I have always been peculiar about sounds. I remember my teenager self eating with earplugs on in order to be isolated from the family masticating sounds. How horrible was this crunch combined with this hormone overdose! My existential crises have fortunately shifted towards more noble causes but only sounds (or I would say noises) can provoke irrational angst and make me loose my acquired temperance (I really worked hard on this one). Perhaps I was born with extra coils in the cochlea…

So yesterday I have immersed myself back in that state of sound awareness and to my surprise, I felt, on two counts, like a teenager again. I am a waitress in a private tennis club and as soon as this of the old school family came in for dinner yesterday, I knew I would be in trouble. I felt an instant connection with the bewitching grandson. (Seriously, he was bewitching…) Why can’t we stop looking at each other? His ardent gaze made my heart beat so loud I thought it would give away my feelings to his family and make me look really unprofessional. I mean, for me to use ardent and heart beat in the same sentence, it had to be so. I’m usually not really impressionable but that beat was so loud I couldn’t think of something else… and had to acknowledge the fact that someone had touched the untouchable. It resounded, as metallically as my blood. Could he hear my eardrums resonate while I was pouring wine so close to him?

CLOC! CLOC! CLOC! The sound of my high heels usually accompanies my everyday steps. OK, walking with weaken knees in high heels was quite a challenge at this point. I usually like that sound when it reveals a bold and confidant personality, but during the whole time, beautiful grandson made me unbearably aware of my clumsiness. CLIC! CLUK...CLAK! …COCLOK! How embarrassing! Femininity is such a burden. He didn’t seem to bother though: he kept staring at me… I wonder what sound would make my melting body?

-Pour the wine. Just pour the wine, Emilie. And then walk away.

I usually have a little speech about the food or the wine or something…but it was like impossible for me to articulate a full sentence. You know that someone affects you to the core when you have to consciously control a process as innate as walking… And this is when I became very aware of the voice of my thoughts. I was talking really loud to myself but I couldn’t grasp the quality of this vibrant murmur in my head. Is it not a sound because I am the only one hearing it? Fortunately, I thought, considering the nature of the my inner conversation…

-Could we have another bottle of this delicious Beaujolais
-Oui. Certainement, Monsieur.


Pf! Not POP or pfffffffff. As festive as a loud POP can sound, in my school of thought, when a bottle of wine is properly opened it makes an almost imperceptible “pf” and that’s it. Mission accomplished. Seriously, I’ve opened so many bottles of wine (for myself or for the clientèle) that even under extreme pressure I could manage to hear that desired “pf”.



I had to end this heartwarming night with a running bath and a bottle of wine. When I was a teenager, only the running bath sound could ease my anxieties. It was miraculous and my mom would strongly encourage this practice. Yesterday night though, I had to take a cold one because I still had that generalized blush when I came back home. What had happened to me? Oh! The powerful sound of running water, soothe my mind! Oh! Did I really just buy one bottle of wine? Hahahahaha! Here’s my voice again…ungraspable but so perceptible.

There’s only one sound I wish I had heard (but it had been impossible since Maître D. decided to have a conversation with the family just before they left) and it’s the sound of grandson’s voice whispering his name in my ear…

Cats and Birds

I'm fledging. Pop. Pop. Pop.