REDEFINING ….

This week in New York, Diana and I are launching new books published by a European Publisher…

''Diana Soviero, 55 years of career in images 1964-2019''This book retraces the gigantic career of Diana, in over 280 pictures from productions all over the world and her new career as a voice teacher;

 ''Cyrano'', a new book by Bernard Uzan, about the creation of David Dichiera opera.

 ''Le Ciel Eclate'' and ''The Shattered Sky'', SECOND REVISED EDITION, by Bernard Uzan. Novels of tragedy and redemption.

This year I also wrote a libretto for a new Opera in Germany  with opening in the spring 2021 and I am working now on another novel.

                                                                                                            The past year has been very busy in trying to find new ways to redefine myself….  Quitting abruptly the opera world was not and still is not easy after 40 years devoted to it, producing , designing, directing etc...

What was going to happen to me? Will I be able to go on ? Should I register to a club for old men and play cards, should I join a French association and talk for hours about the past, and the achievements of our life and sometimes about the failures when we feel confident with new acquaintances? Or may be should I join a golf club, but I do not play golf, maybe miniature golf?

I wrote many times in different posts or in articles about acting:  “When we are on stage we do not need to act and we can completely be ourselves since we are protected by the character…”                                                                                      

Yes the character protects us and we are totally free to  let our private emotions, our deep buried traumas express themselves, and  this  is valid for actors, singers, conductors, directors.          

As a director, the understanding  of the music and the text is always influenced  by  all the experiences of our life, by who we are, what we know … We feel the music and understand the text with all of our knowledge, all our experiences , all our life past and present , and the result is an interpretation.

Actually, this is valid FOR ALL ARTISTS, their art is the best way to express who they are , what they want , what they dream , what they miss, what they understand well, what they are successful in , etc….

Artists ,ALL artists are very often seen and described as difficult people! Only the practice of their art gives them some peace, some moments of pure reflection and most of the time some balance in their difficult approach to life…. I have met many artists, painters, musicians, writers who were two people or even more than 2,  they are one personality when practicing their art and another personality when they are not…

So, how to survive when your art is taken away from you? How can we  confront the perpetual obstacles of the world when the most important part of us is taken away?? How can we continue to have a life? How can we really function???                                                                                                                         

 Life has to be a perpetual redefinition,  an attempt to approach  all possible ways to find some kind of peace.
Does that explain my need to write more than ever?
Am I finding some kind of balance  in this approach ?
And more serenity despite  the loss of the practice of my art and even if I really cannot forget, may I find a way to deal with it …. 

Yes, artist have to find new ways to express themselves in  the different paths of life….The retired people from their art have to find new art forms in order to continue to function  and to be themselves or at least to be close to who they really are …
I always felt very sorry about artists who could not really express themselves in their art form because of bad timing, bad luck or lack of total dedication… 

Their life is miserable, I imagine spending a life not able to really express who I really am!!!!! And consequently become and be a very  difficult person to be with!!!

So, Let’s go for it>>>>

I recently went back to acting , going to auditions for movies and television.

Except for Mozart in the jungle, I had not been to an audition since 1972…

Result of these auditions: I was hired for 4 movies or series … Not for an important role of course, I do not even know if I can be seen in the movie…                                                                                   

Two are already done , and I had an incredible joy! I found a new peace with myself, I was happy to do it, to participate, to be in it…                                                                                                                                          

 I felt rejuvenated, by just exploring corners of myself hidden for years. Even if what I was doing was totally irrelevant with my training as an actor: I studied Stanislavsky and Diderot, and was a product of Shakespeare, Moliere, Racine , Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Beckett, Sartre, Pinter, Pirandello, etc…
To be a small role or an extra in a tv Serie does not demand a knowledge of an acting method, but I still used what I had learned for so many years, and found such a calm in my soul because I was able to be totally myself, behind the mask of a background Character…                                                                   
Nobody, not even the director, I am not even sure I met him or even saw him, asked me to be somebody specific, so I had to invent all of it by myself, and create situations and use my experiences in the given scene.  By using my buried experiences, I relieved so much pain inside me…

And I met young actors full of desires to make it, asking the old man ( me) questions about the business and acting and life…What a treat to talk to these young artists…I left the place with a lighter heart and some kind of peace invading me….I was again the young actor leaving the “Theater of  the Wooden Sword “where I met for the first time my  Acting teacher Tania Balachova…

 I will do it again any time, if they want me.

Yes, we artists , we have to find other ways to express ourselves and to find a new balance when one chapter of life  is ending, by choice or by other peoples’ desires to see us volatilized …

Writing gives me also this possible peace and working on the new edition of Shattered sky and on Cyrano was an incredible relief to my deep pain and memories and anxiety to have lost my way of expressing my MOI.                                                                                                                                                      

With Cyrano , I was again with my dear friends who died in the past years and reminiscing all the wonderful creating time we had together and I was able to be myself totally with no fear of other people judgement about my ways of functioning.  

Cyrano, how many joys you brought to me, David and Mark you are with me all the time and part of who I am today…   Life is a perpetual struggle to find a balance between reality and dreams , but artistic adventures make them go together….But some of us need to practice it… We need to be in that situation where art, dreams, and reality find one totality…                                                                                                                                                                        

With the  revised edition of Shattered Sky, I let my imagination and my deep buried Bernard under the cover of the name of Julien act and go from one adventure to the other… The biggest comment I always had about Shattered Sky was always “ Is it true? What you are saying in the book , is it true? Did all this really happen?   Is it autobiographical?”  With the revised edition , I continued to function the way I always did , as an actor, or a director … Just let my deep Moi create, mix reality and realities of the subconscious, mix reality and dreams and fantasies, after all dreams are part of reality.  
Yes everything in Shattered Sky is true because it comes from my deepest desires to be…. 

Another great example I have is Diana Soviero…While she had a great career as a singer, to stop singing could have been a big problem with her as a human being , since singing was a way to be totally herself through the interpretation of characters . Diana found another way, she teaches voice with the soul and the giving as a total human being she had as a singer associated to an incredible technic…. All this is a definition of a real artist…                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      


Finding again the balance in life, having the courage to confront new challenges thanks to  an art form is an incredible gift of life, and we should be thankful to Nature to have given us these opportunities…

Is it possible?

In a few weeks I am going to be 75 years old, how can that be possible? Where did the years go? It seems that yesterday I was walking in the streets of Paris as an aspiring actor, dreaming of success and achievements, hungry like a young lion lost in the wilderness. Wandering and wandering with in my mind the lines I had written when I was 20, these lines invading my memory  and my thoughts again and again:                                                                                                                                                        “ I had only one friend and he died, he was more than himself , he was also me and I cry at night but nobody knows about it. He was my friend, he was my brother , poor brother, I can see again your face with a generous look on your face, and we were happy . Brother will I never see again your generous smile in the immensity of life…I listen to the songs of life and the songs of death and sometimes the wind wants to comfort my tears, and I know that I have to keep hope alive because the ones who have built a universe together will find themselves again…My friend , my brother, I talked to you at night and your silence sometimes is so heavy and so cruel that I invent you next to me and I can finally see you.”                                                                                                                            For so long these lines were present in my mind but life taught me how to deal with loss and to continue to grow and  while the memory was still present ,it was not anymore an obstacle to the next chapter.

Yes, it is the last chapter of a very busy life , full of surprises , incredible events, joys, great memories and of course failures and dramas.

Yes I know,  I could go on for 10 or even 20 more years , but that will not change the fact that it is the last chapter of my life and these past few weeks I have been thinking a lot of all the years behind me,  while the incredible journey of what I call my life is so present in my mind and open questions.

Sometimes I wonder if Is it possible to have lived an entire life and arrive to the point where everything is a memory and every event can have some importance… 

And how to keep track of all these events? Are we totally responsible of all the choices we made or are we just the result of fate or destiny? Were all the choices made by necessity or just a need  for survival? Maybe it was pure ambition or desire to achieve and need to advance? Can it be that sometimes it was  just instinct or lack of thoughts?

In life we encounter people  who love us , admire us , think of us in difficult moments but we cannot make a rule of that , the opposite can happen… 

Is it possible to accept that sometimes in our life we did not realize that people around us can have their own needs and their own dreams and their own necessities and we have to respect it?

WE NEED SO MUCH COURAGE TO  REALIZE THIS AND TO  DEAL WITH IT.

 In life Courage has to be the definition of behavior, every day we need courage to confront new situations, new people, new events , new challenges etc.… but are we really ready for it? How can we use courage to face ourselves and others in the possible negations of everyday life. 

Sometimes I wish I could be born again knowing what I know now and not be any more in the fog of knowledge, in the antechamber of wisdom and the darkness of ignorance and go on every day with decisions to make.. 

And how strange it is to know that some people look at me as if I am knowledgeable , almost a sorcerer when in reality I am not even an apprentice sorcerer… 
Too many times, very confusing thoughts make us dream even if dreams are only a hidden truth, the truth of the irreal. 

I often dream that I am loved by everybody or hated by everybody, sometimes I am the protector of everybody or protected by everybody.

Yes the challenges of everyday demand COURAGE in order to continue to function or even to survive….

Too often COURAGE is buried in our soul or our heart or our education because at one point we were told not to use it and  to hide it because of  possible repercussion in society and we should try not to express loudly what we think , what we feel, what we want.

But we need COURAGE to accept the events of our past life and its consequences since it is part of our own life and become the present…

Yes we have to digest the difficult moments and see the consequences and learn from it, and grow , and teach others what these kind of difficulties can create. 

Experiences of life can be the best teacher for the next attempt , the next experience… Especially today when rules have changed, and we function completely differently…

Is it possible to find the courage to know that we know nothing?

 Did I always accept that I did not know enough about a new chapter of my life and just plunged into it without thinking of the bad possible effects on others and on myself; Yes I did, no wonder that some people could not accept it and decided that I was a possible danger for their profession, but sometimes we have no choice if we are not given opportunities by birth or family or connections,  so we have to pursue and we have to create the new chapter!!!!!!!!!!. 

And deal with it in order to survive and to be....                                                                                                                           

With time I started to learn more before trying to…No, in fact I did not… I pursued this way of functioning all my life and added more enemies. Oh well!!

Is it possible to be able to say NO to new adventures or to new possibilities ? It should be. We have to learn how to say NO. 

NO to artistic openings when we know we are not ready for it or not even ideal for it…

NO to offers from some people to be a close friend when we know we have nothing in common…

NO when we do not feel we are strong enough to deal with novelty.                                                                                               

EVEN IF IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT TO SAY NO….

Is it possible to accept what is REALLY important for others? Even if for us it is not a priority or a necessity? 

Yes , to accept needs of others can be a major key in being respected in our world, especially today when everybody knows everything about every detail of our life…. 

For example, in the arts, we do not always agree with the success of one person, but if that one is celebrated by a majority, we have to accept it, we have to respect it and not deny it and go on with it ….

Is it possible to forget and forgive?  Can we really forget somebody who has been detrimental to our life, who has tried to ruin our life , our hopes to reach another step…

I do not think it is possible to forget, and to forgive  I will let everybody decide for himself….

Is it possible to know when creating is over?  Or should we decide to change the tools of creativity and adapt our mind , our talent, our impulse to other domains and continue to invent, to build , to grow in a new path?

 Creating should never be denied in our life but we have to try  to find what is still acceptable for others and possible for us.

Is it possible to know the role of each person in our life? Who is really what? How can we REALLY determine who is a friend, or a supporter, or just another soul who just want to know us? We change all the time , so do we have to rethink our relation with others all the time? How can we continue the friendship with some people when WE are or THEY are totally different of what we knew? Do we have to question the trust, do we have to demand all the time proofs of the friendship and acceptation of others?

 Is it possible to accept changes in ourselves? How can we deal with passing time and what we become from decade to decade? By looking at pictures of our youth or reading what we wrote in the past?  I do not think so!!! Denying passing time by ignoring it and continue to live like nothing happened? 

Is it possible to accept the judgements of others who are refusing to deal with us or are just dismissing who we were,  who we are  and who we became?

Is it possible to accept that life could be in the last chapter?

YES BECAUSE THERE IS ALWAYS ANOTHER POSSIBLE

 AND FASCINATING NEW CHAPTER

CHAOS…….

We are living a strange time , is strange the right word ?  I think I should say more appropriately a Chaotic Time ….

It seems that nothing is really functioning according to known human relations  and accepted social rules. It seems that every day brings new assaults on our life ,  and every day is becoming a challenge, because we do not  know how that day will finish or even how it  will develop and what it will bring to us.. 

A world full of surprises but most of the time bad ones.

All over the world , it is a political mess, most of the leaders of the world are contested by the citizens of their country , they are declared inconsistent, single minded,  too young or too old, too authoritarian or too liberal, non-educated or too educated with no understanding of the average person.

 The leaders are accused to be too preoccupied with their families or on the contrary are suspected to betray them, most of people do not trust them, and the ones who do are accused to have some kind of involvement with them…

 ETC…

  

Every possible slander is fashionable and well received. 

 It seems that we need to find something wrong in all of them in order to justify our great political mind and our great knowledge of it…                                                                                                               

The news do not help, ah! Ah! Ah! Unfortunately it is not news anymore , but the opinion of some so-called journalists who need to advance in their profession by showing how much they know about everything…

Every day we see more Journalists , and most of them very new in the business can express their judgements about everything and condemning or praising whoever is the subject of the conversation. 

EVERYBODY KNOWS , EVERYBODY HAS AN OPINION ABOUT EVERYTHING , EVERYBODY IS TEACHING EVERYBODY.

All we hear on the news are bad news,  who died or who is dying, who killed whom, who robbed whom , what plane crashed, the next mass shooting, the next disease, the next hurricane, the pollution,  this medication had the worst side effects, the population of that country is dying of hunger, 27 more people accused of whatever, poverty and famine here and there,

 etc.…etc.…etc.…..  

A perpetual succession of bad and painful news.

 I am dreaming sometimes of a news channel called OGN , Only Good News, that channel will deal only with good news: who is happy, who is successful, new friendships, new loves, new discoveries favorable to the human race, beautiful weather in the world, children having a good time , birthdays, people finally meeting each other,  etc.…etc.…etc.…..                                                                                                                                                     

I know I AM DREAMING , AGAIN.

The human relations are not better… 

Everybody can express his opinions as a real  specialist ( with actually no knowledge of the subject) and expose his judgements through the social media; everybody can attack whoever he wants without any proof of anything.

 By writing a few lines everybody is becoming a judge and can denounce or condemn others without any real proofs of  anything except what he heard or  believes or feels ! 

And the people will follow, comment,  and  go into it with a delicious taste of bringing peace to society by judging, condemning and remodeling relationships with what they assume  is right. 

And they decide who should be denounced or should not be and what should be done to correct behavior and punish the possible guilty ones.

It seems that more and more people do not really know what their job is about, too busy in spending time in the new  obsessions like  social medias, phone, Instagram, twitter etc.… instead of learning and  progressing in the knowledge of their profession… 

In practically  every aspect of business, too many people do not really know their job!  In stores, in banks, in buildings, in the arts,  in every profession , too many people are not really in command of  the knowledge of their duties,  and actually they want to ignore it!

It seems that people in charge hire on purpose non professionals  or amateurs in order to be the boss and to  look like they know more than the others… Ignoring the basic rule: Hire people who know more than you do in their specialty, or you do not need them!                                                                                       

THE PETER PRINCIPLE IS A NOW A GENERAL RULE

For people who have no idea of what the Peter Principle is, here is a definition:

“The Peter Principle is an observation that the tendency in most organizational hierarchies, such as of a corporation, is for every employee to rise in the hierarchy through promotion until they reach a level of respective incompetence”

CHAOS….TOTAL CHAOS

Today It seems that truth is a concept which lost its meaning and truth is now the reality of each individual.  

What is Truth? What is the meaning of Truth?

YES the meaning of truth at the dusk of my life is escaping me, this dusk every day darker, thicker, more somber. More chaotic in the world we are living….          

 I am not capable anymore to distinguish what is real or even the meaning of real, I can only see the nonsense and the chaos  of everyday life…

I try to hook myself to lost moments but they cannot be alive anymore and cannot be found, I feel my creativity fading and losing its power in the pathetic routine of  the chaotic everyday life…. 

 I remember that line from a poem;” It is raining in my heart like it is raining in the city, what is this pain penetrating my heart?”

Should I accept that? With time , with time everything goes away, all become an empty cloud, we can forget  passions and we can forget faces and sometimes we can even forget the sound of voices…. Should I accept that when the conflicts are over, when the memory is going to a blank space, even the heart does not pound anymore, so it is not necessary to try to remember , to try to search again , to try to bring back the memories and the feelings , and this is probably for the best. 

Yes with time, all go away, the friends that we were waiting for under the rain do not show up anymore , the ones that we knew well just by looking at them, even from far, have disappeared in the night. 

Even memories have a strange look , like silly stuff in a supermarket and the ones we loved and have helped during our life  have gone because of our failing memory. And we feel exhausted like a wounded warrior,  and we feel alone but in peace and we feel betrayed by the lost years,  so with time , we start to renounce and we do not care anymore.

All this created by the chaos… Should I accept that? Should I go in this pathetic mood and this destroying world?

NO… NO…

 Very often during our existence we see our dreams defeated and our desires frustrated BUT we have to continue dreaming with no hesitation , if not, our soul can die…

We need to continue to dream about friendship and new challenges by creating new ways. Love is possible for all but friendship can be a challenge for the heart, so it should be our duty to pursue that dream and to build new friendships .

 We have to learn to be happy today and try not to talk about yesterday, because most of the time the difficulties of the past are more present in our psyche and they are more difficult to digest and even to swallow.

Remember it is when you have lost everything than you are free to do anything you want and to rebuild confidence and hope for new happiness; not only hoping for it, we have to  create it and work on it with honor and persistence. 

Why should we believe that everything can or should last forever...Life has to be reinvented daily, all the time and we have to find the ways to adapt to a new world but without losing who we really are just to fit with that new world...

Yes it is CHAOS but our duty is to survive in this chaos, to try to minimize it and to find a new balance without losing who we are basically....

A difficult task, but not an impossible one,

I KNOW WE HAVE TO DO IT AND WE WILL!!!!!

LA VIEILLESSE M’APPELLE …J’OSE LA REGARDER

OLD AGE IS CALLING ME…I DARE TO LOOK AT IT

In Goethe’s Faust , and in the Gounod's opera Faust, the legend starts with  the old Faust lamenting about his old age and his youth gone, leaving him alone, hopeless, and  with NOTHING…But still hungry for life!

His old age prevents him to find friendship or love, and the possibility to participate in the defense of his country is now impossible…. After attempting to kill himself, in despair he calls Satan to his help:

“ A moi Satan!!!!’’

Mephistopheles appears and immediately seizes the opportunity to possess another soul and  very fast he makes a deal with Faust : I can give you back your youth and all its wonders if you only give me your soul!

Faust first seems to hesitate but very fast the temptation is too strong, and he accepts, dreaming of a reborn youth… Mephistopheles, smiling and triumphant , proclaims :

LA JEUNESSE T’APPELLE, OSE LA REGARDER !!!

YOUTH IS CALLING YOU , DARE TO LOOK AT HER!!!!

Mefisto in this moment refers to a vision of Marguerite, but she is only the symbol of what youth can bring: a new life, a new love and all adventures open again to him…

Of course, this kind of deal can be  tempting, and this call can be in the mind of many people for many years,  with even sometimes the thought of jumping in the opportunity without thinking about the consequences.

YOUTH IS CALLING YOU, DARE TO LOOK AT  IT!!                                           It seems that today , too many people lose their youth too early in life and yes, there is a big temptation  to sell our  soul in order to become young again and then continue to believe we can have some kind of relevance in life and impact on the world or on  anything we consider important...                                                       Today many losing their youth, try to  find it again by adding  to their everyday life, addictions, superficial and dangerous elements in order to rejuvenate a lost youth  or even worse decide to renounce life by hiding behind solitude.                     

Yes , it could be tempting but sometimes events in life, not necessary positive or happy can make you think about another alternative that Faust should have considered :

OLD AGE IS CALLING ME…I DARE TO LOOK AT IT.

Old age sometimes can be only the next step of life and does not necessary refers to the  date of birth.

Sometimes  dramatic events in our life, even if before we had lived through many others that were much more destroying, create a new way to look at things, a different approach to deal with society, and open our eyes and our intellect to new ways of handling the judgements of others.

So, Mefisto, I say NO TO YOU…

You can keep your offer for a new youth and all your promises of possible great times and possible great achievements, we do not need it anymore. This offer is now part of another time , of another dimension , of another reality… We will not choose that path of existence, our priorities, our mind, our thoughts, our beliefs and our heart do not anymore include that possibility.

Another time can be here and we have to look at it with joy and peace of mind:

OLD AGE IS CALLING ME…I DARE TO LOOK AT IT.

Actually we can even go further:

OLD AGE IS CALLING ME…I WANT TO LOOK AT IT.

These days,  society is based on what is new, what is different, what is not expected…We live in a world where it seems that to be young , or at least not to be old, is a necessity in order to function, to be taken seriously, to be fashionable, to be creative, to be inventive, TO BE !!!                                                                        Experience is not an asset anymore but it is seen as …No more comments!!!!

But I still say no to Mefisto.

 For the past 45 years, I can say without hesitation or even a doubt, that I have always been THERE for family and friends in need -and  even there for not very close friends-  giving them my time , my thoughts, my advice, my way of thinking, but always letting them decide to take it  or ignore it or deny it, but I was there for them.                                                                                                                  

Along the way of my life , I am not afraid or ashamed to say that I have helped many dozens of people!!!!!!!!                                                                                         

I am sure I made many enemies acting that way , some people believing I was doing all this to feel important and gain power over them, and sometimes even thinking I was doing all this for personal gains!!!

How many enemies I must have made by not always answering some people asking for help, and this maybe by lack of time, by inadvertence,  or absence of real information!!!                                                                                                                                    

Did I do all this to prove to myself that I was still young and inventive and strong and powerful  or maybe did I do it, wanting to feel alive or trying to deal with the demons of my youth?   Maybe!!!!!

Did I expect something in return???? Should we keep in our memory all the good we did for people and expect something in return? What about all the great encounters, the close relationships we lived with some people, should it stay forever in our mind and our psyche and should that be a sufficient return?

WHAT IS IN RETURN from the good actions of our youth or our earlier chapter of life? Most of the time , nothing , except the feeling that our youth has been well lived even if sometimes mistakes, wrong choices and bad decisions were made !                                   

But to try to perpetuate youth or an imitation of youth is wrong and should be denied by ourselves, time comes when the next step is right in front of us, and we should accept it with an open mind and a free happy spirit.

Yes, old age should bring some kind of peace of mind, and even more freedom to help others, to understand the needs of friends around us, and to be there for them by giving the thoughts of digested experiences and sharing if necessary the knowledge and the possible resolutions of life’s dramas.  

Old age teaches us how to forgive the ones who were not there to help us in moments of need, we are all crossing very difficult times in life, decisions can be very hard to make, and sometimes some choices can be the result of just surviving in our profession , our private life …                                                                                     

 Choices to ignore or to condemn can come from STRONG NECESSITIES of life, and old age can create one very important feature: The understanding of other’s actions and less negative judgements about their decisions.

 I often talk in the blog or in everyday life about using our personal experiences for artistic creativity or when we are faced with difficult situations… By doing it we will be able to deal with  the puzzle of life or the unbalancing traumas we are very often confronted with …                                                                                                                                            Let’s use our old age the right way, we should continue to imagine, to build, to visualize other possibilities … let’s continue to be creative and inventive supported by the extraordinary amount of learned experiences, of actions, of thoughts, but also of failures and mishaps we have gone through and acquired in the journey of life.

Yes  we can and should continue to try to be creative. We cannot and should not fall in the dismissal given by others because of a so called old age, even if sometimes the  possibility and the desire to continue life is denied.

But always keeping in mind, that the first duty is to be always  there for others….Even if sometimes there is no real reciprocity, or even a sign of thankfulness. 

And still NO TO MEFISTO.

ASSAULTS OF MEMORY

Suddenly it seems that with age or maybe more time alone, everything around me, any word pronounced by anybody, any moment with people or even alone looking at a wall, any second, any note of music or song, any word read: I am assaulted by a memory…            

Any encounter becomes an avalanche of images from the past, any gesture is a tornado of old emotions invading my soul and provoking moments of total absorption in memories…

The shattered sky has changed sky…. I look at my youth, at that young man full of anger and I forgive him, I love that young man and I miss him… 

And no, he was not tormented, tormented??? Not at all… He was only a mind trying to understand the meaning of being alive, to figure the lost aim in the eternity of life… He was able to tame adversity, he was able to stay one in the complete destruction of his surroundings, he was capable to stay strong and undivided. 

Yes, I love that young man, I miss his passion, his strength, his vision and his imagination…. 

Time has passed, more than 50 years, I am still here, alive, and the world around me has changed drastically, almost all of the people who were supposed to have a life after me are dead… 

Fifty years have passed since the decision to turn the page, to start from scratch, to go conquer a new world….Where are all these years ? They went faster than the years of the lost youth trying to understand the meaning of life and just trying to stay alive… 

I look at myself in the mirror of the bathroom and see somebody unknown to me,  a stranger…  

                                 

In all professions it seems that the race is everyday more intrepid, more challenging, and more exhausting.  In the arts, or what is left from this attempt to catch reality of life, it is even worse. 

I can remember the time when to want to be an artist or to be interested by the arts was an acceptation to a life of devotion and challenges, a perpetual search for the truth, for beauty, for finding the unknown through creativity and the creativity of others. 

I KNOW IT IS STILL PRESENT IN MANY OF THE ARTISTS WHO CHOSE THIS PROFESSION.

It seems that we have lost contact with the real our self and we do not know what to do to find the lost humanity? Are we living the final moments of a culture? Or is it the beginning of a new one? 

A culture that I am not understanding! Is that the reason I am perpetually assaulted with memories?

 In order to fill emptiness?                                                          

The other night I was watching a movie, THE BUTTERFLY AND THE DIVING BELL… I thought sometimes that too often I write depressing pages and relating dark events, but this movie showed me that I am on the optimistic and lucky side of life…

It is the story of the editor of French ELLE Magazine who suffered a stroke and lapsed into coma. He awakes two weeks later, totally paralyzed except for some movement in his eyes, but mentally aware of the surroundings, and while he hears every comment about his condition, a multitude of memories assault him… 

Imagine, just imagine what he must have felt…

The same night I dreamed about my father and my brother who died 55 years ago…They were in a desert, standing up in a cloud of dust, a pale dust, almost watery…They were looking at me like asking a question, and mumbling. Suddenly, both said at the same time:

 Bernard…Bernard…Viens, viens, viens, on t’attend! Il est temps !!

 Bernard…Bernard… Come, come, come, we are waiting for you ! It is time!!

They smiled and then disappeared in the dust without another word, without looking back.

I woke up, got up, went to drink some water and went back to sleep… I dreamt the same thing again, and it happened three times, the exact same dream, three times, with no changes, no difference. The same vision, the same smile, the same words.

I will not try to explain this dream/nightmare, many people have attempt to explain dreams much better that I could ever do…But, it opened to me another chapter of thoughts… which was so welcome in order to stay a human instead of a machine created by the society we are living in.

Our subconscious is always working even if we are not aware of it…. Every day a lot of our actions are the result of our thoughts, our experience, our knowledge, our education…. That is why NOTHING can prevent us to continue to EXIST AS A PERSON and not become a silly product of today’s society!!!

My dream was the result of this liberated unconscious! Liberated because of the protection of the sleep and the total abandon of my psyche with no barriers created by correctness or prohibition of society. 

Of course, it was a painful dream, but a real one, a reenactment of my passed, and another connection with loved ones creating when I woke up so many memories!

This acting of the subconscious is possible because we have accumulated knowledge thru life experiences, thru lessons learned from others, thru studying, thru an everyday live devoted to LEARN…  We build a full reservoir of memories and thoughts, and our subconscious becomes richer and more adequate to express itself. 

One day at a rehearsal of Cyrano, during a dramatic moment, I held the hands of the soprano and went with her through the emotions of the character, communicating to her my emotions using an equivalent I brought to the surface, transfusing my life to her… With the help of my memories, I gave her the boy of the Shattered sky holding her hands. At the end while singing, she was sobbing, tears all over her face and all the people watching were in tears...

She told me after, that she had never experienced that, she felt different with so many memories invading her … 

She added: I think I discovered something about me...  I have a lot of memories buried, and I just learned how to use them…. To use them for my art and also for my life… I don’t know if I should thank you or feel bad about it...           

 I said don’t thank me, and feel good, you just grew, you found new things about you, and new chapters of life are now there for you, and that is the reason we do what we do.

But should life always be a masquerade? A moment of theater? Do we need a subterfuge to find the truth?  To advance in the knowledge of our MOI? Do we need to always call for memories to function? Is it exhausting to perpetually live that way?

Too many people believe that life is what it is… I do not… I believe that we can recreate our world by bringing up the buried memories and reshaping our world, by interpreting it and by looking at it a different way…

Yes, the world can bring more than deceptions, treasons and bitterness… All of us have good reasons to be who we are, to believe what we want, and to act according to our desires…

We are sometimes waiting for people to have gratitude for what we have done for them…  And they should do the same for us…Too often, we do not understand why they do not! 

BUT we should expect nothing, ask for nothing, life is too difficult and too demanding for all.

The meaning of Truth at the dusk of life can escape us, this dusk can become darker, thicker, more somber. It can be more and more difficult to distinguish what is real or even the meaning of real. Should we hook our self to lost moments who cannot be real anymore and cannot be found?  Why do we believe that everything can or should last forever…?

LET’S KEEP OUR EYES OPEN AND OUR MIND READY TO ACCEPT THE GIFTS OF LIFE, THEY ALWAYS APPEAR AND REBUILD OUR ENTIRE BEING.

NEW EVENTS CAN BRING HOPE, LOVE, PEACE AND NEW DEDICATION.

I am now a grandfather, and I am suddenly totally alive again, with great reasons to go on, a heart full of feelings, and no time anymore to waste my life in self-absorption, self-pity and contemplation of my ego… Yes, the birth of a grandchild brought me hope for the future, serenity, and more reasons to give happiness and to be myself happy. Seeing the smile on my daughter’s face and watching how she quickly became a mother full of attention is an incredible experience and will be the most important memory in my last chapter. To look at this little baby fills me with a joy I did not know I could have, a desire to continue to be. to see her later in life and BE ASSAULTED BY GREAT MEMORIES.

NO, I DO NOT KNOW EVERYTHING, YES I CAN STILL LEARN FROM OTHERS, ABOUT OTHERS, ABOUT LIFE AND ABOUT MYSELF…