Lights   Scrapbook  4

Each event that strikes me gives me a thrust to move forward.

- Martin Gray –

Wherever you are is the entry point.

- Kabir –

Instead of “Why me?” ask yourself “What now?”

- Julia Cameron –

Failure is the foundation of success.

- Lao Tzu –

The strength of the true detours is not to move away, but to achieve one’s goal with greater accuracy.

- Benjamin Pelletier –

Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid of standing still.

- Chinese Saying –

Traumas are neither large nor small. That depends on the meaning for each one.

- Boris Cyrulnik –

Writing is the mental key of my control room.

- J.L. –

Neurosis and wisdom are made of the same stuff...

- Unnamed –

You cannot teach without learning simultaneously.

- Unknown –

One may take away what you have, but not what you give.

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry –

Creation is the antidote to the chaos which surrounds me.

- Anonym –

We can’t have everything, but we can give everything...

- Geneviève Desrosiers –

Narrative 10

G.'s raised collar :

I remember G. in high school, grade eleven. She was always dressed to the nines. She very often wore three-piece suits to come to school, almost always blue but in different tones. I always had the impression that she was dressed to go to a wedding ... or a funeral.

She was sitting in front of me in History. One morning she arrived dressed in one of her famous suit, but what was different is that the collar of her shirt was completely raised.

Sitting behind her, I saw this huge raised collar - shirts in those years had gigantic collars - and I decided on the spot to fold it down before anyone notices the "serious mistake "; her collar rose without her knowing! So I leaned on my desk reaching for her big collar and slowly I folded it down into its original position with my hand. I sat back on my chair with a sense of accomplishment.

G. then turned round giving me an interrogator keen eye and in front of the silent class raised her collar mumbling that this is how she wanted it.

Ô Shame! I, who had never dared to speak to this girl, whom I secretly liked, she scoffed at me in front of the class. (Well, in front of myself actually!) I felt so disgraced in front of her for the rest of the school year; an asshole who didn’t know the current fashion was raised collars!

The irony is that five or six years later, I began to raise my collars, not of my shirts, but of all my coats.

G., I have never forgotten you, you know; even today, whenever I raise my coat’s collar, I have a little thought for you...

From my yellow notebook  6

I regularly oppose my faith in life with my reason for living.

I need to explore the unknown...

I have long sought permission to live.

My self-deprecation is one of my life’s tools that relieved me most from anxious thoughts.

I can have a remarkable composure in "catastrophic" situations.

To have financial, social and spiritual abundance: what a great idea!!

I want to do a treasure hunt of sources where to quench my thirst.

If I keep doing what I've always done, I'll get what I always got.

I think I am here to learn; so everything else doesn’t belong to me.

My life is a series of zigzags I constantly have to readjust.

Confront my fears allows me to move from a position of suffering to a position of power.

I need to quench my insatiable thirst for knowledge, pleasures, sharing and creation.

This n’ that  7

Go directly from the soul’s wound to art...

The fear I have is future failures because they’ll surely be.
So??

I don’t want my life’s tools become "plasters on a wooden leg."

I dream of having an epiphany.

If I could see my future, I think I would stop living.

My feelings are often sawtooth: I like it, then I don’t like it, then I like it, then I don’t like it, etc.

There’s gesture and "non-gesture".

I can be very superficial sometimes.

Part of me believes that to be alive and well... I have to feel discomfort.

I "bought" a way of living and doing which doesn’t belong to me.

To love deeply one’s work is a reward every day.

I'm obsessed with my craving to create.
I’m obsessed with my craving for freedom.
I'm obsessed with my craving for truth.

Narrative 9

The marriage of M. with L.
I remember the wedding of M. and L. when I was a teenager. I was told that I served Mass during the marriage, but I don’t remember at all. In fact, what I remember is a very traumatic time after the wedding, right before the banquet...

Just before the guests came down to the reception hall in the basement of the church, my sister and I were already there alone, expecting Mom to join us shortly.

Instead a relative of L. arrived and suddenly was very aggressive towards us shouting and screaming. For no reason at all! I still remember the intense fear that gripped me all over my body. (Thirty years later my sister and I still have shivers when we look back ...) We then went outside trembling from head to toes.

When Mom arrived we watched her go into the reception hall alone to face the weirdo. I was fearful for her. But in my heart I knew Mom would save and protect us...

I'd never been aware until now of all the self-assuredness I saw in Mom. Because I knew deep down that she would never be afraid to stand up for me no matter what. She gave me a great proof of her love then. Which I never realized...

Lights  Scrapbook  3

Impassioned by passion.

- Francoise Sagan -

As long as I'm alive I can always rebuild even with ruins.

- Martin Gray -

Dreams can die but not dreamers.

- Gilles Gérardin -

Even if life has no meaning what prevents us from inventing one?

- Lewis Carroll -

I am what’s around me.

- Wallace Stevens -

Fear asks me to take action

- Julia Cameron –

Happy is he who forgets what cannot be changed.

- Unknown -

Being rebellious is to refuse the world is frozen.

- Benedict Duteurtre –

Well-being is chosen every day. This is something moving, not stopped.

- Guy Corneau –

We build ourselves telling our story.

- Boris Cyrulnik –

When your look on things changes, the things you look at change.

- Wayne Dyer –

From my yellow notebook  5

I'm confused, I'm dizzy, because I learn to operate differently.

My daily repressed anger; learn to "get it out" ... daily!

Polluted thinking; if I'm not 100% sure to have what I want, I tell myself that it's not worth the effort.

When I want to do something, drop the "pressure of perfection."

The desire to act, the pleasure to act and the pride to act, that's already in me.

Doing it for the sake of doing it.

I sometimes need to pressure me ... to fight the pressure!

Being happy with the success of others could indirectly increase my inner well-being.

When I think of the result right away, I block my momentum in everything I do.

Everything I’m searching is already in me; I just have to make a little more room for them.

Often instead of doing what I really want to do, I spend three tons and a half of energy into anything else.

Some "I don’t care" are often well placed!

Very intimate diaries  6

The important thing is not to take it personally.

(Another Day)

The Salle au miroir (therapy); I can’t wait to see what it’ll play out...

I thought I was patient, but in reality I have an impatient nature.

I am constantly or very often barking up the wrong tree. I'm out of touch with my reality.

As long as I shall sprinkle fear in everything I do, nothing progresses.

It's so taking to be angry.

I have a throbbing headache with all these upheavals.

(Another Day)

I'm glad to finally focus on myself.

I remain extremely fragile at the slightest shock/event, big or small, that happens to me.



I want to live large.

It’s sometimes so painful inside me that I can’t appreciate the fact that I’m alive and in good physical health.

(Another Day)

When I can, I eliminate “obsessive reflexes” that I meet along the way.

I understood something not long ago: a lot of things that I built in my life were with fear, rage, anger and frustration. Result: that led my "successes" to be tinted depth of all these feelings. No wonder they didn’t "stick" in my life, they were ephemeral. A kind of Teflon effect.

I think that Teflon effect comes from the fact that I don’t often built with what I am deeply and intimately; I build on constant compromise without listening to my intuition.