When celebrating particular moments of being, flowers and champagne become indispensable. I am not an expert in the former, having become almost famous for systematically killing them in their prime. However, I have learned quite a lot about the latter, and have gained my independence on its account. Only a few years ago, I was quite autonomous in meal-related matters — setting the table, intervening in some light decision-making in the kitchen, and opening a well-researched bottle of wine. However, I was totally incapable of opening a bottle of champagne. I had an irrational fear of popping the cork in the wrong direction, or being second-guessed by the treacherous curved creature standing before me. That was an issue to be resolved by others, more well-versed souls in the field of Bacchus-oriented bliss. I would simply stand back, looking at the lucky volunteer in awe, and wondering if I would ever be able to do it myself. A part of me thought it charming that I should have that “Penelope Pitstop” aspect in me (the mention of this cartoon character is directly related to a very biased category across lesbianhood that I developed, and that I will expand upon in a later post). After all, the inability to open a bottle of champagne placed me in a precarious position of need for a more “manly” figure to take over the opening of life to a series of glass clicks and eyes forced to look into each other as a good luck charm.
In short, regardless of my efforts to make my event perfect, somebody else always had to inaugurate pleasure. Usually, there was somebody willing to take the role, so the need for being the leader did not arise for many years. In the meantime, I attentively listened to tips from the natural openers, who with a secure hand explained to me different methodologies for avoiding accidents and ensuring a clean excursion into one of the most perfect pleasures ever invented.
Eventually, I knew it would happen. One day, the person willing to take the lead might not be there, or I would simply not feel like celebrating the positive or the standard — new year parties, birthdays, etc. One day I knew I would also want to celebrate loss and failure, because they are part of life and we need to take them for what they are, bite the dust, and move on with at least some lesson learned. I also knew that there might not be anyone to accompany me in that venture, for who would want to celebrate the dark? Those who had once led gradually disappeared, absorbed into other obligations or misled into thinking they were happy elsewhere, in comfortable lives that smelled of order and structure more than chaos and growth.
I could not stay in their world, even though I would have liked it to be the only thing I understood. I needed to move on, celebrate my own passion and its hell. It was then that I knew I had to face my fears. The Monoprix was open until midnight, only meters away from the flat I had on rue Maubeuge. Several options were available, and I remember choosing some Taittinger or perhaps a variant of it. I put all the pieces of advice my mind had collected over the years in action, and let them interact to give my hand the gradual twist it needed in order to achieve the desired effect. I felt the cork gradually give in to the upward pull of my curved palm, countering the motion of the supporting hand (a key component in the strategy, according to my ex girlfriend, a former waitress). A soft fizz came out, with the desired intensity and a perfectly balanced mist. I had made it. I had conquered my independence.
