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.
1 comment:
...then so be it!
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