Me

by Sylvie Renault | 22 Nov 2009 | Me

I don't know what kind of childhood you had, but I grew up at the movies. My father wasn't a man who knew how to deal with a little girl, so, not knowing what to do with me on the days we were supposed to spend together, he would take me either to the amusement park or to the movies. But a whole day at the amusement park cost too much twice a week, so he almost always preferred the movie theater. There, in fact, he could sleep without being disturbed too much, and I could watch the film I had chosen over and over until the usher sent us away because they were closing. So for years, Saturday and Sunday were my favorite days. I loved the movies! If I concentrate, I can still smell the bagged popcorn and the dust of the little red seats I would sink into because my feet couldn't even reach the floor. And so, thanks to those movies I watched more or less 96 days a year, I began living in a world where, in my own mind, I would often speak in the third person about what was happening to me because, like any good film worth its salt, the film of my life certainly couldn't do without a voice-over. “See? I'm the only one who has the big picture! That's what they call genius!” (Basta che funzioni – Woody Allen - 2009) I adored Bud Spencer and Terence Hill, and I don't know how many times I watched and rewatched “Io sto con gli ippopotami”. I think I had him take me throughout its entire theatrical run. My other great passion was the films of Celentano and Pozzetto! “Lui è peggio di me”, which even had them on screen together, was my absolute favorite film, and I think I wore out my seat for that one too. But my father's favorites were romantic films. No fistfights on screen or loud laughter in the theater that might wake him. And so, thanks to the most cynical and couldn't-care-less of men, I grew up to be the last of the romantics. Casablanca, Il Dottor Zivago, Love Story, Via col Vento, Vacanze Romane, Ufficiale gentiluomo, Pretty Woman, Dirty dancing, Harry ti presento Sally. While my mother was at home shouting the anthem “Burn men at the stake!!!”, I grew up with the idea that

by Sylvie Renault | 16 Aug 2009 | Me

A friend talked to me about love this evening. The kind that ends after a while, so it's better to tell each other and leave it at that. But I ask you, what kind of love springs up so quickly and vanishes just as fast? Actually, is it love? I love playing the guitar I love feeling the vibration of my voice inside my stomach when I'm singing, and I love the tears in my eyes and the shivers that performing a song gives me I love animals and adore feeling the warmth of their bodies next to mine when they're in the mood for cuddles I love pizza with buffalo mozzarella on top and a little leaf of fresh, freshly picked basil the taste of tomatoes, tart and sweet at the same time the sound of rain falling, but only if I'm under the sheets, preferably cuddling the person I love I love curling up under the covers and feeling the warmth slowly lull me to sleep I love waking up in the morning and lingering a little longer, right up to the very last second of lateness my day can allow me I love making a friend smile, especially when times get tough I love laughing I love my home and everything it represents to me I love writing I love drinking an ice-cold beer while I'm writing I love my eyes when they light up with happiness I love the fact that I never stop hoping I love the smell of the night the smell of snow and the first cold days when winter arrives I love the color of the trees when autumn is ending I love, I love thinking about what I like, what I love and what makes me feel good. But how long did it take me to figure that out? Because it doesn't take much to pick up a warm beer and realize it tastes disgusting. But discovering instead that thoughts flow into sentences faster if, while you write them, you not only quench your soul's thirst but also give your throat something to drink...is a matter of time. Of doing, doing and doing something again, until you understand that you truly love it, in that way and with that one little extra detail, which, what's more, is never the same! Four years ago I left my boyfriend at the time, a

by Sylvie Renault | 3 Aug 2009 | Me

My father wasn't a saint. He wasn't a good man. He was an asshole. An alcoholic, cynical, greedy, violent and opportunistic. But he was my father. Not especially handsome, but women fell at his feet all the same because he was terribly sexy. Magnetic. His gaze was his best weapon. He was never there in my life. He never gave a fuck about a rhythmic gymnastics performance of mine, my first communion, or whether I was performing in an operetta reviewed in Corriere della Sera. My father simply wasn't there. And that's why I can remember precisely that once he took me to the gym and another time to the amusement park, with my middle-school classmates, who kept asking me whether he was an idiot because of the strange way he spoke. After all, it was hard for a group of eleven-year-olds to understand that he was simply a drunk man. I'll spare you the bad memories. He was my father. And honestly, I never accepted him for who he was until all I could do was regret that lost opportunity. He spoke 5 languages +1, because, let's be honest, I always suspected that when he made his case in Arabic he was just taking the piss out of me. But despite everything...the greatest lesson I've always carried with me came from him. "Learn languages and you'll be a citizen of the world, learn languages and you'll be free." Not the obvious meaning of what he said, but its exact opposite. Freedom is within us, not in what we do. Nothing that happens to us can truly control us unless we let it. And so...he traveled the world, possessed every woman he desired, had all the money anyone could ever spend in a lifetime, two beautiful daughters...but he was never able to be happy. Because he wasn't free from himself. He was a slave. A slave to his desire for freedom. And he spent his life in the vain attempt to attain something he simply already had. But it's only when you have something you're able to give that no one can take it away from you anymore. They can steal what you have, not who you are. And only those who identify with what they have rather than who they are truly feel robbed. And I, who had never been able to have that man as the father I

by Sylvie Renault | 22 Jul 2009 | Me

I often ride without a destination. I turn the key, start the engine, switch off my brain. All my concentration is on the road unrolling like an endless ribbon before my eyes. And my brain empties. Focused, present, active, free of thoughts. Twin-cylinder desmodromic meditation. Then at a certain point something happens. Images. Not actual thoughts. Images. Sharp, clear, unmistakable. Smells. Tastes. Sounds. Sensations. The mind drowns in itself. And consciousness begins its cycle again.

Me and my Seven pounds just finished!

by Sylvie Renault | 7 Aug 2008 | Painting, Me, Step by Step