My Diary place

The Summer House 

Not sure I like it but it took months! 

@AmalieAnne

How you doing, what you been up to?

Your profile picture is beautiful 💜 you look all grown up 

Garden and the Library 

The f**king lies of Monsieur Leroux 
A catchy title one hopes, my recent reading into the history of swearing has not affected me in the slightest of course! Let me tell you about The Tale of Two Cities; Paris and London, competitors in architecture, fashion, prestige and the revolutionary cause of a nation compared to the imperial capitalist of business (and money). Apart from Lady Guillotine, a riot here and there, people of wealth considered both these cities as places they could live, moving depended on their mood and the number of Napolean’s soldiers outside their grand houses. Passports were vile notions invented later, no one cared for such governance but of course the poor had no choice. For the poor they were residents of Rue Mouffetard or Old Nichol Street, were they lived as poor people did in the 19th century, suffering and in the slums. Social injustice is not the discussion here but how these cities were built. 

Both London and Paris have underground rivers, they were simply a nuisance, London today has around 20 rivers running mostly underground although some are funnelled above. Paris had the Canal Saint-Martin and River Bièvre, fewer than London but designed to criss-cross the catacombs and architecture, such as the artificial lake beneath the Opera Garnier built to stabilise the foundations of the opera house itself due to high ground water. The 200 miles of the Paris Catacombs and the Limestone quarries abandoned in 17th century, caused whole streets to collapse. In 1774 near the Holy Innocents’ Cemetery in Central Paris was one such example of a whole street collapsing causing the Inspection Générale des Carrières to map and reinforce these underground structures throughout the latter part of the 18th century. Although London generally did not suffer from such collapses, it is hoped you have a general idea about what is under these old cities. More importantly, the extent of subterranean Paris. 

It was in fact the Opera Garnier and its lake that Gaston Leroux wrote about in his book Le Fantôme de l'Opéra. This opera house commissioned by Emperor Napolean III was built in style and on many levels. The grand staircase, the main auditorium with almost 2000 seats, salons for mingling, no doubt for discussions of business, formed the first floor. The second and third floors held the balconies and boxes for more wealthy patrons which was all centred around the stage looking up at the grand chandelier. Weighing more than 6000kgs made of bronze and crystal, 8 metres across and lit by glass lamps, suspended from the ceiling under a painted dome. Higher on the fourth and fifth floors were the stage machinery, the fly tower and rehearsal rooms. The subterranean levels housed dressing rooms, costumes storage and workshops. The labyrinth of tunnels connected various parts of the building. Also in this basement, were areas for the Paris commune to store food and ammunition, unmarked graves and of course the lake itself. The opera house went from decadent luxury to the damp, dark industrial levels. It was said no one lived in the opera house but revolutionary squatters in trapdoor apartments were rumoured to exist. 



All of this is to provide you with some idea about the complexities of the building and how someone could travel around it without ever being seen, if they had the right knowledge that is! Next is to introduce you to Gaston Leroux, he was not successful at writing stories that explored of the fictional world, but he was a decent court reporter and theatre critic, a combination only a Frenchman could be successful at. That was after he went to law school and almost drunk himself to being bankrupt. A life of reporting and being a critic suited him more, in 1883 he was employed as an international correspondent for Le Matin, one of France’s leading newspapers. He even went to the Russian front lines in 1905 covering the revolution for the paper, again a job suited for a Frenchman. The thing is, he was really good at being a reporter but sadly less so as a fiction writer. Afterall, have you heard of him before today? I have read Le Fantôme de l'Opéra and compared to some of the greats, he sadly falls short in many ways. 

It is now time to tell you about the story of The Phantom of The Opera and why it was all just a lie. Set in the Opera Garnier the story follows the Opera Ghost, a masked man named Erik who lived beneath the opera house, hidden away but able to move across the whole building using is intricate knowledge. Erik manipulated performances, issued many demands to the opera’s managers, murdered those that got in his way and he became fixated on Christine, believing she is destined to be his muse (lover). Christine sees Erik not as a man, but her Angel of Music sent to her by her father after his death. Just as Christine gets her chance and raises to fame thanks to the Opera Ghost bringing out her singing voice, Erik is haunted by Christine’s childhood friend Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny. As Erik’s obsession deepens, he kidnaps Christine and threatens to destroy the opera house unless she chooses him over Raoul. Let’s say an act of compassion by Christine makes Erik allow Christine and Raoul to leave the Opera Garnier and to never return. Read the book yourself! 

Gaston Leroux’s lie: he was a good reporter, but he’s acts of fiction, less so. It is my argument that this was not fiction at all rather, sadly, a crime that he reported on. Erik might have had some humility but even Leroux himself says, Erik was a murderer, capable of kidnapping Christine, without much thought. He also manipulated those around him to get his own way. Thus, it is my claim he sadly killed both Christine and Raoul rather than see the injustice of his scarred and infected face being simply disregarded, even rejected by Christine’s heart. She couldn’t love Erik back. In Leroux ‘book’ he does not mention what Christine and Raoul did after the kidnaping and the altercation in the middle of the lake other than they both ‘went away’. Leroux did not have enough evidence of the crime and Erik was a master of becoming hidden when he wanted to be. It is with a heavy heart that I must report that real and horrible actions in Le Fantôme de l'Opéra were real and happened, only the deaths of Christine and Raoul were omitted. Leroux could, as a compassionate and learned man could not admit such a thing at the end of his book. 

 

Ame’s f**king Lies: Gaston Leroux first wrote Le Mystère de la chambre jaune in 1907 and it was very well received; he then wrote The Phantom of the opera in 1910 which was moderately successful but after the movie made in 1925 gained more readers. It was a complete act of fiction although Leroux drew from his history of court & news reporting. The Phantom of the Opera remains one of the most adapted novels in history, with films, musicals, ballets, and graphic novels based on it. In fact, many compare Leroux to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe. Le Fantôme de l’Opéra has been a massive success despite me not liking the book that much and it is fiction written by a very talented man. In fact, it was serialised in the newspaper Le Gaulois like many great works of literature were. I have to say I love the musical and many people do. So… all that is left to say is:     

Perhaps we may even frighten away the ghost from so many years ago, with a little illumination GENTLEMEN 

Read for free in English:  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/175 and in French:  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/62215 

Racist against the French AI created the images but I wrote the rest! 

@AmalieAnne

Hello my dear friend, 

I'm sorry I missed your birthday day, I've been remembering it for ages and then life hit us and then I haven't been able to remember much this past week, I'm so sorry.

My mom died suddenly last week and we just buried her, my heart is broken.

You are special to me and I wouldn't like to miss wishing you.

I hope you had an awesome birthday Ames.

I also trust your grandpa is recovering from his op 💜

Happy birthday Ames

With much love Avaray 💕

A more holistic me/approach 
Whenever I have felt like killing a man due to being really angry or so sad I do not know what to do with myself, mindfulness has been very helpful. Mindfulness is being very focused on one thing and putting all your concentration in it, for me it is painting by numbers. I focus on it, the brush and how I am holding it, how the paint is slightly different because it is a little dry or a little wetter, in essence blocking everything else out and all of my attention is on the painting. Now, when you want to kill a man, this is a very good method of moving away from that anger! With survivors of childhood things like me there is another element to existing, being disconnected and disassociation. Its a thing I really needed to do when I was little to get away from unsafe and painful things but does not help so much now when I know that I am safe and those things have stopped. People do not really talk much about disassociating but I normally call it ‘going away’. 

Going away means that I start to lose the feeling in my toes, it then travels up my legs slowly going up my body including tingling in my fingers as I lose control of them and then it feels like I am just a head. Even if though I have an adorable head, I really do like having all of my body under my control. For my brain; it starts to slow down and even stops thoughts, I start to lose me and it feels like I cannot really process what is going on. However, having had a lot of gestalt therapy, which is more about the here and now alongside being whole, I started to not want to disassociate anymore and started achieving that. It still happens, in therapy my therapist is really good at being able to tell when I am starting to go away but outside of therapy I am not disassociating as much and it is rare for me to feel like I am losing control of my body. I still get memories that feel like they are missing and things feeling unreal but its not as bad. 

I have been having more holistic (being whole) experiences and I love them, unlike in mindfulness or disassociation, the holistic experiences embrace all of me and bring me together rather than pull different parts of me away from each other. So, here are some of the holistic experiences that I’ve started to experience and now love. 

-    The first is having a shower, I have become a massive fan of shower streamers which you put in the shower and slowly they release a lovely smell. My personal favourite is strawberry but all of them work with creating the experience. The warm water touching my body is very tactile and the heat creating the now lovely smelly steam fills my senses. The noise is soft and not too overwhelming. It is also a very safe space; I do not lock the door but I know my grandmother is outside and she would not allow anyone to interrupt or enter. Being relaxed and having the constant connection with my body means that I normally am talking out loud. For me thinking in images is just the way my brain does it because it is so much easier and the shower helps clear all the verbal thoughts out of my head. Stepping out of the verbal world and back into my more natural way of thinking. I tend to spend awhile in the shower just enjoying it. 

-    The second one is cooking with my grandmother (I call her mama but people seem to get confused). For me this is not using knifes but we make our own pasta, we bake, we stir, mix & roll, we roast things, we do the garlic press and normally I end up getting a bit messy while mama does not! I tie my hair back and put an apron on, then I do not really do much thinking at all. I love feeling all the textures of the things we make apart from seafood, we are normally in a warm well-lit kitchen, the sounds are again not too much, mama’s voice is soft when she talks to me and she normally just moves me around either an arm or my body to help. I do not have to worry about talking or making mistakes because I know that mama is just there and she does not mind. Unlike a shower when I am just connected with myself, with cooking I am also connected with mama. 

-    The third one is… well… it involves a mommy cuddle and no one being allowed to talk to me. Since this does not make me appear to be very grown up hopefully the first two examples are enough to explain what I mean by holistic experiences. I will be seeing mommy very soon during the Christmas holiday. 

I know that these experiences are also times in which I am very relaxed and there are no expectations on me, as someone who is an anxious person it kind of fits the two would go together. I enjoy being in control of my body, knowing what is going on in my mind and feeling more relaxed. My journey to overcoming the childhood trauma started with a childhood psychologist and then a gestalt therapist, having been seeing them since the age of 13 is perhaps a lot more support than most people get. Still, it has really had a massive positive impact. I thought I would share where I am right now and the difference between how trauma has been changed within me and how trauma itself can pull people apart in a strange way. I look forward to more holistic experiences and more ways of expressing them, they are lovely and give me a sense of healing.  

Little trip to Bratislava

Mama (my grandmother) and me went on a little exploring trip to Bratislava, it was -6 degrees and colder in the wind to the point it made me cry. Still, we had fun and we did some exploring which I love to do. No spa just exploring 😀 My history is a little weak in this area of Europe but I will learn more when I get time, school work comes first. 

@Avaray @Avaray @Avaray