Of lost personal marks and shaken comfort zones

In 1987, my dad looked at me and said.. "there she goes, and my heart goes with her"... I looked at his sad almost teary eyes, standing with him in the empty parking space that used to be occupied for years by the same car. Then I looked at his old white shaky Renault 12, '79 model, being driven away by some buyer who had taken it, I remember very well, for 600 USD--for whatever that was worth then. I felt really sad for my old man.

I couldn't explain it. I was only 5. Real cars were not my favorite toys then.
Back then I thought, "why is dad so sad? I thought he was happy to know that since the old clunky Renault 12 is gone, he can now go and pick up his new swanky red Renault 18! I don't get it..."

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The year is 2008. I am in Paris where, amongst other things, almost anything can be shipped--except your mother, as the Shanghighlanders would have had it.

In the process of selling out my belongings here in Paris to move across the Atlantic, I put up for sale my dear 32" LCD TV. Ten days later, sitting in the Business Center of the New Barrière Golf Hotel on a warm June Saturday night on the hills of Deauville, I clicked on "Accept Purchase" on PriceMinister.com. My TV was officially sold and.. well .. not mine anymore. That was a tiny moment of triumph.

Monday morning, I started packing my TV to take it to the post and send it. It was not a heavy piece of hi-tech: just 13.5 Kgs, mentionned its original cardbox which I had kept all along. Tuesday night, the TV was all nicely wrapped in its 10 x 40 x 60 inch orignal box, original wrapping et al. I was there looking at it almost not believing I was giving it away. For a moment before carrying it down my building, I looked at the empty desk where it used to stand.. the empty white spot it is going to leave behind it.. I stared at this place that a friend was subletting me for some months now. My place was calm and it felt cold in there.

What was wrong with me? I was going to sell my TV for a bit more than half of its original price. I had to do it because I lived in a country where I didn't own a square inch to store a nail. I shut down my emotional senses and focused on the job at hand. I had gotten early from work, around 6:30 PM - but the post office was only going to be open for another 30 minutes, and not a second more.

I carried the box and was down a minute later. 15 floors in a new highrise wind down like 4 floors in my old 30's building elevator. I was out and my Velib bike was there waiting for me. I had the idea of rolling the large rectangular crate on the bike instead of carrying it on my back over to the La Poste office which was some 4 blocks down from where I lived. The time is 6:45. I should be able to make it on time, I thought.

I untied the Velib from the post. Lifted the TV swiftly and placed it on the seat from one side and the steering rod from another. It looked steady. I smiled at my ingenious idea. And rolling I started. A few feet.. I stopped. The leather bike seat was slippery and the TV was not going to stay there for long unless I did something. Then I noticed the steering rod is metal slippery as well ! I was just realizing that what sounded like a perfectly logical plan in my mind, was much harder to accomplish in real life. Damn it!

I cooled down, because it was so hot and I was in my suit, minus the jacket of course. I felt my face turn tomato red.. and I froze there for some seconds. Looked at my watch again. 6:49. OK. Calm down. Concentrate, analyze, move slowly, correct, move again, stay slow and don't rush it. The office is close but I can't roll as fast I think I can. And so I started my slow march, leaning the bike slowly against me and with my shoulder and head, giving the big thin box a couple of support points against me, while with one shaky hand, I was holding the crate's lower corner and the seat together, and the other corner and the steering rod at the same time. I went slowly not thinking about my speed nor the time. I had to focus on this new movement I was barely mastering. Balance, steadiness, pace, breathing, load balancing and just keep pushing slowly.

I felt like a 5 year old. In my mind, I could only envision that it should have been such an easy process,.. and in reality I was realizing how much it could turn out into a failed mission. But I shut the horns of doubt and kept going.. half way through I realized I was also watching out from people, bikers and cars around me.. I was after all on the street. I looked at my watch.. it was 6:53. I felt I was going a bit faster. My hands were more shaky and my nerves were on guard to keep the whole trapezian balance. I kept going, feeling I was just a hair faster every minute. I was starting to actually master this movement, and without intentionally wanting to go faster, I actually was.

I crossed three lights and turned left down rue Linois off Rue Robert de Flers, and the post was there. Another 100 meters. I was walking faster now, reminding me of the last meters of Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights before he crossed the frontiers and was freed! It was those last meters that were shaky and that I amazingly feared most actually.

So there I was, from a simple practical plan in my mind to transport the "light" TV crate on a bike, to finding myself faced with an exercise my body was totally uncomfortable with, to a corrective technique of mind alertness and body adaptation, to sufficient mastering of what I was doing.. to.. most dangerously, an irresoponsible, yet unvoluntary out-of-control precipitation that could have plunged me in my own demise. And then, I slowed down again. It seemed to me like the materialisation of the way I did things in life.. I start off lento and grasp the whole thing, and then, sadly, I get anxious to finish a now-mastered action and start burning the stages and rushing to the finishline remarkably bored. So I slowed even more, knowing that I wanted to avoid looking at my watch and feeling the meters wind down as I approached the office's main entrance.

A few minutes later, I touched base. The door was open, a clerc was free and another busy; I look at the watch on the wall, standing there all sweaty and just as physically and mentally exhausted from the 12 minute concentration exercise, TV leaning on my shoulder, head and hands while lying on the bike. It was 6:59. I rolled with the bike inside the office slowly, and the clerc smiled and shouted a welcome that seemed half french humour, half french obtuseness: "Les vélos sont interdits ici monsieur!" (Bikes aren't allowed here sir). I smiled and kept walking towards his desk, making sure he understands that I prefered he help me instead of throwing sermons. Near his desk I leaned the big box to the other side and pushed the TV slowly onto the desk.


- C'est lourd monsieur? (is it heavy sir?)
- Non.. 13 kilo et demie (no, 13 and a half kilos)
He lifts the box with pain and goes to the back. He comes back.
- 19 kilos monsieur. (19 KG sir)
- Quoi? vraiment.. 19! (what? really.. 19)


That was a good thing though. My mind thought it was moving a 13 kilogram box on a bycicle. My body was actually doing that with practically twice the weight. How amusing the treachery of the mind.. How pitiful the submissiveness of the body.

I am going to miss that thing. My view of the internet and the way I interacted with it daily will surely never be same again. And without all the colors and motion it used to fill my small flat with, it is sad to say it is really lonely without that thing. Typical material human nature. Typical attachment to places, people and marks that bring new satisfactory equilibriums to our existence. I think that forced change is good. It helps us stay new, and prevents us from sinking into the dullness of habit and comfort.

On I move.

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