Laurence Anyways and then some more....
A movie that I've been meaning to watch for years, Laurence, Anyways, I was able to see finally. My notes on the film are perhaps for another time, but here's a lovely little excerpt where Laurence talks to a journalist about the A.Z. woman in his book.
Should I talk about the letters I never sent to the A.Z. woman?
I call her A.Z. because it all begins and ends with her. Its no serial number or bar code.
So, I wrote to her.
Letters I never sent.
Letters I threw in the gutter or flushed away ... into an ocean of shit, maybe.
No, its far more romantic.
Picture it: a hermit, a cave-dweller, who lives in the sewers, discovers the letters. He collects them, reads them, them starts dreaming. Even envies that love, perhaps.
I think I wrote a thousand letters, that time. I still remember the room in that little cottage.
I could've written her a song instead. Ne Me Quitte Pas, something like that. Belgians speak slowly, but they keep it quite simple.
Where are you?
What are you wearing?
What are you doing?
Those were questions I'd ask myself when I woke up. Thinking of her. And I'd go to bed with the same questions. At some point, I needed answers.
****
PS:
Some of my essays and poems found homes in varied national and international publications. Sharing the links with you all:
1. A personal essay of mine found home in 3:AM Magazine. It crept up on me on a very recent evening while I was watching In Treatment, and I did not suppress it. I wondered about it a bit with these words inside my head, and then I poured them all out: https://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/all-in-the-family-or-of-fathers-and-daughters/?fbclid=IwAR3ZdTDEtnHmC1vCfbundKivz11Y8Sdb1t_dOr5hV6mdoClEOU2D7-bc5OU
2. A poem I wrote in late 2018, found a home in The Alipore Post
3. A rave on the HBO show High Maintenance was published by Cafe Dissensus Everyday
4. A shocking little story I wrote while trying to understand this pandemic in the initial days: https://www.berfrois.com/2020/04/anandi-mishra-the-self-in-quarantine/?fbclid=IwAR23O8vDzzCOsFER5saqSWcyJVBlHQpYFQZ0QMqbf2rWOYUWZP0NHQlDICg
