From my yellow notebook 2

Every step is not a stop, it’s a step.

To lower my strain, focus on my body, my breath, when I act.

How can I create using my anger as strength of progress?

I scream my creativity; I scream my freedom.

I am a Renaissance man.

The law of antidotes: for a negative emotion, arouse its positive opposite inside.

Active Life = Creative Life.

Before concrete acts, there’re concrete thoughts.

I like the word "concrete."

From my yellow notebook

Dissociate the first effort, which I need to do to begin something, with the vision I have on the result.

Pull off the "excess baggage" in my head by acting out.

Thank Life, there’s a “deadline” before my thoughts become a reality! I have time thus to revalue my thoughts and to change, modify, adapt them if needed.

When I drove around at night, the headlights of my car only lit a hundred feet in front of me and another hundred feet and another hundred feet, etc.

It looks like my life …

Don’t think about "how," but to live, to be.

To work like I’m playing.

Narrative 4

Letter from Jehan, eight, to Jehan, thirty-eight.

Dear, thirty-eight years old Jehan,

How far away! Drat! That’s so far away being thirty-eight years old!

Do you still have fun, or you’re too old? Do you still know all our friends? Do you have a family? What a lot of things you must have done since now! You’re thirty years older than me; it’s as old as dad and mom. You must have become somebody important.

Do you still play outside? I hope that you have good friends. I look forward to being your age; then the big ones will listen to me … But it’s good to be young and with my friends. I won’t be afraid anymore of others at your age; I’ll be older.

You must be very busy! I hope I’ll still know lots of people at your age and to feel good, too. I’d love to organize, create games and all that and to be paid for that. That would be good, isn’t it? Does that kind of work exist? Will I have new friends? Will I have a friend like C. later?

That seems so very far away thirty years …

Am I going to play games, do things, in the meantime, or what! I look forward to all this, but I am o.k. right now: I don’t want to be suddenly very old tomorrow morning! I’ll be thirty years older, but I want to go there slowly, OK?

I hope you’re a big guy, and you’re nice. Is mom very old? And dad? I have nephews and nieces? I hope I’ll still have plenty of fun at your age. It is hard for me cause the big ones don’t listen to me. Nevertheless I’m on good terms with my friends.

School’s nice sometimes, but other times I’m bored. I like the drawing course, visual art course and all the things like that.

I may tell you that I love you, right? Even, if you’re a boy? I love you, be kind, and I wish you many, many friends.

See you soon,

Jehan, eight.

 

This n' that 5

When I took the train to leave my little town for my studies, I was torn apart between this new freedom to discover the world and the well-being and love I felt in my home town with my family and friends. A huge sadness occurred and I had an intense feeling of uprooting, which continues even today. 

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When my father died, I felt a tremendous relief.
Then, the regrets and the guilt fell on me like a ton of bricks.

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On my gravestone: he was loved…

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I am amazed how easy it is for me to guess, to feel others.

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I’m constantly in need to prove that I have the right to say, to think, to write.

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“Don’t forget that the others also live a fight; they’re warriors who look for resting.”

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My concentration: I’m here, I’m not here, I’m here, I’m not here, etc.

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Don’t be afraid anymore to say:
"I want to finish what I was saying..."

"Give me still a minute or two…"

"Just wait a little until I finish…"

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A staircase is built from the bottom up, but it’s swept from top to bottom.

This n’ that 4

To prevent me from being beaten in the schoolyard one day, Mrs. Laurendeau, my 6th grade teacher, kept me with her in the classroom. I then cleaned the cupboards where I found a picture frame of Marguerite Bourgeois. Mrs. Laurendeau gave it to me. I kept this picture frame with me for years and years.

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When I was a child, I learned that sex and money were “big sins,” and I had to be very careful not to "commit" them.

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I’m sunset yellow, light of life and joy creator.
(Really??)

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Not changing, secures me. My mold then remains unchanged, intact. I am safe, because nobody hurts me.

Changing = depression = failure.

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I shared my bed, one evening, with my cousin J. who was on a visit. We spoke about the Universe, which was infinite.  J. told me that the Universe didn’t have either beginning or end. I incredibly panicked all night long and I couldn't sleep at all!

I was nine or ten.

(My inner secure design of the whole world collapsed. I felt like suddenly I didn’t have any grip on anything anymore.)

Narrative 3

I remember after my Saturday evening big weekly bath, my mother making me an neapolitan ice cream cone and then going to the living room watching Thierry la Fronde (The King's Outlaw) and then Hockey Night, with dad in his armchair and mom on the sofa and me right in front of the TV, sitting on the cold floor.

I was three.

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I remember having a terrible fit because my parents went out to the movies, a weekend, and hitting with all my strengths my red plastic boat on the front door, and shouting, howling, crying to show my anger in front of my babysitter totally helpless. Suddenly, I stopped everything and I noticed dozens of red marks which I had made on the door and then I was afraid I’ll be punished.

I was around two.

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I remember vaguely my little sister sleeping in her crib in my parents’ bedroom.

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I remember being five when I heard that our neighbor, Mrs. Tardy, woke up one morning and her husband, sleeping next to her, was dead. Not knowing it, she slept with a dead body next to her all night. This really traumatized me, upset me. A lot. I don’t know why…

This n' that 3

Emend my habit, when I'm trying to guess what the other one feels… while he speaks!

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When I have a shock, I always want to return to the state where I was feeling good.

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My defects:
1) Anxious 2) Timid 3) Lazy 4) Fearful 5) Stubborn 6) Chaotic 7) Pouty

8) Perfectionist 9) Obsessive 10) Untamed 11) Shy

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A son asks her mother: What’s death?
The mother answers: It’s like going to sleep and never waking up.
The boy reply: I shall never die; you wake me up every morning at 7!

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I was born fists closed, and I will die hands open...

Narrative 2

I remember the military parade at the top of the hill, on 1st Avenue, near the former Igloo, the ice cream counter. I was two years old.

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I remember around three, four years old, being at the cabin of a friend, who lived the neighboring house of mine, and trying to look through a hole, below the outhouse, where my friend had gone to the toilet, to see his booty!

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I remember, also, squabbling with a friend and then running to catch him up, when he wanted to leave, angry, to apologise and when I got out of the house, I stumble on the threshold, which was, like, one and a half-inch thick, and although I tried to hang on to the door frame, I fell on the corner of a metal tank, which was upside down, that mom used to soak the linen in, and I split open my right eyebrow and the skin over my nose. I remember crying a lot, blood flowing like water on my face and my mother carrying me in her arms to daddy's big old truck. Then dad in turn carrying me in his arms up the hospital’s staircases instead of waiting for the elevator which was too long to come.

(It’s strange, but I can feel, right at this moment, how they must have been worried for me I’d lose my eye or I’d die. Twenty years later, maybe they would wish I die, after all…)

I remember the doctor putting a sheet over my head, with only one hole for my eye. I remember the needle entering in and out of my skin. I had the feeling that the hand of the doctor was entering along with the needle and going in and out of my head. I remember, later, sitting on our stairs outside the house, my friends coming to see me, and feeling almost proud to show them my stitches. I was about four, five years old.

This n' that 2
 

I have more pain not doing things because, besides the regrets, I add the disappointment. And my energy and my motivation decrease and decrease because of this non-action.

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My children within me are still alive, but frightened and hidden in a cave in the depths of the world in total darkness. They are starved and became hysteric they are afraid and they've been waiting for me they've been waiting for me for so long.

They've never stopped believing that I would come looking for them one day...

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Every attempt becomes a practice, a rehearsal for the one who will become a reality.

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When I act, I feel at peace.

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My values/qualities:
1) Open-mindedness 2) Respect 3) Altruism 4) Empathy
5) Intelligence 6) Generosity 7) Frankness 8) Loyalty 9) Honesty 10) Integrity

11) Forgiveness 12) Diversity 

(Yeah, yeah...)

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"When we die, is it for life?"

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My eulogy, short & sweet: we loved him!

   

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One of the most fascinating things in life, for me, is observing others.

Narrative


I was born October 2 at 6:55 in the morning.

In my childhood, I remember, when I played outside that my mother attached me with a kind of leather leash with a harness and with which I was attached to the outside bannister. I was between two and three years old.