Following Anne Cécile’s example (http://annececile.over-blog.net/article-5629243.html) to catch up with lost time on this blog, guess where these photographs were taken. I’ll take out my
magic wand for the most marvellous answers, and grant three wishes.
Thank you all, those on the photographs and all the others, for being here, surrounding me, bearing with me, and giving warmth. The wonder of having such extraordinary friends is a real life
féérie I marvel at again and again.
I believe we all need this year to see a small light shining in the darkness, some improbable surprises that would nibble at all the reasons we have to be chronic misanthropists and deep
pessimists.
Rather than writing, in Christophe’s words', the apocalypse of Saint Agathe, let’s start 2008 with a féérie: In the 2008 of my dreams, Benazir Bhutto
would be resuscitated, Modi would have lost the elections in Gujarat, and Pénélope Larzillière would be president of France. We would take extraordinary holidays wandering on the Mesopotamian sites
of south Iraq, and have endless arguments to know if the self management model set up on all the American continent can be at use elsewhere in the world. Never, as we travel around the world, would
we meet famished people, hard-working children, a worn out being rolled in newspaper in the gutter, devastated women with acid splashes on their faces or patrols of armed private militia in
uniform.
In short, today I want to believe in miracles because they give hope. That the world in which Coline and Noémie have arrived this month maybe worthy of them.
I thus wish for you all that life this coming year may be more beautiful than the alcoholic fééries of one who has danced all night, may 2008 be an enchantment.
The truth is that things are starting well: this morning a mail from Margarette St Fleur wishes me a good year, and announces that they have Stanley’s passport which they will drop tomorrow at the
French consulate in Point à Pitre.
In other words, ça y est!!!!!!!
Things are moving again! I now need to wait for the visa French authorities will deliver so that he can come to France. In theory, within three weeks or a month and half, I should have the "green
light" to go and get him!!
I know, i’ve stopped writing. Probably because my adoption process has come to a close stop too. In April I’ve been offically recognized by a Haitian court as Stanley’s adoptive mother. Ever since I am waiting for his haitian passeport to be delivered. Then he will also need a visa to get into France. Only then will I leave for Haiti to go and get him. Since December very few passports have been made, I do not know then when I will leave.
I’m back from a quick intense trip that brought we in Hungary, Ukraine and Poland, where I met my parents traveling to and scraping also their roots. I will try to tell you some of this trip’s stoires in the coming days. The 7th of july in Ukraine is a festival which was quite popular during the sovietic period : young peasants make crowns of flowers they offer to the girl they love (or carry the door of her house kilometers away to get the father out of the way), before dancing around wooden poles.
On the 7th of july, we were in Czernowicz, and spent the afternoon in the abandoned Jewish cemetery looking for Mottele Keller my great grand father’s tomb. Weary, Sacha made crowns with the wild flowers that grow there:
Travels then have prevented me to send my wishes to fabulous Sonia on her most special birthday : Sonia who loves mathematical games and was so happy of the 777 of this year’s birthday (777 are what rich Ukrainians have engraved on their car’s licence plate, for good luck); Sonia who at times is a poet, paintor, a sculptor; Sonia who’s just got a permanent position as the head of a nano-physics lab in Oxford; Spanish Sonia who speaks Russian, Czech, Chinese and Japanese and can read music too; my fabulous Sonia may this year all in 7’s let you encounter on all your journeys many sunny and flowery crowny days !
At the inauguration of the Paris Book Fair, dedicated to Indian writers, people weren't really interested in books
The crowd was that of an improbable demonstration With lots of ghosts(Sarkosy- the former interior ministor and now presidential candidate)
(De Villepin our prime minister)
Nobody cared much for the Indian writers who didn't seem to worry to much about it, quite happy to get as much of champagne and whiskey as they could from the neighbouring stands.
For the atmosphere, a special picture, just for Anne Cécile
It was books for tv, books for money and fame, haggling and fame. Books left alone on deserted stands Or pushed aside as you push to reach for a goosberry cupcake
Books on display, ready to be opened, and stolen of a couple of words listening to silent voices that sometimes dis-echo with the time and place:
You are nothing but dust. Dust stampled by many feet. Raise with the wind and the storm Become a whirl And enter into the eyes of those whose feet crush you.
There is no place you cannot go to Nobody can stop you
You are nothing but dust Dust stampled by many feet. Unite with dust.
Yes the cherry trees are in full blossom, Paris is shaken by violent ice rains and... i've got some news of Stanley!
His file - do you remember n' 12424 at the improbable Institute of Well Being (IBESR)? - well it has been signed, stamped and aproved. Haitians authorities thus consider
1) that he is an abandonned child 2) they accept me as his new family
To celebrate this i've even got a new picture from the orphanage, the first one since october:
Now there is a long adminstrative labyrinth until the adoption judgement : legalisations and relegalisations in different offices in Port au Prince.
One mistake and the procedure hickups and sometimes comes to a total stop.
Bref, its just the end of act I of "The adventures of Stanley's haitian files"!
Other fragments, faces and speaches, out of a dream Derrida and Pascale Ogier three times ghostly
It must be the end of february or the fact that I'm going through my un attainable driving licence exam this afternoon but all seems to have an immaterial texture today...
The ghosts I was thinking of were those that haunt Sakyo Ku in Kyoto, where cemeteries, temples and towns are like woven into the same labyrinth, the same urban fabric, where you keep on getting lost to bump into a boudha like a child, or kabuka masks hanged upon a house for an exhibit or as protective amulets.
As an echo, I met Derida who speaks of them, meditavely (its in french):
To see raving ghosts or to keep them away, the parisian barrock:
It seems that people rather write to me than to add public reactions, I guess this is an old generation syndrome!
Sonia sends me these pictures as a reaction: Here's one of her with sone and alberto inTokyo
And one of her collection of toilet signs! The resolution is maybe not good enough, but the explanations are in french and english!!
And for those of you who read me until the end, here are some small news of stanley. He measures 82 cm and weights 24 lbs (10.886 kg) and his shoe size is 22!
(Sarkosy- the former interior ministor and now presidential candidate)
(De Villepin our prime minister)
