Trafika Europe 2 - Polish Nocturne

like a gift from heaven, I had to ask her to repeat the sentence because I didn’t understand what she was saying.

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The problem occurs when what you most feared happens and you don’t die. This proves really surprising. You’re not yet thinking of killing yourself, because, naturally, you imagine that dying of love is a slow, slow thing, and you’re waiting for the death throes to kick in. The shock is so great that at times you have to look at yourself in the mirror to believe it: You’re amazed that your body has emerged unscathed from such inner devastation. I catch a glimpse of myself pushing a cart in a shopping center with mirrored walls, and the contrast between what I see and what I feel is striking. Apparently, I am a living a person who walks around and pushes a cart. My face too is quite normal: a distraught grimace, true, but it’s a whole face, not falling to pieces, not decomposing. The body is here too, solid, still standing. And even though I steady myself on the cart, I appear to be the one who is pushing it. Mirrors are deceptive, they silence pain. The body silences pain. The body is preserved. How can such a divorce exist? How can a stupid little blood clot kill you and yet grief like this does not?

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