Ce matin, un ciel en furie tel une mer moutonneuse, un champ de bataille, du bleu d\u2019encre, des lignes noires, des trous dans ma t\u00eate et mes doigts vaillants qui tambourinent sur le clavier. Les jours s\u2019enfuient au gr\u00e9 de ces pages noircies de mots qui n\u2019ont ni queue ni t\u00eate.<\/p>\n
\u00c0 travers la vitre du caf\u00e9, j\u2019observe un ange qui s\u2019affaire \u00e0 nettoyer la vo\u00fbte c\u00e9leste. Il ajoute une toute petite goutte de teinture bleue et maquille l\u2019immensit\u00e9 du ciel. J\u2019en oublie mon r\u00eave, mon \u00e2ge et les craqu\u00e8tements de mes os us\u00e9s. De toute jeune et verd\u00e2tre comme mon arbre de pr\u00e9dilection, je suis devenue un vieux \u00ab\u00a0tremble\u00a0\u00bb qui tremblote \u00e0 l\u2019occasion. Au fond du lot, cet arbre majestueux et moi vieillissons ensemble. Notre manteau d\u2019\u00e9corce tachet\u00e9 devient plus friable; mais notre s\u00e8ve s\u2019assagit un tantinet plus sage chaque jour.<\/p>\n
J\u2019ai des millions de mots dans ma besace qui, jour apr\u00e8s jour, me bricolent un sc\u00e9nario quasi convenable. Oui, oui! Mon imagination poss\u00e8de ce pouvoir. Chaque matin, elle me tricote un peu de chaleur. Elle se souvient d\u2019anciennes victoires, de troph\u00e9es m\u00e9rit\u00e9s, de bouilles magnifiques que j\u2019aurais d\u00fb aimer.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0\u00c9crire n\u2019est possible qu\u2019en \u00e9crivant\u00a0\u00bb, selon le c\u00e9l\u00e8bre \u00e9crivain Robert\u00a0Lalonde. Tout ce que je souhaite c\u2019est sortir de ma t\u00eate de jolies phrases, des adverbes impardonnables, et des mots hors du commun qui produiraient une r\u00e9elle histoire. Je tente d\u2019apaiser mes h\u00e9sitations et mes craintes; j\u2019ai peur des fant\u00f4mes qui risqueraient de me contredire. Devant moi ce matin, ma page blanche se r\u00e9v\u00e8le aussi vaste que le d\u00e9sert du Sahara.<\/p>\n
De retour \u00e0 ma table de cuisine, je respire la sueur des fleurs fan\u00e9es de septembre. Vieillotte, je tremblote; je maudis le tictac endiabl\u00e9 du temps. Verrai-je bient\u00f4t l\u2019ailleurs promis aux femmes de bonne volont\u00e9? J\u2019essaie d\u2019endormir ma t\u00eate, mais elle s\u2019ent\u00eate \u00e0 vouloir r\u00eaver les yeux grand ouverts. Morph\u00e9e pourrait-il m\u2019oublier au mitan du lit?<\/p>\n
Apr\u00e8s quelques caf\u00e9s pour me r\u00e9veiller, et peut-\u00eatre un ou deux biscottis, je commence \u00e0 \u00e9crire pendant que le linge se lave tout seul dans la machine. Cinq ou six fois par jour, je cherche mes lunettes grossissantes. Elles se trouvent peut-\u00eatre sous un coussin, sur une table embourb\u00e9e de livres, derri\u00e8re un divan ou dans ma Mini. Je cherche toujours quelque chose.<\/p>\n
\u00c0 travers l\u2019immense mur de fen\u00eatres de ma cuisine, je vois l\u2019automne brunir; le vent froidir. Les petits oiseaux ont vid\u00e9 toutes les mangeoires. Vont-ils migrer, dormir dans le creux d\u2019un arbre ou dans le feuillage d\u2019un conif\u00e8re? Comme chaque ann\u00e9e, avant l\u2019arriv\u00e9e de la neige, je leur \u00e9talerai un r\u00e9el festin.<\/p>\n
Jeunette, je me souviens, j\u2019\u00e9crivais dans la cave, tout pr\u00e8s de la vieille machine \u00e0 laver.
\nEn bruit de fond, le tordeur grincheux se lamentait. Les yeux jaunes brillants du bonhomme sept-heures m\u2019\u00e9piaient \u00e0 travers la vitre. J\u2019avais 7 ou 8\u00a0ans quand j\u2019ai compos\u00e9 mes premiers po\u00e8mes. Mon p\u00e8re affilait la mine noire de mon crayon avec son couteau de poche. Ma m\u00e8re me donnait l\u2019envers des feuilles du calendrier. J\u2019\u00e9crivais de nouveaux mots, de courtes phrases, des d\u00e9buts d\u2019historiettes que je cachais dans la taie de mon oreiller.<\/p>\n
Sur la table de cuisine en Formica, nous d\u00e9coupions nos dessins d\u2019enfants et les collions avec la chair cuite d\u2019une patate sur l\u2019envers d\u2019une page d\u00e9su\u00e8te de calendrier. En hiver, nous patinions sur la glace du petit ruisseau; mon nez coulait, mes jeunes ann\u00e9es s\u2019\u00e9coulaient.<\/p>\n
Plus tard, install\u00e9e sur un banc de parc, j\u2019ouvrais mon calepin et je prenais mon stylo bleu. J\u2019y d\u00e9posais une premi\u00e8re phrase, une seconde pareillement boiteuse. Avec des feuilles mortes \u00e0 mes pieds et quelques fourmis grimpant sur ma jambe, l\u2019attente du bon mot s\u2019est toujours av\u00e9r\u00e9e insupportable pour moi.<\/p>\n
Assise \u00e0 ma table, perdue dans mes pens\u00e9es, une autre bribe du pass\u00e9 jaillit. Avril 2016, \u00e0 Kyoto. Les cerisiers en fleurs habill\u00e9s de toutes les teintes de rose et de blanc. Je visite \u00e0 pied le quartier des geishas de Gion. Leurs visages et leurs cous enti\u00e8rement fard\u00e9s de blanc; leurs l\u00e8vres rouge profond font de leurs maquillages de v\u00e9ritables \u0153uvres d\u2019art. Leurs costumes sont des tableaux de ma\u00eetres et leurs sourires, des souvenirs immortels\u2026<\/p>\n
Je termine ma lettre d\u2019aujourd\u2019hui avec les extraordinaires mots du grand \u00e9crivain Nikos Kazantzakis dans son dernier livre intitul\u00e9\u00a0: \u00ab\u00a0Lettre au Greco\u00a0\u00bb.
\n\u00ab\u00a0Mon \u00e2me tout enti\u00e8re est un cri, mon \u0153uvre, l\u2019interpr\u00e9tation de ce cri\u2026\u00a0\u00bb
\nJe m\u2019efforce de consoler ce c\u0153ur vieillissant, de l\u2019amener \u00e0 dire librement OUI!<\/p>\n
Vieillie si vite, j\u2019ai souvent l\u2019impression d\u2019avoir trop travaill\u00e9. Je n\u2019ai jamais appris ni \u00e0 danser ni \u00e0 aimer. Quelques fois, j\u2019entends mon c\u0153ur battre comme un grondement de tonnerre. Peut-\u00eatre est-ce une cloche qui sonne ou une sir\u00e8ne de pompier; ou encore un bel amoureux qui plonge dans ma chemin\u00e9e.<\/p>\n
Tr\u00e8s chers lecteurs, le ciel ce matin \u00e9tait charg\u00e9 d\u2019immondices et je peinais \u00e0 \u00e9crire. \u00c9tait-ce le ciel en furie? \u00c9tait-ce moi? \u00c9tait-ce mon c\u0153ur vieillissant qui s\u2019acharne \u00e0 vouloir aimer?<\/p>\n
Cora
\n\u2764\ufe0f<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ce matin, un ciel en furie tel une mer moutonneuse, un champ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":53735,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-53734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lettre-mme-cora"],"acf":{"img_en":"","contenu_en":"This morning brings a furious sky like a stormy sea or battlefield, ink blue, black lines, holes in my head and my fingers hard at work, drumming on the keyboard. The days slip between these pages filled with words that make no sense.\r\n\r\nThrough the caf\u00e9\u2019s window, I observe an angel who\u2019s busy cleaning the celestial vault. They colour the vastness of the sky with a single droplet of blue dye. It makes me forget about my dream, my age and the creaking of old bones. Starting out young and green like my favourite tree, I\u2019ve become an ancient aspen that sometimes trembles. In the back of the lot, this majestic tree and I age together. Our spotted coat of bark is becoming more brittle, but our sap gets a bit wiser each day.\r\n\r\nThere are a million words in my knapsack that assemble into half-decent stories with each passing day. My imagination has that power. Every morning, it knits a bit of warmth for me. It remembers old victories, deserved trophies and handsome faces I should have loved.\r\n\r\n\u201cWriting is only possible by writing,\u201d according to French Canadian author Robert\u00a0Lalonde. All I wish for is for my mind to turn out nicely written sentences, egregious adverbs and remarkable words that link together to tell a story. I try to soothe my hesitation and fears; I\u2019m afraid of ghosts that might refute me. This morning, the blank page before me is as vast as the Sahara Desert.\r\n\r\nBack at my kitchen table, I smell the sweat of the wilted September flowers. My old body trembles; I curse the damned ticking of time. Will I soon see the land promised to good women? I try to put my head to sleep, but it stubbornly insists on dreaming with eyes wide open. Could Morpheus leave me behind?\r\n\r\nAfter drinking a few cups of coffee to wake up, accompanied by one or two biscotti, I start to write while the clothes go around in the washing machine. Five or six times every day, I look for my magnifying glasses. Maybe they\u2019re under a cushion, on a table buried beneath books, behind a couch or in my Mini. I\u2019m always searching for something.\r\n\r\nThrough the row of windows in my kitchen, I watch as autumn dries to shades of brown; I feel the wind getting colder. The birds have emptied all the feeders. Will they migrate, sleep in the hollow of a tree or in the needles of pine trees? Like I do each year, I\u2019ll throw them a real feast before winter lays its coat on the ground.\r\n\r\nAs a young girl, I remember writing in the basement, near the old washing machine. The grumpy wringer as background music and the bogeyman\u2019s bright yellow eyes watching me through the window. I was 7 or 8\u00a0when I wrote my first poems. Dad sharpened the black lead of my pencil with his pocket knife. I wrote on the back of old calendar pages that Mom would save for me. I\u2019d write new words and short sentences, the beginning of stories that I hid in my pillowcase.\r\n\r\nSeated at the kitchen table made from Formica, we\u2019d cut out our drawings and stick them on the back of pages from the calendar using cooked potato skins. In the winter, we\u2019d skate on the ice-covered stream; my nose ran, my young years floated away.\r\n\r\nLater, sitting at a park bench in the fall, I\u2019d grab my blue pen and open my notebook. I\u2019d jot down a sentence and then a second, just as wobbly as the first. With loose leaves at my feet and a few ants climbing my leg, waiting for the right word was unbearable, just like it is today.\r\n\r\nLost in thought at my big kitchen table, another fragment of the past appears. April 2016, Kyoto. The cherry trees are in bloom, dressed in every shade of pink and white. I visit the geishas\u2019 quarters on foot in Gion. Their faces and necks are entirely white, their lips a deep shade of red. Their makeup is an art form; their outfits as fine as the work of the Old Masters; their smiles indelible memories...\r\n\r\nI\u2019m ending today\u2019s letter with the extraordinary words of the great writer Nikos Kazantzakis in his last book \u201cReport to Greco.\u201d\r\n\u201cMy entire soul is a cry, and all my work the commentary on that cry.\u201d\r\nI try to console this aging heart, to coax it to freely say YES!\r\n\r\nForced to grow up quickly, I often get the impression I\u2019ve toiled too much. I never learned to dance or to love. Sometimes I hear my heartbeat roar like thunder. Maybe it\u2019s a bell that\u2019s ringing or a fire truck siren sounding, or maybe, a handsome lover falling down my chimney?\r\n\r\nDear readers, the sky this morning was heavy with debris and I struggled to write. Was it the raging sky? Was it me? Was it my aging heart, still determined to love?\r\n\r\nCora\r\n\u2764\ufe0f"},"yoast_head":"\n