Certain Things

Il ya certaines choses que je ne le comprendrai jamais.

Saying things in French gives it a certain mystique to that the English language cannot afford to it. With French, every phrase is said with emotion, with a gesture, with a deeper meaning and story behind it. It makes you wonder why.

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It’s funny how people can get so attached to things that to others are of no consequence. A smelly old doll could be someone’s precious childhood keepsake. A threadbare stretched out t-shirt is a memoir of a long forgotten past when times were simpler and perhaps happier. We assign our emotions and memories to these objects to materialise the events, traumatic or delightful, in a separate body to distance ourselves from the past; to stop us dwelling on it.

In essence, no-one is a walking video recorder of memories, ready to recall every last detail at a flick of a switch. It can’t and won’t be done. Sometimes you may think that you don’t horde, you don’t have to keep things to remember but it can’t be escaped. The mere action and emotion is iterated in the English language: “sentimental”, to attach memories of the past to objects of no consequence to the event. There is no logic. A sentimental old fool is not an oxymoron but a description of what it is versus the harsh logic of reality. It cannot answer the question why with words but rather with deep emotion and longing glance into the past.

What if you become sentimental about a living being? Merging the past and the present where past emotions and present physicality battle to take precedence in the beholders eyes. Is there a right and wrong victor? A battered wife weeps at the better past, an unfaithful lover prays for blindness. How can you choose?

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If you’re stranded on a snow-covered mountain top should you scream for help? Avalanche or ambulance?