Träume

Françoise Hardy

Listening with half an ear to BBC Radio 3 the other day in my bedroom, I first hear the word “autumn”.I am thoroughly surprised to discover that the summer holidays are over. Yet, there are no signs of autumn yet. The air is still as sweet as apricots. There is no smelling of wet leaves. I opened my curtain the first thing this morning. The trees are still full of leaves. The gardens are blessed with emerging Crown Imperials, blue gentians, Meconoposis, Azalea, fluttering butterflies floating on the breeze and Rock Cresses that look like white lacy tablecloths.In this time of the year, everyone in my neighbourhood has gone away for their last minute holiday, their final attempt to search for the sun.

The gay couple who lives on the top floor had gone away to Spain. They are straight gay men. No one would have noticed they are the two gay men living together because they both are very macho warrior type. They play football. They love sports as much as they love drinking beer. They are good at DIY (once they fixed our ceiling light in the hallway). They mow the lawn and wash the car. They hate opera ("what a noise") and ballet. One can't help but wonder if they are really gay? I suppose there is nothing duller than the reinforcement of a stereotype! Time stands still when you are alone. The empty flat begins to breathe like a deep, long note from a solo cello. When I lean out of my living room window, I can see the tapestry of floating, opalescent flower petals that drift across the sky like confetti with full of colours. This is when I begin to love my simple pleasures in the hush oasis of silence. My footsteps echo in the room, the corridor and the hallway of my flat.

I put on my old favourite song [Françoise Hardy - Träume (Dreams)]. I clean the kitchen, change my bed sheets and do my laundry. I take out all my washing to dry in the garden. The birds are sitting hunched on the arms of the trees and looking wistful. They suddenly stop rehearsing their joyful choruses.

I look at the empty clothes lines, the lonely tracks of a heart that lie before me. I spread out my sheets woven from silence. They billow and rise like the white flags of surrender.

On a Sunday afternoon, there are no noisy pans, rustle of the old cookbook’s pages, barking dogs, crying children, coughing from an old woman who lives across the street. Each flat whispers the air of absence. A pile of letters sits outside in white silent envelopes on the staircase.
Momentarily, my soul starts to explore its peaceful existence... and leaves me alone with words in the room.

pictures credit:
Francoise Hardy, Traume : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mT1h_OXBNI
W. Somerset Maugham at his desk at the Villa Mauresque, Cap Ferrat, 1939 http://www.williamlanday.com/2009/09/11/writers-room-w-somerset-maugham/