For the first time in a very long time, I am having an idyllic Saturday morning. It is day 2 of my 3-day juice fast before I begin a 3-week detox. As I told someone earlier, I’m not feeling spry but people don’t look like walking drumsticks (yet), either. I woke up leisurely, helped myself to some veggie/fruit juice, caught up on correspondences and cleaned out my email inbox (down to only a 100!). I was meandering through links of curiosity and interest while drinking my ginger lemonade when I came across this, a piece from the Exquisite Pain series by French artist Sophie Calle. I HEART Sophie Calle.
Ninety-eight days ago the man I loved left me.
January 25, 1985. Room 261. Imperial Hotel. New Delhi. Enough.
The setting is a village in northern Italy. My parents are out. Suddenly, in the night, we hear a cart, voices. My mother comes in. She says my father isn’t well. I look at the face of this man who, two hours ago, was my father, as he lies there, not moving. I hear my mother giving orders. She tells my brother to go fetch some ice. She sends me out for the priest. Everything is speeded up. In the bedroom there is the doctor, the priest, my brother, my mother. I keep my eyes on her. She is my guide. She seems extremely calm. The doctor says the children should leave the room. She refuses: “I want my children to see their father die.” Time goes by, watching this snoring man. The dramatic intensity slowly wanes, replaced by fatigue and a stiff back. I wonder when it will end. He died at exactly four o’clock. When the deep silence settled, my mother opened the window, “to let the soul fly away”. Objectively, it was not a heartbreaking night, but it’s as if a seed had been sown that would later turn into pain. The plant began growing at the funeral. As shame. I could feel people’s pity. “Poor kid, he’s lost his father.” Then came the rage at my brother for crying. He was showing his grief, not me. Later, there was the fear of not being protected, the sadness at my mother’s loneliness, the emptiness… The thousand facets of suffering. And that’s when I felt that tearing, that wrenching in my guts. I was twelve. It was June 18, 1948. His death was not the climax of my pain, it was a time bomb.
If you should find yourself meandering online one of these days, I would suggest Sophie Callie at Galerie Emmanuel Perrotin. The piece I quoted here is 9 rows down and 3 across on the webpage but others are just as arresting.
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