Category: Memories

Summer theater

I was always too shy to do drama (and always worried on the several occasions it was suggested to me as a means to overcome shyness. A few years ago, my boss told me I should consider “improv” and it freaked me out so much that my instinct response was to think about quitting, which I didn’t do). However, I did go on stage, three times.

I don’t have many recollections. Shame must have taken care of blanking them from my memory.

The first time I went on stage, I was between 3 and 6 years old and the occasion was the celebration of the end of the school year. Our teacher had decided our class was an Indian tribe. I was the squaw (i.e., the chief’s wife) and I was to present our newborn baby to the tribe. I don’t know that these memories are mine or based on hearing my parents recounting the story, but I do remember waiting in the teepee –with the baby doll– for the signal my teacher would give me. At the signal I was to come out of the teepee and present the baby. I was told that I came out of the teepee holding the baby by an ankle, presenting the newborn upside down.

During the summer of 1985, I was visiting my aunt in Corsica for a month, and I was in a play for the second time. Someone in the village had decided that keeping the kids busy with a theater play was better than letting us wander the streets and woods around in search of some trouble to make. I was to be a maid. I practiced long and hard, I remember that much. I also remember that the representation was to occur only a few days after I turned 10. I don’t actually remember the play or whether it was a success. But my aunt remembers things. Like I was very unhappy that I was to be a simple maid. That she had to reveal to me the importance of maids at the time the play was set in. She also remembers that she helped me with reheasals. If I had been a promising actress, I’m positive she would have complimented me 😉

The third time I was on stage was, similarly to the first time, at the occasion of the school fair. I was almost 12 and it felt like the last school assignment I had to do before being rewarded with the summer holiday. Our teacher had picked an episode of “The Love Boat”. I was the goffer. I remember a few things, but none related to the play itself. I remember being glad I was wearing a white outfit because it was a really hot and sunny day and we were not acting in the shade. I remember wishing I would not trip when I climbed the stairs to go on stage (I don’t think I did, otherwise I would remember). And the other thing I remember is the make-up artist telling me the shape of my eye-brows was perfect and how pleased I was by what he had told me. I was also surprised because never before had I considered that eye-brows shape was something to have an opinion on. (I’m totally digressing but I have to note that either fashion changed since then, or the said shape changed and became not so perfect over time. Or the guy made fun of me in the first place.)

How many times you can change the first letter of a name and still have a name?

I have been working hard and am now in much need of a break. This assignment I’m working on makes my brain hurt. So much that for the past hour, I’ve been wandering from one butterfly to the other. I may as well blog, and then go back to the assignment.

The other day on TV there was a character which name I couldn’t quite make out. She was either a “Dina” or a “Tina”. That made me think how the suffix “ina” could fit with numerous consonants:

{d,f,g,h,l,m,n,p,r,t,,}ina

“Ina” is also an existing first name.

I’ve always been somewhat interested by language stuff. However not enough to know how it is called.

I remember as a teenager how I realised with wonder that “aude” was similar to “claude” and “maude” and how all of them could be transformed into “audine”, “claudine”, “maudine” and still sound nice.

Smells and memories

I am attached to smells for the memories they bring.

The smell of fig trees reminds me of my first time in Corsica, as a child, as I was visiting my aunt. Her house is in the mountains, in a small village. The sweet and powdery smell of fig trees was everywhere on the path around the village. I was 10 years old and I hadn’t smelled fig trees before. It’s unrelated to smells but I hadn’t seen donkeys before either and I “met” them during this holiday. One even stepped on my toe and I thought the animal was heavy but I would have imagined the resulting pain to be bigger.

The yellow Dop shampoo brings me back to a summer in the late 80s or possibly in the early 90s. I was around 15 years old. I was at my grand-parents’ house in the country (Bévenais, Isère). The fresh smell reminds me of counting goldfish in the little pond and petting the neighbour’s kittehs. Madame Guidy had named one of them “Kitty” after my suggestion. Thinking about this moment brings back memories of being impressed by the powerful car of my grand-father and enjoying how fast he was driving, compared to my father. I’m also reminded of hanging my towel to dry out the window and being lectured by my grand-father that this was not Italy and to please, bring that towel back in the bathroom immediately. How peculiar that was considering there was no neighbour or passer-by to see that towel hanging. Of “inside the house”, I have few memories. Oddly enough the clearest is that of the water closet. A fantastic and interesting hiding place. It had windows on all three sides of the room and although there wasn’t much happening in the garden I remember I liked to stay there and watch, and think. Also the little room was home to the collection of Readers’ Digest. I was reading them for hours as we had no magazines at home. I was very often ordered to vacate the facility 😉 I also remember helping my grand-mother with some chores, like doing the dishes. We were to clean them before putting them in the dish-washer (go figure), and we were to dry them thoroughly afterwards.

The fragrance of Pleasures, by Estée Lauder, makes me travel back to Edinburgh in Scotland, some 12 years ago. I was wearing that perfume when I was studying there. A whiff of Pleasures and I find myself walking down Lothian Road, turning toward the restaurant Fat Sam and waiting at the bus stop to go to college. The wind was cold, so cold it was biting my ears. But the smell of the perfume was around me because of the wind. I returned to Edinburgh several times, since then, and made sure to bring the perfume with me.

The smell of the henna hair conditioner by Timotei turns instantly my bathroom into one of the shower cabins I was using in March 2005 when I was vacationing in New Zealand. For example, I often find myself in the shower block at the awesome and original Napier Prison Backpackers. One thing leading to another, at least for the duration of the hair care, I can revisit any part of New Zealand that I know from the fabulous 3-week holiday.

Of the numerous perfumes I wear, there is another one that brings me memories. L’Eau d’Issey (it sounds like “l’Odyssée”) by Issey Miyake reminds me of Roslindale, of Boston, of Amy and our huge collection of good moments. I had it when I was living in the US and A and I had several others, one of which (the Rose Essentielle by Bulgari) made Amy a little nauseous (sorry!). I took L’Eau d’Issey with me to the hospital where I gave birth to Adrien, because a colleague of mine had advised me to bring a perfume that I like. Her theory being that a familiar and pleasant smell fosters wellness and good spirits. Now, the smell of this fragrance reminds me of Adrien, of his godmother Amy and of the places I was when he was growing inside me.

Harry Belafonte & Muppet Show, The Banana Boat Song

[This post originally appeared in Dullicious, where I blogged as Barbie-dull for several years.]

I knew this song as “Day-Oh”, by the French band Pow Wow who were mostly doing acapella songs. I learnt years later that it was a cover. I was searching for MP3s of the song and found a few: a version by Shaggy, one by Danny Elfman (the one used in the movie Beetlejuice), and one by Harry Belafonte & the Muppet Show. YouTube are great, I can now see what I had imagined after hearing the sound track numerous times:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6obqAG6Ejj0&w=425&h=350