The pictures are up on my photobucket if you care to check them out. The sun was out and it looks warm in the pictures, but it wasn't, because the Mistral blows in from the North and cuts into your bones. It funnels through the ancient, one-car streets with tiny sidewalks if at all, and the old walls. Everything feels like it's been preserved since the Middle Ages, the Palais des papes still as majestic as it might have been, the churches, even the houses, especially the streets. The sun bleaches everything white and colors, the blue sky contrasting sharply with the lines of the buildings. It's beautiful -- I shouldn't have to say that.
What can I tell you about what I was doing there?
In theory: dancing. Well, not just in theory -- I had a class every day for 3 hours. In the evenings, I saw a show and went out for drinks or ate with friends. In the mornings I went exploring, slept in, or had meetings about my research project.
That's the simple version, at least. I found my demons there and had a bit of an incident involving them, then spent the rest of the time finding my way away from them. I went down, then up. I met people, and talked. I went looking for my center, and for dance that means something. The time went so quickly and yet I felt like I was gone for ages. I shared a two bedroom apartment with seven others. I didn't see a lot of dance in the shows I liked. I wondered what the hell I was doing there, and I figured it out. I went out dancing with my friends and my teachers and spent the night listening to swing music in a bar run, from what I gathered, by the Russian mafia, or at least had some connection to Russians and the mafia. I went to a bar where they bring you fries and hot dogs all night. I sat and ate lunch in the Jardin des doms and watched pigeons chase each other around. I was sick all week, though I'm now convinced it was allergies.
My god, it's already the ninth of March. We just started March, right? Or February? Time has entered warp speed. It's almost spring, right? I can't say I'll be sorry to say goodbye to winter. Gray skies-- I've had enough. Bring on the sun, the warmth, the gold bathing the streets. In five weeks it'll be spring break. I've been here six months and a couple weeks.
One of these days I'll learn how to build lives and then stay in them, instead of leaving them while they're still pulsing and creating.
Or maybe I'll just keep on creating new ones, passing from one to another, keeping what I can from the old -- but that's the tricky part, of course.
I'm sorry for the randomness of this post -- my head is a little everywhere right now. The sky outside my window is looking dangerously like rain and it's not been the best of days. I'm not en forme, as they'd say in French. Hey, it happens. I've been exhausted ever since I got home from Avignon -- I didn't sleep a ton when I was there, and neither over the weekend. Since the high school was on academic holiday for two weeks before I left, it was essentially three weeks of vacation --- and now it all restarts, with interest. Rehearsals on saturdays for my show in April, a research project, another project with my sister, various odds and ends. It looks like more than it is, I'm sure.
...Yeah that's all I have for now. I will attempt to update when I know where my own head is.
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