Tomorrow begins my 5th month

in France. This is what I'm trying to do:

1. Remember that winning a scholarship to be able to spend 6 months in France is a blessing.

2. Be thankful for the experiences that I've had so far. Even the negative ones.

3. Realize that I am meeting a goal that I've had to learn another language.

4. Not dramatize. In French, that's dramatiser.

5. Wake up in the morning and be grateful for each new day.

I find myself constantly teetering between two seemingly opposing desires. Liberty and stability. When I choose one, it seems to cancel the other one out. I turned down the job offer. If I had accepted it, I would have felt tied down. Expected to stay longer than I had intentions of doing. I rejected the stability of a sure job for the liberty of non-obligation.

I've had a lot of liberty here. No one expecting me to do anything other than show up to class. No one looking up to me or expecting me to be anything or anywhere. No expectations to live up to. Nobody to let down or disappoint. Virtually no responsibility. In a way, it's been fantastic. A relief. I can breathe in peace and not have to justify my existence. Liberating, if you will. However, in other ways, it's been disorienting. The more you learn about anything, particularly yourself, the more you question.

On the other hand, the one thing I fear probably just a shade more than the idea of being tied down is the idea of being adrift. Free, but without direction, surety or stability. Forever a nomad and never finding home. Being an explorer is fabulous, but being lost at sea is not at all.

As much as I long to avoid being sequestered in the slow, dreary roll of the routine ordinary, I long to find a steady niche carved out especially for me. A warm, comfortably imperfect, reliable place that will always be there and was meant for me.

La Rochelle

Yesterday a group of 7 of us of 6 different nationalities piled into a car and took off for the beach in a charming city called La Rochelle. We picnicked on the beach, soaked in the sun, explored the city, and finished things off with a lovely dinner. I really don't know how this day could have been more perfect.

Each Day

There's buzzing. Buzzing in my stomach due to the fall out. Buzzing in my head due to the uncertainty. (Again.)

I do what I can to compensate. I eat fruit so as not to upset my stomach whose fragility is dependent on the severity of whatever it is I don't want to face, whatever it is I, with a resigned sigh, have no choice but to get over. What are my alternatives? Wrap myself up in a comforter cocoon and plug my ears to the world? Walk about on constant avoidance alert? Yesterday was an apple and strawberry yogurt for lunch. But hey, today was a chicken sandwich—complete with tomato, lettuce and just the right amount of mayonnaise on a baguette. That's progress.

As far as my head is concerned, it feels that I've already made my choice. To make a long story short, I was offered a job that would've been waiting for me when I got back stateside. I had decided I would accept it despite my inexperience because it seemed foolish to turn down a job that was literally being handed to me. But now I realize that I would be expected to stick around for a while and commit myself to building up the program if I were to accept the job, and I don't know if I would be able to commit myself to sticking around for the long haul. I can't in good conscience accept something knowing what would be expected of me, all the while knowing that I don't have long-term plans.

So, looks like I'm back at square one. My island of uncertainty. Turn down a job because you don't want to be stuck long-term in your small town life = going back to the States without a job awaiting you. Accepting a job and committing yourself for the long haul because you're scared of not having a job = being stuck in your small town life indefinitely. I know, it's not that dire. I just don't know now, and I despise not knowing. And I'm going to have to give somebody an answer soon.

Some people suggest staying here. Why not stay on and find a job here? Yeah. While I've got student loans hanging over me and a storage room full of an apartment's worth of stuff back home. Plus my French still sucks. I mean, at this point, I'm conversational, but um, that doesn't mean I can work here. That's like my mom suggesting I work for a French Embassy. Tears of mirth. Plus the Frenchmen aren't that handsome. They're kind of puny and effeminate.

I'm ready to go back home. But I need to get my life together. I am 28 years old. And I'm going to curl up in a corner and die if I can't gain some kind of homeostasis soon. This life of temporary gigs is getting wearisome.

Each day. Each day is new. Each new day is a gift. I have to be thankful for that.

I watched a lovely French film today whose American title is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It's based on a true story about a man who had a stroke and is left paralyzed from head to toe. He can hear, see and understand everything that's going around him, he just can't move. It's like he's a prisoner in his own body (called Locked-In Syndrome). The only thing he can do is blink one eye. To make a long story short, he and his therapist have a system of communicating where she would recite the alphabet (in order of the letters most commonly used in French) and he would blink his eye when she said the letter he wanted. In the end, he dictated a memoir in this fashion and published a book which has the same title as the film.

It was beautiful. Despite it all, the man had the will to live. He published a book, writing it letter by letter. Each day.

And this was taken yesterday. It was beautiful outside. Even when things are bungled, due to my own feebleness or due to time and chance, if I can just get outside on a beautiful day, things are okay.

A Sunny Saturday or a Famous Friend

I usually blame my mood on the weather. It's easy to do. I often blame my behavior on my circumstances. That's easy to do, too. So, it's sunny outside, a Saturday, and I'm in France. Who does that leave to blame?

The uber-80's song "Take On Me" is incessantly ringing through my head, thanks to a Norwegian friend who wanted to take a walk down memory lane via YouTube while we were wasting time in the Internet room the other day. I was very young when this song came out, and I remember being mesmerized by the music video:

It reminded me of my childhood and of home. A time when things were innocent and uncomplicated and a place I miss. Except A-ha was a Norwegian band. Still, it ruffled up that maddening mix of melancholy and nostalgia that sticks to me and tints the clouds on a sunny day.

I'm biding my time until I walk out into the sun to have coffee catch up time with the friend I went to Spain with. Trying to steer clear of my host mom until then so she won't question why a youthful girl like me is playing the hermit on a day like this. I hope we can find a free patch of table and chairs outside in the main plaza. On a day like this, there's sure to be plein du monde.

I have a friend who's going to be famous. She already is, truth be told. I spent part of this morning reading poems that are going to be included in her first published collection because I've been bestowed with the honor of writing a blurb for the book! Reading her poetry produces a more concentrated response from me because I'm familiar with some of their origins. What prompted and inspired them. The funny ones are even funnier. The painful ones hurt even more. There are lines that are etched in my memory without my permission: "I, / having no free tickets/to the moon,/ I'd love you." Or just the simple image of "a wind bath in my ear."

This morning I've reflected a lot. Poems spoke to me almost like the Word of God. God can use whatever He wants to speak to whomever He wants whenever He wants.

Yesterday, I sat on a bench with a francophone friend talking, our backs to a fountain, actually, the second fountain you see in the blog header. I didn't know the word for fountain . . . fontaine, my friend offered. "No," said an older lady sitting on the same bench who I doubted was following our conversation,"that's a jet d'eau." Appartently, a fontaine is more like water running down or calmly pouring out some type of fixture. This was water shooting out of jets. Thank you, old lady. Difference duly noted.

Gris

That's the color it is outside. I'm sure you can guess what it is in English.

It started getting warmer. Springier. Little rosebuds of hope for warmer weather started opening up. Le printemps arrive . . . spring is here . . . that was in the air for a while. But now, a retrograde. Glacial winds sweep through the air, but I refuse to pull my winter coat back out. I refuse to wear the same sweaters I wore the first three months. Lately, despite it all, the sun would still manage to make its way out. Not today.

Walking to class this morning, I stuffed my ears full of iPod buds only to find that my iPod was out of power.

There are some hard truths settling in my stomach. Realities converging upon me that make me tremble. Worries, wishful thinking, weakness. Powerlessness. Rationalize it into oblivion. Just keep going, just keep waking up, getting out of bed, doing your homework, counting down the days to avoid facing it. Keep your head in the clouds, look out of windows, take walks by the river, take pictures of the sunset, hold innocent children in your arms, laugh, write postcards, stay busy, wish it away. Do whatever is necessary to keep from facing it.

Think about trying to explain African-American identity to a Vietnamese nun while watching a sound bite of Obama at the Global Nuclear Summit dubbed over in French. "But he's not very black," she said. "Like you." Think about the life of a Kurdish man by way of Turkey who's filmed documentaries, wants to go to Paris to get a Masters in Film, dreams of going to Hollywood, and says capitalism is the source of the world's woes. Think about the purple-tinged faux-hawk of a carefree Chinese kid who's caught between criticizing his country's government and admitting that things have changed for the better. Think about appreciating Simon Baker's (an Australian actor who's played in American movies and TV shows with an American accent) beauty with a pretty, perky Aussie. Think about walking to class with the Colombian boys, squeezing in a quick Spanish lesson before settling down to French for the rest of the day. Think about how funny it was when your prof pronounced "gangster" like "gahng-STEHR" or when one of your classmates pronounced "Gulliver" like "GOO-lee-vehr" or when your host mother, when describing how her grandchildren love McDonald's chicken nuggets, pronounced them as "noo-ZSHAY."

Not as stolid and virtuous as facing it, I know. But at least it helps to recognize that there has definitely been more color in my experiences here thus far than the gris today might lead me to believe.

Here Begins the Rest

So, 2nd (and last) session is in full swing. Most of the people in my class are the same ones from last trimester, but there are a few new faces. I was so glad to see everyone again after the break. It was something close to joy. I guess my friends here feel almost like family because we've gone through the same experiences together. We're from all over the globe, but the one thing we have in common is that we're all strangers. There's something about being strangers together that forms an uncannily strong bond.

Already, I'm thinking about the afterlife. Life after France. My American life. My ordinary life. My routine life. My old life. My familiar life. The life that I miss. The life that I always planned to come back to. Already, I know my heart will go through a Velcro process of separation. A Band-Aid being torn off. I know that old, conflicted, bittersweet hurt will linger. The contradiction of wanting to move on and wanting things to never change. But I also know that the hurt subsides with time.

Pick-a-language. That's the game we play. An ice cream cone of language flavors. We were the UN at lunch today. Norwegian and Swedish are mutually intelligible, I learned, while my American friend and I spoke a delicious batch of Frenglish. I dipped into the Spanish jar with the cool Colombians and offered a morsel of Korean to a new girl who's in beginning French. An young ha se yo. Lucky for me English is the default when things get too complicated.

It's Friday, and my English class was cancelled, so I've had quite the leisurely day. Next, dinner with host mom and Italian roommates (just for a week), later, going to the main plaza to take in the slowly warming spring air.

When I Skyped my dad last night, I rattled off some things to him in French to show off. "Sounds like you need a tissue to wipe all the spit off your screen," he said. Ah, Dad.

Sunset over the Loire

I walked across the bridge yesterday evening just in time to catch the sunset. It was breathtaking. Magnificent. I love the river.

Ah, finally!

I finally have the time and space to sit and breathe and open up a tiny corner of my world to let the light in.

Easter Musings

First of all, Happy Easter! Even though it was yesterday. Sometimes Easter is on my birthday and the ideas of being born and born again are intertwined. I had a deep need to watch The Passion of the Christ, but unfortunately I left my DVD at home. The most profound scene is the last—there's no resplendent light, angels beaming, or Jesus gloriously floating out of the tomb. In the silence, he simply gets up and walks out. The mere fact that He conquered Death was enough. Dying to be reborn, to be resurrected anew is the most powerful motif in the Christian story to me. The fact that something beautiful and alive has the possibility to rise out of the ashes of death gives me hope. Growing up, I went through a phase of being obsessed with mythology. One story that always captivated me was that of the Phoenix, the ancient bird which, after an act of self-immolation, would rise again from its ashes. It is at once frightening and moving. Sacrifice is a bitter necessity that I rarely rise to face. But the one thing that keeps me one step removed from despair is the ever-present possibility to be made new when I finally allow my kingdoms to fall.

Barcelona and Madrid

Over Easter break, a friend and I journeyed out into another country of the Old World, Spain. We got to Spain last Saturday evening and went back to France the following Friday. Ridiculously, I'd been to Spain thrice and had yet to visit Barcelona. What a stroke of chance that one of my classmates from Barcelona allowed us to crash at her place for free and launch out into the Catalonian deep. I spent my birthday there (yep, 28) and ate snails and rabbit for dinner. We also spent a couple of days in Madrid, my old stomping grounds. I reminisced about walks I took with a tall Colombian (slight reference to him here) at the Plaza de España (sigh), and of sandwiches I ate in the sun sitting on the steps of a monument at El Retiro Park (sigh). I relished my role as translator and Metro navigator and had a lovely time. I finally got a slideshow together. Enjoy!

Upcoming
Classes start back Wednesday. Right now, I'm hanging out at a friend's in Tours (the same friend who let us crash at her place in Barcelona) until I go back to my host mom's sometime tonight or tomorrow. I was promoted to the next level (supposedly the highest level at the Institut . . . ooh, I'm super big stuff now), but I'm kind of sad about the disbanding of my old class. We had an awesome prof and a really tight-knit group. The next class is going to be considerably smaller and considerably harder, but oh, well. C'est la vie.

I'm already into my 4th month here. I know June is going to come speeding along now. I'm already having visions of myself sobbing and snotting and making a spectacle of myself and bemoaning having to return chez moi and not wanting to leave this transitional, temporary French life behind. Ah, change. Leaving behind. Starting anew. We'll cross that bridge when we get there.