Run on sentences that Run Away from the Idea of a Full Stop

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 00:47

The amazing visit with this woman who is two years younger than my mom who is from Luxembourg who came to Brussels in '53.

I keep comparing her reality to my mothers and they are so very different and each tragic and each happy. I now have way more respect for each unknown face I pass on the street for their secret dramas. This woman is a bit like a groovy Eleanor Rigby. I think she is very much alone family wise but has her little social routines at various cafes. She is not your normal Belgian from that generation or maybe she is. I think that is because she is from a farm and had like nine siblings.

She told me a story (through Bart or Peter as she only speaks French) about a grenade she found as a child. Getting shot while on a flight during the war. Coming to Brussels for marriage. Having a baby then becoming a widow then the child getting killed when run over by a car. Then she took various cafe jobs and did that for until she retired.

She worked in the cafe here in our house. She told us about how her apartment burned when the upstairs neighbor tried to asphyxiate himself with the gas but there was a short in the refrigerator that blew up the building and everyone thought she went with it as this occurred in the floor above hers and that all caved into her rooms. But she was drinking in a cafe around the corner.

She always smells of liquor and it's because of that I adore her why not it saved her life at least once. She smokes and loves the dogs. She knocks on the window and talks to the dogs which is how I made acquaintances with her. When I walk the dogs I see her in cafe windows and then she knocks again from the inside or sometimes comes out.

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which brings me back to this dream I had as a child.

Me looking at blue line architectural plans with who I thought was my brother Mark but it was an odd dream because he was kind to me and mark wasn't then. So now I see that as Bart. In that dream my mother was outside jumping up and down and looking in the windows always trying to get my attention and scaring me.

Windows 98. Cafe windows.

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And there is nothing I can do.

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All the lonely people.

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People in funerals where noone is a guest. Except the guest of honor in the box.

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I wish I could have recorded this woman's story - it needs to be shown on TVBrussel/Bruxelles.

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Inside I'm torn up and crying salty tears on open wounds.
Outside I'm just cold and confused.

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Weird to be at home and simultaneously so very far from home.

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I forgot it was Labour day.

Enjoy yr backyard cookout.

Florine the cafe Bruxeliose woman is my latest hero.

If I weren't a mess right now I could write a short story about her.

I made her coffee and only had real creme fraise which pleased her to have on hand for her coffee. I wanted to drink whisky with her and listen to her interpreted stories. She's like a time capsule radio link to another era and a lost in the past Brussels. For her age she just hobbles around to her habitues and really its more graceful than such an American life played out in strip malls and big cars and parking lots and traffic that doesn't move while the TV is always on and blaring too loudly wherever you go.

God Bless Belgium.

Sadly. Crazily. Falling of the edge. Unhappy. Thankful to be here while feeling guilty for not being with my folks. Torn up inside and somewhat paralyzed by life.

Originally written spontaneously in an email to William Horrigan letter friend extraordinaire August 2nd, 2002