February 2002 Archives
The 'woosh' of the metro's sliding doors wafted in the pungent smell of acetone. I stepped out onto the platform, wondering where the odour was coming from. It was then I had my Madeleine moment.
The smell triggered memories of my mother's 60's hard core pink nails, her Cutex supply, the bottles of Chanel on the window sill, her thin brown ribbed turtle neck sweaters, the zip on calf length boots and her jet black hair.
The memories bring sadness, and a smile. Making my way up the escalators, I remind myself how everybody else knew her better than I ever did and talks about her as if she was a saint.
For the child I was all a mother ever can be, is the comfort after scraping your knee, or the slap on the wrist when you did wrong.
I remember sitting on the stairs with her, shoulder to shoulder, after being bold, and her forgiving me with a sense of embarrassment at her own anger. 'Are we friends again?' she'd say and I'd welcome it.
That's all really. That's all the memories I have. She wasn't given the time to become a real person to me. Just... 'mum'.
Gone.
At the top of the escalator I see men in white coveralls painting the walls. The acetone trigger makes way for the smell of wet white paint.
Overground the sky is bright. Work waits.
What I ate last night: Sayur Lodeh. A taste familiar like... pancakes, to some, I guess. My friend went about cooking it arseways ('oops, forgot the chicken...') but it still tasted good.
"Getting paid to sing songs full of teenage angst. Which is great if you're 16. But when you're 46..."
I went to see Luka Bloom, in the Carré Theatre, here in Amsterdam, last Monday.
Luka Bloom hasn't changed a bit since I first saw him in 1990. Since then I've seen him many, many more times. You can rely on him to be funny, uplifting and heart warming. He's familiar, a memory of Ireland, a piece of turf on the fire. Safe, if safe ever is a good word to describe a musician.
Remember the supermarket check out girl that was rude to me when I'd just come back from a trip abroad? I've been avoiding her till ever since. I don't like her face. She looks like an angry sow, and that's how she treats the customers too. Except the ones she likes. To be in her favour, you have to grovel.
I tried it today. Despite feeling dead beat, I stood up straight, put on a smile and approached her line.
I caught bits and pieces of the Royally Arranged Wedding on TV. It all looked mercifully brief and tastefully done, simple and quite protestant except for the Argentinian tango which made the Princess cry. It sounded familiar, and it was: Astor Piazolla's Adios Nonino (real audio, written for the death of his father), quite poignant perhaps, seeing as Ms Zorreguieta's parents (once supporters of the Argentinian Junta) had not been allowed to attend the wedding.