Conorthoughts

Chinawomangate

Chinawomangate

An interrupted Skype conversation

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Can I help?/Thanatos

"Can I help?" Kim said in the local coffee shop on Lupus Street at about 9.10 a.m. this morning, responding humanly to my brief account - outpouring - of the low I have been in for some days - a low a long way down, four days, five, horizontal on my bed, doing nothing, just lying there - in fear of my imminent planned move to France (Toulouse area). I am up now today, at least, coffee outside, Kim's company. 

We have known one another in a hello, coffee-shop, way a year now maybe even two. Recently, we had our first proper conversation, about Kim's work, my plans to move to France, this and that. So this morning she asked about how my French plans were going, to be met by my black flow, met by her concern.

What would help, I dared to explain, was if she would allow me to take a photo of her and use it to illustrate something short for my blog, that had been forming in my head. I would send her the link. Kim kindly agreed. Writing helped, I said, and having a nice photo to go with the paragraphs can help to write them. 

Kim told me how remarkably her 86 year-old mother's life has been changed for the better, after years of isolation and difficulty living, by her moving from up north (I didn't catch where exactly) first, temporarily, to Kim's home and then to a supported living environment just around the corner from Kim. "She is well, she is enjoying things". Kim has been heavily involved in looking after her mother for a long time. The life instinct, she says, is amazing, how it has got her mother through all those years.  

What I had wanted to name here, before the chance meeting with Kim, was its opposite, the death instinct, what Freud called in his later writings, when he got interested in it, Thanatos, name it as a thing holding me down in bed even yesterday when I was somewhat better. I am glad that Kim got the life instinct in first. It is there - Thanatos, I mean - bobbing around all over the place; I got l involved in it some years ago when writing my thesis which focused on the intellectual relationship between two men who worked together, between whom it - Thanatos, I mean - appeared to get seriously out of hand, and in writing about them, it got out of hand in me. Burying it, saying it is not there, hours, reams of hours, year-hours of cognitive-behavioural therapy activity attempting to rationally think it away - Thanatos, I still mean - doing yoga, running, swimming, 'getting on with my life', is it a step to name it and to say it was in my bed yesterday holding me down? The question what it is, well, I need to get on with my day, can I leave that for another day, and thank Kim for mentioning her mother, the life instinct, and her offer of help? Snap!   

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Me by Una Beag

Nuffin

'What's on your mind?', Facebook asks. Nuffin. Here is the view of an Alpine foot-hill from my Grenoble hotel window.

Wild-boar

'Follow the crowd' is the main rule when it comes to sniffing out a good place for lunch. But I was hungry and it was already 1.30 p.m. which is late for lunch in this part of France, so I settled for the nearly empty La Terrasse. My only lunch companion made me uneasy. The lunch, though, was good. La Terrasse, Meyrueis, the Cevennes, 11th December.

No. 38

Wow, I'm doing well: Twitter follower no. 38. Her name is Lulu Organek but something tells me that name might be made up.

 

 

Damn, forgot to send those presents

Have you sent those Xmas presents? Damn, I've forgotten to, and now I am in the middle of France and they are in my flat on Lupus and it is already the 8th December. Please note the sign for the post office in the background of the photo. I am whizzing in my rented car - well, ambling - through the village of Catus, 12 klms north-east of Cahors, in the Lot. "Get a move on, sleeping citizens of Catus (it is early morning) at least it is probably not too late for you to get them posted, if you get them wrapped and down to La Poste today. Damn about those presents!

What's in a square

Place de l'Eglise? Place de la République? No, I am, right opposite the church, in the tiny hill village of Caumont, 15 klms south-west of Moissac in the Tarn et Garonne, photographing the sign for Square of the 19th March 1962 (the cease-fire in Algeria). A nice find, in effect a Place de la  République Algérienne, dans la France profonde. A coffee-break, 12.10 p.m., 6 December, 2011.