What Possessed Me

Waking dreams and sleepless nights

A funny thing has been happening this week.

In the middle of something completely banal – flossing my teeth, stamping an envelope, tying my shoe, a memory from the recesses of my brain pops out like a pink candy buried deep in a giant glass gumball machine. I am then completely transported to that time and place – so much so that it seems that I’m in the middle of a waking dream.

My knees are dusty and shredded. They hurt from kneeling in the dry, prickly grass while I attempt to fix my camera. I want to catch the horses – the wild horses of the Camargue – and not only are they no where to be seen, but my camera has chosen this inopportune moment to give up the ghost. The late afternoon sun is drenching my back as I bend over the useless equipment and brush off the dust.

Rage. Tears of frustration. My companion stalks off in a huff, fed up and wanting flamingos. I am wanting horses. I have come here for horses. But there is nothing but grass and marsh and horizon ahead of me and I am now alone, kneeling on my broken knees holding my broken camera.

There is a slight tug at my ponytail. Instinctively, I slap with my hand, my palm landing squarely on a firm, warm muzzle. A wild horse is nibbling the sun bleached strands of my hair, thinking they are something good to eat. His friends approach silently from behind, greedy for a treat. Before long, I am surrounded by five white horses, each dainty, velvety muzzle sniffing and chewing and considering my hair. They are so close I feel their breath on my forehead and smell their warm, gamey scent. I sit perfectly still, heart thumping, spirit expanding, wishing with all my might it would never end.

One of the most perfect moments of my life. Returned to me after so many years. I'm so happy to have it back.

Who needs a camera?


Photograph from here with thanks.

Taking things seriously

The day after the fire in our building, I set about clearing the debris. This led to an eight hour cleaning spree of epic proportions - I reorganized our overflowing bookcases in my own highly idiosyncratic way (God help Fauxhawk if he needs to find a book), vacuumed, dusted, scrubbed, mopped, and jettisoned what I could. Fauxhawk and I have a bad habit of accumulating things – we become attached to the flotsam and jetsam of daily life, to tiny mementos of our travels, and to the gew-gaws of our childhood. We like to be surrounded by our stuff, and the overall effect – though slightly chaotic – is decorative and comforting.


We had become accustomed to having these things around - before the fire, I barely noticed them; they formed the scenic design of our life together. Rag in hand, I reconnected with each object as I would a long-lost friend. I came across a small black statuette of Bathsheba, mother of King Solomon – a souvenir from Ethiopia given to me by my ex-boyfriend, Dermonster. The statue had a mate, a delicately carved Solomon that I was meant to keep while Dermonster and I conducted our long-distance New York/Geneva, London/Geneva relationship. While he kept his Bathsheba, I kept my Solomon, moving from place to place with him wrapped in my clothes.



After moving across the Atlantic to be near Dermonster, I realized to my horror that I had lost my Solomon. At around this time, my long-distance relationship began to unravel. I spent more and more time weeping alone in my London flat, steeped in despair and wanting to disappear. My heart and head and gut were all at odds with each other and I couldn’t find a way out of the tangled mess we were in. Finally, when the straw broke the camel’s back, I screwed up my courage, boarded a plane to New York, and said goodbye to London, Geneva and Dermonster. I cried the whole way home, and every day for ten months after that.

Two years (and almost no communication) later, I saw Dermonster in New York. He presented me with a small package. It was Bathsheba. He had kept her all that time – the symbol of our broken, smashed up, one-sided relationship.

“She’s yours,” he said. “It’s too sad to have her around now that Solomon’s gone.”

I keep Bathsheba on my bookshelf. I could never part with her. She reminds me to listen to my gut, trust my heart, and run like hell when something doesn't feel right.



Title of this post taken from the excellent book, Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance.
Photographs from The Selby.

The good old bad days

This vintage luggage tag reminds me of a summer I spent with Dermonster in Geneva with absolutely nothing to do but read, wander and worry before my graduate program started in London.

I had just quit an intense and stimulating job to spend those two months kicking around Geneva and swimming in the lake. Instead, I gnawed my fingers to the bone, overcome by feelings of uneasiness and dread.


I found out a few things that summer:

Geneva is beautiful and supremely livable, but really, really boring.
Boredom and anxiety go hand-in-hand.
The Genevois do not want to be your friend. Sorry.
It’s better to find out that your boyfriend is deathly afraid of monogamy before you move 3,000 miles and rearrange your life to be near him.

Those were the good old bad days and I’m glad they’re over. As now whenever I see something about Geneva, I feel an uncomfortable twang that instantly transports me to a time when I was unprepared for the life I was living.

What places conjure up a time that you want to remember – or forget?

1960s Swiss luggage tag from here with thanks.