Tuesday, 5 February 2013
Thursday, 15 November 2007
Fitting
The whole of the base corniche is like a clogged artery with all the one way traffic lights due to renovations, so I had to take the back roads, through the parts of Nice that toursits never see, the scum and the filth of poverty living like froth around the little pools of wealth that litter the coast.
Having seen the provisional wig, with its scattering of blond highlights teased through the blood red curls, I was satisfied that there was a back up plan. The two Soeurs Prioa in their dimly lit workshop of transformation and disguise were very understanding - and being adept in both real and synthetic hair, will be cutting what it left of my mothers tresses whilst fitting her with a new set of boucles. 'La mise en place' might even be fun in a kind of regressive theatrical way, and we have opted for a slightly different colour so that people might remark on the new style rather than the wig.
When we first went in, the dark red walls and black carpets created a partial night time that was unsettling, and initially made my mind jump to images of brothels and ladies of the night; of all the evils that darkness can hide. But the place was reassuringly scented, clean and beautifully maintained with antiques of the trade - a whole new world I had happily been blind to until now. They installed my mother in a swivel chair and began the procession and as each new crown appeared the reason for low lighting became apparent - without the shade your hair supplies your features are exposed cruelly. Blanche from the Glass Menagerie kept saying 'the lights the lights' and I felt overwhelmed by a sudden nausea and had to stumble out into the street for some air. My mothers head is so petite, the skull looks so fragile.
There I ran into Bennoe and Maureen coming along for walk, here from Dublin to do up their flat in Nice, and smiling I invited them in to the party. Inside Sylvie had just placed a voluptous mountain of ruby red curles on my mothers head, and she looked like a Rennaissance Queen. SO that was the ONE and we all managed to stave off the fear that was threatening to seep through from the outside glare of reality.
This morning things were like a slippery slope, neither of us knowing how bad things were going to get, pain and nausea and cold sweats and fear looming like the clouds hung thick on the horizon. I was glad of the trip to Nice, I even managed to stop into a shop - as long as noone tries to speak to me, I do not know whether I will be able to control the mask with strangers who do not need to know I am fine. I like driving with the music very loud most of all, like a bubble of sound containing me in my imaginary state of the future perfect.
But then i saw something - it seemed so unnatural. A seagull came swooping down onto the road in spite of the heavy traffic and scooped up the entrails of a dead pigeon. Birds eat seeds. Birds are beautiful feathered creatures that sing to us and fly around to remind us of the joys of freedom - like the little love bird that escaped from the zoo in st jean and speaks to me in the mornings.
Having seen the provisional wig, with its scattering of blond highlights teased through the blood red curls, I was satisfied that there was a back up plan. The two Soeurs Prioa in their dimly lit workshop of transformation and disguise were very understanding - and being adept in both real and synthetic hair, will be cutting what it left of my mothers tresses whilst fitting her with a new set of boucles. 'La mise en place' might even be fun in a kind of regressive theatrical way, and we have opted for a slightly different colour so that people might remark on the new style rather than the wig.
When we first went in, the dark red walls and black carpets created a partial night time that was unsettling, and initially made my mind jump to images of brothels and ladies of the night; of all the evils that darkness can hide. But the place was reassuringly scented, clean and beautifully maintained with antiques of the trade - a whole new world I had happily been blind to until now. They installed my mother in a swivel chair and began the procession and as each new crown appeared the reason for low lighting became apparent - without the shade your hair supplies your features are exposed cruelly. Blanche from the Glass Menagerie kept saying 'the lights the lights' and I felt overwhelmed by a sudden nausea and had to stumble out into the street for some air. My mothers head is so petite, the skull looks so fragile.
There I ran into Bennoe and Maureen coming along for walk, here from Dublin to do up their flat in Nice, and smiling I invited them in to the party. Inside Sylvie had just placed a voluptous mountain of ruby red curles on my mothers head, and she looked like a Rennaissance Queen. SO that was the ONE and we all managed to stave off the fear that was threatening to seep through from the outside glare of reality.
This morning things were like a slippery slope, neither of us knowing how bad things were going to get, pain and nausea and cold sweats and fear looming like the clouds hung thick on the horizon. I was glad of the trip to Nice, I even managed to stop into a shop - as long as noone tries to speak to me, I do not know whether I will be able to control the mask with strangers who do not need to know I am fine. I like driving with the music very loud most of all, like a bubble of sound containing me in my imaginary state of the future perfect.
But then i saw something - it seemed so unnatural. A seagull came swooping down onto the road in spite of the heavy traffic and scooped up the entrails of a dead pigeon. Birds eat seeds. Birds are beautiful feathered creatures that sing to us and fly around to remind us of the joys of freedom - like the little love bird that escaped from the zoo in st jean and speaks to me in the mornings.
the face of it
The door opens and then slams. She comes down and makes noises - little kind of noises like there has been an injustice. Noises that say 'Notice me - I want your full attention.' She decided that she was going to do a load of washng herself - but actually its all too much and she is sweating - why have i not read her mind and done it already.
She did not see the breakfast being made and cleared and surfaces bleached and the floor being swept. She did not go with me to do the shopping for the new water filter, special juice and meat, special bio food, rat poison, the chemist, then come back then find out what she wants then put everything away, give her a foot massage, put around the rat poison, prepare lunch, call the clinic, sort out the phone line, serve lunch, clean and put everything away again, get her an afternoon snack and listen to her fears of the next chemo and the operation and her ex and sooth her crying again and again and again until I wonder if tears are being absorbed by the humid atmosphere and having to force their way out. She only saw that I did not wash her towel before she pointed it out.
She wakes up and comes down and says 'when i do something I cant just leave it' jibe one, I ignore it. 'why did you not phone kristian back' jibe two. She walks past me three times more noises of injustice and seething.
Still saying silent prayers in my head she sits opposite me, over me and says 'Why didn't you bring your own computer down, I thought you said last time that you were going to.'
'Mum you were asleep and I am doing something now - for myself - I just need half an hour and then I can do everything.' I say calmly. Silence was the better option. She goes for it.
'You see!' she screeches, 'I cant say anything to you - I cant say anything and you just freak out' she says raising her voice.
I say nothing
She then goes up and slams a door, but needs the fight, wants the fight and comes out looking for it and says 'You cant take any criticism - you just want to make me feel bad for doing things for me, you just guilt trip me.If I am too much of a burden then just leave - I can look after myself.'
I sit there and watch - the hooks she uses to draw me in and the little chips she does to make me prickle. I watch this time - but this makes her angry. She wants me to say something - anything to fuel a fight so she goes and gets on the phone to my brother or father or someone and tells them that I am doing something to upset her. That I have said something that makes her feel ill. It happens a lot - like I am some malignant force in her life.
There is silence as I think of what to do - she must not sit up there in her anger and get more ill. I go up and ask is she ok. Silence. Then as I leave she starts again, over and over about what I said and how there was no need to say it and that it means I am trying to make her feel bad, make her feel sick. I see it is the insecurity driving her, the fear of being alone that makes her want to push me away and have control over me going. I see this because I used to do this with men - this kind of rejection due to insecurity that they do not love you enough. I see how angry it makes me - I see how normally i then try to tell her all i have done and how she then uses that as fuel - every last thing I have said is used for the next fight. Come to think of it any fight there is, is always a fight about the last fight and what i said or did not say - words dragged up and recycled as if 'time for myself' actually means 'you are a burden and I do not want to look after you' instead of just 'time for myself'.
I think I see - now having written it down - that this is a kind of bullying.
What I cannot see is why my own mother needs to do that to her only daughter. What I can't see is why the love I give is not enough and why in the end pushing me away and testing me constantly is all I know.
The evening ends with her screeching and me crying and her suddenly trying to hurt herself and getting the car keys and trying to leave in her nightdress in the night and me having to try and get her back to bed and calling for help - anyone help - please and stop her from hurting herself because I cannot anymore - but noone is there.
Is this the face of cancer?
She did not see the breakfast being made and cleared and surfaces bleached and the floor being swept. She did not go with me to do the shopping for the new water filter, special juice and meat, special bio food, rat poison, the chemist, then come back then find out what she wants then put everything away, give her a foot massage, put around the rat poison, prepare lunch, call the clinic, sort out the phone line, serve lunch, clean and put everything away again, get her an afternoon snack and listen to her fears of the next chemo and the operation and her ex and sooth her crying again and again and again until I wonder if tears are being absorbed by the humid atmosphere and having to force their way out. She only saw that I did not wash her towel before she pointed it out.
She wakes up and comes down and says 'when i do something I cant just leave it' jibe one, I ignore it. 'why did you not phone kristian back' jibe two. She walks past me three times more noises of injustice and seething.
Still saying silent prayers in my head she sits opposite me, over me and says 'Why didn't you bring your own computer down, I thought you said last time that you were going to.'
'Mum you were asleep and I am doing something now - for myself - I just need half an hour and then I can do everything.' I say calmly. Silence was the better option. She goes for it.
'You see!' she screeches, 'I cant say anything to you - I cant say anything and you just freak out' she says raising her voice.
I say nothing
She then goes up and slams a door, but needs the fight, wants the fight and comes out looking for it and says 'You cant take any criticism - you just want to make me feel bad for doing things for me, you just guilt trip me.If I am too much of a burden then just leave - I can look after myself.'
I sit there and watch - the hooks she uses to draw me in and the little chips she does to make me prickle. I watch this time - but this makes her angry. She wants me to say something - anything to fuel a fight so she goes and gets on the phone to my brother or father or someone and tells them that I am doing something to upset her. That I have said something that makes her feel ill. It happens a lot - like I am some malignant force in her life.
There is silence as I think of what to do - she must not sit up there in her anger and get more ill. I go up and ask is she ok. Silence. Then as I leave she starts again, over and over about what I said and how there was no need to say it and that it means I am trying to make her feel bad, make her feel sick. I see it is the insecurity driving her, the fear of being alone that makes her want to push me away and have control over me going. I see this because I used to do this with men - this kind of rejection due to insecurity that they do not love you enough. I see how angry it makes me - I see how normally i then try to tell her all i have done and how she then uses that as fuel - every last thing I have said is used for the next fight. Come to think of it any fight there is, is always a fight about the last fight and what i said or did not say - words dragged up and recycled as if 'time for myself' actually means 'you are a burden and I do not want to look after you' instead of just 'time for myself'.
I think I see - now having written it down - that this is a kind of bullying.
What I cannot see is why my own mother needs to do that to her only daughter. What I can't see is why the love I give is not enough and why in the end pushing me away and testing me constantly is all I know.
The evening ends with her screeching and me crying and her suddenly trying to hurt herself and getting the car keys and trying to leave in her nightdress in the night and me having to try and get her back to bed and calling for help - anyone help - please and stop her from hurting herself because I cannot anymore - but noone is there.
Is this the face of cancer?
late nights and early mornings
The texting starts at six am. Ramblings about solitude and having to face up to life on your own in the end. She is on day six after her seventh round of chemotherapy and her sister has gone back to Ireland leaving her with the nurse. I should be there, but I can't. I have been there many times from the beginning - but my own life has taken over and everything is balanced precariously. And last time was too much - too long.
I return the messages with reminders about loneliness being a state of mind and how she is surrounded by people who love her, but who cannot always fly out to be with her.
Then the phone rings 'I need to speak to your father'. I do not react, I have been the messenger for some time now. 'I have had some terrible news, have you heard?' She tells me of the sudden death of Frank - who she used to know when they were still together. She has the information before he does, and she wants to use it to establish a link again. But he won't take her calls. So I text and he replies saying he is getting on a plane from Lagos to Abuja and says he'll call when he lands. Which he does. Which upsets her - though they have been estranged for 10 years after a 5 year acrimonious divorce.
When he calls I talk for a little while, and his voice tells me he does not know.
So I ask 'Do you know?' and he asks 'know what?', and I ask 'Can you call mum?' and he says 'I cannot'
So I have to give him the news, which he would have heard anyway, but it is a small betrayal to her need to be close to him. I text her to say that he called and that he knows.
'What?! WHO TOLD HIM!' she yells with the letters
I look at this, sad that her need to use this information was the only way she had of getting close to him, even for a moment, and sad that she is not considering that this information is actually about a man who has died. A man I knew very well, who gave our little fractured family a home at Christmas when she was not there, a man who never judged me when I was having trouble growing up. A man who was a friend to us all and who will be missed more than she could know. Or maybe she does. How can I tell which it is anymore?
I send a reply '?'
Because I will not enter into a discussion about ownership on this, and I can no longer tell if there is an ulterior motive behind it or not, because I have seen it one way for too long.
I think about a book I have read, that tells you to repeat a little phrase in your mind when people overwhelm you. I think about a way of getting beyond this potential little fall out, without phoning dad and yelling 'why don't you just call her?' or phoning mum and saying 'what does it matter?' and without having to lie to both of them to stop either from hurting more.
And I decide to try out the little phrase that is supposed to help stop me from staring in to the massive well of deceit and pain that has been filling up for years.
.....
I need to talk about it because I need to get it out of my system, this build up of negotiated sensitivity, but I cannot think of someone who could share and listen without feeling the burden of it too. I cannot tell my husband, his tolerance for this has all but gone.
A great friend like the voice of an angel calls and draws it out of me and reminds me of Kurt's book 'Man without a country' who says there are not enough people in a modern marriage, not enough to share all the things we need to share and listen to all the things we need to say. That they come home, full of the stress of their day and do not want to know about the dysfunctional relationship that he once tried to fix and now wants to break completely.
She reminds me of how hard it is when they see someone hurting you and tell you to stop seeing them, and you turn around and say ' but I cannot because I love them.'
She reminds me to talk to other people and not put everything on him. She is my best friend and she has been doing this for longer than me.
He comes back late and I am finishing off a paper that has taken me two days to write and he is tired. I say nothing about the day. I make him some toast.
I cannot send the paper as the web goes down and I panic.
He tells me I am just making things worse, like the bank, like my life. He does not give me anything but criticism.
I lie alone in bed. He comes in and asks what is wrong I try to outline the ways in which the support has gone, and he just tells me to get a life of my own.
So I get up and go into the other room.
I feel the muscles that have relaxed to accommodate the child that is growing there contract in pain, I feel the need to stop everything, I feel the need to stop listening to them and to him and start being heard. To be on my own without all of this stuff that is in between.
I return the messages with reminders about loneliness being a state of mind and how she is surrounded by people who love her, but who cannot always fly out to be with her.
Then the phone rings 'I need to speak to your father'. I do not react, I have been the messenger for some time now. 'I have had some terrible news, have you heard?' She tells me of the sudden death of Frank - who she used to know when they were still together. She has the information before he does, and she wants to use it to establish a link again. But he won't take her calls. So I text and he replies saying he is getting on a plane from Lagos to Abuja and says he'll call when he lands. Which he does. Which upsets her - though they have been estranged for 10 years after a 5 year acrimonious divorce.
When he calls I talk for a little while, and his voice tells me he does not know.
So I ask 'Do you know?' and he asks 'know what?', and I ask 'Can you call mum?' and he says 'I cannot'
So I have to give him the news, which he would have heard anyway, but it is a small betrayal to her need to be close to him. I text her to say that he called and that he knows.
'What?! WHO TOLD HIM!' she yells with the letters
I look at this, sad that her need to use this information was the only way she had of getting close to him, even for a moment, and sad that she is not considering that this information is actually about a man who has died. A man I knew very well, who gave our little fractured family a home at Christmas when she was not there, a man who never judged me when I was having trouble growing up. A man who was a friend to us all and who will be missed more than she could know. Or maybe she does. How can I tell which it is anymore?
I send a reply '?'
Because I will not enter into a discussion about ownership on this, and I can no longer tell if there is an ulterior motive behind it or not, because I have seen it one way for too long.
I think about a book I have read, that tells you to repeat a little phrase in your mind when people overwhelm you. I think about a way of getting beyond this potential little fall out, without phoning dad and yelling 'why don't you just call her?' or phoning mum and saying 'what does it matter?' and without having to lie to both of them to stop either from hurting more.
And I decide to try out the little phrase that is supposed to help stop me from staring in to the massive well of deceit and pain that has been filling up for years.
.....
I need to talk about it because I need to get it out of my system, this build up of negotiated sensitivity, but I cannot think of someone who could share and listen without feeling the burden of it too. I cannot tell my husband, his tolerance for this has all but gone.
A great friend like the voice of an angel calls and draws it out of me and reminds me of Kurt's book 'Man without a country' who says there are not enough people in a modern marriage, not enough to share all the things we need to share and listen to all the things we need to say. That they come home, full of the stress of their day and do not want to know about the dysfunctional relationship that he once tried to fix and now wants to break completely.
She reminds me of how hard it is when they see someone hurting you and tell you to stop seeing them, and you turn around and say ' but I cannot because I love them.'
She reminds me to talk to other people and not put everything on him. She is my best friend and she has been doing this for longer than me.
He comes back late and I am finishing off a paper that has taken me two days to write and he is tired. I say nothing about the day. I make him some toast.
I cannot send the paper as the web goes down and I panic.
He tells me I am just making things worse, like the bank, like my life. He does not give me anything but criticism.
I lie alone in bed. He comes in and asks what is wrong I try to outline the ways in which the support has gone, and he just tells me to get a life of my own.
So I get up and go into the other room.
I feel the muscles that have relaxed to accommodate the child that is growing there contract in pain, I feel the need to stop everything, I feel the need to stop listening to them and to him and start being heard. To be on my own without all of this stuff that is in between.
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