November in December

You can not find peace by avoiding life

I remember one morning getting up at dawn, there was such a sense of possibility.
You know, that feeling?
And I remember thinking to myself: So, this is the beginning of happiness.
This is where it starts.
And of course there will always be more.
It never occurred to me it wasn't the beginning.
It was happiness.
It was the moment.
Right then.


(The hours, 2002)


I remember the room. I remember everyone smiling and looking at her.
I remember her smiling. He was smiling too, thinking they would be happy together for the rest of their lives. And she?
What did she think in that exact instant? I have no idea. I know what she was doing: She was grabbing on to the idea of happiness with a firm idealistic belief in the future.

And then, in France:"Will I never sleep with anyone else for the rest of my life?"

Can it be that you have everything (the things that everyone considers everything) and then, in the course of fifteen months you slowly come to the decision to throw it all away.

No.

The decision comes to you. It just grabs you. You didn't know in advance. Not that afternoon on the boat, when you could have cried of boredom and loneliness, but one random night. Your unhappiness has gained so much strength and it has collected inside you with such unbreakable conviction that when he walks by (sent by whom? By God or the Devil? Will you ever be able to conclude it was God?) you stop him and, suddenly, the decision has taken human form.

And then,

like a flood people are carried away.
People and things. Whole houses are being carried away on those violent waves of obstinate certainty and you just stand there, watching. No tears.

A few years later you hide in a rented apartment in the midst of Amsterdam life and you spend a little bit too much of your time watching movies while you can't conjure up the you that did what she did. You can't remember her thoughts and her real feelings. No matter what you do you just see an image of someone doing things.

This girl racing through the small town on her bicycle, eyes on her watch. She's making phone calls and making up stories. She's cooking dinner and cooking up lies.

But what did she feel exactly?
Whatever she felt, I know now she didn't know (how could she possibly have known) the tears come later.

(LB)