Jean Rhys: After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie

Source Flickr neekaisweird

from After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie (1931)

And suddenly she was immensely calm and indifferent to anything that had ever happened or could possibly happen to her. It was like that. Just when in another moment your brain would burst, it was always like that. She sat placidly with her knees rather wide apart, and her eyes fixed calm.

She felt nothing, except that she was tired and that she wished to be left alone to rest there, quietly, in the darkened room. It seemed to her that she had been there forever and that she always would be there, and that getting up, moving, would be impossible. But they must leave her alone, leave her alone. Then even that thought left her. She floated…floated….And shut her eyes.

Stranger in my room

Soft rose on the book by Andreka

Sometimes when I have a ton of emotions weighing down my chest, yet find myself at loss of words, I walk over to my bookcase, say a little prayer, randomly grab a book and let it speak to me. Sometimes I give them life, other times they give me voice.

Perhaps this is why as a young girl, I preferred to sit in my room in solitude and let books take me to places I can never go. I knew even at a young age, that I was only a limited soul in middle of a vast world full of things I didn't understand and things I couldn't see.

I couldn't wait until that one day when I'd be an adult, free to explore the world on my own..find true love and discover meanings embedded in feelings like happiness, delight, loss and longing.

Today I find myself yearning for something entirely different and was at complete loss of words...until now.

I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all I didn’t really care. 

Jean Rhys- Smile Please: An Unfinished Biography

Sometimes I wish I belong nowhere, belong to no one and be a stranger to everyone and everything.

My Muse: Jean Rhys

Paris by Louise

Tonight I pick up my old copy of Jean Rhys: The complete novels. As always I flip through its large volume and turn to Good Morning, Midnight. There is something so gloomy, lonely yet beautiful about this story that I just can't get enough of. It's like getting a glimpse of a rare rainbow in midst of steady rain. I love her and her mind.  She may be the most under appreciated women writer of the century.

She was born on August 24th and died the year before I was born. She's another virgo who I happen to share similar sentiments, fears & visions with. A coincidence, maybe. A part of universe's intricate & mysterious design, perhaps. This always happens in my life. I somehow find them and they somehow find me.

They find me through words and continue to live in me through dreams & imaginations. Jean Rhys is my muse---my goddess of inspiration. I come across my favorite scene. My heart begins to ache for her for a thousandth time. It takes place in the last few pages and goes something like this...

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I am walking up and down the room. He has gone. I am alone.

It isn't such a long time since he left.

Put your coat on and go after him. It isn't too late, it isn't too late. For the last time, for the last time...

Well I can't, my dear. Not because I'm too proud of anything like that, but because my legs feel funny.

'Come back, come back,' I say. Like that. Over and over again. 

'You must come back, you must come back. I'll force you to come back. No that's wrong...I mean, please come back, I beg you to come back.'

I press my hands over my eyes and I see him. He is walking along the Boulevard St. Michel toward Montparnasse, thinking: 'Sale femme. Ridiculous woman.'

'Come back, come back, come back,' I say.

He doesn't hear. 

He is walking along as quickly as he can. He is cold and vexed.

(A monster...The monster that can only crawl, or fly...ah! But fly...)

This is the effort, the enormous effort, under which the human brain cracks. But not before the thing is done, not before the mountain moves.

He hesitates. He stops. I have him. 

'Listen. You hear me now, don't you? It's quite early- not twelve yet. The door will still be open. All you've got to do is walk upstairs. If anybody speaks to you, say: 'The woman in number forty-one, she expects me; she's waiting for me. Say that.'

I see him, very clearly, in my head. I daren't let him go for a moment.

[......]

He presses the button and the door opens. 

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It's 11:45 pm. I love this time of the day, right before midnight when all is silent, peaceful, dark & beautiful. Good morning, midnight. We meet again.