Struck, turalisme

The countryside is coming alive with scents. The world smells wonderful. Magnolia, with its macabre undertones thanks to Billy Holiday, the heady fragrance of quince blossom I have yet to hear anybody sing about, and the totally intoxicating nostalgia of hawthorn. When I smell hawthorn I am small and new again. The lilac is budded, the flowers not fully open, but it is everywhere. The mimosa – took ages to find that name, myosotis was on my lips – the mimosa has faded. We have no electronic devices for capturing and transmitting smells, no matter how sweet.

Et tu Brute, Obama confused England and Britain and his wife tapped the Queen on the back! Our wee group of countries is so incongruous in the modern world, so mixed up they can’t portray who they are to the outside (yes I speak English and the parliament that decides on everything for me is in England but that does not make me English!) and why do they still have a queen anyway?

There was yet another killing in America, in an old folk’s home in a town called Carthage. I immediately thought “Carnage in Carthage”. Carthaginian certainly has a warlike ring to it, and indeed, Carthage used to be the capital of the Vandal kingdom, of all places.

It always amazes me how a single letter change can throw the meaning of a word miles off. I get these moments often. The other day it was “doar” for door.

And as I was listening to the radio I heard someone say “scie” followed, what seemed like a long time afterwards, by “canaliste”. That amused me, too. Il était si…… canaliste…



An idea I found in Tolle that is very important to me: background unhappiness is not content-based but structural.


The machine is a book vending machine in an airport...

No kidding

I was driving my son and his friend somewhere in the car the other day when he said to his pal: “de toute façon, c’est simple ; ma mère va se tuer si elle continue à fumer, et si elle arrête, c’est moi qu’elle va tuer”. (“my mother is going to kill herself if she keeps on smoking and if she stops, it’s me she’ll kill”.). The word nutshell comes to mind. Realising that there were in fact murderous pulsions at work, progress indeed, I decided I don't want to kill myself or my son or my analyst or any other significant Other. So the thought crosses my mind that I need an anonymous victim or scapegoat. Bouc émissaire in French.
The Chinese birth sign for my year is usually called the goat but the animal is more like a male sheep. They obviously have trouble separating the sheep from the goats. Ram, in English, belier in French. She-goat would be Chèvre or Billy goat, Bouc (which sounds awfully like book). Last week, my friend Joëlle Sambi was presenting her novel called "Le monde est gueule de chèvre"

And imagine my surprise when I read Patricia’s blog post in which she relates that Dakar is being invaded by sheep!

I'm feeling sheepish, as well be hanged for a goat as a ram. A goat by any other name would smell … like a bouc-A of roses…