Winged Stones
I like driving and listening to the radio, so that I can be acoustically isolated from the rest of the world. But when I got home that day I realised I had driven in perfect silence without even noticing. David ans Linda’s story was simply amazing. And yet I could not deny that, even in the incredible circumstances under which their family had formed, it displayed very common dynamics.
Obviously things had been different for David and Linda. He had fallen in love as soon as he had seen her. Linda seemed to have mixed feelings for David. She knew he was younger but he had lied to her, so she thought he was 19 (even now, I thought, David looked a little older. I had thought he might be 36 whereas he was only 32). She was protective of him but also liked the fact that David was very protective of her, too. She seemed to be attracted as well as slightly scared of his mood swings, ranging from boredom and apathy to rage and hyper activism. She tried to understand him but it was not easy because David himself couldn’t.
Linda made David realise how messy his life was. His life and his art. He had convinced his mother to let him quit school. His life could have been complete anarchy. But Linda had helped him discipline himself and his work. She believed in technique as well as emotion. David was pure instinct, but had learned to appreciate formal control.
As it always happens, those differences which had ended up being fatal for their couple had showed up at the beginning of their relationship. The day he moved to start a new life in Portland David casted a last look on the house which had contained his hopes and dreams as well as his family, put a suitcase in the trunk of his car and wondered how it was possible that he had forgotten he had admired Linda for precisely the things he was separating from her.
He remember it was Linda who had first encouraged him to write poems. Through them he had finally been able to manage his anger and had discovered that there’s nothing as powerful and terrible as controlled rage. He had started writing tentatively, just to make Linda admire him, but had discovered that writing could be as absorbing, liberating and therapeutic as painting. Words were streets to him. And rails, hot rails in the sun taking him back to a familiar place as well as promising new destinations. He would taste them slowly, sucking them as liquorice sticks. He would throw them, not caring about where they would land twirling like ribbons. Sometimes they felt like light stones and it was not difficult to give them wings. Sometimes he had to struggle with the accents and metrics but then his words would seem to have been purified by his efforts and the formal framework he had inserted them into.
Being with Linda, understanding her, felt easy and difficult at the same time. She seemed to enjoy talking about artistic creation as well as he did. She liked giving David reading suggestions. One day she mentioned John Milton; David had never heard of him but he didn’t want Linda to know, so he went to the public library and borrowed The Paradise Lost.
He had no idea that this poem would change his life.
Dusk Settles
Sometimes I feel the bond to the past events narrated in this blog is losing its strength. It is not necessarily a bad sensation. Sometimes I wish I could forget everything, sometimes I feel the need to preserve everything, every single minute, every single detail.
One thing is for sure: there is no way of getting rid of the past, it is engraved on our flesh and skin, not only in the curled recesses of our mind. But sometimes we are so caught up in our present, in our daily activities, that we forget we are body and soul, and even if the soul should trick herself into thinking she can fly without the burden of our past days, there is no way our body ever forgets.
Therefore I know it won’t be long before I can sit and write you about my lunch with David or my meeting with Gwen. I just need dusk to settle first.
Alpha Males
Alpha males are the leaders of animal communities. Nature chooses some of her sons and makes them inclined to command. The rest of the males defer to the alpha and the female members of the community fight over him.
David Sourcil was an alpha male: men can always recognize natural leaders when they see them. The fact that I hated him from day one actually says more about me than about him, I guess. I’ve always thought of myself as a gregarious animal, but things are probably different. I think I would naturally be an alpha male myself, but I’m too politically correct to fully acknowledge it. I’ve always rejected leadership, but I must admit I’ve always been able to influence others, to appear reasonable and persuasive, to make people do what I wanted. This sharply contrasts with my shyness, but opposites seem to co-exist in me.
I was formulating these thoughts somewhere deep in my mind as I invited David Sourcil to have a seat in my office. Natalie left the room quietly, but not without casting a last admired glance at the young man sitting in front of me. I couldn’t help feeling annoyed. I’m afraid university professors, alpha males or otherwise, tend to be very jealous of their territory. We are supposed to be cleverer than people with worse education, but we are just as hopeless.
-I need to talk to you about something, Mr. Eyebrow, David said. Then, in order to break the ice, he added:
-Have you had lunch yet?
-It’s 3 pm! I replied. – Of course I have.
- Well, I have been very busy with correcting papers and I still need to go to lunch. Would you mind talking in the cafeteria?
- Of course not.
-Thanks a lot.
The guy seemed kind and friendly, which made me hate him even more. On our way to the cafeteria I caught a lot of female glances directed at him, but he made no sign of noticing it. Maybe he was just used to it, I couldn’t tell. He had bright eyes which contrasted with his dark, heavy eyebrows. His hair was of a slightly brighter shade. Gwen had identical eyes but much fairer hair. And now that I came to think of it, I had never been able to see her eyebrows.
David was slowly chewing his sandwich and showed no hurry. On the other hand, I was very impatient to know what he wanted to talk to me about, so I asked him. He put his sandwich down, drank some water, and said:
- I know you’ve told my daughter Gwen that you don’t want to tutor her. I’m here to ask you to reconsider.
He looked me in the eye defiantly and said no more. He simply picked his sandwich up and finished it.
Of course I could have said no, especially as I didn’t like the man who was talking to me, but, deep inside, I knew it was not what I wanted. Somehow, my trip to Saskatchewan had produced an irreversible change in me. I didn’t know what it was yet, but I felt it had to do with Gwen and her family. After years spent confuting theories I felt the indigo children I had met were a new, unexplored universe of possibilities.
Besides, I had often had the impression that an external force, call it fate, destiny or whatever, was pushing me towards a greater involvement with the Sourcils.
And I was curious to see where this would take me.
Unavailable
I haven’t had time to write my blog lately. I have been very busy. In my twenties and thirties I often had the feeling I was caught up in a web made up of office hours, classes, taxis, trains, books I had to read or write, students whose name I should have remembered, things I had promised my son I would do and never did.
As an astronomer I should have spent my time looking at the sky, hanging between the earth and the stars; my daily life kept me firmly anchored to the ground instead. I could not complain: what I had was what I had chosen for myself. I had always wanted to become a scholar and I had been clever and lucky enough to become one. Granted, I had to work hard. Granted, I slept no more than five, six hours per night. Granted, I spent more time with my students than with my family. But I had known it from the beginning and my wife had known it, too: we were both trying to do our best, hoping it would be enough.
I used to take a lot of planes at that time and I remember enjoying the sensation of being isolated from the rest of the world. My cell phone was switched off, my laptop was switched off, I was unavailable. My thoughts would slowly unroll like little locks of smoke, the deadened sounds of lazy conversations would help them widen.
As I was fastening my seat belt, that late afternoon, my thoughts were all centered around Gwendolyn and her mother. I had got up at dawn and I was tired, but I knew my ideas were extremely clear. I massaged my eyelids with my fingertips. I laid my head on the headrest.
Linda was an incredible woman. She was skinny and you couldn’t call her beautiful- yet. I couldn’t help thinking she was sexy in her own, awkward way. Jett had taken after her having brown hair and almond shaped hazel eyes. As Devi and I entered the diner, that morning, he was watching a Youtube video on his laptop. Linda was making coffee and Gwendolyn was playing with their dog. Ben hadn’t showed up yet.
Linda was very friendly, offered us a mug of much needed coffee and coconuts biscuits. Ben had told her everything about us and our short visit, and she was glad to have the chance to meet us in person. She knew Devi was an artist who was intensely interested in indigo art, so she had asked Jett to bring his laptop so that he could surf the net and help her locate all indigo children in the West of Canada. It seemed a very nice offer and Devi was not able to decline it: of course she knew as well as I did that this was a clever way of excluding her from the conversation I was going to have with Gwendolyn and he mother. Linda could be as friendly as determined in getting what she wanted ( I should have remembered it in the future but of course I didn’t!)
Gwendolyn was very quiet: it was very early and she probably wasn’t a morning person. I noticed that she was wearing a bandanna which covered her hair, forehead and eyebrows. She was looking at me and I couldn’t interpret the expression on her face.
-I apologise for arranging an appointment so early in the morning, Linda said. – But Gwen feels she has been very rude to you yesterday and she wanted to tell you she’s sorry about that.
- Oh, that’s very nice of you Gwendolyn, I replied addressing the kid directly. Gwendolyn’s sounded like a lame excuse. Apologising for being rude is something a twelve-year-old would never do, let alone a twelve-year-old as cheeky as the blond indigo child sitting in front of me.
Linda seemed to echo my thoughts: – She did take me by surprise, you know. That’s not what this young lady would normally do, so I must admit I was very curious to meet you and I agreed to contact your Indian friend and to arrange this meeting. So, Gwen, what is it that you wanted to tell Mr. Eyebrow?
-You can call me Indigo.
- I’m sorry I was rude yesterday. You know, I was playing basketball and you and your friend arrived and interrupted me and I hate being interrupted.
- You’d better stop acting like a spoiled princess, young lady! Linda’s eyes moved from her child to me. -So, Indigo, what brings you to Saskatchewan?
-He’s an astronomer, mom.
- Really? I thought you were a painter or an art scholar!
- No, I’m no art expert at all. Devi is. We went to Kinvarra’s Todepp exhibit and her mother told us about your children.
-She did? Wow!
I knew what she meant. Mrs. Todepp was jealous of Gwen’s and Jett’s talent which was so much greater than her daughter’s. We both chuckled. I liked her.
Gwen seemed impatient now. -Mr.Eyebrow is on sabbatical mom. That’s why he’s been travelling. He normally lives in Portland and since he’s such a great scholar I was wondering if…
-NO! Linda didn’t let her finish. -I know what you’re gonna say and the answer is no. Just forget it!
- But MOM! Dad lives there! I could go and live with him…
-NO! Linda was inflexible in her decision. I asked for an explanation. Apparently, Gwen’s father lived in Portland. We both worked at the same university but for another department. Gwen had been dreaming about living with her dad since he had left for Portland, a year and a half before. She wanted to move to Portland and to quit school to have private tuition. She couldn’t bear being surrounded by slower kids any longer. So she had thought that her father could have been her tutor for English while I could have given her maths and science class. While her mother was explaining all this to me she had been biting her lip. She looked flushed with anger and yet she was trying to control herself and to appear reasonable, in the hope I would say yes and convince her mother hers was a good idea. But of course I didn’t.
- I’m very sorry Gwendolyn but I can’t help you. As you said, I’m on sabbatical, but that doesn’t mean I’m on vacation. I’m pretty busy right now. I’m working on two books right now, then, in spring, I will be attending quite a few seminars. I couldn’t find the time to be your tutor even if I wanted to. I’m really sorry.
Gwen went to the back-garden without a word. But I couldn’t help noticing her look as she was leaving. She was mutely accusing me: why was I letting her down after we had met in such a singular way during the night?
Had I really seen accusation in her eyes or was it just my imagination?
Saskatchewan At Dawn
Can dreams interfere with our life? When the consciousness that we are dreaming intrudes in our oneiric life we seem to be able to control our dreams, but can we do the opposite? Art seems to provide a postive answer to this question. Art is the utmost expression of the power of control and the disruptive force of instinct at the same time.
This much was clear even to a man of science like me, an astronomy professor trained to approach things rationally. I kept repeating to myself my meeting with Gwendolyn in the dream could not be correlated to the phone call I had just received. My thoughts were racing and I decided to take a quick shower. I had no time to shave. In big contrast to my restless state of mind, Saskatchewan was waking up slowly, flooded by a ghostly light. It would be another cloudy and rainy day. I put my luggage in the truck of the car and took a minute to take a good, last look at the Canadian skyline. In the late afternoon I would fly back home.
Devi greeted me coldly as she got into the car. She had arranged to meet Gwendolyn, Jett and their mother Linda at the diner before the kids had to go to school. Even though I was driving I could tell she was looking at me suspiciously. Things between me and her had radically changed over the last few hours. Since we had been at Kinvarra’s exhibit, she had taken all the decisions and I had followed her like I had been her sidekick. She had shared her knowledge of indigo children with me when she had felt like it. I knew there were things she hadn’t told me. And now it was the other way round. She wanted to know why Gwendolyn had decided to see me out of the blue, she wanted to know what had happened, but she didn’t dare to ask.
Of course, if she had asked I wouldn’t have told her. I had learned not to trust the woman completely. She certainly had an aim in mind regarding indigo children and she wouldn’t share it with me, so I really didn’t know what to think of her. One thing was for sure, she could be very manipulative. Besides, what could I have told her? That I had met Gwendolyn in my dreams and she had met me in hers? Was that the reason why we were driving to the diner? I simply could not believe it.
Anyway, I was a few minutes away from the truth.
I’d love to thank everybody who’s been reading my story so far: I wasn’t expecting to have such nice comments and someone even devoted a post to my blog. I hope you’ll keep reading it and tell me what you think about it (please feel free to tell me if you think I should have acted differently).
