I Almost Married a Human
Despite that I have had no obligations for the past few days, my mornings and afternoons alike have left me completely uninspired to write; not that I haven’t tried, and not that my mind hasn’t been a whirlwind of ideas and images, but perhaps because I have had so much time to think, my body has so far been unable to sort it all out. Tonight-after spending nearly the entire day locked up in my room-I decided to go out for a walk. My walks tend to go in one of two directions, down hill or up. At night my option is limited to uphill and over, which will set me where I want to do my thinking: Haight street.
There are two ways to be inspired to write: the first way is to do a lot of thinking, to discover facts through study and pouring over novels and encyclopedias, to experience life by living it and then to sit down and methodically piece it out through the linear sentence and paragraph form; other times, writers seem to receive pieces of literature as though through divine intervention, either in a dream or on a walk. The latter has always been the most curious to us. Are certain poets, for instance, good poets because they practice writing poetry, or have they been chosen in some way or another? Of course, the classic, most pure example is Coleridge and his unfinished poem, “Kubla Kahn,” but I think every great author has a sense that something will come to them, perhaps on a stroll or a in the middle of a daytime nap and he will have to rush to the typewriter and translate the idea physically into the tapping of keys which then becomes the order of symbols that we see on a page of a book. This is often the case with me, though it cannot be reduced to any method. I will go through life receiving ideas, turns of phrase, storylines and pieces of dialogue and more often than not they will be lost leaving only the empty space reminding me that it did exist.
Tonight, however, my mind was so jumbled that I knew I had to exert myself physically before I could mentally make sense of things. I think there is something essential in the act of exercising that we tend to look over. Human thought has always been that the physical and the mental are two unrelated states, but I believe that, for example, walking is as essential to thinking as it is to keeping fit. So when I set out for my walk this evening I was quite confident that something would come up, that I would at least come to some conclusions about life so far.
The first stage is, as I said, an immediate uphill climb, perhaps the most grueling part of the entire walk. From my apartment door to the top of the hill it is normally quiet and calm, the only noises being the distant traffic and conversant voices drifting from open windows above, or passersby. Unsure where to start, I let my unconscious chose. What came to me first was a piece of a dream that I had hitherto forgotten. Indeed, my dreams as of late have been quite vivid, and that doesn’t always mean I remember them just as well. The dream had to do with a phone conversation with someone I had not yet met. I asked the voice if it wanted to meet for coffee and after a long, nearly frightening silence, it said yes, revealing itself as a female. I remember looking over a dock at the water, which seemed, looking back on it, like blue construction paper.
I knew that the ease with which I was reflecting would soon be disrupted at the top of the hill where I have to cross a few busy intersections. The hill peaks and slopes violently downward, nearly jetting you into traffic. During this section of the walk, I can do almost no profound thinking whatsoever and my thoughts tend to survival and the more practical pieces of life. When the slope levels out and I have crossed all intersections, after passing a few apartment buildings, one auto repair garage, a bike store and a karate studio I can turn left onto the mostly flat Haight street. During business hours this area of the Haight is generally crowded with people, either tourists, denizens or transients asking for a dime. But at night the only people out on the street are the transients and those taking a cigarette break outside their bar. On a Wednesday night the scene is calm, though busy enough to feel alive. I passed many people with their, typically, black dogs, and for some reason most of them left me alone, not bothering to ask me for some spare change. Outside what looked to be a hotel a handful of homeless, worn and crippled gathered, I assume waiting for the shelter to open their doors. I noticed one kid in particular, he looked my age, and he had a backpack with a mat sticking out, and this all reminded me of all my experiences frequenting hostels in Europe.
Once I had passed this collection of people, I decided to stop and light a cigarette. My mind thus far had been unable to single out anything in particular, and I was losing faith that I would be able to “receive” anything. It wasn’t for that that I decided to smoke, nor was it for any reason that I could discern at the time. I haven’t smoked in a while, and it just felt like what I was supposed to do at that moment. I stationed myself in the doorway of an accessories store (coincidentally a full cigarette was lying on the sill of the window, as though marking the spot) and lit the cigarette. Then I continued on my way. Unlike most times I’ve smoked while sober, I passed into an instantaneous easiness and comfort that seemed to slow down my pace. My frustration faded and suddenly I felt my mind shifting onto its own path. It turned, as if it had known all along, to Sophie.
Sophie was the girl I met my second half of my year in Bordeaux, now over five years ago. I had made little to no French friends at the time, but it was actually her outgoing friend, Laure, that was the first to introduce herself to me. At that time, I was taking a few classes where I was the only American, let alone foreign student, and before Laure introduced herself to me, I would go to class, be completely lost for the two hour lecture, and leave never really sure what had just happened. By the time Laure had introduced herself, my French comprehension had improved. I remember the way she went about it, too: she pointed out a title of a painting I had written down incorrectly, and told me the correct title, what the word meant (I believe it had something to do with coalmines), and its spelling. We didn’t speak for the rest of the class period, but after the class was over, Laure and I stayed behind while everyone else left the room and she asked me many questions about my life and being an American. A week later, Laure introduced me to her two friends, Sofi and Sophie. Though I was physically attracted to Sofi, I ended up making a profound connection with Sophie. To this day I am still learning how profoundly she affected my life.
The great thing about Sophie was how accepting and nurturing she was. You have to understand that back then my French had many limitations, and sometimes as I was expressing myself, I would meet a wall in my vocabulary or grasp of syntax and have to find ways around it. If you’re trying to make friends that can be really frustrating, but Sophie would always nod and encourage me to work through what I was trying to say, telling me what she did or didn’t understand. I would only end up spending a limited time with Sophie. After a while of knowing each other we worked out a weekly ritual where I would come out to her apartment in the suburb called Mérignac and cook dinner with her and her friends. Among all the people I met through Laure, Sophie was the most intellectual, the most well-read, and the most musically knowledgeable, the most willing to get extremely drunk. On some nights we would drink so much that I would have to pass out on her futon upstairs and find my way home the next morning.
But the unique thing about my relationship with Sophie was that no matter how many connections we had and made, she always retained her mysteriousness. I still attribute this to the language barrier. Unlike any friend I have ever made, we seemed to hop that barrier and it didn’t matter how good or bad my French was. But in the process something was either lost or gained, and to this day I still cannot put my finger on it.
Toward the end of my stay in France, Sophie took me to her hometown: an island off the west coast of France called l’Ile d’Oléron. She talked often of taking all of her friends to the isle, but in the end I was the only one who went with her. It was something of a trip: we had to transfer a few busses and along the way we stopped in some town whose name I now forget to visit her grandmother (“mamie”) who was stationed in a retirement home, and obviously in the last stages of her life. I found it interesting that mamie’s grasp of French vocabulary words was similar to mine, as Sophie pointed out while we were leaving the town, that she would often forget the word of whatever she was thinking of and just say, “chose,” or “thing,” which is never done.
When we had reached our destination Sophie showed me around the parts of the isle by bike: the oyster farms, the various beaches and ports, the Castle of Oléron, the different quiet towns, all individually named and with individual characteristics. All the while she recounted stories that I comprehended loosely, still not understanding everything she said. Perhaps these stories were already mysterious by nature, maybe my limited French added to the effect. For instance, while discussing the magical quality of forests, her story about the time some man led her to the Black Forest and in a very secluded area, dropped to the ground and began writhing, spitting up saliva and spoke in tongues. Or the reason she was afraid of large dogs: when as a child three Rottweilers barked at her and her mother viciously and their owner refused to make them stop. As she told me this story we were riding to another beach, hoping to catch the sunset. We ate a typical French dinner on the beach: a baguette, pate, cheese and Pineau, specific to the island, which ended up tasting very similar to port wine.
The last time I saw Sophie was the day we got back from Oléron. We had hitch hiked our way back and finally made it. We said goodbye on the bus, though neither of us knew it would be our last time seeing each other. As I’ve come to learn over the past few years, the farewells to people that are important in our lives never have to be very sad, for if these people truly are important than surely we will see them again. I told her I would call her later that night to see if she wanted to come to the American party I was going to, but I never did.
We sent back maybe four emails and two letters over the next year after I returned to California. When I came back to France, I attempted to contact her, but she never responded. I had her cell phone number but I was too afraid to speak with her again, so never ended up calling her. Anyway, I never had an opportunity to visit her (she was residing in Corsica that year), so I let it go. I began to think I wouldn’t see her again. And after realizing that, she began to haunt my memories. When I would try to think of other people that I met last year, I could only see her. Her voice rose above all others and I could hear her laughing, or telling me that I had to read such an author’s work, or listen to such an album, or shouting with delight, “But of course!” It gave me pleasure to be able to remember her so vividly, but the clearer my visions, the sharper the reminder that she was gone forever.
As I walked past abandoned cardboard signs and mats, a man laying between the door of a closed store, mumbling gruffly to himself, and two men singing along to the Doors coming through their radio, I thought of her. Though it wasn’t all this of which I was thinking. Just as I had lost all hope of ever hearing from Sophie again, she resurfaced. One week ago she sent me an email entitled, “viaje en america del sur.” In it, she informed me that she had been traveling South America, a few weeks in Peru and some in Quito and had just passed 3 months in Australia. She had a few weeks left before she returned to France and she wanted to know if, even though it was so last minute, I couldn’t join her for the end of her trip? The style of her writing was so quick, fragmented and hurried that, reading it, I got a sense of her vagrant lifestyle. I replied back a few days later that, her email was like a sunray when I thought the sun no longer existed. I told her that I had been thinking of her involuntarily recently and how much of a dream it would be to join her in South America, but for the moment not possible. I said to her-here I was particularly proud of my French-that since it seemed as though she went where blew the wind, she was certainly welcome to visit me in San Francisco if she was able.
As I finished my cigarette and began to lose the calmness that the tobacco gave me, I turned around and started thinking about her response that I received today. Here it is in full, translated:
Hola Alex,
Your message touched me deeply. I also have not forgotten the good moments that we passed together on the Isle of Oléron.
I have not forgotten you, but last year in Corsica has been a very intense work schedule.
This summer, I accomplished one of my dreams, I recounted my first fairy tale before about fifty people, on a fort in the middle of the ocean, it was magical. In that instant luck smiled upon me.
We have just arrived in Lima et it has been a huge shock. The outskirts of the town are quasi shantytowns, it’s very dirty, there is so much dust...
Yesterday, I was on the bus and a little peruvian girl began to sing. No one listened to her, she collapsed into tears at the back of the bus. I took her in my arms and we talked. Her parents force her to sing to earn money. It’s very difficult here, and I realize that one lives here with much luck.
Then, in true form, Sophie, after asking how I was doing and what my situation was, switched to English and said she had read the biography of Anais Nin in Australia and had thought of me and that she recently finished the biography of Frida Kalo and that I should read it. She translated it exactly as it is said in French, “You have to read that” and again, as I reached my apartment and opened the door, to hurry up the stairs to recount all this, I heard her voice.
There are two ways to be inspired to write: the first way is to do a lot of thinking, to discover facts through study and pouring over novels and encyclopedias, to experience life by living it and then to sit down and methodically piece it out through the linear sentence and paragraph form; other times, writers seem to receive pieces of literature as though through divine intervention, either in a dream or on a walk. The latter has always been the most curious to us. Are certain poets, for instance, good poets because they practice writing poetry, or have they been chosen in some way or another? Of course, the classic, most pure example is Coleridge and his unfinished poem, “Kubla Kahn,” but I think every great author has a sense that something will come to them, perhaps on a stroll or a in the middle of a daytime nap and he will have to rush to the typewriter and translate the idea physically into the tapping of keys which then becomes the order of symbols that we see on a page of a book. This is often the case with me, though it cannot be reduced to any method. I will go through life receiving ideas, turns of phrase, storylines and pieces of dialogue and more often than not they will be lost leaving only the empty space reminding me that it did exist.
Tonight, however, my mind was so jumbled that I knew I had to exert myself physically before I could mentally make sense of things. I think there is something essential in the act of exercising that we tend to look over. Human thought has always been that the physical and the mental are two unrelated states, but I believe that, for example, walking is as essential to thinking as it is to keeping fit. So when I set out for my walk this evening I was quite confident that something would come up, that I would at least come to some conclusions about life so far.
The first stage is, as I said, an immediate uphill climb, perhaps the most grueling part of the entire walk. From my apartment door to the top of the hill it is normally quiet and calm, the only noises being the distant traffic and conversant voices drifting from open windows above, or passersby. Unsure where to start, I let my unconscious chose. What came to me first was a piece of a dream that I had hitherto forgotten. Indeed, my dreams as of late have been quite vivid, and that doesn’t always mean I remember them just as well. The dream had to do with a phone conversation with someone I had not yet met. I asked the voice if it wanted to meet for coffee and after a long, nearly frightening silence, it said yes, revealing itself as a female. I remember looking over a dock at the water, which seemed, looking back on it, like blue construction paper.
I knew that the ease with which I was reflecting would soon be disrupted at the top of the hill where I have to cross a few busy intersections. The hill peaks and slopes violently downward, nearly jetting you into traffic. During this section of the walk, I can do almost no profound thinking whatsoever and my thoughts tend to survival and the more practical pieces of life. When the slope levels out and I have crossed all intersections, after passing a few apartment buildings, one auto repair garage, a bike store and a karate studio I can turn left onto the mostly flat Haight street. During business hours this area of the Haight is generally crowded with people, either tourists, denizens or transients asking for a dime. But at night the only people out on the street are the transients and those taking a cigarette break outside their bar. On a Wednesday night the scene is calm, though busy enough to feel alive. I passed many people with their, typically, black dogs, and for some reason most of them left me alone, not bothering to ask me for some spare change. Outside what looked to be a hotel a handful of homeless, worn and crippled gathered, I assume waiting for the shelter to open their doors. I noticed one kid in particular, he looked my age, and he had a backpack with a mat sticking out, and this all reminded me of all my experiences frequenting hostels in Europe.
Once I had passed this collection of people, I decided to stop and light a cigarette. My mind thus far had been unable to single out anything in particular, and I was losing faith that I would be able to “receive” anything. It wasn’t for that that I decided to smoke, nor was it for any reason that I could discern at the time. I haven’t smoked in a while, and it just felt like what I was supposed to do at that moment. I stationed myself in the doorway of an accessories store (coincidentally a full cigarette was lying on the sill of the window, as though marking the spot) and lit the cigarette. Then I continued on my way. Unlike most times I’ve smoked while sober, I passed into an instantaneous easiness and comfort that seemed to slow down my pace. My frustration faded and suddenly I felt my mind shifting onto its own path. It turned, as if it had known all along, to Sophie.
Sophie was the girl I met my second half of my year in Bordeaux, now over five years ago. I had made little to no French friends at the time, but it was actually her outgoing friend, Laure, that was the first to introduce herself to me. At that time, I was taking a few classes where I was the only American, let alone foreign student, and before Laure introduced herself to me, I would go to class, be completely lost for the two hour lecture, and leave never really sure what had just happened. By the time Laure had introduced herself, my French comprehension had improved. I remember the way she went about it, too: she pointed out a title of a painting I had written down incorrectly, and told me the correct title, what the word meant (I believe it had something to do with coalmines), and its spelling. We didn’t speak for the rest of the class period, but after the class was over, Laure and I stayed behind while everyone else left the room and she asked me many questions about my life and being an American. A week later, Laure introduced me to her two friends, Sofi and Sophie. Though I was physically attracted to Sofi, I ended up making a profound connection with Sophie. To this day I am still learning how profoundly she affected my life.
The great thing about Sophie was how accepting and nurturing she was. You have to understand that back then my French had many limitations, and sometimes as I was expressing myself, I would meet a wall in my vocabulary or grasp of syntax and have to find ways around it. If you’re trying to make friends that can be really frustrating, but Sophie would always nod and encourage me to work through what I was trying to say, telling me what she did or didn’t understand. I would only end up spending a limited time with Sophie. After a while of knowing each other we worked out a weekly ritual where I would come out to her apartment in the suburb called Mérignac and cook dinner with her and her friends. Among all the people I met through Laure, Sophie was the most intellectual, the most well-read, and the most musically knowledgeable, the most willing to get extremely drunk. On some nights we would drink so much that I would have to pass out on her futon upstairs and find my way home the next morning.
But the unique thing about my relationship with Sophie was that no matter how many connections we had and made, she always retained her mysteriousness. I still attribute this to the language barrier. Unlike any friend I have ever made, we seemed to hop that barrier and it didn’t matter how good or bad my French was. But in the process something was either lost or gained, and to this day I still cannot put my finger on it.
Toward the end of my stay in France, Sophie took me to her hometown: an island off the west coast of France called l’Ile d’Oléron. She talked often of taking all of her friends to the isle, but in the end I was the only one who went with her. It was something of a trip: we had to transfer a few busses and along the way we stopped in some town whose name I now forget to visit her grandmother (“mamie”) who was stationed in a retirement home, and obviously in the last stages of her life. I found it interesting that mamie’s grasp of French vocabulary words was similar to mine, as Sophie pointed out while we were leaving the town, that she would often forget the word of whatever she was thinking of and just say, “chose,” or “thing,” which is never done.
When we had reached our destination Sophie showed me around the parts of the isle by bike: the oyster farms, the various beaches and ports, the Castle of Oléron, the different quiet towns, all individually named and with individual characteristics. All the while she recounted stories that I comprehended loosely, still not understanding everything she said. Perhaps these stories were already mysterious by nature, maybe my limited French added to the effect. For instance, while discussing the magical quality of forests, her story about the time some man led her to the Black Forest and in a very secluded area, dropped to the ground and began writhing, spitting up saliva and spoke in tongues. Or the reason she was afraid of large dogs: when as a child three Rottweilers barked at her and her mother viciously and their owner refused to make them stop. As she told me this story we were riding to another beach, hoping to catch the sunset. We ate a typical French dinner on the beach: a baguette, pate, cheese and Pineau, specific to the island, which ended up tasting very similar to port wine.
The last time I saw Sophie was the day we got back from Oléron. We had hitch hiked our way back and finally made it. We said goodbye on the bus, though neither of us knew it would be our last time seeing each other. As I’ve come to learn over the past few years, the farewells to people that are important in our lives never have to be very sad, for if these people truly are important than surely we will see them again. I told her I would call her later that night to see if she wanted to come to the American party I was going to, but I never did.
We sent back maybe four emails and two letters over the next year after I returned to California. When I came back to France, I attempted to contact her, but she never responded. I had her cell phone number but I was too afraid to speak with her again, so never ended up calling her. Anyway, I never had an opportunity to visit her (she was residing in Corsica that year), so I let it go. I began to think I wouldn’t see her again. And after realizing that, she began to haunt my memories. When I would try to think of other people that I met last year, I could only see her. Her voice rose above all others and I could hear her laughing, or telling me that I had to read such an author’s work, or listen to such an album, or shouting with delight, “But of course!” It gave me pleasure to be able to remember her so vividly, but the clearer my visions, the sharper the reminder that she was gone forever.
As I walked past abandoned cardboard signs and mats, a man laying between the door of a closed store, mumbling gruffly to himself, and two men singing along to the Doors coming through their radio, I thought of her. Though it wasn’t all this of which I was thinking. Just as I had lost all hope of ever hearing from Sophie again, she resurfaced. One week ago she sent me an email entitled, “viaje en america del sur.” In it, she informed me that she had been traveling South America, a few weeks in Peru and some in Quito and had just passed 3 months in Australia. She had a few weeks left before she returned to France and she wanted to know if, even though it was so last minute, I couldn’t join her for the end of her trip? The style of her writing was so quick, fragmented and hurried that, reading it, I got a sense of her vagrant lifestyle. I replied back a few days later that, her email was like a sunray when I thought the sun no longer existed. I told her that I had been thinking of her involuntarily recently and how much of a dream it would be to join her in South America, but for the moment not possible. I said to her-here I was particularly proud of my French-that since it seemed as though she went where blew the wind, she was certainly welcome to visit me in San Francisco if she was able.
As I finished my cigarette and began to lose the calmness that the tobacco gave me, I turned around and started thinking about her response that I received today. Here it is in full, translated:
Hola Alex,
Your message touched me deeply. I also have not forgotten the good moments that we passed together on the Isle of Oléron.
I have not forgotten you, but last year in Corsica has been a very intense work schedule.
This summer, I accomplished one of my dreams, I recounted my first fairy tale before about fifty people, on a fort in the middle of the ocean, it was magical. In that instant luck smiled upon me.
We have just arrived in Lima et it has been a huge shock. The outskirts of the town are quasi shantytowns, it’s very dirty, there is so much dust...
Yesterday, I was on the bus and a little peruvian girl began to sing. No one listened to her, she collapsed into tears at the back of the bus. I took her in my arms and we talked. Her parents force her to sing to earn money. It’s very difficult here, and I realize that one lives here with much luck.
Then, in true form, Sophie, after asking how I was doing and what my situation was, switched to English and said she had read the biography of Anais Nin in Australia and had thought of me and that she recently finished the biography of Frida Kalo and that I should read it. She translated it exactly as it is said in French, “You have to read that” and again, as I reached my apartment and opened the door, to hurry up the stairs to recount all this, I heard her voice.