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...