She writes …..
I look upon it all as would a monk in meditation
the cells we live inside
the Cell
I ask —facing the light as daily I do need to know; what for ….and the silent answer loud is in reply …. You are upon it ! ….the words echo ever after ….worry not nuntius
How little my inner routine changes even with the Swedish headquarters
I try to paint in the studio Jörn built for me next to the sauna but my mind is so restless.
The news is horrible everywhere and all I want is to bury my head in search for something that makes any sense to me anymore.
So after an hour holding my paintbrush and staring at nothing, I decide to walk back to the barn house. Jörn and his father have hidden away in Jörn’s office with Zoom meetings and the transferring of power from Josef to Jörn requires hours of them locked away.
Elsa has gone back to the city. She said to see Andreas perform and check in on the Swedish Opera House that is actually located not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A block or so from Gerald’s and not too far from the Plaza hotel. But when I think of present life ….
I don’t fit anywhere that makes any sense
I’m not used to family; to people noticing if I’ve stepped out or returned…. The awareness of that unknown phenomena to me (always watching but never among one; always watching from outside, the outsider; other people with other families from outside their window; like my nose up against the glass: wonder—what is that like?)I felt and noticed of the ‘familia’comfort of Jörn’s family presence. Being around them. At first it was so hard for me ….accepting thoughtful gestures even as I like to give them, accepting it is impossible to me…. I’m not used to it. I find moments when I stop and fall into thought as I try to determine if —I don’t mind if anyone notices —was she hit by a car; fall into a pit; get accosted by someone…. No, I’m not used to that
And also, I realize something else that seems to bother me…. The real world out there?
Real?
I find I have trouble connecting with the electronic world. I don’t notice that people have an authentic heartbeat.
People, I guess I find, aren’t real in the real world,
it’s all a persona and though people are talking constantly out there through that electronic screen, no one is saying anything. They are just filling time and deluding themselves that time is endless for them and they just get a set of new hearts when they refresh their game
and deep in such thoughts, irony! what’s worse it seems I keep hearing Link’s theme playing in my head
but for me, it is not at all what being alive is—I cannot giggle life off in empty performance and stare at a screen and make pretend as the real game —life— is meant to be engaged in but people don’t do that much so, I find I sit and often brood ….trying to find something constructive to fill the void that’s gone missing out there
“Duvan,” Josef has taken to calling me by Hanna’s version of her father’s name for me
and when he says it now it gives me such a start as I hadn’t seen him there
I look as he walks over to me,
“you have been angry at me,” he says and looks into my eyes with his deep Nordic blue that sees everything
How altered I feel now. And to find myself back at the barn house again; as if nothing ever happened
I think about the last few weeks as I stare looking across the length of the room to the window that faces the farmhouse.
But I remain where I am. Reluctant to get out of bed.
The night of the retirement party …. feels like an eternity ago —straight from Latitude and still in my Christmas sweater, he throws me into the Swedish UN in the barn house living room. There’s Elsa dripping diamonds in her gilded gown (alliterations unintended)
well— it was Josef’s ‘retirement’ (but do we really believe he will ever retire?) as much as the passing of the baton ….everyone was there. I recognized Marcus; the director from the time in the Hamptons. Of course the usual suspects; Stina, Smulligan
I did have to work it too because Elsa, once she scared away the catering crew, wrapped an apron around me and joined the guests! It was like being back at Starbucks behind the barista machine with a massive line and my entire staff quit on me. You don’t forget how to juggle but how dare she?
Why don’t I care ….? I feel calm, so relaxed; considered and cared for and whole somehow
Andreas was there but only about ten minutes as he was rushing back to Lincoln Center.
They put a helicopter land behind the house —an interesting new feature Jörn came up with so it’s like a commute to Manhattan and the noise!
I was too busy to enjoy the party and exhausted after. But somehow it is like Jörn’s family has bonded to me now. That shut out feeling isn’t there anymore, I feel included which ….I've never felt or known before
The last clear day I could get out before the snows hit I was on my way back to the house and my mind was on the smeden…. from the regressive memories …. the barn house from the drive up looks like a Viking longhouse and suddenly I remembered something about —that time
“There’s always been rumor I exist,” I shrug now after a deep breath.
Identity?
I get up and walk around the room….strange to be back here again ….back at the barn house in our old bedroom.
“You get used to hiding ….” I glance up at Jörn sideways to see if he is looking at me and he is
I turn my back a bit. Take a deep breath ….
“one day —I was a teenager in Holland ….it was this one day in Amsterdam. I stepped away from my family —the Calvestraat…. I got approached by an Italian fashion photographer —well known then, he gave me his card and said they were searching for a new face— he told me he could make me famous—that I had an itgirl face and that I would be the next face of Clinique ….” I laugh now
shrug
“It is just as well but ….of course it was forbidden!”
The card shredded up. I could never stand out. It was law. I am nobody. I don’t exist.
It is hard to always process the road blocks intentionally put in my may to destroy me ….it can make me crazy if I let myself really comprehend the masterminds involved
You learn to hide ….all the very things I desired were roadblocks against me. I didn’t understand as a young person. I blamed myself. I never knew what it was; why …. it was me; something cursed ….i just didn’t get it until the sessions with Dr. Rothschild ….
“No RADA for me,” I say laughing at myself
“It was when I came across an old photo of him,” Jörn tells me, “without the mustache as when he was at university ….I got chills….you are the spit of him.”
“So?”
“The signature hair cut,” he says looking at me, “whose idea?”
I smile up at him and shrug,
“so what of it?”
Because I know what he is saying,
“she used to tweeze my eye brows. Remove the arch….yes….but could you blame her?”
“Identity,” Jörn says like a headmaster reminder for a quiz
I shut him out. I squeeze my eyes tight. I cover my ears and my eyes….let the weight of my hair tumble forward ….
“I learned how to hide in plain sight….” I say
But add,
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. She did what she had to do…. I don’t exist. I don’t matter ….”
Electra—How is it that I am able to think so much clearer now….i had not expected to feel this; I feel different….much different….I feel alive again ….and the world less terrible somehow….it is not just knowing that I am lusted for and desirable, that is part of it I suppose but no, it is the act itself of getting lost in someone else; their energy…. their heat….their smell, their savage rhythm….all focused on me….but utterly caught up in them ….and so sore now, can hardly walk, three times in one night, I don’t need a work out for sure but perhaps sleep ….
I think this has opened a memory in me….a past life memory but something else —something like I remember now what it was that I have been blocking….it came to me during intercourse as he was trying something different with me I’d not ever done and it was because of the act itself that the memory just came to me
….I know what it is now ….but I must not ever say it aloud —Jörn must never know
I must talk to Gerald, I think
