“you do not see me

a little girl from an unknown town

thrown away from sea to sea

and wet your bed with her dreams

 

….”

 

: the first out of six stanzas of my latest poem, written over the peak of my melancholy.

 

It was raining heavy rain. Heavy yet not terrorising, enhancing all my feelings. In Java this kind of rain is usually associated with a proper welcome and good fortune from the sky, especially when it happens during a wedding, a birth, or festive days.

 

It was not just any rain. It was Parisian rain, yet it was not just any Parisian rain. The midnight rain sailed to me all the sentiments, all the dreams, the identities I used to have and have buried or forgotten. I opened my windows and drank the rain. I felt the presence of motherly love, in pain:

 

I, once again, was born.

 

The rain lasted until the next morning, keeping me pleased. And then the sky cleared up a little bit. In the evening, after cooking and eating lamb chops with F&M mint sauce, which my French sister Isabelle brought from London on her visit to Paris, as I was waiting for my landlord to come over to fix the lights in my bathroom, I heard some music playing live downstairs. I put my head out of my window and saw a couple of musicians, one with a guitar and the other with a drum, playing in front of the restaurant next door. I stayed by the window, smoking. They saw me and stopped playing. The guitarist-cum-singer walked towards my window and asked politely if they were disturbing me, so I said no – I was enjoying it.

 

A few minutes later the handsome and super kind waiter from the restaurant invited me to come downstairs for a glass of rosé from Bordeaux. I came downstairs in my black leather jacket over a black top with a Sabrina neckline, tucked in my grey wool mini frill skirt, and a pair of black mid-heel suede loafers. A glass of rosé was ready on a table right in front of the musicians. They asked if I would like to request a song, but the guitarist knew the lyrics of no songs that crossed my mind – he’s got a very cool voice, though. I then said I liked old songs, so they tried to play What a wonderful world. The guitarist didn’t remember the lyrics so I started singing from my table. The whole restaurant applauded me when I finished. I raised my glass and said: “It was the wine!”

 

To cut a long story short, my waiter friend refused my money and I offered the musicians something to eat because they hadn’t eaten. Also, it turned out the musicians live nearby, and the guitarist is literally my neighbour! It was also their very first time playing in front of the restaurant, they didn’t really know why they decided to play there that evening. Ah, I guess everything does happen for a reason, even if you don’t know the reason at the beginning.

 

I had not much left in my frigo so I cooked egg noodles with homemade sauce and vegetables, for which they seemed to be eternally grateful – they told everyone they introduced me to and I wasn’t allowed to pay for my drinks wherever we went from then on.

 

Everyone was so happy, even the American tourist who sat next to my table earlier at the restaurant, who was now enjoying my cheeses and admiring the church view from my flat window. We talked about life and art and everything in between. They asked to read my writing so I showed them what I wrote the night before.

 

As the night was getting more solidly dark, I was invited to come with them to Caveau des Oubliettes, which is just across the road from where I live, so I texted my landlord I wouldn’t be home, and I was so glad I did.

 

It was a club with a concert room underground. From the outside, you would never know, it looks just like any other bar/restaurant. They were playing jazz. That’s where my new friends regularly play. They introduced me to more musicians, who had come for jam sessions. It was too cool to describe, and I was suddenly part of the family.

 

When the concert ended, it was the last light of Notre Dame, my guitarist-cum-singer neighbour suggested that we all went to his place to create some music. There were five of us by then: my neighbour, the drummer, a female singer and another guitarist-cum-singer, both of whom we all had just met that night, and me. My neighbour told me to get my notebook so I did and got also a bottle of Ile de Ré cognac I had in my apartment. And then we created a song out of my lines.

 

They were talented and educated, kind and intelligent, and wonderfully affectionate towards me. They admired my lines and I their amazing sense of music. The atmosphere was out of this world. Just the day before I was lonesome and miserable in Paris, and now I have amazing like-minded friends, with whom I can be myself, my whole and authentic self. It was as if the Parisian fairies suddenly decided to do this for me with a single swing of their magic wand. It was life changing!

 

Later on the owner of the club joined in at my neighbour’s flat and the two new musician friends left. The party was not yet over, more discussions on my lines and the song took place – my neighbour said he wanted to finish the song and record it and propose it to his label. At about 4 a.m., the four of us walked to Aux Trois Mailletz, right next to Caveau des Oubliettes and shared a bottle of rosé at the terrace, where they introduced me to even more artists. At one point my neighbour and I sat in front of the piano inside and practiced the new song.

 

The whole time I kept saying to these gentlemen how grateful I was to meet them by total chance, and they kept saying it was them who were so grateful. They also said, upon my lines: now we see you, little girl!

 

By six a.m., we already moved on to Le Petit Point for coffee. The sky slowly opened up and Notre Dame was once again bright enough to be seen from where we were sitting. Then they all walked me back at about seven thirty.

 

It was Friday morning and I had a class starting at midday followed by two other classes. I had to ask all my teachers to allow me wear sunglasses in the classroom because I couldn’t stand the light.

 

Meanwhile, there’s a light inside my soul that is brighter than the sun, and I have no problem seeing it. Not anymore. I believe in my dreams, therefore I am.

 

“….

 

you do not see me

until you see the last light of notre dame

and drink the parisian rain

with joy, with joy”

 

je t’embrasse,

d.o., le 18 septembre 2016

 

P.S. Thank you all my true friends for believing in me, even when I doubt myself – you know who you are.

 

• Instagram