Over the seasons

I will have to go through the season(s) before my text is final­ly pub­lished. I believe I have gone beyond the point of impa­tience to the point of becom­ing insen­si­tive to time. It’s not that the project is not pro­gress­ing. Quite the oppo­site. I was intro­duced to the cov­er and the new col­lec­tion to which the book will belong. I am due to receive the offi­cial­ly revised man­u­script for the last time, at least in its word pro­cess­ing for­mat. There­after, it will be the lay­out, then the tech­ni­cal revi­sion. I will prob­a­bly have to pro­vide a pho­to, I will be offered the text of the C4 (back cov­er). Then it’ll be for me to real­ly cast off.

Book­sellers will be informed of new items in Jan­u­ary or Feb­ru­ary (I have not yet been giv­en a date). There will be a launch, indi­vid­ual or col­lec­tive, an ephemer­al and yet wel­come joy. Then it will be the wait­ing. I know this all, I’ve been there. I’ve already closed the hatch­es. It is bet­ter to wait until the wind turns, the storm pass­es. It won’t last long. Only the pride of this sixth white stone will remain along my lit­tle path.

In the mean­time, the sea­sons will con­tin­ue. I start­ed walk­ing again, not quite well dressed to face the rainy and cold days on a bicy­cle. A few days ago, I noticed that the sleeves of my autumn coat were full of mis­ery. I can’t afford anoth­er one and this coat still keeps me warm. I’ll wait for bet­ter days, prob­a­bly next fall.

Under the coat, I put on a hood­ie. The coat also has a hood. I look like an old yo. It does­n’t mat­ter, I’m alone on my way. I watch the autumn trees once again try­ing to fall asleep with dig­ni­ty. From time to time, mum­mies, skele­tons and arti­fi­cial cob­webs hang on bal­conies. It’s almost Hal­loween. The round of bur­lesque cel­e­bra­tions begins. I grind my teeth every time.

You don’t know how to relax, one might say. I do not deny it, just as I rec­og­nize myself in the main char­ac­ter of my nov­el, this Serj, whose roots are uncer­tain. I see many of the char­ac­ters writ­ten in these texts again, and they all speak of the same thing : a social ambi­gu­i­ty inter­twined with peace and anguish.

So give it all, promise every­thing, for a bite, a caress or a smile. To give every­thing to life, to wait impa­tient­ly for the day when I will land a new land and when, from the for­est in the dis­tance, eyes will assure me that I am not alone in the world.

I was writ­ing this, in coda from La vie dure, prob­a­bly a mis­un­der­stood and con­scious­ly ambiva­lent title (in French, there is a pun of word => Life lasts, or Life is hard).

With­out under­stand­ing, there is still the lux­u­ry and delight of start­ing over. Last sen­tence of Les Années-rebours.

That’s not mis­lead­ing, I’m just going through the sea­sons. Every­one suf­fers the same fate. I’m one of those peo­ple who think they have to say it. Still, it’s a long way off, Jan­u­ary 2015…