…and there she was. I had waited some
days to hear from her after returning from our recent holiday where our paths
had first crossed, knowing she had also gone back to her capital city home a
day or so later, and when it had finally dropped into my email inbox – word
from her – a surge of excitement had coursed through me. She had sweetly asked beforehand
what she needed to prepare, but it was much simpler than that. All she needed
to do was appear and talk. For me, it was the essence of being, of what one was
that I wanted to capture. People’s strengths and limitations on show. They were
revealed in much of what a person did and what they said.
Now, she was sitting in front of me,
at least via a smartphone screen. Failing to coincide on a regular video chat
platform, we were now talking on one of the commonly used chat apps, so my view
of her, my window to where she was, was rather small, though it would indeed
suffice. I wanted to use my index finger and thumb to zoom in on her, to
enlarge her presence in my room, though maybe she would do that anyway, with
her words, gestures, her expressions, and the essence of her spilling forth.
Early in the conversation, Camille
openly acknowledges her need to grow and talk more about herself and not only
others, not only exploring her outward curiosity, as the dialogue clicks from
the offset. She is extremely receptive, fluidly answering any questions I field
to her. It feels that whatever negative forces Camille has in her life they do
not hold her back for long and her radiant warmth spreads beyond her room and
into my own as our talk progresses.
Her eyes sparkle as she talks about
her big city life, an undeniable adventure, and her plan to remain there as
well as the love that took her to those foreign shores in the first place, how
that romance ended, and how she overcame the negative attachment to the city
that rupture had caused, subsequently building a life for herself there. She
talks so openly, so comfortably. She fascinates, a jewel shining light in many
directions, inspiring thoughts, questions, a glorious buzzing sensation in the
mind. Her stories and anecdotes about where she now resided, Germany and the
differences between the people in the two places are such a rich and compelling
series of moments – a tapestry - it is hard not to feel drawn toward the
screen. I wish I could frame the dialogue. Maybe I am doing.
She is drinking a can of
non-alcoholic Heineken, which is only “alright” out of a can (compared to a
recent and superior restaurant experience of the same beverage).
We discuss bright, positive energy –
even a glow – and how we both saw it in one another when we first met earlier
this month. And the sea rushes and the sea whispers in the background.
She has tied her hair back. At the
start of the call, it was loose, revealing what I had not seen in our previous
encounter, the hair falling to just above her shoulders. There was a crossroads
where dark blonde and light brown met and still shared multiple shades. I was
attempting to work out if her hair was at precisely the inter-section and Camille
corrected me and stated that ‘leberwurst’ was much more fitting, saving my
minor turmoil in figuring the puzzle out. I have never heard hair described as
that shade before, but when it came to descriptions of this aspect of ourselves
people were highly creative, and, well, what did I know?
Camille is sitting on a stool with a
cushion that she says is comfortable. She has her legs up and likes that
position. It is brilliant to see and be talking with her. Her face breaks into
smiles frequently. We have a moment’s silence (the first of the call),
beautifully shared, before we discuss silence and what an incredible companion
it can be. She comes closer to the screen to show me the colour of her eyes –
they are blue and wide and simply stunning, filled with secrets and magic. She
is wearing a ‘Bordeaux’-coloured shirt (with white buttons), as she tells me
when I ask (I am moving the pen, but she is aiding the process), and her
light-blue and white striped pyjama bottoms which I am told are wonderfully
comfortable, too.
A black digital Casio watch with a
black plastic strap adorns her left wrist. The seconds are ticking, adding up,
counting down, as we sit and chat, as we take the time that people seldom seem
to anymore. As she is ageing, she says she becomes more adventurous than when
she was younger, and there is a thrilling and excited spark in her eye lost by
many who have reached the same age, even years before. Her cheeks are wonderfully
sculpted - prominent on her face - and rosy red, even more when I tell her and,
drawing the attention to them, embarrass her a little.
We then talk about the portrait
concept. She says it is brilliant as a gift idea, for which it had been planned
for a while now. Her words of encouragement are appreciated and the mission of
using some of my writing to interact with people appears to hold great
potential.
I get the feeling we could talk for
hours, passing through a ferocious amount of terrain. We could wander the
streets of a city a la Delpy and Hawke in Richard Linklater film Before
Sunrise and enjoy the words until they had been drained and silence took
over. She would twist and turn like a book you cannot put down, eyes fixed on
those pages. Her hair while quite short and sharp is beautiful and is a frame
befitting the artwork inside it. The hair has a kink in it from being tied back
that gives it a curve in its middle, a waterfall hitting rocks halfway down.
She is in her early thirties, her
experience echoing in her shell, rebounding off the walls. Her gestures have a
musicality to them, flowing, natural, a little like water. Water that whispers
and throbs just as the sea did when first we met. She has small lines
connecting her nose to her mouth that become more noticeable when she smiles. Another
silence passes between us as she allows me a moment of concentration to get
down my thoughts. To write and interact simultaneously is not an easy feat. She
is patient when I require it. I notice her in the silence, staring intently at
me, wondering what I could be writing about her, curious about my words, the
shape and soul of them, how I might portray her. She takes a sip of water. I
try to see it all, but it just is not possible, with such a wealth of ideas and
of imagery (both past and present) in one small screen and its contents.
The cool, pretty, and easy-going
woman from the beach had transferred over to the video chat and it was
delightful to spend over an hour in her company again, as the questions and
intrigue spilled out of her, as life took a grasp of the moment and pulsated
like a quickening heart pumping blood.
Did you ever get the feeling of a
moment being so rich you could not possibly remember it, couldn’t possibly take
all you wanted to from it, couldn’t milk it of all the beauty it possessed?
This beautiful woman rich of soul and
with a vast depth of character transcends nationality and for whatever flaws
she may have, the challenging, special, and vibrant side of her will always win
out. She is an artistic inspiration without doubt or diminishing. She describes
herself as full of contradiction – though who truly is not, whether others are
even capable of spotting that or not – empathetic, curious, insecure, and
strong, open, and social when I ask her to describe herself. Her answer has
gone above and beyond once more and some of those attributes that people may
deem negatives are clearly what makes her sparkle as she does.
Camille has a black hairband on her
right wrist. I had asked to see her with her hair down again and she had kindly
obliged.
The way she talks in English is
eloquent and coherent, and I wonder how elegant she is in the remainder of her
life, whether she wears dresses and dances into the night or not. Some of what
she says indicates the psychology profession she works in. It is a fascinating
portrait and as I see her looking back at me, I wonder who is under the
microscope, who is on display, who is being eternally memorised in words and
moving picture memories… me or her?
Contemplating the woman before me is
magically intense. I have sweated a little towards the end of the portrait. It
is hardly surprising; I had known all along that I would be in the presence of
a female work of art. With any luck the results of my writing might just do her
justice.
Footnote - From 19:35 on Tuesday 22nd
September 2020 our exchange was one hour and nineteen minutes or 2.13 GB of
video dialogue internet data. That was the portrait in mechanical, in
technological terms. It did not reveal the soul of the talk, nor did it reflect
the humanity shared and the questions and answers logged. It was impersonal
data at best.
