BED & BREAKFAST

CHAPTER 11 - One of those...

You realise she had not asked if I was involved with anyone? In fact, she'd not asked any particulars about my personal life apart from the caring for my parents (something I'd mentioned as a partial excuse for my being there) and something she'd thoroughly approved of at the breakfast table earlier. With a twist of course?

"In France- non - in most of Europe, women are strong, protective. They look after their own. Their man first - because he is their man, then their man and the children, then their man and the children and the parents. Not putting their parents away in those homes! But, always, the man is looked after first. Always. Not once children come, their man is pushed away, no time, tired, I have a headache." She'd laughed, theatrically lifting an arm to her brow.

"And the man?" I had to ask. Something had niggled at my brain. "What does the man do?"

She'd stared at him damn it! "The man has to be strong, tough, provide, oui? But also gentle. Never angry in the home." Her eyes had then drifted to the window beyond him. "If a woman is with a strong man, she is like... she is like a woman should be. How would you say... ummm... assured? He can do things for himself, for her, so she doesn't feel too stressed. Not "tired" all the time." (Finger quotation marks.)

Oh. Oh? Ohhhhhhhh! She was one of those! Finally, a label- something to attach to her, to identify her with. Also... something I felt her equal in. No more French this and that, she was firmly in MY playground now- I think Cohen's "Hallelujah" had played in my head? (That could well be though because of his playing in endless loop in the background whenever I write, thus not really happening as I described- I've tried many a voice, many a sound. He gets me best. There's a craziness we share. As you can see.)

"But, Marie, the... uh... the roles of both men and women have changed. What you're telling me- it's out of sync with today- maybe even undesirable. Isn't it?"  I'd finally formed a question- only, in retrospect, it had probably come across as more of a plea? What I had been going for was... a challenge?

Wasn't it? Out of sync I mean. Part of me had rebelled those first moments. Words like equality and rights and fought-for freedoms (and some uglier ones) had pinged around my brain: Male domination, patriarchy, control... (My own personal demons surfacing of course.) Yet, curiously, I'd detected nothing but equal warmth and equal measure in everything between them- this expressed as a deep bond, an "assurance" as she proclaimed it.

Why I'd asked. I wanted to confirm something.

"I am happy mon cheri- Life is about feeling happy non? The rest is just, how'd you say, not relevant? Rules and customs and all those scientists and politicians and experts telling us this is good or that is bad now... You must always look for what makes you happy. You, Elise. If you are happy, you send out this happy to everyone else, and they send it back not just to you but to everyone else, you understand?"

I retained this statement almost in its entirety- she'd muttered something that had sounded like "vashier" (va chier ! as in "fuck that" when I looked it up later) a couple of times along with a string of mixed-up French and English I deemed of secondary importance- because I, was still stuck at "happy". She was happy. Unconventional, unacceptable and plain offensive perhaps in this new world of equality yet this woman and this man, whatever they had going on, however they'd conceived and executed their notion of love- I couldn't get past the word "happy"?

There's a confession I need to make here: I am a closet non-feminist. (Is this a legit word?) Oh, I did my due diligence first, I devoured the modern feminists and explored the early pioneers. For a time, I was one of those feminists. Spouting the rhetoric, condemning the well-documented 'inequality' between the sexes. For a time. But then... as the decades piled on, as I saw evidence of the effects of this emerging 'equality'... and I saw within this evidence, the detrimental effects to the couple, to the family unit and to the offspring reared in this environment... When I saw how it had exponentially led to today's identity 'crises' in our youth and the phenomenon of sudden, infinite 'genders'... I kinda changed sides.

Don't take me on. There's no need. Accept that after due diligence, I chose Marie's philosophy. But if you do take me on, be prepared. I can expound (passionately) at great length. I am one of those now. Why Marie's words were retained. My initial need to debunk the perfection of her LOVE was superseded by the (damn it!) acknowledgement that she may, in fact... be right?

Questions as always bubbled, even after casting aside our newly-shared philosophy: How many people could really attest to being happy? What did happy even mean? Didn't it have a different meaning for everyone?

Then, I got to: What did it mean for me? Her last words, "Life is for fun, yes?" running in a loop in my ears on the meandering drive to the local art and craft strip; background music for all the rooting around in my head looking- for forays into this one word.

One bit of reasonng led to another. As I browsed through aisles of exotic finds imported from every corner of the world, antiques and artworks, quirky modern local sculptures and pottery, and, just about every gem in existence plucked out of the earth and set in silver- maybe I was, in turn, muttering to myself  "I am not happy... I am not happy damn it!" 

I am not happy? Wait, that's not entirely true- some days I am grinning, enjoying a joyful sensation and warmth, a sense of not being so alone. Some days. The rest though, there is always something. Whatever it is, whichever side of the big pond it arrives from, it ensures a level of unhappiness. Most of my days are in effect a string of unhappy faux pearls, with the odd happy (genuine) one strung in like a bone thrown to a dog. (That's just how dark - and confusing metaphorically - my thoughts had turned as I robotically repeated upon entering each new shop - in-between the muttering - "Just browsing, thank you." Aka "Leave me the fuck alone.")

I know what will make me happy. I know it so well I can taste it, hear it, smell it, feel it, see the damn thing. What I can't do is touch it; in other words, live it- in the now. Therefore, I am unhappy.

I had expected love to equate with happiness for are they not interchangeable things? I am happy, therefore I love. I love, therefore I am happy. How does one get to love unhappily? That's one huge chasm of contradiction right there. Yet it exists and I am a proponent? I say proponent because 99.9% of everyone I'd dare ask would tell me to either bugger off, find my own man, else bugger him off, stop wasting precious years living a fantasy. (Thus my unhappiness.)

Ah but that pesky .1%! (Like those germs that refuse to die?) I like that peskiness. I admire that peskiness. Even the strongest bug-spray ever invented can't destroy this peskiness. That's something. A big "Fuck you"- what the .1% would say to the 99.9 others.

To me, they'd say: "Look for what makes you happy. The rest will fall behind."

I stood with them. I stood with her. I knew what I knew now. What can I say?