Plunge

So, I've plunged back into my American life.

Saturday night after being picked up from the airport, I was treated to dinner at my Dad's favorite place, Golden Corral. I just hate the way it sounds. The name just gives me an image of a bunch of obese people being squeezed into an enclosed space and gorging themselves at a horse trough. My dad loves buffets. Whether it's a home cooking buffet or a Chinese buffet, my dad is there. I'm not going to front and act like I didn't tear up the fried chicken, though. I had been craving it. My French host mom didn't know nothin bout no fried chicken. Speaking of Madame, I dropped her a little line to let her know I made it back to the States safely. When the taxi came to pick me up that Saturday morning to take me and my 2 tons of luggage to the train station, old girl teared up and got me going, too. Even the taxi driver was touched. As I downed my second huge glass of sweet tea, several things hit me all at once:

1. You would NEVER get a glass that big of anything to drink in France.

2. There are no free refills in France.

3. Sweet tea is a foreign concept in France.

As I heard country music twanging in the background, observed the portly patrons help themselves to thirds, and was addressed as "baby" by the waiter, I felt baptized in the corn syrup sweetness that is the South, and felt as close to home as I probably ever would. On the airplane on the way over the Atlantic, I sat next to a rusty old man and he asked, "Where are you coming from and where are you going?" I told him I had finished a 6-month stay in France and was headed to be with my family in Alabama. "You're from the South?" he asked, astonished. "Well, you sure don't sound like it." I then proceeded to recount an abridged version of the story of my life to account for my lack of a Southern accent.

Anytime I told a French person I was from Alabama, most of them would say Oui, like the song "Sweet Home Alabama"! Yeah, like that. Then they'd proceed to ask if people were racist there. T'yeah. People are racist everywhere. (Even in France!) But I didn't say that.

Sunday was Church McChurchy, and I was asked to give a testimony. "Praise the Lord, Gloria a Dios, and now I can say Gloire au Seigneur!" I gloated.

I headed up to Birmingham to see my bestest friend. We had our Celie/Nettie reunion:

I had my first Stateside Starbucks with her. Awww. It was a tall iced white chocolate mocha with whip. I felt so American ordering it. Even more so at the drive-thru. There aren't drive-thrus in France. The closest I saw was a walk-up outside window at the McDo in town.

So I've had a mother-daughter day of pedicures and brother-sister movie night, but today, today, I was a woman on a mission. Today, stuff was getting done. Today, things were getting checked off of my checklist. Today, I was handlin that bidness and scored a job interview for an ESL teaching position on Tuesday!

I wish I would have spent a lot less time worrying about what to do once I got back. God is like, "I got this." Why is it so hard for me to believe that He really is in control?

Au revoir, la France!

So . . . this is my last post from the Hexagon. No, they literally refer to their country as l'Hexagone from time to time. I'm not making it up. They also use re-composed English phonemes to make anglicized French neologisms such as relooking. The French word for 'makeover.'

It's late. I'm looking forward to going home, but at the same time, I spent a lot of tears today. I thought I got my crying over with this morning, but tonight, as I looked out upon the Loire, it happened again. Friends trying to cheer me up. Facebook promises.

I know. It's just the fact of saying goodbye. It's just the knowledge of returning to a life where my contradictions will appear more stark. It's the feeling of yearning for something I thought I already had.

I must say goodbye to France. Not France itself necessarily, (because I plan to come back) but I must say goodbye to this particular French experience. If I say goodbye to it, that means I acknowledge its existence. And if I acknowledge it, I must swallow it whole. No whitewashing out the down times. No cutting out the bruises from an otherwise pristine apple. All things work together for my good.

Until I reach the other side of the ocean, where my blog will be re-baptized in the name of Where You Can Find Me . . .

U-S-A! U-S-A!

We made it to the finals!

U.S. and England through to last 16 of World Cup

I really have been proud of us for playing some decent football. Usually, we're super nul. But I'm quite pleased with the way my countrymen have been hanging in there.

Once we start caring about soccer, next thing you know we'll be using Celsius and the metric system.

That's My Boy

I've steered clear of political stuff for a long time, but I just have to give a shout out to my boy for making BP pay up for their mismanaged catastrophe.

Here's a quotation from Rahm Emmanuel (still my cabinet crush) from this NYT article which sums it up for me:

Mr. Obama clearly sees his presidency as far more than a bully pulpit — he has cast himself as a last line of defense against market excesses that take many different forms. “In the past, corporate America was not only at the table, they owned the table and the chairs around it,” Mr. Obama’s combative chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said in an interview Thursday. “Obama doesn’t start off confrontational, but he will be confrontational if there is resistance to the notion that there are other equities.”

He doesn't start off confrontational, but he will be. Aw, shucks! In other words, Obama will clown on you if you get crazy. So don't get crazy.

I've been thinking . . .

Time is winding down. Spain lost today. That was a bummer. At least I got a few good glimspes of Casillas.

A striking Swedish friend into photography did an exposition of her work. I was one of the models involved for the portrait pictures. It was rather humbling to see my face blown up on a screen, but I didn't worry about it because it wasn't about the imperfections of my face or size of my teeth, but about her work. It really turned out lovely. Ronsard poems, roses, music. It brought me to tears. I was so proud of her. I felt like I was a part of something bigger than myself. Something that will forever mark my time here in an inexplicable way.

I know. 'Bittersweet' has echoed around this blog long before now. It's a cliché. But it's true. I'm ready to go back. It's time to go back. But any time you go, you also leave behind. There are things that must be left behind. There are others that I'm reluctant to.

These past 6 months have marked me in a way I haven't really been able to express in this blog. I'm only humanly able to offer glimpses, impressions. I'm only comfortably able to reveal the surface. Words are never enough.

Maybe that's why the pictures moved me so. They communicated a wordless truth. They represented those moments of recognition words aren't fit for.

There will be no next time. Yes, I can always come back to France. It isn't going anywhere. Yes, I can stay in touch with people I've bonded with. I can even go visit them. I can take another course at the Institut one day. But I will never be in this place, in this time in my life, with these people, ever again. It is a unique, temporary experience. It was always meant to be. There will be no next time.

But I've been thinking. The million dollar question now is what I'm going to do when I get back to the States. Undoubtedly, the answer is that I'm going to get a job, hopefully teaching again, and pay down my debts. But what about after that? What do I really want to do?

I want to do what I love. I love teaching and I love traveling. Once I get my stuff together, I want to travel to another country to work as a teacher. I think I may even spend my life scouring the globe. Sell my car, sell all the stuff I have in storage, and go.

I still wrestle with feelings of rootlessness. Of yearning for home. I still get frustrated with the fact that I've never fit in. Never permanently and never comfortably. But slowly, like a down feather stroke, I'm coming to terms with the idea that that's okay. Maybe God doesn't want me to be comfortable. Maybe I was never meant to find home. Not here on this Earth. And if being an itinerant teacher is where my passion, ability and purpose collide, then so be it.

Those Americans

One more Sunday. I have 2 more weeks left. How can you possibly sum up 6 months of life? How can you even begin? Like, when I get back to the States and someone asks, "How was France?" how am I going to even be able to begin to answer?

June began the month of the Americans. A horde of Americans have literally descended upon the Insitut. I was afraid of a bunch of them invading my class. After my buddy from Louisiana left, I was the only American in my class and I wanted it to stay that way. I wanted to be unique. Much to my chagrin, an American guy did join us, but I've since forgiven him because he's cool and speaks French like a pro.

I have 3 new American roommates. They're really sweet, and they make a really good effort to speak French. At first, I was kind of wary because I didn't want to be inundated with "Omigawd" and expectations of my translating everything Madame said because "I, like, totally don't understand." But it hasn't been that way at all.

Au contraire, a lot of the other American kids at the Insitut annoy the stew out of me. They stand around in little anglophone clusters talking about banal fratboy exploits the night before/complaining about their host families/saying "omigawd, like" and chugging down all the carbonated drinks in the vending machines. And when they do speak French, their accents suck. I hate hearing them speak French because I know that's what I sound like when I speak French, and it's depressing.

I guess I need to cut them some slack. About 8 years ago, that was me, with my little American summer program group in Spain. Back when all I cared about was a boy named Jorge. I guess I'm just older now and I've been in France too long and have appropriated some of the legendary French arrogance.

I've been into World Cup soccer. Soccer being one of those things that everyone else in the world except the United States is into. Like the metric system. I can tell you that Thierry Henry is the star of the French team. I know that Ronaldo is Portugal's star. I can tell you that Rooney is England's soccer hero. And that's just from watching a few matches and Nike commercials. But who's the hotshot on the American team? Bof! I have to admit it was awesome seeing the US score a goal on England the other night, though. It was more because of an English error than American prowess, but hey, that's the game. Take that, colonizers! We re-declared independence on you up in there!

Here a few links to photo albums to show you all the fun I've been having lately:

Concert and hanging with friends

Villandry

Enjoy!

A Lot of Loveliness Lately

The title is for all my alliteration fans out there.

Friday afternoon after class, I took a melancholy stroll to my favorite garden park. I found a shady spot under a tree and ate my lunch while observing the swans dip their graceful necks into the water. I perused old journal entries, ruefully smiling and trying to suppress the inevitable tears that welled up as I studied the shimmering ripples the wind cast upon the lake. On my way out, I happened upon the hispanophone clique and was invited to stay a spell. Colombians + 1 Spaniard. They jokingly called him el colonizador. The colonizer. Afterward, I met up with an adventurous Aussie, and we ran for the bus (and caught it) to get to the Prieuré de Saint-Cosme, built in the 11th century, and known for its bewildering variety of roses. Click here to partake of the loveliness of that day.

Saturday I took a day trip to Paris with a Norwegian and Japanese friend. I felt like a link in a globalization chain. While they went apartment hunting, I went to the Centre Georges Pompidou to examine the bizarre world of contemporary art housed there. I don't know why I like it so much. It's so amusing to me the weird, self-obsessive things people do in the name of art. For example, I saw this dress. It looks like it's made out scraps of dried leather or something, right?

If you notice, there's a small picture in the background to the left, showing what the dress looked like when it originally debuted. Imagine my disgust when I looked closer at the picture and realized it was this:

A dress made out of raw meat. I was disgusted, but I found myself smiling and tears of mirth sprang to my eyes. Really? That someone would go to those lengths to make an artistic statement. The absurdity of it is just amusing to me. Here are some quotations I found of artists explaining the motivation of their work. This was right beside a video of a lady shooting up her previously painted canvasses:

If you can't read it, it says, "In 1961, I shot at canvasses because shooting allowed me to express the aggression that I felt. An assassination without a victim. I shot because I liked seeing the canvas bleed and die. I shot to reach that magical instant, that ecstasy. It was a moment of truth. I trembled with passion when I shot at my paintings."

I laughed out loud. Really?! I know I'm dramatic. Perhaps melodramatic. But I wanted to collapse in a fit of giggles when I read that. I mean, come on. Here's another one that made my day:

I just felt like telling Christine Delphy, girl, saddown. Okay, it's like a circular argument. Stop saying universalism exists because it doesn't exist yet because people keep saying that it does. So, the only thing left to do is denounce the false universalism that does exist, or rather the universalism that "exists" but really doesn't because the real universalism is being held back because people are saying that it exists. LOL! I love this kind of stuff. It will have me rollin all day.

Anyway, after I got my fill of weirdness, I headed over to the Le cimetière du Père-Lachaise to see Oscar Wilde's tomb. I was shocked to see how defaced it was. I wanted to summon Lord Henry from The Picture of Dorian Gray to give all of the idiots who did this a proper tongue lashing:

Of course, I couldn't resist taking yet another stroll around Montmartre. Nothing beats eating a Nutella crepe while overlooking the city from the top of the steps in front of the Sacre Coeur. On my way to the Metro to get to the train station to catch the train back to Tours, I stopped in a most adorable cupcake shop and got a box of 6 to take home. The guy behind the counter was adorable, too. While explaining the different flavors, when he got to an Americanized flavor like carrot cake or red velvet cake or Oreo cookie, he was like, "Of course, you know zees one." (French people can't pronounce the 'th' very well.) Ah, Paris.

"Paris was always a good idea, you said." - Linus Larrabee

Splendid

Today started out with the cute as shiny buttons boy my host mom watches during the day. He toddled in wearing a hat too big for him, right above a baby tooth-filled smile.

My procrastinated upon presentation on culture shock went over better than prevu. I have to admit I was quite flattered by my professor's compliments afterward.

I got my favorite sandwich from the orange boulangerie down the street. It really is divine. It's a chicken sandwich with lettuce, tomatoes and mayo on a baguette. But it's just the way the chicken is seasoned. The lettuce and tomatoes are always fresh and there's just the right amount of mayo.

I went to my lovely garden park with a fresh-faced Swedish friend, and we lazed in the sunshine, watching jugglers, eating pistachio pastry, and speaking of poetry and post-France plans.

I did another Rotary presentation.

I ate a bowl of cherries.

My day in a slideshow collage:

This is my life, my friend

24 days left in this land of melancholic European wonder.

I've been obsessed with Eurovision songs. Sweden didn't make it to the finals, but I don't know why. It's been my theme song of late. Enjoy!