One of the symptoms I’ve noticed in myself is a kind of psychological nearsightedness. My world, which once seemed so broad and full of possibilities, began to shrink as my need for security grew. Why could that be? It must be a quality we inherited from when our ancestors lived in caves. Groups provide protection; loners die.
Even though we know that the group can’t possibly control everything—for example, your hair falling out or a cell in your body that suddenly goes crazy and becomes a tumor—the false sense of security makes us forget this. The more clearly we can see the walls of our life, the better. Even if it’s only a psychological boundary, even if, deep down, we know that death will still enter without asking, it’s comforting to pretend that we have everything under control.
Lately, my mind has been as rough and tempestuous as the sea. When I look back now, it’s as if I am making a transoceanic voyage on a rudimentary raft, in the middle of the stormy season. Will I survive? I ask, now that there is no going back.
Of course I will.
I’ve survived storms before. I’ve also made a list of things to focus on whenever I feel I’m in danger of falling back into the black hole: · Play with my children. Read them stories that provide a lesson for them and for me, because stories are ageless.
· Look up at the sky.
· Drink lots of iced mineral water. That may seem simple, but it always invigorates me.
· Cook. Cooking is the most beautiful and most complete of the arts. It involves all our five senses, plus one more—the need to give of our best. That is my preferred therapy.
· Write down a list of complaints. This was a real discovery! Every time I feel angry about something, I write it down. At the end of the day, when I read the list, I realize that I’ve been angry about nothing.
· Smile, even if I feel like crying. That is the most difficult thing on the list, but you get used to it. Buddhists say that a fixed smile, however false, lights up the soul.
· Take two showers a day, instead of one. It dries the skin because of the hard water and chlorine, but it’s worth it, because it washes the soul clean.
But this is working now only because I have a goal: to win the heart of a man. I’m a cornered tiger with nowhere to run; the only option that remains is to attack.
I FINALLY have a date: tomorrow at three o’clock in the restaurant of the Golf Club de Genève in Cologny. It could have been in a bistro in the city or in a bar on one of the roads that lead off from the city’s main (or you might say only) commercial street, but he chose the restaurant at the golf club.
In the middle of the afternoon.
Because at that hour, the restaurant will be empty and we’ll have more privacy. I need to come up with a good excuse for my boss, but that’s not a problem. After all, the article I wrote about the elections was picked up by lots of other newspapers.
A discreet place, that’s what he must have had in mind. But in my usual mania for believing whatever I want, I think of it as romantic. Autumn has already painted the trees many shades of gold; perhaps I’ll invite Jacob to go for a walk. I think better when I’m moving, especially when I run, as proven in Nyon, but I doubt very much that we’ll do any running.
Ha, ha, ha.
Tonight for dinner we had a cheese fondue that we Swiss call raclette, accompanied by thin slices of raw bison meat and traditional r?sti potatoes with cream. My family asked if we were celebrating something special, and I said that we were: the fact that we were together and could enjoy a quiet dinner in one another’s company. Then I took my second shower of the day and allowed the water to wash away my anxiety. Afterward, I slathered on plenty of moisturizer and went to the children’s bedroom to read them a story. I found them glued to their tablets, which I think should be forbidden for anyone under fifteen.
I told them to turn their electronics off, and they reluctantly obeyed. I picked up a book of traditional stories, opened it at random, and began to read.
During the ice age, many animals died of cold, so the porcupines decided to band together to provide one another with warmth and protection. But their spines or quills kept sticking into their surrounding companions, precisely those who provided the most warmth. And so they drifted apart again.
And again many of them died of cold.
They had to make a choice: either risk extinction or accept their fellow porcupines’ spines.
Very wisely, they decided to huddle together again. They learned to live with the minor wounds inflicted by their relatives, because the most important thing to their survival was that shared warmth.
The children want to know if they can see a real porcupine.
“Are there any at the zoo?”
I don’t know.
“What’s the ice age?”
A time when it was very, very cold.
“Like winter?”
Yes, but a winter that never ended.
“But why didn’t they remove their prickly spines before they snuggled up together?”
Oh, dear, I should have chosen another story. I turn out the light and decide to sing them to sleep with a traditional song from a village in the Alps, stroking their hair as I do so. They soon fall asleep.
My husband brings me some Valium. I’ve always refused to take any medicine because I’m afraid of becoming dependent, but I need to be in top form tomorrow.
I take a ten-milligram pill and fall into a deep, dreamless sleep. I don’t wake up all night.
I GET there early, and go straight to the clubhouse and out into the garden. I walk to the trees at the far end, determined to enjoy this lovely afternoon to the full.
Melancholy. That is always the first word that comes into my head when autumn arrives, because I know the summer is over. The days will grow shorter, and we don’t live in the charmed world of those ice-age porcupines; we can’t bear to be wounded by the sharp spines of others, even slightly.
We already hear about people in other countries dying of the cold, traffic jams on snowbound highways, airports closed. Fires are lit and blankets are brought out of cupboards. But that happens only in the world we humans create.
In nature, the landscape looks magnificent. The trees, which seemed so similar before, take on their own personalities and paint the forests in a thousand different shades. One part of the cycle of life is coming to an end. Everything will rest for a while and come back to life in the spring, in the form of flowers.
There is no better time than the autumn to begin forgetting the things that trouble us, allowing them to fall away like dried leaves. There is no better time to dance again, to make the most of every crumb of sunlight and warm body and soul with its rays before it falls asleep and becomes only a dim lightbulb in the skies.
I see him arrive. He looks for me in the restaurant and on the terrace, finally going over to the waiter at the bar, who points in my direction. Jacob has seen me now and waves. Slowly, I begin to walk back to the clubhouse. I want him to appreciate my dress, my shoes, my fashionable lightweight jacket, the way I walk. My heart may be pounding furiously, but I must keep cool.
I’m thinking about what words to use. What mysterious reason did I give for meeting again? Why hold back now when we know there’s something between us? Are we afraid of stumbling and falling, like we have before?
As I walk, I feel as if I were entering a tunnel I’ve never traveled before, one that leads from cynicism to passion, from irony to surrender.
What is he thinking as he watches me? Do I need to explain that we shouldn’t be frightened and that “if Evil exists, it’s to be found in our fears”?
Melancholy. The word is transforming me into a romantic and rejuvenating me with each step I take.
I keep thinking about what I should say when I reach his side. No, best not to think and just let the words flow naturally. They are inside me. I may not recognize or accept them, but they are more powerful than my need to control everything.