14: Numbers...

I just realized that I'd been numbering my posts. I'm not exactly sure why so I was originally not going to number this one...but it felt weird. I guess there's a certain comfort in routine.

Today had some awful parts but some great parts. A friend of mine, Dao, is moving to Chicago. She's lived in Long Beach for a few years and in that time, has amassed a ton of art supplies. When she said she had a few things to give away, I was expecting a sketchbook or two. Instead I got probably $200 worth of art supplies (if not more!)

I've been wanting a portable easel for quite some time now so that came a a wonderful surprise. There's also gigantic sketch pads, bristol pads, vellum pads, canvas paper, watercolor pads and pallete pads of all sizes.

I think what I loved best is that there were some old drawings/paintings by Dao left in some of the sketchbooks. She is someone I admire and look up to as a role model of sorts...so having pieces of her work really means a lot to me. Although she'll probably feel weird since they're very old pieces from, as she says, her "past life" when she used to draw. (She does sculpture almost exclusively now.)

In one of the old sketchbooks, my favorite of the lot, there is some faded writing in pencil on the inside cover. It was a poem by Robert Desnos in french. I was able to translate it literally (thank you, 2 years of French class!) but wasn't sure if I got it right. I found an English translation but it seems almost like an entirely different poem. I don't like it anywhere near as much. The translated version is longer, more complex.

I dunno, for me, the literal translation of the original was simple but had an honesty that really spoke to me. I decided to write it out since the inscription on the sketchbook was already faded and hard to make out. I ended up doing a little ink drawing on the page inspired by the poem. It really is a beautiful piece (the poem...not so much my drawing. LOL)

Le Dernier Poéme

J’ai rêvé tellement fort de toi,
J’ai tellement marché, tellement parlé,
Tellement aimé ton ombre,
Qu’il ne me reste plus rien de toi.

Il me reste d’être l’ombre parmi les ombres
D’être cent fois plus ombre que l’ombre
D’être l’ombre qui viendra et reviendra dans ta vie ensoleillée

(my literal translation)

The Last Poem

I dreamed so much about you,
I so much walked, so much spoke,
So much loved your shade,
That I have nothing more of you.

I have to be shade among shades
To be hundred times more shade than shade
To be the shade which will come and return in your sunny life

The closest English translation I could find was:

I Have Dreamed of You So Much

I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time for me to reach your breathing body, to kiss your mouth and make
your dear voice come alive again?

I have dreamed of you so much that my arms, grown used to being crossed on my
chest as I hugged your shadow, would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many
days and years, I would surely become a shadow.

O scales of feeling.

I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no more time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love, and you, the only one who
counts for me today, I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and
face of some passerby.

I have dreamed of you so much, have walked so much, talked so much, slept so much
with your phantom, that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom
among phantoms, a shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow the
moves and goes on moving, brightly, over the sundial of your life.