Hello! You’ve found Faye’s Wing, a series of multimedia scenes about the creative quest for fulfilment beyond a fixed spiritual identity. It comes out every Wednesday, and features music and visuals from contributing artists. If you are new here, I suggest you start at the beginning and read the story sequentially. You can also check out my project overview for more info, or view the list of scenes you might have missed.
Biarritz, Autumn 2020
When the lockdown lifts, we learn that our flat will be rented out at high season prices, and make our way to my mother’s for the summer. We come back to the small gem of a flat I managed to secure before leaving. Set in a complex called Les Azalées, it is within walking distance to both the Grande Plage and the shops in the Saint-Charles neighbourhood. Newly revamped by an architect, it has burnished copper lamps in the open-plan kitchen, invisible built-in storage space, and flatware with just the right weight to it arranged in silent drawers, evoking a tidy life of everyday luxuries. I have signed a lease until the following summer, and look forward to personalising it when our things come out of storage. Though my sister Sophie is initially dubious about the rainy climate, she concedes that the region is sympa, having endorsed the gourmet market and made bobos basques friends.
A new life takes shape as my two older chicks fly the nest. Ben returns to uni and Luke will spend his last year of high school in America, with his father. As for Sacha, he likes the idea of being in a town where he can surf after school and walk home for lunch. For a magical two-month spell, I relax into normal French life after 20 years of living abroad. I have a glimpse of the life I hankered after as a young mother, a daydream my American husband did not share. Ten years on from a hideous divorce, life is easing up, not quite as dazzling as the soft-glow family ideal I left behind, but close enough. I imagine rekindling the bonds of close sisterhood, apéro hour on the balcony as the horizon grows hazy, and what it would have been like for my boys to develop an equal sense of autonomy and belonging in their French culture, with six cousins as tight as besties.
The Teacher discourages social outings, but I long to weave a circle of friends here, and catch up with friends from the Festival who have moved nearby. Dear, wild Mathieu and Priscilla host a magical outdoor live-cinema performance gleaned from their many encounters with sacred sounds. Here, in the foothills of the Pyrenees, I find kinship with people I have never met, through music. I am struck again by its capacity to open hearts and rekindle connection after these anxious months of separation. Priscilla greets everyone with a sincere hug, barefoot children run in the grass, couples in colour-coordinated beatitude linger on picnic blankets in subtle degrees of entwining. She introduces me to Caroline, an old friend of hers, with whom I feel an immediate connection. We meet several times in those early weeks in the new flat, sharing our obstacle course experiences of single mothering over home-cooked meals in her garden.
Though the Teacher insists that the Kula is our real, heart-womb family, and that our bonds strengthen with each incarnation, I have yet to meet my fellow seekers in person. We share liturgies, particular ways, and a teacher, but they are all on the other side of the Atlantic, with worldly lives that could not be more different from mine. Despite my best efforts to believe the Teacher, without breaking real bread, without truly feasting together, Union and community are abstractions. It doesn’t help that we are not supposed to talk about or compare our spiritual experiences, lest we disseminate incorrect understandings. All this makes any one-to-one connection stilted, and I find myself self-censoring, any spontaneity bound up in doubts and rules. Perhaps the real coalescing factor is that there are so few of us willing to engage in such demanding practices.
Judging by the new faces that crop up for full-moon recitations of our entry-level liturgy, I gather that our broader community is extensive, but practitioner numbers embarking on this particular study cycle are low. Only twenty-three of us have committed and received the Teacher’s blessing to proceed. On one or two online occasions, the Teacher brushes aside a question, her scowl barely contained, and I become aware of a tiered access to knowledge. In any case, I wonder if we would be friends in person, were it not for our shared practices. Told that my view is mistaken, I endeavour to dig in deeper and to overcome my failing.
Meanwhile, our life in Biarritz is good. I love that it tastes, sounds, and looks beautiful. After his school day, Sacha and I chat on the beach, pick up paella or txistorra to grill for supper. I am able to give him the undivided attention he has never had, spoiling him in tiny ways, after more than a decade of dipping in and out of a quasi survival mode. Everything feels perfect, as if every wish on a secret catalogue of aspirations has been ticked by an invisible hand. I even spot one of my favourite authors strolling on the beach with his young family, and take it as a sign that I have landed in the right place.
In October, my sister sends Diego, my nephew, down for the Toussaint half-term, and I pinch myself that surfing is actually the go-to local activity for teens here. The week coincides with Daśain, an important holiday in the Nepalese tradition we are now studying. After Sacha and Diego say goodnight, I wrap up to practise on the moonlit balcony. A few mornings in, I overhear the boys in the kitchen as I am tidying up in the living room area. They are standing in front of the fridge, door wide open, debating on a snack.
‘Oooh, regarde, des mini saucissons,’ says Diego, ‘miam !’
‘Dude, not those! Verboten!’ yelps Sacha, leaping across the kitchen to put the salami away again. ‘They’re in a red Tupperware—that means Mom has dibbed them for her yoga stuff.’
‘Du saucisson pour le yoga? What ze fuck…? I thought yoga was about vegetarian chicks in leotards?’
‘Seriously, I don’t get it either, but she’ll flip out if we eat those. At Yaya’s last summer, I had to share a room with Mom. At night, she’d set up lots of copper bowls on the floor, filled with food, and then she’d pour rice and milk onto a tray, humming shit. That was bad enough, even with my headphones on. She kept telling me to go to sleep, but how could I, with all that noise?’
‘Ouais pas cool. Better to blank it out,’ Diego commiserates.
‘Parents—am I right? Anyway, when she was done, instead of pouring it down the sink, she’d save it in a jar—under the bed!’
I duck into the bathroom, hoping that they will keep on ignoring me.
‘Mais pourquoi?’
‘Dunno—something about giving offerings back to nature. But by the time Mom is finished with her chanting, it’s always super late, and she was afraid of the wild dogs that come out then. I went along with her once, for a chill moonlit walk, you know? But those dogs were vicious, chasing us ‘n barking. So that was the end of that. Instead, the milk got cheesy under the bed, and man, that stuff starts stinking real quick when it’s hot.’
The refrigerator starts beeping. I want to tell them to shut it, but am also finding their banter at once hilarious and mortifying, so I run the tap for good measure. There would be so much to unpack about the food offerings if they were even interested, but I’d have 1to skirt their questions. It’s bad enough that I struggle with having to eat meat and fish—they’re not meant to know about any of this. I actually have time to go to the butcher’s before practising tonight, but the Teacher would be upset if she knew about these conversations. Recently, she even ticked me off for oversharing about something trivial: “Think about 'not sharing' as a form of Tantric protection, a rainbow dome of wisdom beings creating a strong container for your practice to get some traction. Leave an empty space and don’t fill it.”
‘Huh,’ says Diego, his head back in the fridge. ‘Trop bizarre. And a waste of saucisson. Et le jambon de Bayonne, il est interdit, aussi ?2’
‘Mom?’ calls Sacha, ‘Mom, we’re starving. There’s only a slice of ham left, so can we also have those teeny saucissons, just this once? Bit cringe telling Diego they’re off-limits, you know?’
‘Bien sûr, go for it,’ I reply, popping my head out of the bathroom. ‘I’ll get more later.’
The refrigerator door slams shut, followed by the rustling of paper coming off the baguette, as Diego slaps butter, ham, and cornichons into long sandwiches.
‘Tiens, ton sandwich, Sacha,’ says Diego, handing his cousin a ginormous plate.
‘Grassy ass, Señor.’
‘De rien, bro.’
From “Little Kids,” by Kings of Convenience, on Quiet Is the New Loud © 2001.
‘Is the saucisson also off-limits?’
Hmm yes, it was quite a confrontational path, hard to explain as it is such an all-consuming worldview. I hope I can do it justice bit by bit!
Marguerite’s reaction to the boys’ criticism is so human. I feel I lose her again when she reaches into the rituals then -bang- I’m right back with her when she is ‘scolded’ by the teacher. The teacher feels so controlling - and yet, if challenged on this, I would imagine her making it the Devi’s failing. Where is all this leading? So interesting…