the cows that I see every morning
Last time I was talking about snow and Ukraine…
Living in Paris I start forgetting what snow looks like, it hardly snows in Paris, only sometimes…, and it creates a big panic; the traffic is disturbed and the percentage of car accidents increases dramatically (as if it was not high enough because French believe that half a bottle - or slightly more, of red or white wine doesn’t effect their ability to drive). Fortunately the new president between his divorces and marriages is doing his best to solve the problem; so now radars are installed everywhere on the roads reminding French drivers to slow down. Driving my car to Deauville the other day I heard the statistics, they say that there are less accidents in France now, but statistics stays just statistics, in real life who knows….
Well, don’t get confused, I started talking about Normandy and now I say that I live in Paris…. The information is perfectly reliable, I just move too much. I believe if I make some calculations, my moving average might be quite surprising, close to about every two years. Having in mind that I am not a diplomat or a military, it makes a lot. One of my acquaintances assured me that my karma was responsible for that. Quite possible, karma is a serious stuff; I just hope that in my next reincarnation I will have a more peaceful life…
Back to my grandma’s village… And to those long and carefree sunny days when the future seemed to be something ephemeral and far away, when small things could make one happy and when body and soul wounds healed very quickly.
Living with our grandmother was pleasant and my sister and I were happy about the arrangement, we hardly thought or talked about our farther; he was out and that was it, our mother was rarely home and it was our grandmother, helped by her younger daughter, who took care of us. We had nothing to complain about. Grandma was so much cooler than our mother who was easily getting nervous and impatient with us when she was around. I don’t remember missing my mother; I think I was happy when she was at work or at her theatre courses in the evenings.
My mother belongs to the category of people that I would call unrealised stars. She played guitar and sang and often was given main roles in plays put up by the local amateur theatre. That’s why she was quite well known in the village. She was very beautiful according to the common opinion of the village people. She worked as a sales girl in the local shop and I heard that some admirers were going to the shop not to buy food and other stuff but just to look at her. She could have become, I guess, a successful professional actress if she had more self confidence, more self respect, more drive and a bigger heart. Her life was not much of a success, she was always unhappy and I suspect never loved anybody, even herself. Nor her children. At least it felt like this.
Grandmother was different, she cared about me. I can not say that she was much more affectionate than my mother was but she was present. Even if I try very hard I can not remember a single time when my mother took me in her arms or gave me a kiss, even when I was little. I was never afraid of grandma but I was afraid of my mother when I saw in her blue eyes that terrifying look of fury, almost madness when she was angry with me. Grandma was funny, hardworking and caring. I remember her going to the market early in the mornings and brining us, my sister and I, all kind of local gourmandise – fresh bread, cottage cheese, pastries, candies. She tried to spoil us in her simple way; for us it became a ritual waiting for her coming back from the market and checking impatiently her basket. Even cherries, that she was buying sometimes, seemed tastier than those growing on the trees in her garden.
The garden my grandmother had was big, very big. That’s what I thought when I looked at all those cherry trees, plump trees, apple trees. The trees were old and very high.
The orchard was wonderful in summer. I loved climbing up the huge brunches and hide almost at the top of the tree to a big despair of my sister who was calling for me in vain. And when she would loose her hope to find me and go complain to my grandmother, I would enjoy a little feast eating cherries and “tree’s tears” - the amber yellow, thick juice of the tree, glued on the surface of the wrinkled bark.
I imagined that I was a big bird and I could fly. I was sure that if I really wanted and made a little effort, I could just spread my arms and fly. Luckily I never tried though. One thing is to dream and another thing is trying to realise your dreams.
I have always been as the French would say “une rêveuse incorrigible”. Dreaming was a big part of my daily activities. I was always imagining things. Grandmother’s winter coat, hanging peacefully in the corridor, would become a dangerous bear, so entering the house I was running with a speed of a light to avoid that horrible big animal grab me and take me to the forest like poor little Masha from grandma’s fairytale.
Sometimes an imprudent chicken would happen to be on my way and I would step on it. The frightened bird would fly up screaming as if it was its last day and I would fall and, as always, hurt my knees. All this noise would attract my grandmother’s attention which was either working in the garden or cooking something in the summer kitchen, a tiny wooden construction in the yard equipped with a low metal stove, where she exercised her talents of a chef. My tears and a story about the bear grabbing me would not change her determination to throw out of the house both of us – me and the chicken. And I would find myself in the yard facing another trial. A big rooster, the chief of the chicken gang hearing the screams of one of its hens would run to inspect what was going on. And seeing me it would attack me immediately. We had a bad relationship, the rooster and I; for some reason it considered me as its worst enemy. The monster would fly up my shoulders and start hitting me with its beak.
Hearing my screams, my grandmother would run to save me and this time it was not me who would be punished, it was my enemy that would end up imprisoned in the small, dark shed in the garden. And I would be compensated by a fresh “pyrozhok” filled with cherries or sweet cottage cheese. The award usually tasted so good, my grandma was such an excellent cook, that I would forget all my sorrows and go to the garden to climb on the tree and eat up the trophy.
I observed the battle field and dreamed about the “vendetta” thinking how one day my grandma would catch my enemy, cut its head with a big knife and put its body into a big recipient full of boiling water to make its feathers go off easier. Usually I didn’t like to watch my grandmother killing chickens to prepare lunch. I felt sorry for them when I saw her cutting the screaming chicken’s head, putting the lifeless body in the hot water, pulling out the feather and then keeping the poor little carcass over the flame to burn even the smallest down. When I knew that my grandmother was planning a chicken execution I always tried to go out to play with my friends.
Living in Paris I start forgetting what snow looks like, it hardly snows in Paris, only sometimes…, and it creates a big panic; the traffic is disturbed and the percentage of car accidents increases dramatically (as if it was not high enough because French believe that half a bottle - or slightly more, of red or white wine doesn’t effect their ability to drive). Fortunately the new president between his divorces and marriages is doing his best to solve the problem; so now radars are installed everywhere on the roads reminding French drivers to slow down. Driving my car to Deauville the other day I heard the statistics, they say that there are less accidents in France now, but statistics stays just statistics, in real life who knows….
Well, don’t get confused, I started talking about Normandy and now I say that I live in Paris…. The information is perfectly reliable, I just move too much. I believe if I make some calculations, my moving average might be quite surprising, close to about every two years. Having in mind that I am not a diplomat or a military, it makes a lot. One of my acquaintances assured me that my karma was responsible for that. Quite possible, karma is a serious stuff; I just hope that in my next reincarnation I will have a more peaceful life…
Back to my grandma’s village… And to those long and carefree sunny days when the future seemed to be something ephemeral and far away, when small things could make one happy and when body and soul wounds healed very quickly.
Living with our grandmother was pleasant and my sister and I were happy about the arrangement, we hardly thought or talked about our farther; he was out and that was it, our mother was rarely home and it was our grandmother, helped by her younger daughter, who took care of us. We had nothing to complain about. Grandma was so much cooler than our mother who was easily getting nervous and impatient with us when she was around. I don’t remember missing my mother; I think I was happy when she was at work or at her theatre courses in the evenings.
My mother belongs to the category of people that I would call unrealised stars. She played guitar and sang and often was given main roles in plays put up by the local amateur theatre. That’s why she was quite well known in the village. She was very beautiful according to the common opinion of the village people. She worked as a sales girl in the local shop and I heard that some admirers were going to the shop not to buy food and other stuff but just to look at her. She could have become, I guess, a successful professional actress if she had more self confidence, more self respect, more drive and a bigger heart. Her life was not much of a success, she was always unhappy and I suspect never loved anybody, even herself. Nor her children. At least it felt like this.
Grandmother was different, she cared about me. I can not say that she was much more affectionate than my mother was but she was present. Even if I try very hard I can not remember a single time when my mother took me in her arms or gave me a kiss, even when I was little. I was never afraid of grandma but I was afraid of my mother when I saw in her blue eyes that terrifying look of fury, almost madness when she was angry with me. Grandma was funny, hardworking and caring. I remember her going to the market early in the mornings and brining us, my sister and I, all kind of local gourmandise – fresh bread, cottage cheese, pastries, candies. She tried to spoil us in her simple way; for us it became a ritual waiting for her coming back from the market and checking impatiently her basket. Even cherries, that she was buying sometimes, seemed tastier than those growing on the trees in her garden.
The garden my grandmother had was big, very big. That’s what I thought when I looked at all those cherry trees, plump trees, apple trees. The trees were old and very high.
The orchard was wonderful in summer. I loved climbing up the huge brunches and hide almost at the top of the tree to a big despair of my sister who was calling for me in vain. And when she would loose her hope to find me and go complain to my grandmother, I would enjoy a little feast eating cherries and “tree’s tears” - the amber yellow, thick juice of the tree, glued on the surface of the wrinkled bark.
I imagined that I was a big bird and I could fly. I was sure that if I really wanted and made a little effort, I could just spread my arms and fly. Luckily I never tried though. One thing is to dream and another thing is trying to realise your dreams.
I have always been as the French would say “une rêveuse incorrigible”. Dreaming was a big part of my daily activities. I was always imagining things. Grandmother’s winter coat, hanging peacefully in the corridor, would become a dangerous bear, so entering the house I was running with a speed of a light to avoid that horrible big animal grab me and take me to the forest like poor little Masha from grandma’s fairytale.
Sometimes an imprudent chicken would happen to be on my way and I would step on it. The frightened bird would fly up screaming as if it was its last day and I would fall and, as always, hurt my knees. All this noise would attract my grandmother’s attention which was either working in the garden or cooking something in the summer kitchen, a tiny wooden construction in the yard equipped with a low metal stove, where she exercised her talents of a chef. My tears and a story about the bear grabbing me would not change her determination to throw out of the house both of us – me and the chicken. And I would find myself in the yard facing another trial. A big rooster, the chief of the chicken gang hearing the screams of one of its hens would run to inspect what was going on. And seeing me it would attack me immediately. We had a bad relationship, the rooster and I; for some reason it considered me as its worst enemy. The monster would fly up my shoulders and start hitting me with its beak.
Hearing my screams, my grandmother would run to save me and this time it was not me who would be punished, it was my enemy that would end up imprisoned in the small, dark shed in the garden. And I would be compensated by a fresh “pyrozhok” filled with cherries or sweet cottage cheese. The award usually tasted so good, my grandma was such an excellent cook, that I would forget all my sorrows and go to the garden to climb on the tree and eat up the trophy.
I observed the battle field and dreamed about the “vendetta” thinking how one day my grandma would catch my enemy, cut its head with a big knife and put its body into a big recipient full of boiling water to make its feathers go off easier. Usually I didn’t like to watch my grandmother killing chickens to prepare lunch. I felt sorry for them when I saw her cutting the screaming chicken’s head, putting the lifeless body in the hot water, pulling out the feather and then keeping the poor little carcass over the flame to burn even the smallest down. When I knew that my grandmother was planning a chicken execution I always tried to go out to play with my friends.
Aucun commentaire:
Enregistrer un commentaire