Still there

They say that Marie-Antoinette died with two diamond studs in her ears, but that when head and body were reunited for the burial the earrings had gone. Those stones still exist, somewhere. Perhaps by now they have been buried with the grandniece of a tricoteuse, perhaps they have been lost behind the wainscoting in an old house in the countryside, and perhaps they are being worn at this moment by a young women ready to get married, given to her by her grandmother, because they are the oldest things available, nobody really knowing exactly how old.
The possibilities of these stones are endless, but, due to the nature of diamonds, we know they still exist, are still somewhere, are more than likely still touched by people but untouched by time. And this is good. They were innocent in the light of what happened, not to be blamed for the events surrounding them, and devoid of meaning in the greater scheme of things, and should therefore be able to end their existence in relative peace and quiet.

Adam was made from dust, and given a wife. Not, as so many would state, Eve, who was third, but Lilith. Made from dust, she was female to his male, alike in any aspect, she was powerfull, intelligent, strong. They were both perfect for created in the likeness of a god. She denied her place of subservience to man and fled paradise.
Adam, not likely an island unto his own and used to the companionship that animals cannot give willingly or at least consentingly, was given a second wife, made from nothing in front of him.
Made from nothing, but build. Bones first, then organs, muscle, eyes, skin, hair and breath last.
Adam, understandably but cruelly shaken by the knowledge of what lies underneath the skin of his new lover is unable to touch her. She is beautiful, a model in an age of nothingness, her face would have been the face of whorship, storms raged in her eyes and honey would've poured from her lips, but he would not touch her, would not even name her.
Some say she was allowed to leave the garden, some that she was destroyed and returned to nothing, some that she remained and he fled to the other side of paradise. Either way, he exhaustedly fell asleep, and from his rib was made a woman. Flesh of his flesh, beauty again but different from the last two, the birth of man, Eve. This last one was the one that took a bite of something she should no have been given acces to, thusly condemning man to mortality, and pain, and the expulsion from paradise.
...
Mortality was a punishment. The imminence of death and the end of self is something used to punish. The poor creature set as second companion did nothing to be punished and therefore is not likely destroyed. And, since no sin befell her she is or should be living still.
If the story is mercifull, she would have left the garden and lived among man, thusly allowing her in time to sin, then die in peace. We know that Eve lived longer than any mortal female, and we therefore know that the unnamed one was never mortal, she would've after all been older than Eve by at least some measure of time.

So either she never sinned, or never left... Imagine... 6010 (the world according to the scripts was created at about 4004 before the birth of christ, and who is to say it isn't so?) years of living in a garden, alone, with the only companionship an Angel garding a gate and a series of animals who've lost the voices they were once given. Insanity should be her due, according to all, but when created perfect is insanity even a chance? An option? I take great comfort in the knowledge that should life ever become too much for me I can always allow myself to follow at least one inner urge and be safely put behind the high and barb-wired walls of the nearest mental institution, peacefully drooling away my days shuffling between the two picture books in the library and the isolation-chamber (crazyness is fine, but take my books and I'll try to gnaw out every nurses artery in sight)
But not for her, still unnamed, still virgin, still alone. Forever.

So it would be better if she left... if she left, but never sinned, only loved for the pure pleasure of love, took what she needed but gave back so much more, never broke a law or crossed a line and left something of herself in all those who have touched her.
The perfect gene, somewhere, somehow, in all of us, giving some people that little something out of nothing, as she was made of nothing, and showing that sometimes knowing what someone feels like inside is not such a bad thing, when controlled well, as her only fault was to be shown to whole, too much, too soon..

Sometimes I dream about her, or at least, I think I do. She is a young woman standing and waiting for a love she never knew more than a few seconds, she is Ophelia who died knowing her love was perfect, not Juliet who whined her way into her own tragedy. She is the girl at the end of the pier waiting for a sailor dead to pox in a harbour far from her, the woman at the end of the bar that drinks too much and tells of how she once was beautifull, and she is the still face of a girl I keep sketching in any notebook or on any white peace of paper they hand to me.
Sometimes I give her cat's eyes, sometimes she smiles or lifts a sarcastic eyebrow, sometimes she is old, sometimes young, always, to my eyes, beautiful.
For she is also the woman one comes home to at the end of the day that has cooked your meal, she is my mother when she has frozen a portion of andive and mashed potatoes with vinegar because she knows it is my favourite food ever.
I see her in the fierceness of Sandra, who probably never reads this blog, but should know that her power lies in much more that her blue eyes and blond hair, but in the strength that draws her through things time and time again.
I see the second wife in the smile of Sabine, who nags herself about her weight and girth but never really sees the fact that she could weigh in at 300kg on a complementary scale and it could still not hide the fact that she has the almost annoying ability to turn a man's head by simply not noticing him form across the room. (I sometimes think the French girl's talent of making a man your slave by ignoring him for five minutes was wholy copied from Bienie, if not for a slight indiscrepancy in time).
"Wife" is to me somewhere in the character and faces of all people dear to me, male or female. All people have something of the lost child, of the feeling of "what did I do to get here without you?" and never really understanding who this "you" is supposed to be. Miranda and her constant search for understanding a world not meant to be understood reminds me of her innocense, Martin and his relentless energy towards those he cares about of her power of redemption, my brothers creativity of her willpower to stay sane in a world that rejected even the world you live in.

But I see her too in the faces of those unknown to me. The beauty of a person for a second completely unaware that he or she is being watched and who unselfconsiously tries to track the flight of a bird or the perfection match of a certain bartender's face and the face in my teenage fantasies. She is also in the kiss of my boyfriend or the way that he will tease me sometimes, even though I wish now that he would continue the poking and prodding into a bit more sweetness, as he used to do but doesn't anymore that much, but even this is her, somehow, for it shows a distance she must have learned to protect herself, I guess. I sometimes worry if these people see in me something of her as well, and I think they do or they would've moved on by now already, and somehow I think this small bit of insecurity is what I have gotten of her, the thing that keeps me not being punched everytime my mouth runs away from me, the general goodwillingness of my very evil nature, so to speak, but who's to say, I hope it's true. I also hope to remain seeing her often in my dreams, feeling an arm around me and looking in the face of whatever configuration my subconscious has chosen for that night and waking up smiling with the knowledge that still some good is there.

I don't blame Eve, I blame very few people, but the purity of form and function inherent in the tale of the three wifes of the first man should not be wasted on zealous idiots who would rather forget the first two. Lilith can take care of herself, and Eve was laid to rest in love and understanding of the world, but nameless one, I hope you have by now found a word to describe yourself. I know you left your sterile garden.. I see you too often not to believe you are in everything.

For she too, is still there. Somewhere around us all. And this is good, because somewhere she is also living out her life in peace just for the sheer joy in living. And I hope someone bought her a pair of really old diamond earrings once, and that she wears them proudly.

Pancakes

I miss my father. Not strange, I guess, he died a few years ago and the death of a close relative is bound to strike some emptiness in anyone, and missing said parent should not be a surprising thing to most people. Without regard to the relationship you shared or the closeness you felt, this person is no longer there and therefore there is a manshaped hole where no hole should perhaps be.

This is a general, low-level missing. The kind you don't really notice. When your friends are gone for the weekend and you really want to go and grab a movie you miss them, this is much more acute, not to mention partners or significant others that you want with you when you want to watch a sappy movie or when you are just plainly noticing the enormous size and loneliness of the bed you're in alone. This too is a type of missing that is very much of the here and now.

But losing a person to death makes for a type of being apart that has really settled in, it knows that you'll have years of not being together to come and it needs not to be so fierce as all the other types, it can take it's time, and it doesn't ask much of you. The difference perhaps between the psychologist that is trying to talk you down from a ledge RIGHT NOW versus the one you hired for a year's worth of therapy, paid in advance. The knowledge that there is more than enough time for the good bouts of missing to come so as not to rush things now.

But every once and again ( a phrase I am fond of, as you might have noticed) this tenant in your mind does feel the need to press a couple of buttons and really make you realize that the missed one is not there, nor will he/she perform a specific action ever again.

And thusly, now, I miss my dad. I hadn't really realized it untill this weekend, which managed to bring the point home quite without argument, but I miss my father most and fiercest when confronted with home-made pancakes. Pancakes of any kind, really.

My mother used to do all the cooking in our house, and she did and does it wonderfully, she is a great cook. But my father made pancakes, and eggs. Eggs more often than pancakes, but eggs are easier, pancakes are special.
When he died, a few months after he died, I was having a conversation about the blasted things with a group of co-workers and I mentioned that my dad used to make great pancakes. This resulted in nothing more than a slight decline in my general mood, nothing much more.
This weekend, Thursday, my housemate made pancakes, and then Friday I had them at the birthday of a friend.
Two nights in a row of pancakes, and two nights in a row of a slight sadness I was not quite able to place. After all, I'd had pancakes during the last few years, nothing happened there, hell, I must've even made them myself at least...

Never.

I have never made a single pancake myself.

Off course I never did.
Even when writing this down I know I have never done the deed because it isn't my thing to do. Making pancakes is his job, not mine. Ridiculous.. Right?
Come to think of it, I haven't eaten them all that much... Not counting this weekend I can only remember one visit to a restaurant where I have ordered a pancake. That makes three incidents of pancake-eating in almost three and a half years.
Typing this is actually physically difficult. Writing this down, even just for me and whomever reads this seems to be opening a kind of emptiness inside me that I don't often experience, a dullish ache not related to hunger or boredom or loneliness, but the very sure and certain knowledge thet my dad will never make a pancake for me or my little brother again.
Strange.

I know smells can be marvellous to jump-start memory, I know that certain colors and tastes can bring on a rush of experience that rivals actually being there. None of this is happening. I cannot recall a single pancake he ever made. I don't have warm memories of him standing by the stove and flipping them in the air or me waiting for that first warm piece of dough. None of that. No sunshine slanting through the kitchen windows, no clean white porcelain plates steaming on the tables, no golden syrup dripping and making shapes in powdered sugar landscapes.
None of that.
Just the knowledge of no more pancakes made by my dad. Because he isn't there any longer. And it seems unfair, but that doesn't matter, running outside and shouting that it isn't fair won't make it otherwise, it can't be helped. It seems just such a foolish thing to miss. Not the wisdom he has given me, that I still have, or the things he should have been there for, for in a way he will be, as I will keep him with me always, but pancakes.. Something robbed me of them.
And yet I don't hate pancakes, like them even, not the best food in the world (that would be nigiri ikura) but okay, I can do them, and I should be able to make them. But I won't.

It's his job.