my hands are tingling.
they are covered with little scratches and there are little thorns still stuck in the skin.
there is also a thorn in my foot, causing me to walk with a little limp.
i am kneeling by Agnes-Marie's rambunctious rose garden, digging in the soil and pulling out all the nascent green weeds.
it feels so good to have my hands in the soil, to be handling the recently sprouted brimming-with-life roots.
Caline, Agnes-Marie's obstreperous dog, will only leave me alone after stern reprimands. pant pant, lick lick, paws all over my body.
un calin in french means a hug. caline is the feminine adjective. it is like "huggy" cuddly. affectionate.
i learned that dog's name and that word at the same time.
when i wrote to Marie and told her i had been in Agnes-Marie's rose garden, she wrote back and described her memory of Agnes-Marie, full of malice.
that puzzled me because in my experience Agnes-Marie is so full of goodness and her presence an elderly charm. then i dug further and found out that the french word malice and the english word malice do not mean the same thing. malice in french means innocent mischievousness.
life is so short
ahhhhh
you can only really say "life is short" retrospectively once life is over. in the meantime there is the present moment, which sometimes seems quite long.
at present my present moment consists of counting down the days before i leave. one more week to go. seven days. till i begin travelling again.
it surprises me how i have come to rest here these past three months. the water must also be surprised when on its headlong course down the hill it comes to a tranquil spot and stops moving fast - does not move at all - actually does flowly but only very slowly. rest is a restrictive word because not moving through space does not mean not internally voyaging. that is what i talked about with Veronique the first night i arrived. i said: i have done a lot of travelling across the land recently but now i would like to voyage in relationships.
it was quite a poetic thing to say.
i remember when i first arrived i really did want to set aside any personal projects and to align my goals with those of the community. i wanted it to be an exercise in discipline and self-sacrifice. it was mattias who inspired me. i saw mattias and i liked mattias and i saw that he had gone through the experience of living at a l'arche community and i thought: maybe if i do the same i will become a little bit like mattias. now i want to be travelling again so much; the self is so difficult to sacrifice. the self is wriggly and exciteable. it wants to move. the self wants, it wants. wanting is a principal action of its.
when the weather warmed up and i got outside into the garden, i realised how terribly i had missed contact with nature, during this domestic relationship-rich community experience.
also the open road, i yearn for a winding open road, for spontaneous hitchhiking encounters, for a future which is unknown.
also speaking italian, i have terribly missed speaking italian.
it has been a grounding experience for me to live in l'Arche community. a discovery of the limitations of the self, through encountering others. i would say that before i had an idealised vision of my capacity to communicate with others. i thought: it is pretty easy to communicate with others, i just have to be open and listen to them. now i realise that there are plenty of different people, and plenty of them that i somehow don't click with. it is made palpable by living in the same house day after day with someone and never really having anything to talk about. theoretically there are things we could share, but not really share, more merely a superficial question and answer session. it makes me feel limited, partial, biased, irremediably locked inside myself. i feel like a limited little piece of jigsaw that cannot join with many other jigsaw pieces. it is so easy to beam with interest and friendliness while hitchhiking and during other brief travelling encounters.
Gary - who once lived in this house for around twenty years - came to have a meal with us one day. it was amazing to behold his expansive free way of discoursing with our handicapped guests. Gerard Marin in particular suffers from great crises of anguish; he feels mostly insecure around other people; often i don't know what to say to him; how to approach dialogue. suddenly Gary was there cracking jokes, saying absolutely anything at all, but at the same time he always said just the right thing, and Gerard was laughing away, responding with glee to Gary's extrovert presence. part of me suddenly felt: i would like to be as confident and creative and cheery as you Gary.
when he first met me he said: wow, Scotland; I love Scotland; the castles, the hills, the lochs, the mist hanging in the air. he said it in french even though he is Canadian and we could have spoken in english. he said it with such enthusiasm he got me feeling really good about coming from Scotland. however, the best thing about Scotland, he continued, the best thing about Scotland is the hospitality of the people. the scottish hospitality rivals that of the indians. and he went on to say that he had spent a year wandering around india in his youth, with only a few possessions slung over his back.
if i let Francine get close to me and take hold of my hand, she will pull me towards her and will not let go. although her body movements are restricted to writhing in her wheel chair she has an incredible force in her grasp and an avidity of desire. when i am accompanying her at mealtimes she is more interested in pulling me towards her than in eating her food and it often turns into an amicable wrestling match. i say amicable because of the look in her eyes, which desires communication so avidly. maybe it is not really communication, maybe beholding my separate being and wanting to say things and listen to me is not what she is searching for. it is more wanting to be me, or for me to be her - she is searching what her psychologist calls fusion. "francine, francinette, your craziness and your wildness know no bounds", i whisper in her ear.
the handicapped people in this house are not concerned at all with the rules of social convention - that is what produces a feeling of freedom when being with them. Laurent makes all the noises which it enters his head to make. physical closeness does not phase him one bit. you could say that he lacks the respectful question: how will the other person feel about my behaviour? but there is something about his spontaneity and honestly-being-himself-regardless-of-anybody-else which i love.
i find the rules of the community quite restrictive, like always having to wear shoes in the kitchen. it is because l'arche in france has begun to be funded by the government, and along with lots of money, there comes lots of rules concerning hygiene to comply with. i was walking along the pavement between the houses when Ben - the head of the whole community - cycled past and stopped and turned around and told me; with some feeling, Carson, you really have to wear shoes. he said it like that, with a lot of stress on the word have. he said it in english because he is english and as often as not we speak in english.
a few evenings later there was the funny situation of me standing on top of the roof with my feet bare leaning out to trim the branches of the tree while the sun was glowing and sinking. i think ben was surprised to see me up there when he came cycling past because all he said was bon soir!
i was very conscious then of my bare feet, of the glowing sinking sun.
barefeet. apparently it is a hygiene issue - Ben says there is a risk of hepatitus B. other people say "you know, it is for your own safety"
barefeet are important. i really feel that it is important to wear barefeet.
they are covered with little scratches and there are little thorns still stuck in the skin.
there is also a thorn in my foot, causing me to walk with a little limp.
i am kneeling by Agnes-Marie's rambunctious rose garden, digging in the soil and pulling out all the nascent green weeds.
it feels so good to have my hands in the soil, to be handling the recently sprouted brimming-with-life roots.
Caline, Agnes-Marie's obstreperous dog, will only leave me alone after stern reprimands. pant pant, lick lick, paws all over my body.
un calin in french means a hug. caline is the feminine adjective. it is like "huggy" cuddly. affectionate.
i learned that dog's name and that word at the same time.
when i wrote to Marie and told her i had been in Agnes-Marie's rose garden, she wrote back and described her memory of Agnes-Marie, full of malice.
that puzzled me because in my experience Agnes-Marie is so full of goodness and her presence an elderly charm. then i dug further and found out that the french word malice and the english word malice do not mean the same thing. malice in french means innocent mischievousness.
life is so short
ahhhhh
you can only really say "life is short" retrospectively once life is over. in the meantime there is the present moment, which sometimes seems quite long.
at present my present moment consists of counting down the days before i leave. one more week to go. seven days. till i begin travelling again.
it surprises me how i have come to rest here these past three months. the water must also be surprised when on its headlong course down the hill it comes to a tranquil spot and stops moving fast - does not move at all - actually does flowly but only very slowly. rest is a restrictive word because not moving through space does not mean not internally voyaging. that is what i talked about with Veronique the first night i arrived. i said: i have done a lot of travelling across the land recently but now i would like to voyage in relationships.
it was quite a poetic thing to say.
i remember when i first arrived i really did want to set aside any personal projects and to align my goals with those of the community. i wanted it to be an exercise in discipline and self-sacrifice. it was mattias who inspired me. i saw mattias and i liked mattias and i saw that he had gone through the experience of living at a l'arche community and i thought: maybe if i do the same i will become a little bit like mattias. now i want to be travelling again so much; the self is so difficult to sacrifice. the self is wriggly and exciteable. it wants to move. the self wants, it wants. wanting is a principal action of its.
when the weather warmed up and i got outside into the garden, i realised how terribly i had missed contact with nature, during this domestic relationship-rich community experience.
also the open road, i yearn for a winding open road, for spontaneous hitchhiking encounters, for a future which is unknown.
also speaking italian, i have terribly missed speaking italian.
it has been a grounding experience for me to live in l'Arche community. a discovery of the limitations of the self, through encountering others. i would say that before i had an idealised vision of my capacity to communicate with others. i thought: it is pretty easy to communicate with others, i just have to be open and listen to them. now i realise that there are plenty of different people, and plenty of them that i somehow don't click with. it is made palpable by living in the same house day after day with someone and never really having anything to talk about. theoretically there are things we could share, but not really share, more merely a superficial question and answer session. it makes me feel limited, partial, biased, irremediably locked inside myself. i feel like a limited little piece of jigsaw that cannot join with many other jigsaw pieces. it is so easy to beam with interest and friendliness while hitchhiking and during other brief travelling encounters.
Gary - who once lived in this house for around twenty years - came to have a meal with us one day. it was amazing to behold his expansive free way of discoursing with our handicapped guests. Gerard Marin in particular suffers from great crises of anguish; he feels mostly insecure around other people; often i don't know what to say to him; how to approach dialogue. suddenly Gary was there cracking jokes, saying absolutely anything at all, but at the same time he always said just the right thing, and Gerard was laughing away, responding with glee to Gary's extrovert presence. part of me suddenly felt: i would like to be as confident and creative and cheery as you Gary.
when he first met me he said: wow, Scotland; I love Scotland; the castles, the hills, the lochs, the mist hanging in the air. he said it in french even though he is Canadian and we could have spoken in english. he said it with such enthusiasm he got me feeling really good about coming from Scotland. however, the best thing about Scotland, he continued, the best thing about Scotland is the hospitality of the people. the scottish hospitality rivals that of the indians. and he went on to say that he had spent a year wandering around india in his youth, with only a few possessions slung over his back.
if i let Francine get close to me and take hold of my hand, she will pull me towards her and will not let go. although her body movements are restricted to writhing in her wheel chair she has an incredible force in her grasp and an avidity of desire. when i am accompanying her at mealtimes she is more interested in pulling me towards her than in eating her food and it often turns into an amicable wrestling match. i say amicable because of the look in her eyes, which desires communication so avidly. maybe it is not really communication, maybe beholding my separate being and wanting to say things and listen to me is not what she is searching for. it is more wanting to be me, or for me to be her - she is searching what her psychologist calls fusion. "francine, francinette, your craziness and your wildness know no bounds", i whisper in her ear.
the handicapped people in this house are not concerned at all with the rules of social convention - that is what produces a feeling of freedom when being with them. Laurent makes all the noises which it enters his head to make. physical closeness does not phase him one bit. you could say that he lacks the respectful question: how will the other person feel about my behaviour? but there is something about his spontaneity and honestly-being-himself-regardless-of-anybody-else which i love.
i find the rules of the community quite restrictive, like always having to wear shoes in the kitchen. it is because l'arche in france has begun to be funded by the government, and along with lots of money, there comes lots of rules concerning hygiene to comply with. i was walking along the pavement between the houses when Ben - the head of the whole community - cycled past and stopped and turned around and told me; with some feeling, Carson, you really have to wear shoes. he said it like that, with a lot of stress on the word have. he said it in english because he is english and as often as not we speak in english.
a few evenings later there was the funny situation of me standing on top of the roof with my feet bare leaning out to trim the branches of the tree while the sun was glowing and sinking. i think ben was surprised to see me up there when he came cycling past because all he said was bon soir!
i was very conscious then of my bare feet, of the glowing sinking sun.
barefeet. apparently it is a hygiene issue - Ben says there is a risk of hepatitus B. other people say "you know, it is for your own safety"
barefeet are important. i really feel that it is important to wear barefeet.
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