Time to Dream
Quantity time with my subconscious still allows for a few fertile outings
I’ve been spending more time dreaming than time awake this week. After two weeks without chemo—weeks during which my tumor markers rose—I’ve returned to treatment. While it went smoothly on Wednesday, I returned home at 10 a.m. and fell asleep until noon the following day. I’ve continued to sleep for ridiculous hours, meaning that nearly all my journal entries this week are about dreams.
It also means that my timing is once again off for the posting of my column here. It’s clear that Wednesdays, chemo days, are not the best time to be posting. Perhaps for the time being I will change the day to Sunday, to give myself some time to recover. It is Sunday today, and I am still sleeping more than 13 hours a night and struggling through the days. Losing so many days to sleep also means I have less to report. But I do have a few things to share.
Last weekend, Theo finally ran her half marathon. She had been training for months. We failed to find her an official half marathon that allowed 16-year-olds to register, so she decided she was just going to do it on her own. A decision that neatly encapsulates her personality. We were worried about her not having the support of a crowd, not having water and snack stations. But she was not worried. I found her a running vest with pockets for bottles of water.
She chose to run in the Bois de Vincennes, and it could not have been a more beautiful day. Once she set off, Tim and I walked in different directions to see if we could find spots to cheer her on, but despite tracking her on my phone, I couldn’t manage to keep up or cross her path. So I just wandered, listening to James Baldwin’s first novel, Go Tell it On the Mountain. His prose is searing as always, even in this first book. But I must confess that the endless sermons and hellfire-and-brimstone speeches wear on me. So much nonstop, brutal religion. I had to come up for air once in awhile. The park was glorious, touched with gold and cool in the shade. I wandered around ponds and through forests and alongside fields.
And Theo finished! She had been worried about an old injury in her hips, but she was fine during her run and finished her 21.1 kilometers in two hours and one minute. I’m proud of her, of her discipline and sticktoitiveness.
The following day, I needed an excursion to break up the day. It was pouring with rain. I went to the Jean-Jacques Henner museum all the way over in the 17th. The museum is in a narrow house, each room painted a different color. The walls are crowded with paintings. I liked his work. I had never heard of him before. I liked his paintings of women, bathing and standing about with their hair hanging down to their hips. I started at the top of the house and worked my way down.
At the top was an airy atelier painted blue. I loved this room best. By the time I had climbed down a floor or two I was so exhausted I could hardly stand. I sat down on one of the comfortable sofas and stayed there. I was grateful the museum was mostly empty. Rain continued to rattle down. On the ground floor there was a concert, of either professional opera singers or conservatory students. Whoever they were, they were stunning. When I had finished wandering the museum I popped in to hear the last song. Unbelievably beautiful. How lucky I was to have been in the museum while this concert was going on.
Tuesday, we went to see Theo’s performance with one of her school’s theatre classes, a production of Ben Oui Main Enfin Bon by Pierre de Marivaux. The kids did a great job. Theo was wonderful, but you’d expect me to say that. The Theatre Mouffetard was full of her classmates. I was glad so many of them came out to support their friends.
Once I was able to get out of bed, I visited the Mémorial de la Shoah. I’ve been meaning to go for awhile. I was plunged back into my years of researching Exile Music, into the infinite details of grief. I appreciated how many personal stories were featured, as individual people are our way into understanding the enormity of the loss. Individuals and their stories were often set apart, on their own stands. The museum itself, as a museum, is impossibly detailed, every single wall covered with tiny print. If you were to try to read everything on every wall of the museum, you would be there until the end of time. I did the best I could, my exhaustion and pain fighting with my desire to absorb everything. It is impossible to feel sorry for oneself while confronted with the Holocaust. Maybe that’s why I went there.
I was glad to see the space devoted to the children of Izieu, who obsessed me during my writing of Exile Music and who are memorialized in its pages.
One section was devoted to the countries who saved Jews by offering them visas, and this section did not include Bolivia! Nor did it include the Dominican Republic! By 1938, the only countries still offering visas to Jews were Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, and Japan-occupied Shanghai, which was included. I need to speak with someone about this. How could they leave out Bolivia? I will pursue this once more energetic.
Book note of the week:
The Girls at 17 Swann Street
Yara Zgheib
This is an elegantly told, infinitely sad story of anorexia. Anna was a professional dancer before injury derailed her career and a move from Paris to St. Louis unmoored her. In Missouri, where her husband has landed a new job, she spends her days exercising and avoiding food until it becomes clear she will die without inpatient treatment. The book focuses on the exhausting toll of anorexia on every part of the body, especially the brain. And the immense fortitude it takes to recover; the daily confrontation with food, the reconfiguring of relationships with family and friends. It is also about community, and about how the group of girls confined to 17 Swann Street find small ways to help each other move forward. But the book also makes abundantly clear that when it comes to anorexia, happy endings are never guaranteed.
Much love to you, Jennifer, in dreams and otherwise. And salutations to the mighty Theo!!
Excursions, dreaming, sleeping, cool museums, Theo's athletic and dramatic performances, books ... I love seeing how you go about these days. I also love hearing fewer mentions of pain and panic than several months ago. Sure, you are sleeping a lot (isn't that weird and kind of amazing? or upsetting?) AND you still enjoy yourself. Thanks for the posts here.