Author: Brianda Domecq

A NOVEL OR NOT A NOVEL

/ Brianda Domecq / 13 Comments

A WORK OF FICTION…. OR NOT

(what makes a novel, a novel)

When the literary critic and professor, John Brushwood,  published his book on the novel in Mexico, I discovered -much to my chagrin- that my first novel had not been included. Eleven Days,  or Once días y algo más -the novelized version of my personal kidnapping experience did not appear in the text. When I confronted him begging to know why my “novel” had been excluded, his answer was: “Because it isn’t a novel: you didn’t invent anything”. In that moment,  I was too taken aback to ask the obvious question (How could you possibly know that? Were you there?)  But now, years later, I can look back with less emotional attachment and try to understand.

While writing my novel, my obvious literary reference was In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s novelized version of the Clutter family’s murders. There are obvious differences in the two experiences (mine and Capote’s)… Capote was not at the scene of the crime; I was the victim of the crime- Capote read about or heard from another, the instances of the wrong-doing; I experienced most of what I describe in the novel. Yet what Capote describes and what I describe are both factual events and are narrated in linear fashion so as to reproduce as closely as possible the actual happenings. Soooo,… why would Brushwood consider Capote’s book a non-fiction novel, and mine a…. ???? What???  

My work is definitely not an essay… It lacks the necessary critical distance an essay-writer must take in relation to his material… Poetry or drama… it could not be considered either of these. Perhaps biography or autobiography… but any critic would be of the opinion that it lacks distance from the subject, and scholarly discipline to be either of these… So, a mongrel. Ah, yes… Once días y algo más, must definitely be considered a mongrel. . That’s not so bad. I own a mongrel and she is adorable, loving, intelligent, kind, brave and creative in her own doggy way, so if my “novel” is a mongrel, that is ok with me. A mongrel doesn’t stop being a dog, so I have written mongrel novel. 

When I wrote Once días… I definitely believed I was writing a novel; I used all the techniques that writing a novel requires: structure, narrative voice, construction of characters, beginning-middle- end, suspense… everything that goes into the creation of a novel went into writing Eleven Days… Yet Brushwood affirmed without the least hesitation or doubt that it was not a novel because it was not fiction: I had not made up anything.

Let’s see… in the book, I describe 11 days in the life of the character, 11 days enclosed between two violent traumatic events: her kidnapping and her rescue. In order for this tale to be told, it was necessary that I re-create (or in many ways create) the characters that populate the novel, that I produce an element of suspense (even though everyone who reads the newspapers would have already known about the event and its final outcome), that I determine a time span for the narration, that I eliminate that which is superfluous, that I re-create (or create) conversations, feelings, thoughts, fears, nightmares…  for each of the characters…  In other words, all the elements that go into the writing of a novel. So the fundamental question is… Is a novel necessarily fiction?  And if it is not a novel, then what is it? An essay has no need to re-create characters and make them act and live in the course of the narration. An essay has no need for suspense. An essay describes, a work of fiction recreates bringing alive for the reader events that are not actually happening. When I read an essay, I want information; when I read a novel, I want experience. An essay tells me how it might be to be kidnapped; a novel drags me into the actual event and makes me live each day with the victim. For an essay to be a good essay the writer must take a critical distance from the material involved; for a novel to be a good novel, the writer must disappear in the experience described so the reader may enter alone into the action. When I wrote Eleven Days my sole intention was to kidnap the reader, and the only way to do that was to use all the techniques of a novel.

Perhaps it is necessary to create a new category… the Non-fiction Novel which would imply a re-definition of the novel where the characteristic of fictional would not be a necessity, and the emphasis would be on the experience of the reader: Do I want the reader to understand the event or to experience the event? If I want the reader to understand (intellectually) the event, I write an essay; if  I want the reader to experience personally  the event, I write a novel. The essay describes; the novel re-creates. Nothing in this description says that what is recreated must be invented..  Therefore, I propose that a novel can be fiction or non-fiction depending on the source of the material for the story, whereas an essay or an autobiographical writing is necessarily non-fiction. A novel has as its intention, to make the reader experience the event or events in the text; an essay has the intention to make the reader understand intellectually the unrolling  and outcome of the event or events. An essay would describe a kidnapping; a novel would kidnap the reader.  

Obviously, it was my intention to kidnap the readers. If that goal was achieved or not, it rests with the readers to respond.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN

/ Brianda Domecq / 10 Comments

I remember the day perfectly… I had been feeling for a while that I was getting lonely and that perhaps it was time to stop being so independent, move back to Mexico and live closer to my children. One day, I voiced my feelings to my daughter. She said she understood and that we had to think about it. The next thing was I got a list of 34 Residences for the Elderly in Mexico in my email box. It was obvious that my daughter had done her research well in advance of my recently discovered need to be closer to family, my children and grandchildren. The “LIST” was like a bucket of cold water. I had been thinking of a nice apartment near where my daughter lived as an alternative to The Ocean Between Us arrangement that I had set up about 20 years previously when I moved to Spain with my second husband, my marriage to their father having come to an inglorious end some years previously. After all I had given them freedom and motherless peace of mind for over 20 years. That should make them grateful and happy that I wanted to come back ¿no?  Well… no. In answer to my idea that it was time to come home, I received a well-prepared list of “Residences” for senior citizens in and about Mexico City.

After I had gotten over the shock, convinced myself that it was a loving and intelligent thing to do and that I had to be grateful for all the investigative work my daughter had gone to preparing said list I was able to talk calmly to her and suggest that I make a trip to Mexico and she help me visit the ones I had marked on the two page list she had sent me. I can’t say she was ‘delighted’ because she went about the arrangements in a very calm and business-like manner as if she were no more than an executive secretary helping her boss find living quarters in Mexico City…. However, she was very efficient and by the time I arrived at her house she had made up a long list of possibilities, arranged for visits to at least 10 of them and set up a schedule that would have put at ease the most demanding airline pilot.

We began our visits to the residences that were within Mexico City and, naturally, with one that was very close to her house. This turned out to be a single (either never-married, widowed or divorced) woman living in a three bedroom, two story house with a small gardens in back and a front terrace for parking two cars that was unoccupied except for a bicycle. When we entered we found the darkened living room occupied by two elderly men sitting on ssa rather dilapidated sofa in front of a black and white television set playing an ancient cowboy film. The gentlemen were not introduced, nor did they look up from their outdated entertainment. We were shown around the house, the kitchen (small but neat), the dining room (dark and gloomy), the stairs steep, and above two bedrooms, each with five single beds separated by three night-tables much as the arrangement of a dorm in a boarding school might have been. The rooms were small but neat, the bed dressing plain but seemed clean, and the lack of space for anything else made up for by our hostesses animated chatter which I stopped listening to the moment I saw the bedrooms.

Of all the residences we visited, this was the most depressing and inadequate.

Over the ten days I stayed during that time, we saw several more possibilities -one in a high-rise connected by a passageway (two floors above the street) to one of the best hospitals in the City-, another also in a high-rise right next to one of the new and splendid shopping centers American-style (something I abhore). Then we went to the south of the city and saw a very attractive residence, built and furnished with certain elegance, and with lovely terraces and a generous amount of garden for a cosmopolitan city, and I got hopefull. Perhaps we would find something I really liked. It was after that we went to Cuernavaca, a small city some 40 minutes by super highway south of Mexico City and in the general direction of Acapulco and I was introduced to Eden… as in The Garden of… From the moment we entered the gates, there was no doubt in my mind that if I was to be locked up anywhere it was there.The whole layout was like an oldstyle Hacienda, with well kept lawns, fruit trees (the papayas hung by the dozen on one small example), mangos dropped full with richness to the ground to be harvested; lemon, orange and grapefruit trees offered up their budding produce to the greedy eye).

The buildings, judging from the style, probably were made over from an old Hacienda that had been extended to house a generous amount of oldies, and the general quarters-such as the dining room and terrace- were neatly furnished and had a cozy rather than institutional ambience. There was an unpretentious chapel which I doubted I would ever visit, but who knows…

The building housing the bedrooms had the feel of a spacious city hotel, and the rooms were light and airy, with small terraces and some even with a 2×2 space of grass they called a “little garden”. I liked it and the people who showed us around from the start. The climate of Cuernavaca immediately seemed the best for my olding bones and the gardens were a delight and perfect for my little dog whom I certainly planned to have with me. When we walked into one of the rooms that had a small terrace attached, there was a squirrel at the door looking in at us that promptly scuttled away, I was sold… This is it I told my daughter without even a hint of doubt.

So that is where I am headed, now that I have almost finished packing up everything in my Madrid apartment in preparation for its trans-oceanic journey. In less than a month I should be settled into the Garden of Eden -as I call it- and making friends with all the inmates with whom I will share my last years. Strangely enough, I can’t wait.

THE NIGHT MY MOTHER DIED

/ Brianda Domecq / 11 Comments

 My mother called one day when she was in her late 70’s or early 80`s and told me straight out that she was losing her mind. I can’t remember how I answered her, but I don’t think -at the time- I gave her fear much importance. However, she was right… and the transition was not as slow as one might imagine. By the age of 83, my mother had all but lost her conscious mind to a rapidly progressing dementia… she turned into ‘my little girl’.

Naturally, I was in the prime of my life and not about to saddle myself with my mother’s dementia, so I got her a keeper who moved in to live with her and whom she hated from the word ‘go’. It wasn’t cruel… it was necessary. If I had attempted to take on the care of my mother -apart from the fact that it would have been impossible in the long run or even in the short one- I would have sacrificed my life and hated her for it. I feel no guilt, I did what had to be done and provided my mother with the best care available in her situation.

Seeing as my brother lived in Spain (my mother and I lived in Mexico at the time) and I wanted to move there with my second husband, I asked him to find me a residence where we could put out mother and have her properly cared for. He did, and I arrived some time later and deposited her in a very nice -and expensive- residence for the elderly. Seeing as she was by that time reduced to and aged infancy, I also hired two Ecuadorian girls to take care of her for 16 hours a day as I knew that in these types of residences, the help is scarce and usually overworked. So my mother was never alone while she was awake and always kept clean and pretty. I lived relatively nearby and visited her at least three times a week taking her out for a stroll in her wheel chair when possible and as long as she enjoyed it. At the end, she was terrified of going out so I would arrive to visit with a cup of ice-cream which was her favorite. She weighed next to nothing and would run over and sit on my lap the moment I arrived, so it was as if the roles had been reversed and she was my little “old” child. I had but one prayer which I often voiced to the Universe: “Please, don’t let my mother die alone; I want to be with her when she goes, please.”

Then, one day, one of the girls I had hired to watch over my mother, asked me what the word “Daddy” meant and said that my mother kept repeating it and reaching up with her both hands towards the ceiling. It made me wonder -agnostic that I am- if my grandfather was appearing to my mother. I remembered that my grandmother -whose father had died when she was two years old so she couldn’t remember what he looked like- a few days before her death said that she heard his voice coming from a deep well, telling her that he was coming.

One evening I had just exited a restaurant where I had had my dinner, and was driving home when I felt a sharp pain on the left side of my chest, and the words “My mother is dying” appeared in my mind. Instead of going home, I drove straight to the residence where she was. It was 11 o’clock in the evening, but strangely enough the street door to the residence where my mother was, was not locked and I walked in unannounced without even having to ring a bell. The desk where the night guard always sat was also empty… not a soul saw me open the door, enter, cross the lobby, walk down the hallway and go into my mother’s room. She was dying, that was obvious. She lay on her side, a slight thread of blood coming from her mouth and staining the sheet on the bed. Her eyes were open. I sat her up gently, placed a pillow behind her for support and then sat on the bed next to her, holding her hand. She lay her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes. I began talking in a soft, gently voice, telling her how wonderful her life had been, how she had been loved by my father, how happy she had been always and how there was nothing at all to fear. I talked for a while and then fell silent, sitting beside my mother, holding her hand and looking up at the ceiling. We sat there together for about 20 minutes and then she sighed and stopped breathing. I was sitting beside her, looking up at the corner of the room and the ceiling above so that my line of vision was between my mother’s body and the ceiling and that was when I saw it… My mother’s ‘ghost’, a transparent figure of my mother and someone else (looked like my grandfather) floating up towards the corner of the room and ceiling, and disappearing through the wall. I didn’t dream it, I saw it. I guess that is what they call the “ghost”, but the marvel was she wasn’t alone. I was flooded by the most incredible feeling of euphoria I have ever experienced and could do no more than call out over and over again: “¡You made it Mommy, you made it!” I did not imagine this, it was more than I could have imagined given that I do not believe in ghosts, the after-life or even God for that matter. I saw it. Of course, when I turned to my mother, she was dead… she had to be, I had seen her leave.

Instead of sorrow, I felt a euphoria as I have seldom experienced as I embraced my mother’s small lifeless frame and kept repeating over and over: “You made it Mommy, you made it”. Needless to say, the evening we held the “wake” right there in the home and everyone came to say their ’I’m sorries’… I didn’t cry;foe me it was a celebration. My mother was free, and I had had the most spiritual experience of my entire life. She had allowed me to see her go, undoubtedly it had been her or her spirit that had summoned me with the pain and the thought. She had gifted me with her death, and I am so, so grateful. The most wonderful gift a mother can give you. Thank you, Mommy. I love you always.

THE NIGHTMARE

/ Brianda Domecq / Leave a comment

I was born with 9 toes, 5 on the right foot and 4 on the other. Upon being informed of this, my father immediately called in a specialist to forsee any problems, and was informed that usually the four-toed leg and foot grew more slowly than the normal, five-toed one. That was the case for me. By the time I was 11 years old I had a 10-11 centimeter difference and -according to my grandmother- walked with a slight hop-skip-and-jump. My parents were conscientious care-givers and I was sent (from Mexico where we lived) to New York for the necessary operation: the doctors would slightly stunt the growth in the right leg and by the time I reached my complete height, my legs would have more or less evened out (yes, it was successful: today I am 18mm off balance needing a slight lift in my left shoe, but that is all). The operation went well, I was returned to my parents in Mexico on crutches, and soon resumed my normal life.

Nevertheless, it was after this operation that the nightmare began. I would dream that I awoke from a deep sleep and found myself on a a cold, metal operating table. At the foot of the operating table, a group of men (I presumed doctors) were talking in loud, anxious voices. I could hear them clearly but, for some reason, couldn’t understand what they were saying. I knew immediately, however, that they were discussing something important that had to do with me and terror would grip my heart… and pull me out of the nightmare. I would awake terror-stricken without knowing why.

During adolescence, the nightmare repeated quite often and always left me weak and trembling upon pulling myself out of it. I was sure that the cause of said suffering was the operation I had just previous to its onset. As I matured, got married and had my own children the nightmare became less and less frequent until eventually it ceased altogether. By the time I was in my thirties it had stopped happening all together.

Life went on children grew and married, I divorced and fell in love again, and it was one day -living with my new husband- that I had the horrid nightmare again. I was fifty years old at the time. To say the least, I was very surprised. The next morning I was doing my exercise on the treadmill and thinking about the dream when the truth hit me: !!!It was not a dream about my operation at 11 years old, but rather I was dreaming about my birth!!!! Immediately I knew this was true and that was the reason I couldn’t understand what the group of men at the foot of the operating table were talking about…. ¡I couldn’t talk yet!

Of course, the moment you understand the meaning of a nightmare, it can rest … its job is done. It has not repeated since and that was over 30 years ago.

The nightmare was about my birth experience. I was born cesarean -popped like a pea from the shell of my mother- so there was no effort or preparation; I must have been placed upon a surface or in a basin (to be washed off) while the doctors informed my father of the missing toe, and my father -Spaniard that he was- must have begun yelling: “¡Bring me a specialist! ¡Check her thoroughly to see if anything else is missing!” and heaven knows what else, and the doctors were explaining the possible problems… and I was terrified...

Two things became immediately clear: the “me” consciousness that already exists in the new-born so, undoubtedly, even before, and the fact that an un-explained (and therefore, not understood) trauma can repeat in the dream-mind for 50 or more years until it is explained. After the realization about where its content came from, I have not had that particular nightmare ever again.

OLD AGE IS NOT FOR THE WEAK OF HEART

/ Brianda Domecq / 9 Comments

Yes… Ok, I know… It has been some time since I published on this Blog. Sorry to those who were following it… But, no: no excuses. I have been working on my Memoires, and there are still so many notebooks to be emptied on to the computer, let alone to be corrected and polished up…  But today, I was cooking up my doggie’s meal and the thought occurred to me… ‘Old age is not for the weak of heart’… I should know; I will be 82 this year and I consider that I am now licensed to talk about ‘getting old’ in general and in specific. This is specific… I have not heard anyone mention or write about the courage required to face the latter years as mental and physical capacities decline. Yes, it takes courage, a lot of it, but nobody who has not gotten there yet even suspects that, and once you’ve gotten there, there is no choice: you either face-up and do it, or you cop out and die which is not always a choice unless you are like my grandmother who saved up her sleeping pills exactly for that purpose.

At this age there are, on one hand, the ‘mistakes’ and ‘mess-ups’ that get more and more frequent as time passes and connections by computer and over the internet for everything become the norm (I didn’t even get an electric typewriter till I was in my twenties, or for that matter a typewriter, till I had learned to write by hand ‘properly’, according to my father, which meant neatly and legibly… around 17 or 18).   But I have learned… I do almost everything I need to do either on the computer or on my phone (more difficult on phone because of the screen size and clumsy fingers).

But even with hands-on, daily things like feeding the dog, or taking my meds I keep having to check with my almost non-existent memory: Have I done that yet? Did I just feed the dog and she gobbled it up and that is why the plate is empty, or did I just think about feeding her and get distracted doing something else and that is why the plate is empty?  Have I taken my vitamins and that is why the dish where I put them is empty, or did I forget to put them out this morning and that is why it is empty? Did I remember to ask my son about the deposit that was pending or should I call him today to ask him, risking his growing impatience with my new mindlessness?

When I was in my late 50’s-early 60’s, I watched my mother decline into dementia. I don’t think I am getting dementia nor do I think I will have it (although it is possible as is anything else, like dying tomorrow, for example). My mind works perfectly as long as it is not required to remember things, like times, appointments, dates, etc. which I usually write down. I can perfectly do things required of me on the computer, so it was nothing but laziness that made me slip my gift to my grandson into my son’s checking account (the information of which was readily available on my screen) and ask him to do the transferring to the said grandson’s account (which I did not have on the computer although I had the info on my phone messages)… instead of doing it myself. My son -obviously- realized it immediately and got annoyed with me.  As if I didn’t know how much he has to do with grown children still depending on him for many things, and a wife at home to care for… Ooops.  

I could call it laziness, but no… it’s weakness, but it is also ‘kindness’ for myself: I’m tired and everything, and I mean everything, takes a mental and emotional (and sometimes physical) effort that was never needed before. So if I can pass off a little chore to someone else, well bless my heart, I’m going to do it. No one understands this -nor should they- until they get here… and here is 80+ whatever, and I won’t be around then to say: “See, I could have told you so”…  But I should know…

I watched my great-grandmother decline into oblivion before she slipped away; my grandmother decided to save us all the experience and committed suicide with sleeping pills she had purposely saved up over the years, at the age of 83 (an age I will reach in a year’s time more or less… ) and my mother’s mind went completely by the time she was 70 something and she became the ‘child’ to whom I was the ‘mother’ until she passed at the age of 91.  

So now it is my turn, I am the next in line and things … living in general… begin to be more and more complicated as my will and my capacities weaken. So far it is mostly my will… Except for having to write everything down or else forget much of what I have to do each day, I am doing pretty well attic-wise. I continue working on my Memoires, and writing an occasional blog such as this one, which makes me very happy.

I am learning to practice patience (which I lacked for many others in my life) with myself and be kind most of the time. I’ll occasionally find myself crying because of some silly thing I have done or not been capable of doing (as well or as fast as I expect myself to do), and I’ll have to sit down with Me and hug myself and tell Me I am doing OK for the age I have and not to worry.  And, I have decided and accepted that I won’t obligate myself to do this to the  bitter end,  for I have chosen a home in Cuernavaca -Mexico- where I will ‘intern’ for the latter years.

This -the internship- was not my idea. I was considering returning to Mexico some time soon about a year ago and announced the pending decision to my children over a group conversation one night. Much to my surprise, in a follow-up mail, I got a list of ‘Residences for the Elderly’ that my daughter had researched in Mexico. When I got over from the shock, I realized that it had been a not very pleasant chore that my daughter had so generously set herself to, and I should be grateful. I went through the list, picked out one I especially liked that would take me with my little dog and, during my last visit to Mexico, my children were kind enough to take me there for lunch and to meet the owners and directors of the Retreat. So I am all set up, and my plan is to intern as of Holy Week next Spring. The name of the Residence: Eden.

Am I doddering? No.  But there is nothing that I can do in my small apartment in Madrid that I can’t do there, so why should I shun all the service (medical and otherwise) that will be offered there, when I am beginning to feel so tired of having to organize even my own very simple life? I`ll have company if I want it, entertainment if I want it (without having to take a taxi to the nearest movie theater), dining room or room service if I wish and I can have my dog. The climate if perfect (for old age), there is a 5000 sq. meter garden, a swimming pool and Cuernavaca holds dear memories for me of my sobering-up process in the Clínica Cantú. So all is well.  If everything goes as planned, I will be in Eden by next summer at the latest.

GETTING OLD… A CONSTANT LESSON IN HUMILITY

/ Brianda Domecq / 18 Comments

Here we go! Five months and four days into my 80th year… 80 is a scary number. Every time I say it, it sits like a lump on my tongue. It is a number my mind cannot wrap itself around. I can’t say ‘I am 80’ yet; I will not say that until the first of August of this year 2022… I am still 79 creeping towards 80 (and there it is again), but even that is a lie: I am over five months into my 80th year of life, so I am 79+.

Me at Computer

I try to think if there is anything I could do before that I cannot do now… Run, perhaps. Yes, I guess I could run if obliged to by an oncoming car or a spooky monster, but then I have never been a runner. Running, jumping, sports in general… not my thing. My mother was golfer (she could never get me interested although she tried), my father a hunter (a sport I gave up the day I wounded a wild duck and then had to put it out of its misery with my own little hands, ughhh), I am a butt-in-chair writer: not considered a sport. I can’t even remember what I did in gym class in high school. The only sport I truly remember doing and loving was horseback riding… Oh, and water-skiing. I was around 16-18, and I felt it was something I was good at. Had dominated the slalom and was learning to ski on the round board, doing turns and such, when I got married and water-skiing, actually even trips to Acapulco, ended. When I got married horseback riding ended too: both sports entailed either having money or travelling or both. My first husband was not a sportsman either, so we didn’t do sports. Even when we went to live on a golf course and could see the golfers strolling past (or peering into our garden looking for their misdirected ball), we never even tried to take up the sport (that was my mother’s thing, and the last thing in the world I wanted was to be like my mother).

Walking in the woods was something I loved too, from a very young age when we lived in New Canaan, Connecticut and our property was bounded on three sides by deep woods; walking in the woods with a dog… my favorite. Occasionally –not very often now- I will take a stroll with the dog, but never in the woods anymore for fear of twisting an ankle or falling down and not being able to get up. Walk on the road is better, safer… not as much fun or as pretty, but definitely safer. Yesterday, I was walking along the sidewalk near my apartment building, and I must have run my toe into a ridge in the pavement because my whole body went flying straight out and landed ¡Wap! on my stomach. Not pleasant and a miracle I didn’t break anything (a rib, my wrist, a finger). If I had –as luck would have had it- I needn’t have worried for an ambulance was coming up right behind me and stopped immediately upon seeing my fall in case I needed help. The driver was very kind, helped me back up and asked if I was alright… I was, except for feeling stupid and achy all over. I brushed myself off, thanked the ambulance driver and the people who had stopped their car alongside to help also, and continued –stiffly- my walk home. I wonder if I will be able to do that when I am 80…

I have coffee every morning with a ‘gal’ who is 20 years older than I am… she just turned 99 on November 19th last. Ninety-nine!!! That’s practically a lifetime away from my age. Will I get there? No… wrong question. I am here now: 79.

Anyway, I have said nothing about what the title to this piece suggests: humility learned with age. Yes, it is humbling because there is really no choice: I either accept (humility) or do not accept (suffering). I have noticed that, if I do not resist being this age, I am

Proud to be humbled

humbled by gratitude… gratitude to have been allowed to reach this ‘advanced’ age in good health, sound of body and… well, mind is doing okay although memory is suffering every day more… What to do…? I forget things, but then I have always been forgetful, it is just getting a worse, bit by bit. I learn to write everything down, I learn to look at my calendar every day, I learn to ask people to remind me if necessary: that is humility. But humility also comes with accepting my increasing forgetfulness without beating myself up; my slower walking without feeling impatience; my aches and pains without complaining… accepting that I am aging and being damn grateful for it. If I continue this path of humility and reach –perhaps- 90, I will perhaps reach sainthood before I die. I won’t know it though, because to believe one is a saint is an act of pride, and I will be so terribly humble by then… well, we’ll see.

JULIETTE

/ Brianda Domecq / 12 Comments

In my last post, I promised a continuation of the story of Juliette at home… and I have fallen amiss. In spite of the fact that we have been confined since that day, and that I have been alone… I have actually been busier than ever before in my life. Between correcting and revising my short stories which are to be republished hopefully soon, correcting a translation of a friend, organizing and participating in a Zoom group for women from different countries and taking care of Juliette, I have been absolutely busy.

No confinement blues for me (apart from the fact that having a dog not only allows, but demands leaving the house at least 4 times a day), because I don’t feel confined. I would have no choice but to stay home and work if I expected to meet any of my deadlines, so I would have self-confined.

Tonight I have finished reviewing and revising my two books of short stories –which will be republished as one- and have decided to continue the Juliette story. Needless to say, it took her exactly no time at all to settle in and become the dog of the house. Yes, she barks a little loudly (but little by little is learning not to do it), and yes, for the first two days she acted like the stranger who had walked into the wrong house by accident, but the third day she suddenly began playing with Salomé’s toys and our relationship was off and running.

Since then, she has obviously become the Dog of the House, has chosen a straight-backed chair with a cushion on it as her place (nearest me, immediately to my right) instead of the black armchair where Salomé like to sleep; has proved herself to be –above all- a LapDog in capital letters, wanting at the slightest excuse to jump up into my lap and lick me on the chin. She has learned to sleep on my bed and cuddle in the morning when I wake (I have remembered that all during my adolescence and right up until I was married, I slept with my dachshund every night) so –more than settling in- she has taken over the place of Dog of the House with great enthusiasm and pleasure.

I am, of course, delighted. Naturally, every once in a while I feel a pinch in my heart when I remember my beloved Salomé, but Juliette is so different in character, so loving, so playful, so demanding in a cute sort of way that I don’t feel the pain I thought I would. I am grateful, to life, to the Universe, to the SPA and all the people who found and kept her well for me until I was ready… and to Juliette, who is a delight to be around and love.

LIFE HATES EMPTY SPACE

/ Brianda Domecq / 10 Comments

EVERY GOODBYE BRINGS ITS OWN MIRACLE

Tuesday evening, the 28th of October, 2020 (what I had called ‘The Year of Good Vision’) I found the courage to give my precious Salomé and myself the gift of love and peace, before she suffered too much or I suffered too much. It was a sweet parting, followed with tears that threatened to never stop. I took a small pill and did sleep the night through. The tears started again the following morning so I wrote the previous Blog piece (Absence)

and ran through all her pictures and cried some more. Then I picked myself up and began cleaning out all her things: I had no intention of getting another dog soon and as I had taken 3 years after the death of my last dog before getting Salomé, I figured that when the time came I would get everything new.

Then something strange happened. I heated up my lunch, sat at the computer to eat it, opened internet and suddenly found myself typing in: ‘Dogs for adoption in Southwest France’.  I didn’t think it, it just happened… and then the MIRACLE. The miracle is called: JULIETTE (does not include Romeo… too bad) and looks something like a cross between a small fox and a tiny kangaroo… Juliette…

Even the name said ‘Love Me’, but the look and the fact that she was so similar to Loli-dog in size and appearance told me –in no uncertain terms- that I had to have her.  Unfortunately, Juliette was not close by, but halfway across the south of France to a place called Perpignan, a four-hour drive even going at top speed which is 130 kms/hr. 

I sent off an e-mail asking if she was still available (perhaps they had already adopted her out… fear substituted tears immediately); when I had no answer 20 minutes later, I sent another e-mail even more desperate than the first. The thought that I might be going crazy with grief passed through my mind, so I picked up the phone (one thing had nothing to do with the other, I see now) and called the number under La SPA (stands for Societé Protectrice des Animaux) Refuge CAP de Perpignan…

The “SPA” part made it sound like a very pleasant place filled with pools of warm water and loving masseuses who looked kindly after unwanted animals. A very nice lady answered the phone and assured me that Juliette had not yet been adopted.

“Please hold her, I’ll be there for her tomorrow” I said into the phone, noticing that I no longer had any need to continue crying. It was 4 in the afternoon, and I had the feeling that something other than my own free will had taken over as I  printed out directions for getting to la SPA, loaded the live-animal cage into the car, packed up a few necessaries, laid out the money for the cleaning girl and a note specifying not to touch anything that was in the hallway, and decided I should probably be locked up in la SPA myself or put gently to sleep forever due to insanity. None-the-less, the decision seemed to have made itself having nothing to do with my loss, or my sorrow, or any conscious will on my part… it was just happening, so I let go and  ‘went with the flow’.

I was careful, however, to not mention my imminent trip to Perpignan to the many well-wishers who were kind enough to call me and offer condolences that afternoon, as I was convinced that they would find me callous and uncaring… perhaps even inhuman, which were the only explanations I could think of for what I was planning. 

The only person who heard of my folly was a dear friend who came by to ‘walk’ me (leash-less) in the afternoon (seeing as I would not be walking anything) around the beautiful village of Sauveterre… ‘A brisk walk’ she said, ‘something you mentioned you missed with Salome’s ageing.’ The miracle of kind friends…

Wednesday night, as was expected, President Macron announced our re-confinement as of Friday. I heard his speech, admired his directness and clarity, accepted the inevitable and thought to myself: ‘Whether I get the little girl or not, at least I am going to hit the highway the last day before being locked up again. It will feel good.’

At 8 a.m. Thursday morning (market day in Salies), oblivious to what awaited me on the highway as a response to Macron’s announcement, I climbed into my car, set the TomTom for Perpignan and departed. After an hour speeding along at the allowed rate, I stopped for the coffee and croissant I had promised myself upon waking. I was in high spirits and had told myself very clearly that if I didn’t feel absolutely certain about adopting Juliette, I would simply drive back and count it as a much needed excursion.

After coffee, I set off for Toulouse and the … ¡surprise! A swarm of poids lourds’ (heavy trucks) were carrying out “Operation Snail Pace’ around Toulouse, protesting against Macron’s decision. I heard the announcement on the Traffic information station on the car radio, contemplated the fact that I still could turn back, knew damn well I wouldn’t and hoped it would not be too bad. It was.

East, West and Southern Periphery Rings were backed up for kilometers and the time for getting past the city ranged from 30 minutes (instead of 10) to an hour. Sure enough, I promptly ran into the tail end of the blockade and my travelling speed went from 130 to about 5km an hour.

Never the less I pushed on, losing only an hour which turned my travel time into 5 instead of 4. Upon making it past Toulouse and entering A9 which turned me southward towards Perpignan and the Mediterranean, I stopped for a rest and a baguette with chicken and salad of which I ate half (saving the other half for a snack on the way back). Coffee and a fruit cocktail completed my lunch.    

 As I neared my destination, I made a wrong turn which took me some 20 kms in the opposite direction to that which I wanted. Suddenly, I felt frightened. What in the world was I doing? Driving all that way, getting tired and with an aching back… without considering that I am 78+ years old!!! Finally, thanks to trustworthy TomTom, I found my way and arrived at the refuge.

The place was clean and spacious; there were cages something like what one sees in a zoo, and large pens where I suppose they let the dogs out to exercise. They took me immediately to a pen that contained two small doggies: a white, furry male and… Juliette. She looked so the size of Loli, but different, more alive, less terrified (she was perfectly capable of growling and snapping if you frightened her). The young lady who took care of me explained this and the fact that she liked women more than men generally, as she proceeded to lead us both to another large pen. There we were left to see if we could get along.

So there I stood, in a pen with a strange dog perfectly capable of biting me if I made a wrong move. It was hot and dusty in the pen and there was only a low stoop to sit on if I wanted. I had been given a hotdog to offer her pieces in exchange –I suppose- for not taking her teeth to me.  I felt a bit silly: like someone suddenly left in a cage with a hungry lion and not knowing what the hell to do. 

I had her on a short leash so we walked around a bit till I got bored and sat on the stool. At some point, she came over and sniffed me. I reached out and tried to pet her but she pulled back and, at that moment, the clasp on her collar opened and she was free. She ran straight for the gate, apparently hoping that someone would rescue her from this idiot of a woman who seemed to know nothing about handling a dog.

Aha, thought I: this is when the hotdog comes in handy. I will just snap the collar back on and give her a little piece as a prize. Well, she was having none of it. She growled and snapped at me with which I dropped the piece of hotdog, which she immediately gobbled up. After three unsuccessful tries, I gave up and started yelling for help.

Finally, the girl came back, snapped a new collar on, attached the leash and handed it back to me. I guess she thought I wouldn’t take Juliette, but she was wrong: I liked the dog, she had spunk, she needed lots of love (and Salomé had well-trained me in that field), and I had the feeling that once we got home and were alone things would somehow turn out.

Long story, short: I signed the papers, paid the money and watched while a young man enticed Juliette to enter the cage by sticking big gobs of white cheese through the rear opening. Once in, I loaded her in the car with the cage door facing me so she would have to look and listen to me the whole way home. What I didn’t suspect was that the whole way home was going to be a lot longer than expected.

I left La SPA after five so it was night by the time I reached the outer limits of Toulouse. What I encountered coming back was this (an actual picture taken from a newspaper report of the problem):

After ‘Operation Snailpace’ there had been a terrible accident just past Toulouse and the back-up was more than ten kilometers long. It took Juliette and me two and a half hours to cover those 10 kilometers. There was nothing I could do, nowhere I could turn off, no other route that I knew of. I sat there, my legs aching, my back aching, my eyes tired and a poor, trembling dog in a cage sitting next to me. I put music on, I sang to her, I talked to her; I gave her a blow by blow description of our predicament, I said I was sorry a dozen times.

As a result, my drive home took seven instead of four hours: in total I had been behind the wheel 12 hours in the day and, having left home at 8 a.m. I arrived back at midnight.

I extracted a frightened Juliette from her cage, but not before she had smeared white cheese (which she had apparently not eaten) all over the leash and the front seat of the car, and walked her around the garden. Then, leaving the cage and anything else I had in the car, we went upstairs and I set about the task of introducing my little lady to her new home. Given the hour and the exhausted and nervous state we were both in, and after realizing that I would not sleep if I locked her in the bathroom, or if I left her free to run around the apartment peeing, I felt I had no choice but to put her to sleep in bed with me.

This I did and, surprisingly, we had a pretty good night with no more mishaps.

(To be continued)

ABSENCE

/ Brianda Domecq / 20 Comments

Wednesday, October 28. I wake up. It is a cloudy morning. All I see is ABSENCE. Beside my bed, there is no doggie basket holding the still sleeping, curled up black and white ball of fur. In the living room, the chair with its colorful cushions is empty; there is no toy bag under the small side table waiting to toss up its balls and sticks. The dog dishes are gone, washed and put aside to give away; the floor of the kitchen is without objects to trip upon.

The hallway is empty; no little four-paws waiting by the door, no leash hanging from the coat hanger, no small raincoat drying on the radiator near the entrance way. Only empty space waiting at the door for me to open it.

Absence…

As I sit at my computer, I can feel the empty black armchair behind me, the armchair she always slept on while I worked and that in the last few weeks she could no longer jump up on. I remember the way she would stand in front of it, looking up, and wait… wait for me to turn around, notice, get up, and help her to climb onto the chair for her nap. Now no one waits… There is a vibrant space where the small black and white body used to be, where I used to see her when I turned from my work. Absence…

Silence is not a problem. She was a very quiet dog, never barked… I mean never… well except when I held the ball and she insisted I toss it… she would bark. But never, not when someone strange came to the house, not when there was thunder, not when she was hungry. She commanded by her gaze. She would look at me, and look at me, and look at me until my attention –doing whatever it was doing in that moment- came unglued from my task and turned to her.

Today there is no look, the space between the armchair and me is empty… there is only Absence.

When I step into the shower in an attempt to wash away the sticky tears I couldn’t stop last night, there is no small black schnauzer creeping in to lie on the floor mat in front of the small electric heater I turn on.

Nothing is asking to be fed this morning except my own stomach which refuses to be satisfied with nothing but choked back and swallowed tears. No small nose pokes at my thigh asking to partake of whatever it is I am eating.

I think: ‘I should get dressed, I should go out…’ and then remember there is no rush, there is no imperative reason, there is no-thing that makes it necessary to go out this morning.

I remember that it has been a long time since I have had a brisk walk, a long time because little legs began dragging behind not wanting to walk far, not wanting or being able to walk fast. I can today go out and have a brisk walk with nothing but Absence trailing behind.

And then I know, as I approach town and begin to see the folks I pass every day, they too will see it, they will see the empty space behind or beside me. And they will ask… Absence will have to be explained over and over and over until she is all gone. It is called mourning, and each neighbor, each kindly question, each tear shed carries it nearer to ending. After that, only the beautiful memories remain… I so look forward to that day.

But this morning is only the first morning of ABSENCE, the first day when I will notice every corner and cranny of this space that we have shared for the last ten years, of this lifetime that we have spent 14 years of enjoying together… and only see its emptiness, its not-thereness, its memory-of-herness…

And as the tears begin once more, ever more, to fill my eyes and slip silently down my cheeks, I cry out to that oh so present ABSENCE, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you for being part of my life, for being here with me for so many beautiful days and nights… Thank you, thank you, thank you…”

And she fills my heart with love once more and the tears run again down my cheeks and wet my pajama top and I reach out my hand and clasp to my chest the small blue mouse with red ears and feet that has been her ever-so-carefully guarded toy since she was a pup. I can feel her in this tiny soft toy, all her joy and all her beautiful being wrapped up in a silly mousy toy that squeaks. Thank you, thank you, thank you… forever my sweet ABSENCE. 

MAGNIFICENT MAGNOLIA

/ Brianda Domecq / 1 Comment

Today, Sunday the 31st of May, is the next-to-last day of lockdown. It has been two and a half months. Day after tomorrow restaurants and cafés open; today the church bells chimed their hearts out as the first Mass in more than 75 days was celebrated.

Calendar March April May 2020 Template

I have a friend who hasn’t been out in two and a half months except two or three times to the supermarket. I, of course, have been in and out all along, and, except for my morning and afternoon visits to the cafés to have a coffee and chat, my life hasn’t changed that much. But nothing felt the same all this time. The streets were quiet, people wore masks (they still do) and said ‘hello’ from afar (they are getting a bit closer, but still keeping distance). No kisses even on one cheek, much less on both which is the custom… It was as if everything had gone into stand-still… waiting, holding its breath.

Today, as I walked past my friend’s house I rang the bell and she invited me in for a coffee… just like before. We sat at her kitchen table, chatted and sipped our cups of coffee. Day after tomorrow we will be going to the café to join the coffee group once more.

As I step outside  and turn to walk home, I stop for a moment and listen to the church bells still chiming away. Tears come to my eyes: ‘This is what it must have been like the day WWII ended and the bells could finally chime again,’ I think as I strike out for home.

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At home the Magnolia awaits me: yes, Magnolia, with a capital M. You see, there is a magnolia tree right up the avenue from me and when I walk that way with Salomé and the tree is flowering, I can smell it from a block away. Now it is flowering, and day before yesterday, when I walked past the dark, shady tree, I saw the Magnolia: it was a imagesMBEBL073bud but it had already lost its protective rust covering and was all white, ready to burst open. It was on a low branch… the temptation was too much. I clipped it and smuggled it back home with me: what a delight! I would smell its sweet perfume as long as it lasted.

Of course, this is not the first time I have absconded with one of my neighbor’s magnolia blossoms but, somehow, lockdown has created a heightened state of consciousness and, suddenly, my Magnolia became a living thing, a newcomer to my small apartment.

IMG_20200530_094043When I got home, I trimmed off the extra leaves so as to give her more power, filled a small glass vase with fresh water and placed her gently on the dining table in her new home. Throughout the afternoon, the pregnant bud grew plumper to the point of bursting. The perfume was still faint, barely discernable. When I went to bed, I anticipated the delight that awaited me in the morning with the perfume, but I never expected the marvel that was to fill my life for two whole days.

At 9 a.m. I noticed the bud had begun to open and the room was filled with the sweetest, most delicate perfume. I took a picture, topped up the water in the vase, said ‘thank you’ and ‘good morning’ to Magnolia, and went about my morning.

When I came home an hour later from my walk, the delicious scent greeted me the IMG_20200530_103512moment I opened the door. I went to see how Magnolia was doing and noticed progress. The wonder of the miracle of life filled me and I decided to follow the unfolding of this miracle throughout the day. Half an hour later, Magnolia looked like this:

I can’t even begin to describe the perfume that was wafting out of the unfurling bloom and filling the apartment. It would be what joy and love and tenderness all combined would smell like if they were a perfume.

Our love affair was on; there was no avoiding her allure and my curiousness as to what was thereof to unfold (literally). I longed to have a video recorder that could record for hours and then be speeded up so I could see her move IMG_20200530_104937myself for –no matter how I tried to make myself patient and stare at her moment after moment- I could not capture even one slight pulse of a movement, and yet, not even 90 minutes later she had bloomed.IMG_20200530_121825

How did she move ever so slightly, ever so cautiously that my eye could not capture even the slightest twitch? All day long I observed her, breathing in her heavenly perfume and thanking the heavens I had been so bold as to steal her for my own.

And then, around five o’clock in the afternoon, as the sun began its descent in the western sky, something even more miraculous happened: she began closing her petals slowly around her center once more. By five thirty she was halfway closed, and –although she never got back to IMG_20200530_204800being a bud again, by evening, there was no doubt she had gone to beddy-bye.

She and I slept all night. The following morning, I arose to the sweet, blessed scent of Magnolia, at around 7:30. The day IMG_20200530_184031promised to bring in the summer full on, and be hot and sunny and even vaporous. But in spite of its brightness and warmth, Miss Magnolia didn’t budge until around 9 a.m.

In spite of being a ‘sleeper’, she hurried to start her big day and was more than half-way open twenty-six IMG_20200531_093643minutes later with her yellow and red stamen filaments beginning already to fall.

Two hours later, she had finished her job and by evening she was ready and willing to go to sleep, having done a hard day’s work.IMG_20200531_101950

My house continues smelling of sweet magnolia blooms, but I feel sad, knowing that the following day, although she will open again, her petals will begin to brown and her perfume to smell a bit stale and soon, too very soon I will be obliged to consecrate her once more to the ground via compost.

Dying

So summer comes, the magnolia blossom does what a blossom is destined to do and the Lockdown comes to an end slowly…

I can only wonder what the world will bring tomorrow.