"Briel" you may remember from last year's blogposts, was one of the protagonists from a novel that I wrote in the mid-1980s. That novel is titled Chartres bleues--a name that comes from the iridescent blue color of the eyes of Briel's cherished daughter, Gretel.
Though Briel is a fictional character created from my own imagination/subconscious/ Unconscious, I firmly believe that Briel served Journeyman Paul in the exploration of one highly possible and very weighty alternate pathway from within the choice box of the Drew Fisher life flow. To me, Briel is a "living," malleable entity or facet of myself that I was able to realize through art--through writing--but who remains a valid and "alive" character within me and my Universe.
In the story, Briel had the same midwestern affluent start that I did; he had the same roots and formative experiences that I did. Where he differs--where he diverges from the path that I, Drew Fisher, took--is in the conscious decision and action of following through on the pursuit of a life with a French woman that I, Drew Fisher, met in "real life" while a student in Strasbourg, France, in 1978-9. In Chartres bleues, Briel has corresponded with "Reggie" (her actual name was Regina; his was Gabriel) during the years after his foreign study in Strasbourg, and has made the choice to go back to France after graduation from college to see what might become of a relationship with this intriguing young woman. They fall in love, marry, and Briel and Reggie settle into a life revolving around jobs working for Reggie's father in a fictional pharmaceutical company. Two kids later and a relocation to Fribourg, Germany (not far across the Rhine River from Strasbourg) finds Briel in a place, psycho-spiritually, in which he is having second thoughts over his recent major life choices. He's feeling resentment at his automated, plug-in life. He's especially resentful of the corporate jobs that control their lives. Unfortunately, in typical American male fashion, Briel has been bottling up his frustrations and receding from his relationships while going through the motions of work, parenting, partnering, etc.
One night he cracks: He impulsively leaves his family in the middle of the night without warning or without communicating his feelings or intentions. He needs to get away, to get out from under the oppression of his regimented life. So, he sneaks out of the house and hops on a train to Switzerland--all the while fantasizing about living on a farm, herding sheep, doing "real work," living a healthy life, no longer working for "The Man," and, sadly, no longer bound to the asphyxiating bondage and values-eroding concept of "all for the family good." He wants to return to the ideals of freedom and spontaneity and the joy that comes with those things--all of which he thought he shared with his wife but now doubts as freedom, spontaneity, and even joy have been squeezed out their lives and have all but disappeared. All for the family good. "All for the all-mighty dollar," he now believes.
The feelings and events that came out in my story Chartres bleues in the character I called "Briel" are all based on my own frustrations with my own Drew Fisher life and family background. They are based on fantasies that I had had over the years of "running away" and disappearing from everyone who knew me--especially from my birth family and the restrictions and consequences (as I perceived them) that came with those dynamics. But they are also based on projections coming from my Unconscious with regards to my immaturity and unpreparedness for settling down, for marriage and parenting, for the suit and tie-job either at a desk or as a traveling salesmen--all at the young age of 24-26 (which is what Briel is in the story). In short, I knew I was not mature enough to handle any and all of those "big" commitments and Chartres bleues was my way of living out that "dream,"a projected life line based on a series of likely consequences coming from the decision to marry young. I think that Briel was my soul's means to experiencing that alternate life path--to which I was strongly drawn--in a way that I could process, learn from and then let go of the desires, urges, wonderings, musings, and fears of those kind of early adult life choices.
How Chartres bleues also served so powerfully was in the way Briel was able to grow and learn from his choices--and to rediscover joy, beauty, truth, and love in many of the things that he had lost appreciation for. There were some pretty ugly and scary consequences to the actions that he so immaturely made. For example, to his family, his sudden and unexplained disappearance could very well have been accidental. Which causes a lot of anxiety and fear and emotion in your loved ones--things that he never intended but which happened because of his immaturity, because he was too myopic, too self-centered and too impulsive when making his decisions to consider the effect his actions (and lack of actions and words) would have on his family and friends.
Briel's thoughts and actions may very well have been my own had I made certain choices in my youth--marriage, corporate work life, European habitation. I firmly believe that his creation and 'existence' enabled me, Drew Fisher, to let go of certain regrets and "what ifs" and move on with less baggage and clutter distracting me from the here and now.
"Reggie" is the other main character from Chartres bleues. She is the Alsatian-born wife of Briel and mother of five-year old Gretel and two-year old Jasper. In the novel, Reggie is suddenly left alone with her children upon the unexpected and unexplained disappearance of her husband. For several days she tries to hold it together in front of the children while trying to figure out what has happened. On day three, a phone call from Briel--coming from Switzerland--creates a new flood of mixed emotions. She feels both great relief and the fire of anger and resentment. She can rest a little knowing that Briel is safe--and alive--but she feels deeply hurt upon hearing that his disappearance was on-purpose--and that it was due to his hidden and uncommunicated inner turmoil with regards to the course his life had taken him.
To add insult to injury, Reggie awakens on day five with every intention of going through the usual routines of getting the children to school and herself to work only to be shocked to find Briel in their daughter's bedroom, snuggled up around 5-year, Gretel, fast asleep. Hurt and incensed by what she perceives as his prioritizing their daughter over she, his own wife, she impulsively gathers the children and whisks them away into the car, unsure of where to go, what to do. Finally she decides to take them to the United States, to Briel's family home in Michigan, knowing that Briel would eventually figure out where they were but also knowing that that amount of time might give her a little time to collect herself--as well as provide Briel with a little retributional "payback."
The two reunite with a much greater appreciation for one another and their things and with a new-found elevation of family on their priority lists--which is all Briel wanted from the start but which he was simply too overwhelmed and too immature to figure out until he had made his rash and radical 'escape.'
Eventually, I figured out that Reggie represents a feminine--albeit strong and "masculine" female--aspect of me (and Journeyman Paul). Some of the choices Reggie makes mirror choices I might have made at that time of my life under similarly stressful conditions. Human emotions like anger, hurt, betrayal, retreat, withdrawal, and even revenge are not unknown to me. You might even say that these emotions were distressingly close to the edge in me for much of my young life for they had long been a focal point of the areas that I sought to "work on" and improve upon. Thus, the Reggie character allowed me a wonderful opportunity to explore some of these experiences through the life, eyes, and mind of another. This other may have been a fictional character, but, to me, she is a very real and valuable projection of my Self--a projection that allowed me both the awareness that these issues were lying dormant in my Unconscious and then the gift of the opportunity to work on them through the characters!
Again, as with all of my The Many Lives of Journeyman Paul stories and vignettes, my intention is to use my life experiences as mirrors so that you, my reader, might recognize little parts of yourselves--parts of yourselves that you may not have yet recognized, validated or accepted.
All stories--not just mine--are just entertaining displays of information. Information is what we process every day, all day and all night long, both consciously and unconsciously. We use these stories, this information, to continually refine and redefine our definitions of our Selves, our beliefs and values, our dreams and goals. Stories are little gifts to ourselves, for our Selves. And they're everywhere! Isn't life as a Homo sapiens sapiens amazing?
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