{"id":65478,"date":"2025-06-22T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/?p=65478"},"modified":"2026-06-24T10:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T14:29:09","slug":"this-life-thats-fading-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/cette-vie-qui-retrecit\/","title":{"rendered":"This life that's fading"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-group is-layout-constrained wp-block-group-is-layout-constrained\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What should I make of this strange theme occupying my mind today? I fold and unfold my hands; the cold entering my ten fingers. For the last few weeks, I\u2019ve been trying to bring this keyboard to life, but all my beautiful words have remained silent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My little self tumbles and falls into the void, most likely too soon. The long train of my breakfast queen dress crumbles like an overcooked cake. Despite the thousand crumbs of words, an abundance of Sunday letters and a feast for the birds, sometimes even in English, words now escape me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What can I say, what can I do? Maybe one morning, or at dusk, my heavy head will empty itself like a dried-up well. I\u2019m in pain and suffering. My world is a vast reservoir of words that scatter, spread out and, on the rare occasion, fly away. This incessant buzz of stories I have difficulty remembering. All the heavy sentences I need to rejuvenate; all the wonderful words I\u2019ve started to forget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I sometimes get the blues, these tiny nips of time. This awful feeling of being lonely, eaten away by depression or anguish. I\u2019ve often written about happy things and real people, like those who wait for my letters each week. All I can do is stay close to my dear readers, to the presence of other humans, to my amazing peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I don\u2019t want to get off the treadmill of life. Maybe I\u2019ll stagger or even fall at times, but I\u2019ll get back up no matter what. I\u2019ll certainly experience loss, burn a batch of cookies, miss appointments and lose my keys. The important thing is to never forget the human in an encounter, an emotion or a simple curiosity. Could this be my way of escaping loneliness?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With my old superhero costume, will I resuscitate my forgotten memories, the free flow of words, the link between my ideas? Most of all, what can I do to slow down the growing absence of these precious words? Would a small comma suffice to change my life\u2019s course?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The fog clears, morning is rising. A few vague dreams are still teasing my toes. So many words are falling into the void; so many sentences are fighting to be heard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">These aging days have opened an abyss of stupor, sluggishness and dismay. My body leans over my hands resting on the small sink, and the mirror reflects a once pretty face now inflicted with dark circles and wrinkles. I search for a nice word, a good idea. A grimace appears in the mirror.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A murder of crows fills my big apple tree, I stay warm in my retreat, peeling off the frocks of apples to make a dessert. What a talented cook I was, the creator of so many delicious breakfasts! I\u2019m almost certain I\u2019ll be feeding the angels and archangels in heaven.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The euphoria of possession fades quite quickly. Same goes for obstacles that are just a series of lessons to be learned. Could I have been a little too hard on myself? I always tried my best. I didn\u2019t write to perform, but to express my love for my readers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How can I survive when my reasons for living are shrinking? When work and family no longer need my effort, when my abilities are no longer solicited and I seem to be increasingly useless though I have so much time on my hands and a little energy still. How do you live without desperately hanging onto responsibilities that younger people or others do better? What meaning do you give a life that\u2019s fading?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A few wise philosophers speak to me about a new life, a life with no other reason for living than life itself. No more temptation from desiring, hoping, achieving and pursuing success. I only want to be alive, able to read and hold a pencil to write or draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I promise myself I will change my modus operandi. I\u2019ll soothe the old lady with a few lines of poetry, a few haikus, I\u2019ll take up drawing again, go on road trips in my Mini, maybe even visit the Gasp\u00e9sie again. Day after day, l\u2019ll continue to observe and describe my small pleasures, my panics, my surprises and my little slips of memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Calm and willing, I wait until the day\u2019s dying light illuminates the stars!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Cora<br>\u2665\ufe0f<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What should I make of this strange theme occupying my mind today? I fold and unfold my hands; the cold entering my ten fingers. For the last few weeks, I\u2019ve been trying to bring this keyboard to life, but all my beautiful words have remained silent. My little self tumbles and falls into the void, most likely too soon. The long train of my breakfast queen dress crumbles like an overcooked cake. Despite the thousand crumbs of words, an abundance of Sunday letters and a feast for the birds, sometimes even in English, words now escape me. What can I say, what can I do? Maybe one morning, or at dusk, my heavy head will empty itself like a dried-up well. I\u2019m in pain and suffering. My world is a vast reservoir of words that scatter, spread out and, on the rare occasion, fly away. This incessant buzz of stories I have difficulty remembering. All the heavy sentences I need to rejuvenate; all the wonderful words I\u2019ve started to forget. I sometimes get the blues, these tiny nips of time. This awful feeling of being lonely, eaten away by depression or anguish. I\u2019ve often written about happy things and real people, like those who wait for my letters each week. All I can do is stay close to my dear readers, to the presence of other humans, to my amazing peers. I don\u2019t want to get off the treadmill of life. Maybe I\u2019ll stagger or even fall at times, but I\u2019ll get back up no matter what. I\u2019ll certainly experience loss, burn a batch of cookies, miss appointments and lose my keys. The important thing is to never forget the human in an encounter, an emotion or a simple curiosity. Could this be my way of escaping loneliness? With my\u2026<\/p>","protected":false},"author":414,"featured_media":65481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"Les mains froides sur le clavier, Mme Cora \u00e9crit sur cette vie qui r\u00e9tr\u00e9cit avec l'\u00e2ge et sur ce qu'on choisit d'en faire.","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"class_list":["post-65478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lettre-mme-cora"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/414"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65478\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chezcora.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65478"}],"curies":[{"name":"WP","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}