Théo d'Or ’s Reviews > A Gentleman in Moscow > Status Update

Bonjour, Théo !

Lord Kelvin, the nineteenth‑century physicist, once said that one could understand everything by observing a soap bubble. And indeed, that is how all of us began in Science: blowing soap bubbles and watching them drift, for that is where childhood truly starts. Wisdom, poetry and happiness are only possible for those who have not yet forgotten the wonder of soap bubbles.

Merci.

How wonderful, how wonderful said, Celeste..I even can see, those bubbles..
You know ,being busy surviving - is not quite a sentimental excuse, but a result of a modern condition, nowadays. In childhood, joy is immediate. As child, you don't need to justify play, or schedule wonder. You've read this book, and you know about the " secret room ". That room is not a fantasy. And is not about nostalgia either, but about how we come to know the world. Children know through wonder, adults often know through worry.
But, you see - the thing is not to become children again, but to reach that mode of knowing into a mature life. And this secret room, is not a place to escape, but a place to begin, again and again, each day. Actually, the real tragedy is not that we grow up. But that we forget what growing up was supposed to be for. Don't you think ?

Merci, Théo !

Our secret room is our emotional baggage. I’m fortunate enough to still have a real one in the house where I spent my childhood. I enjoy living in a hotel, but I feel a physical longing for that hiding place.

Oh...speaking of house...I have a sweet memory from my 6 years old, at Barbizon. There was a path behind the house that led into the forest. I had a small tin pail, I still remember - blue, with a dent on one side - and I would fill it with pinecones,
sometimes a feather, if I was lucky...I wasn't collecting them for anything. Just liked the act of gathering, of holding something in my hands, and thinking " this is mine, for now ".. At six , I didn't need much to be happy. It's only later that we begin
to divide our days into useful and wasted...My room was that forest, not as a place, but as a way of being. I think the deepest kind of nostalgia isn't for the past itself, but for the version of ourselves we left there. That version who knew how to be, without needing a reason.

Oh, I have my own Portuguese Barbizon as well. I, too, used to gather pinecones and fill my little pail — and, truth be told, I still do so even now.

Merci.

Now is even more magic, I suppose...
Lot of thoughts, in my mind, now..I guess that's the task of adulthood - not to abandon the child we were, but to protect the conditions that allowed that child - me or you - to be free. But this isn't about regression, it's not about pretending we're children again, or romanticizing a past that was simpler only because we didn't yet understand its complexity.
It's more about recognizing
that the joy for wonder is not a childish thing to be outgrown. The trouble is that modern life doesn't reward this kind of attention. It teaches us to treat time as a resource to be spent, not as space to be inhabited. But the child in us, the ones collecting pinecones - still knows how to inhabit time...

Bonjour !

Being happy for no reason is the greatest achievement because real happiness is calm. Life is not a Proust questionnaire. You don’t need to tell the world what your qualities are, your favourite colour, your favourite dish, or what animal you’d be. This obsession with self‑knowledge — enough of that. You are what you are: a well‑intentioned, imperfect being who changes their mind without the slightest guilt.
Perhaps being happy for no reason is exactly that. It’s the sort of thing Martha Medeiros writes about.

I am honored by being that " imperfect being ", Maria. There is nothing more true, more authentic, than being imperfect. You know why. Flaws are the things which make us be loved. No one would love a machine, because a perfect human being can't be nothing but a machine.
We all have that secret room. But I don't go there often. Life pulls me in so many directions now. There are deadlines, headlines, and responsabilities. But sometimes, without warning, I find myself back there...A smell, a sound, and suddenly, I am six years old again, in Barbizon. Now, we live in a world that doesn't leave much space for that kind of stillness. Everything has to be useful, productive..What I'm trying to do now, though, is not to go back, but to bring a little of that room into the life I live today. Even if by some red skies only...

....and if it were to sum up
Camus' entire work, it would be right this - being happy without reason. Or, finding happiness in pinecones...

Pinecones make a far gentler stand‑in for Sisyphus’s burden…
You barefoot, Mª and I in high heels.
Forever undefeated, Camus’s invincible summer.
Merci, Théo.

Ohoh...what a delightful image you created, Celeste ! Me, barefoot...without my white suit... You know that scene from this book, when Rostov tends to the bees on the hotel roof, or when he teaches Sofia to read music....These are small things, like pinecones, but they are everything you need, most of the time.

Some found their happiness even in little stones...

Amor overwhelms us with his talent. And Sofia and Nina steal the scene more than once.

"Some found their happiness even in little stones.."

But they’re not just any little stones — they’re Parisian ones....:))
You’re fond of that scene from my childhood… and so am I.

Amor has a predestined name... I wonder how he'd define the perfection, which is so relative.. Even the moon, in all its fullness, it's not at its most beautiful when whole, but rather when it's a crescent, curved, as if saving something for later..

I could never forget that episode under the Arc... It's like a scène from a movie..a black &white movie. All memories are black& white..

Oh, when the moon takes the shape of a boat, it’s a sign of coming rain.

Maybe memories feel black and white because they are not about what we saw, but about what we felt.. And feeling doesn't need color to be true..

But my sister and I were filmed in Super 8 — in full, vivid color.... :)), for posterity.

In many movies and paintings, it was only the sign of coming another kind of rain, of charming moments . Moments like raindrops on summers..

Hahaha ! Color is on the paper only. Mémoires are always black and white.. I never dreamed in color, btw...

Maybe that's why I always preferred charcoal , in my paintings, over color..it's about the richness of nuances.