Another year over.
New Year's Eve chez Louis
To borrow from the second best Elizabeth on this earth, she of the crown and posh accent, I am very glad to have now seen the back end of my annus horribilus. While there was certainly plenty to be happy about, I can run faster, I can smile and I am far from destitute; there was a cataclysmic shock to the system in the spring that defined my 2011 and all of the events that followed. Everything I did became about ‘getting over it’, feeling better about myself and redefining my existence balancing upon that ever so thin line between Bubbly Bridget Jones and Melancholic Miss Havisham.
Motherbear tells me I am a drama queen, my colleagues tell me I shout too much, I write about the most mundane events of my life on a weekly basis, twisting words to make grocery shopping or catching a train sound like a War or the Worlds/Gone with the Wind mash up. Why settle for mediocrity when language can transform your life into a one-woman stage play? Births, deaths, marriages, holidays, break ups and make ups, visits to places I’ve not seen before, pilgrimages back to the parched red clay of my homeland, hired, fired, happy or sad, there has been one constant throughout it all.
My eyes.
They are slightly larger than they should be, occupying a full third of my face. They change from turquoise blue to clear grey depending on the colour of the sky or the tone of my shirt. They are often hidden behind red-rimmed glasses of all too rapidly increasing strength. But unfortunately, (in my annual performance review for example), no matter how politic I attempt to be, these eyes are a dead give away to every micron of emotion, kernel of opinion or fragment of thought.
If I don’t like you, the crease in the middle of my eyes will inform you of my hatred even if I don’t. If you pinch my delicate sensibilities, the welling dampness in the corners will give away my pain despite my carefully constructed response feigning indifference. Carried away on the waves of comedy, I try to giggle discreetly but my eyes will be saucer-wide with hysteria.
In the corporatised planful* world that we live in, it is no longer socially acceptable to be someone who wears their proverbial heart on their sleeve.
Crying with despair at your iPad when Red Dog died, in front of a full carriage of channel tourists in the Eurostar is a minor infraction. After all Red Dog was red and a visually expressive dog. Watching him pant in pain after being poisoned is more than most people could bear. Crying in pure desperation as you stand under the soothing water of a hot shower is my a weekly ritual; the water trickling away a little bit of the pool of steam that fuels my shallow temper. But crying during a catch up with your manager, or in the middle of a meeting of 100 colleagues, or as you argue with the banker about how to fill in a form or worse still, on the Metro, in front of 1000 people, because someone has just pushed you over…again…and you fell…again…bags akimbo…well, it is really not very cool.
Feet that struggle to keep the eyes upright
Not that I have ever been cool, but roll with me here…
I find some relief in the knowledge that for every tear I’ve shed, there has been a raucous laugh of equal intensity. I love to laugh out loud like a man and I’ve been lucky to have plenty of reasons to do so over the last few weeks.
Firstly, I discovered The Inbetweeners Movie. If you haven’t seen it, you should. Such astute and witty commentary on how ridiculous the English become when on holiday, languishing beside one of Europe’s many Mediterranean beaches is exceptionally funny. And then there is ‘The Dance’. EMPIRE magazine, my personal film bible, listed it as the second best film moment of the year just after Harry Potter killing Voldemort. I found a link in YouTube here but without the context of the film, I’m not sure you will laugh like you should.
Secondly, I have a most talented friend, Collette, who wrote the funniest one-women Opera, about a girl who spends too much time on Facebook. The Opera was brilliant, if scarily biographical, and ever so cunningly funny. I laughed, like an infant watching the Muppets, for 45 solid minutes. Other people laughed too, like they should, but I was slapping my thighs, doubled over in peals and at one point shed tears. I say, why just be an observer when you can truly participate?
Then Finally, I have comedic friends, my own troupe of Monty Pythons. Those you know, La Franglaise, Braveheart, Louis XIV, and some new ones, lets call them Don Juan and the Milky Bar Kid, cohorts with whom I have spent too much time over recent weeks.
A glass of wine after work, an apero at the weekend and even full blown benders that end at 4am are threaded together with the telling of stories, the reciting of experiences and the fact that we all have something in common, something that I cannot reveal here. Their company has afforded me a winter of side-splitting laughter alleviating the weighty stress of the daily grind. La Franglaise’s biting wit, Braveheart’s genuine joy for life, Louis’ faux-snobbery, The Milky Bar Kid’s refreshing innocence and Don Juan, apart from being dark and mysteriously Iberian, is blessed with an earnest belief in the innate good of human nature, a belief in which I am gradually proving him wrong.
Imagine that fantastic scene in Pulp Fiction with Christopher Walken and ‘this watch’; hear that voice, see those eyes and reflect on this.
These eyes, these eyes have seen more of this world than they ever thought possible. These eyes look into the dark grey wintry sky of Paris and know that tomorrow will still come. These eyes look out into the world in the naïve hope that Colin Firth might dump his eco-wife or that Bradley Cooper might decide to perfect his French from within my flat. These eyes stare into the LED void of a computer screen and hope that you feel a microscopic shard of something after you’ve read this. These eyes just shed a tear. These eyes look into the sea of people pressing upon me as I whistle a happy (OK, Madonna) tune.
‘you know how to whistle don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”
And the beat goes on...
* How pleased was I to see a squiggly red line under this word. A word used increasingly in the working world, a word that does not exist and is certainly nota replacement for the dictionary approved prepared
AGAIN!!!..You make me laugh AND cry honey!! Keep your witty repartees coming.....I look forward to your laconic wit and charm, and again embrace the world from a whole different perspective! As Jason from So You Think You Can Dance says "LOVED IT! LOVED IT! LOVED IT!!!"
Posted by: Michelle | 01/21/2012 at 10:34 PM
My Darling M, among many other things in which you excel your photography skills are fast becoming exceptional - How good is this last photo of Big Ben! (btw the blog is also good) love ya and miss ya lots
Posted by: Luke Johnson | 01/22/2012 at 07:54 AM