Lightness

"And to answer that question I had to think myself out of the room, back into the past, before the war indeed, and to set before my eyes the model of another luncheon party held in rooms not very far distant from these; but different. Everything was different. Meanwhile the talk went on among the guests, who were many and young, some of this sex, some of that; it went on swimmingly, it went on agreeably, freely, amusingly. And as it went on I set it against the background of that other talk, and as I matched the two together I had no doubt that one was the descendant, the legitimate heir of the other. Nothing was changed; nothing was different save only here I listened with all my ears not entirely to what was being said, but to the murmur or current behind it. Yes, that was it—the change was there. Before the war at a luncheon party like this people would have said precisely the same things but they would have sounded different, because in those days they were accompanied by a sort of humming noise, not articulate, but musical, exciting, which changed the value of the words themselves. Could one set that humming noise to words? Perhaps with the help of the poets one could.. A book lay beside me and, opening it, I turned casually enough to Tennyson. And here I found Tennyson was singing:

There has fallen a splendid tear

From the passion–flower at the gate.

She is coming, my dove, my dear;

She is coming, my life, my fate;

The red rose cries, ‘She is near, she is near’;

And the white rose weeps, ‘She is late’;

The larkspur listens, ‘I hear, I hear’;

And the lily whispers, ‘I wait.’

Was that what men hummed at luncheon parties before the war? And the women?

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

My heart is like an apple tree

Whose. houghs are bent with thick–set fruit,

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these

Because my love is come to me.

Was that what women hummed at luncheon parties before the war?

*


Yes, to-day I have started the blog with none other than a far too long pull-quote from the Woolf, my literary Mum, because I can, because this is blog-dom and there is not an editor in sight. And mostly because, the music is gone.
There is something so distant about the France that I sometimes look for in the streets, Godard's and Piaf's and Vian's-- where did it go? What is this obsessive anxiety that keeps everyone in this country so petrified, as if there were a permanent stranglehold on them just waiting to tighten its grip?

I've heard this from many people namely who are old enough to remember, so older than 40.

People used to have races along the Champs-Elysées at midnight.

People used to drive at top speed to Lyon for dinner and back.

People used to not have codes on their doors.

People used to not have doors on their inner courtyards.

People used to be able to have a full hot meal for less than 10 euros.

People used to be able to find work more easily.

People used to appreciate more.

I'm not nostalgic. I wasn't there. But there is a certain lightness that I don't find and I don't think it's gone forever but I feel it is an actual war that we must be engaged in to find it again. It's a battle where our arms are laughter, irony and simple questions. It's not about marching in the streets. It's about how we live. How we treat each other.

On Monday, someone threw himself in front of the TGV I was on.

We who know the value of laughter, who have food to eat and shelter from the elements cannot give up this fight. It's almost as if we haven't the right to let ourselves go because we have so much to give.

I believe that ideas create and that thought is the seed of action and indeed the source of everything that we live in this world. If we are depressed, it's because we haven't used our imagination enough, like J.K. Rowling mentioned. Life is a struggle but a struggle for the good.

Any monster can disappear if you can find the ridicule in the image.