most delightful and childish extravagance to exist on this earth – they are air, encased in baked choux pastry and peppered with rock sugar. I had my first in Paul’s in Oxford when in highschool, and only got reminded of their existence by a French friend in Edinburgh, who adores them. Naturally I sent them a picture of the stash 🙂 The same colleague had also left me a tiny pain au chocolat. They know me really well!

It was a really lovely day at work. We had some ergonomists come into the office to give us a talk and help us with or desk set-up. Do you know, the moment I sat down in that meeting room my back began to ache. Specifically in the shoulders. Talk about psychosomatics! When it came to looking at my desk, though, I’d taken enough on board from the talk to take minimal adjustments to my set up. I’ve stopped folding down to see my laptop, or raising my desk too high. Now, it’s right angles at the elbows, feet touching the floor, eyes on level with my monitor. I feel better.

We cut the cake at lunch. I served out the tiny pieces to all present. I had two tiny candles with 2s on them, and one of the interns took a video of me blowing them out, which I sent to my mum. It’s one of the very few birthdays I haven’t spent at home.

I left work early, having finished the remainder of the cake. I took the train to Paris, with my itinerary being L’Écritoire, ba&sh, Shakespeare and Company, and maybe JEM or Laboté if I had the time. I didn’t, truth be told.

It was a really lovely evening, nonetheless. At L’Écritoire I bought dark blue sealing wax and a turtle seal, in homage to Timothy, and when asked if I wanted it wrapped as a gift, I replied it was my birthday, so the response from the lady was that they would wrap it as a gift, then. The loot lies in a pretty green paper bag sealed with a sticker.

I briefly went into ba&sh. It had not remotely student friendly prices, nor much of much merit. Call me old-fashioned, but it seems to me that almost no one makes any interesting or original clothes any more. When I was a kid, there was some cool stuff out there. And maybe that’s partly why I still wear stuff that my parents bought for me when I was 13 (I didn’t grow much, no). Ines de la Fressange sung this shop’s praises in a better era, clearly. I will say this though – the clothes were well made. They were well-cut, and looked like they wouldn’t fall apart. I just can’t justify 170 euros on a top unless it’s silk or linen and made by hand under fair conditions. Polyester of uncertain provenance won’t do. I actually can’t justify 170 euros, full stop.

At Shakespeare and Company, after long deliberation over Good Omens, The Prophet, Don Quixote and some Gervase Fen books, having found that they did not have Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, nor The Squire’s Tales, I went for The Prophet. I don’t regret my choice.

I wondered around the Latin Quarter for a bit. I went into Saint Séverin, which I had a view of from my attic window, in the flat we stayed in when I first saw Paris, aged 14. It was very dark and I didn’t want to stay for Mass, so, although I am not Roman Catholic, I made a donation and lit a candle, and left.

I called my grandfather and showed him where I was, and related my dilemma of “Should I go out to get oysters and champagne, and where?”. My granddad said that a dry white wine would be better. I said that since it is my 22nd and I can allow myself champagne, I will allow myself champagne. I deliberated whether I make the trek to the place mum and I went, as I wouldn’t have to pay an arm and a leg for acknowledgedly good oysters. In the end, I ended going to the Café Comédie near the Centre Georges Pompidou and getting une coupe de champagne there. It is a noisy, queer-friendly café (which means something very different in French to English). The bartender provided me with a minty (green) shot as well to chase the champagne down. I feared, when he brought it, that it was absinthe. I was fine after it, so I don’t think so. In order to not drink too fast, I began reading The Prophet. It is a fascinating book.

The bartender also introduced me to a man who was also celebrating his birthday in the café, but, unlike me, he was not alone. Having mutually wished eachother “Joyeux anniversaire”, he invited me to join him and his friends. I spent an hour talking to a choreographer, a lawyer, and an interior designer. This gentleman’s friends were lovely. Then I thought I really cannot justify staying longer in Paris, and bid them all farewell. I called my family on the way to the station, who held up a Pierre Hermé recipe book that awaits me when I get home. Resistance is futile, chaps – I am to become a master macaron maker. My parents have been hinting it aggressively since they bought me piping bags and a macaron mat 4 years ago. And who am I to disappoint? 😉

After 10pm, the RER is said to get more unreliable. It’s true. I had to skedaddle or risk being stranded in the 1er arrondissement, so I took an Uber, again (I am racking up a bill, and I do not like it). It was a lovely journey home. My driver blessed me, and we spoke about the similarities and differences between Abrahamic religions on the drive back. Different from the usual linguistics chat, and thoroughly welcome 🙂

Day 39:

Wednesday was a wee bit chaotic, almost disastrous, and embarrassing.

I came into work just before 9, descended to breakfast, as I do, and then set myself to work at emptying the dishwashers’ cutlery drawers, as the cleaners had once again forgotten. I thought, here’s a nice, chill, hands on way to start my workday – no one needs me until 9.15, anyway. When I came up, at 9.10 (?), there was a gentleman standing before the front door, with a lot of odd-looking green kit. I say, are you waiting for someone? He says, I’m here to clean the windows. Oh no, I thought. Then my colleague bursts in to say that my boss has called me (she was working from home that day). Oh dear. Oh bother. Oh heck.

Anyway, I signed the window cleaner in, and called my boss. Apparently the postman calling that morning had been the second time of his calling. Darn. Blast. Bilgewater. My word. Gah. But my boss said that she just wanted to know that I was ok, as it wasn’t like me not to be there. I was bracing myself for reproach for severe negligence, and there was none. The world is a kind place, where bosses know your capabilities and work ethic. I was told the other day that the accountant and my boss know that if I have not filed a bill in our system, it’s not because I don’t care, it because I genuinely didn’t have the time. People have confidence in me, and I am pleased that I give them cause to have confidence in me. I make mistakes, chaps, with my heart in the right place. My mind isn’t always there, but my heart is.

That morning I received, along with our usual bills, a package from a person I had had a complicated romantic history with. It was one of my favourite books, a very sweet and innocent one. Guys, I nearly cried. Not from joy, but from disappointment. My memory of this person is of betrayed trust, by myself, and to an extent, them, because I feel they took advantage of me in a vulnerable moment. This book felt tainted by this, and I don’t know if this person is aware of the effect they had on me. I debate whether I say or not. I think it’s not the kind of guilt a person can easily live with. And it’s at moments like these that I have to take an optimistic and charitable outlook and think “This is very kind of them to send this to me,” and drive back what happened. They do not know what they are doing.

This is not the approach I recommend, guys. I would totally understand if you, in my place, would burn the book. But I couldn’t do that in my office, where it lay. I needed to calm myself temporarily so I could get on with work. Like I say, my boss was at home, so I was in charge. And I couldn’t bring myself to burn a book, least of all this one. It is currently at home, and lies on my desk, and not on my shelf. I am still deliberating what to do.

Anyway, despite my best attempts, the morning was still for the most part spent in blanks and pain, and therefore lack of productivity. I got some work done towards the final hour. I then went to the bank. My account is now open, and I have a savings account, too. My card should arrive tomorrow, and I should no longer be an alien.

When I came home, I ended the day well catching up with some friends in Edinburgh, over a call. It was really, really lovely.

Day 40:

I don’t recall much of work on Thursday. I made some signs for our recycling bins, as what we’ve noticed is people aren’t great at sorting their rubbish. The other thing I did was make a manual on how our office chairs may be adjusted, following the ergonomists’ visit on Tuesday. Oh! And I also ate breakfast for the first time at home, and not in the office! I felt so proud and organised. It made a whale of a difference.

That evening, I was writing a blogpost, when I received a call from the person who sent me the parcel. I don’t know if this person chooses not to read my tone, or if they can’t, or if I’m just really very poor at conveying aggression – It might be the latter. I was not pleased. I knew I wanted to write a thank you, but I didn’t expect a call in the midst of time I had reserved for myself to do something important to me. I didn’t say “Now is not a good time”, though. I just relentlessly roasted them and hoped they’d notice the edge in my voice. I have two ways of dealing with unwanted suitors – either 1) being excessively mean (and for some reason, that often does the opposite of what I want), or 2) I psychoanalyse myself before them with the aim to convince them that I am a mess they shouldn’t touch with a ten-foot bargepole. A sensible girl would just say no, but I feel I need to irrefutably prove that I am a terrible idea. I don’t owe anyone any explanations, though. Anyway, I used 1, which unfortunately they liked, and then a different, truthful version of 2.

I said I have become a different person in Paris. I am trying to find myself. And they took that to mean, I don’t know who I am. I do, trust me, I do. I need to find myself again. I’ve been saying to myself, especially in the aftermath of the break up of my last relationship, “I miss myself”.

I am taking the opportunity to find the person I was before the traumatic events of my second year (and arguably first year) of uni. Heck, it probably stems all the way back to Sixth Form, or GCSEs. I have not been well. I have been a sacrificial lamb, because I knew no other way of being. And no, I cease. I am not going to say “Oh go on, then” to those who will cheerfully use me, whether they know it or not, because I am TIRED. I was tired then, too, but I am now tired of what I allowed to happen to me, how I lived in almost perpetual survivor mode, how I lived hugging myself and saying “Safe, safe, safe, safe, safe” at night, because I didn’t FEEL secure! Those with other intentions or wishes shouldn’t think to pity me and offer to hold me. I need to be held, but I can’t fill someone else’s void. I can’t betray myself.

I’ve found who I trust now. I am safe. I will protect what turf I have.

I didn’t spell it out in graphic terms. I said “I think there were a lot of times last year where I should have said “No”, and I didn’t”. Saying no where you need to is the kindest thing you can do for yourself and other people.

Trigger warning: Mentions of self-harm.

The call ended soon after. I texted my mother. We talked about emotional self-harm, which is what I reckon was my coping mechanism for much of my young adult life. I never resorted to physical self-harm. I knew people who did. We talked about relationships. We talked about my mental health generally. I said, on the whole, I’m doing ok. This threw me, but I’m doing ok.

Friends, I ask you, please, be kind to yourselves. And please talk to people.

I finished the evening talking to my girl best friend. It was nice. I went to bed really, very late, though.

Day 41:

Friday morning I was eating breakfast in the office kitchen, having told my boss that I would be quick, and then ended up having a 40 minute chat with a colleague about regional languages in France. This colleague, bless him, is very talkative, and I, for my sins, cannot easily get out of a conversation about sociolinguistics and dialects. I can’t get out of a conversation easily, full stop. I apologised to my boss, and told her whom I was talking to. She understood.

Friday’s work was a few more invoices to file, and not much else that I remember, really. I worked on the instructions document for the chairs some more, I recall. I was really quite tired.

That evening I went to Paris to meet the friends I had made on Tuesday. It was a really lovely evening, although I am more and more convinced that I think I ought to stick to one alcoholic drink, if any, in the future. I had two. I thought we were going out for dinner, but we didn’t, and we just drank. I started with a mocktail, then got a G&T, and agreed to shot of rum. It went straight to my head. I had already learnt this lesson in Glasgow when drinking with the man I loved: Do not drink, particularly hard liquor, on an empty stomach. My love understood my state, and got me a taxi. This is how gentlemen act.

Fortunately, one of my friend’s friends ordered some food for me, and life looked a little better. I sober up pretty quickly. I don’t think I like feeling anything past slightly tipsy, if that, any more. As my grandfather likes to quote, “It does not become us.”

The evening ended in the flat of the lawyer, and his friend, the interior designer, who maternally fed me piece after piece of pizza, and also informed me of the best time to visit the Louvre (Saturday morning. Students can go in free. Shhhh.). We were all playing different songs. I put on Courting is a Pleasure by Jarlath Henderson to change things up. Well, folk, no matter how techno-influenced it is, I’m told, is not the thing to play at a party. I, however, still march to the beat of my own drum, and, in this case, this may be the bodhrán. Folk music can be played at a party – it just depends on the party. My new friend has said that he will host another evening at his, with vinyls. This sounds fun, and I look forward to that.

In the end I took yet another Uber home. I left at 2am.

Day 42:

Saturday was a lazy day in my books. I did some washing. I made some borsch, which I shared with my landlady. Then we went to watch L’Abbé Pierre – une vie de de combats. She had invited me the day before, as she had an invitation, with two tickets. I said I would only be too glad to join her!

The cinema in Villiers-sur-Marne smells like some of the sports buildings in Tignes. This is a totally random thing to say, but that really made me feel at home, in some sense. I bottle memories in scents, too. My signature perfume that I’ve only recently come back to is the same I wore at school. I feel like a 16 year old with her whole future ahead of her, still, when I put it on.

It was a room of maybe 100 seats. The film was being screened by the Emmaus branch in Val-de-Brie, and there was supposed to be a debate afterwards, which we didn’t stay for, as it was rather late.

My friends, what an amazing film. What an amazing man.

Abbé Pierre, born Henri Grouès, was a priest who came from a bourgeois family, but was determined to fight poverty, indifference, injustice, and solitude. He was a Resistance hero, a politician, and a founder of Emmaus with his companion, Lucie Coutaz. He strived to give so much in a world he had had so little understanding of. He loved people, and he did his best to minimise their suffering. He was so fragile, and yet so strong.

And I walked away from this film feeling that I, too, need to do something, privileged as I am. I vowed to myself in Oxford, some years back, that when I am rich, I will give back. Michael Sheen is a not-for-profit actor. When I publish my books, hold me to it, I will make the world a better place not merely through my words, but through my deeds.

My landlady and I talked about homelessness on the drive back. There is one thing that I’ve always found tricky about giving money directly to those begging for it, and that is the question of whether someone who is begging genuinely needs the money for food or shelter, or if it is going towards substance abuse, and therefore towards criminals, for instance. What I was taught at school, by a teaching assistant who had been homeless herself, was that you should offer food, which I strive to do, if I have food to hand. My landlady talked about children she had seen on her travels who had been sent out by adults to beg. We had both given money directly to people begging before, however.

One of the nicest evenings I’d ever spent was under the stars talking to a homeless musician and her friend in Cambridge. We talked about abusive relationships, and she sang me Cry Me a River. People shouldn’t have to live like this and suffer. Not have access to warmth and clean conditions, without hygiene products, food, clean water, walls to keep out people with bad intentions and the cold, whether their misfortune is of their own making or not. I reckon the best way to help is to donate to charities that do help, like Emmaus or Shelter, and also to lobby for action on the part of the government. Individually, we risk not having the ability to help properly, to root out the problem at its source, and to give a man a fish is not to teach him to fish, but how to teach him to fish? Collectively, we can do much. There are people who know how to teach people to fish. Contribute, time or money or other resources, to those who can help, I reckon. I recognise people may disagree with my views, and so I say that my inbox is open, and so is my mind.

Day 43:

And thus we conclude with Sunday, today, on which I write this long, long update of a week. And what a week it has been.

Well, I rose, I washed, I reflected, I read two chapters of The Prince and The Prophet. I called my good friend in Norwich. She has introduced me to a beautiful opera and an incredible musician. The opera is called The Dolls of New Albion, A Steampunk Opera, and it is by Paul Shapera, who has also written an album of short stories called Fairy Tales for the Lost and Wandering, which are dark and beautiful, among many other works that I shall have to listen to carefully. This man is a visionary. His music and the worlds described are quite unlike anything else I’ve ever listened to. If you like Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Cornelia Funke, and Hadestown, this music’s for you.

I made some bannocks today, too. I also discovered the joys of the simple recipe of rice, finely chopped raw garlic, a chopped tomato, green olives, sardines, and a splash of olive oil. Really simple, relatively inexpensive, but feels like you are eating in a restaurant looking out onto the Mediterranean.

I have also got back to taking two Gàidhlig lessons a day on LearnGaelic with their Beginners’ Course. I’d like to learn Gaeilge, too, so if anyone knows of any free or cheap resources I can use, please let me know!

Beyond that, today, again, has been lazy. However, I have had quite a week, and I feel happy.