félicité nivea

The passing of my maternal grand-mother is toying with myself in a way I haven’t foreseen, just as I wasn’t expecting her recent passing in spite of my last few forewarning dreams.

I’ve been now living in Italy for nearly five years, since September 2020, in what would have been her childhood home — what became the summer vacations home for her daughters, and then for myself, as the building was otherwise most likely deserted throughout the years. That until I came to live here myself through my neverending wandering down this world.

I’m now remembering about her home in France, left vacant, and I can still sense every element of it : The cracking wooden staircases of the basement and of the bedrooms floor ; the narrow single bed of my mother where I used to sleep in from time to time ; my aunt’s bedroom that became mine for a year during my 19s ; my grand-parent’s bedroom where I played the Gamecube and the Xbox on the small CRT TV before going to bed ; the kitchen and it’s small dining table with heavy metalic crossed feet, the folding drawers, the fridge and oven, the treats jars, the window giving on the front of the house and the slope of the garage right under ; the wide and bright living room where I used to watch VHS tapes on the big television, played Pokémon Blue on the sofa under the fixture’s light, the board games of the high and imposing wooden cabinet ; and next to it’s three double French windows, the tiled terrace where we would sit under the parasols planted in the middle of white plastic tables, and their white european plastic chairs ; the raspberries growing on the walls cornering the small square of grass with a stone barbecue grill next to the unused garden behind the house with rabbits in cages in my earlier years ; the garage in the basement for the silver Renault Megane, and next to it the dark and humid laundry room and the wide neglected atelier with the freezer as only useful and memorable element. Every wallpaper design and texture, every room smell, every handle of every door, every flooring and every fabric, bedsheet, curtain, tablecloth. At the exception of the bedroom that was built on the first floor with a portion of the living room where we used to have long diners before, room that she used after the passing of my grand-father since she couldn’t go on the upper floor so easily anymore, and where she most likely passed away quietly.

And it’s like I became older than herself all of a sudden. As I did.

And yet it’s like an invitation to go back in time to appreciate the simple moments of my childhood, perhaps in order to wipe clean the superfluous elements of nowadays. (Internet garbage, for the most part.)

She passed away at 87, while my grand-father did so at 64 in 2007. So I just realized she was in fact 5 years older than him, funnily.

Beyond everything that I could have lived during my youth at her side and my grand-father’s at their house, playing Yahtzee at night and eating crêpes we used to tease Pepsi (their dog, a mostly black female Border Collie) with after diner, going to the cinema or to the beach some days eventually, there is one obvious thing that I’ll remember her for…

A point beyond time in which a seed was planted in me in order for me to aim for something higher than everything down this world, ultimately, beside all the existential torment she would have inspired through and through. The one who’s missing everywhere since I turned 11.

And now that the « ceremony priestess » is gone, it feels like things are getting serious, testing the reality of things a little more. It is in fact strange that her passing occurred as I planned to have my first experience with psychedelics so that I could try to reach out for Felicia in the only other way outside the elusive realm of the dream state, where she seems to start to show up again since last year after more than 20 years of absence.

I don’t really know what to do in particular for next Summer now. At least I don’t really want to move anywhere special, even just in Aosta. I’ll simply take care of the home that doesn’t belong to my grand-mother anymore ; as long as I’m living here myself, I’ll make the place still home for some time, the house won’t be sold before several years anyway…

I’ll go outside a little more, and on the internet much less. Play once again some games of my childhood like Pokémon Blue I haven’t touched since a quarter of century at this point, with Pokémon Silver, Trading Card Game, Pinball, etcetera… And some home console ones I used to play in my grand-parent’s bedroom around 2004. Try to remember small things that I used to enjoy in Italy as a kid. Keep getting rid of any conflictual and superfluous thoughts in my nowadays tormented and busy mind. Otherwise take care of myself more like I did as I hit 19 back when I stayed at my grand-parents house in France for a year.