This is a journal entry from June 14, 2015

Watched Intersteller last night.

Dad could reach the daughter across the boundaries of dimensions. LOVE… is the means.

Today morning I set out to pick up a high chair from a “vendor” from a Facebook group. I have 25 franc in coins. I take a pink valise.

Tram 12 drives me through Parc Bastion, Acacias to Carouge down a memory lane. I search for a little bakery where I used to treat myself to an affordable coffee or chocolat chaude.

I look for Starbucks where I changed my toddler’s diapers and emptied my bladder numerous times without having to buy a drink.

I see a young mom with a big red stroller. Baby’s face, borderline blasé and given-up.

It is just one of many weekday mornings in Geneva.

I come to a house which sits on the address given to me on the FB messenger. “Quai du cheval blanc 21, Acacias, Celine¹“. I ring the bell with her name next to it and she tells me the code of the front door but I can’t hear it well through the speaker on the wall. She says she is coming down. I see her face from the stairs.

“I know you!”

I know her. It is the same face that I once met for the first time at a supermarket and then ran into several more times. I think she even gave me her phone number once.

“Four years ago!”

I was in this city with my baby in a red stroller.

Her girl, Lucy, is now five years old.

I learn that she has a hearing problem so Celine decided to stay with her longer before sending her to school.

“You were always friendly and when I ran into you at Migro, you even taught me how to cook Fennel.”

A pinch of guilt pokes at the left side of my chest. I see my four-years-younger-self, heavy heavy with fatigue and bad mood squatted down in a vegetable aisle at Migro to pick up a green netted beg of three color peppers. It would be one of those days that I would see a face I recognize. It was Celine. Then probably I would show her a bright smile. As automatic as always. Then my mood would actually lift up by an inch.

After saying bye and walking to the bus station along the river Arve I think of a scene from Intersteller. The dad touching the lights behind the bookshelf to send a code to Murph.

Yeah I know it is you, my girl.

It is you.

1. The address and name are changed. ↩︎