Six months and ?? days: Looking back and looking forward

This post is going to be somewhat introspective -- I apologize in advance if that bores you.

As the title suggests, I've now been in Paris over six months. If I actually stop to think and calculate -- it's been six months and twelve days, or in other words, exactly 195 days. That's not forever, nor is it a short time. In a lifetime, it's nothing, of course, but I consider it a good lifetime anyway.

While I don't do it very often, I have adopted the Parisian habit of having a cigarette and contemplating life -- sometimes just stepping out on the balcony just before the sun goes down and watching the sky change while the cigarette burns away -- it's a very zen moment, shall we say. Well, today I was taking a smoke break; I should have been working, but was instead waiting for my computer to load the latest Glee episode, and was out on the balcony --- and had a moment.

It struck me suddenly how far away Paris used to be to me. I remembered this summer, thinking about how far and exotic Paris was and would be. How stressful the visa process was, and how I used to freak out -- quietly or otherwise -- whenever I thought about how soon I was leaving, and for how long. It just seemed strange to me, in that moment, now so deeply entrenched in the Parisian life -- how far away it used to be.

Sometimes I remember conversations I had before I left and I have to remind myself that they were in English. Yes, it's strange, and I notice it -- I think, no wait, that was in English. That was before I spoke French daily and the vast majority of my conversations were in my natural tongue -- and somehow, that seems really strange to me now. Sometimes even here I have to remind myself that the people talking French to each other are actually talking in their natural language. Invariably, I think about when I'll have to do that, and it always seems strange.

Yesterday I called the toll free number on student universe to officially change my plane ticket from May 31st to August 1st. I got a recording saying that due to the tsunami in Japan their phone services are limited. What Japan has to do with student universe is beyond me, and makes me quite apprehensive for when I actually DO get on the phone with a representative -- somebody, no doubt, in Japan -- but it's no big deal, I can wait. It just seemed like a big step -- official. By the time I leave, it will be eleven full months.

And now? Is Paris far away?

It's far in the sense that I have to calculate somewhere between 6-8 hours of time change if I want to talk to my family or friends. It's far in that it's now been a REALLY long time since I've seen these people, and while with Skype it's like they're just on the other side of the screen, hiding behind your computer -- it's not the same. I had a friend from Columbia in town this weekend and there is nothing like having them there, real and breathing and just taking up space, moving the air. In that way, yes, I suppose it's far.

But these days I can't imagine being anywhere else. It's like sometimes I think about where Paris is on the map and how I'm practically on the other side of the world from where I grew up -- but it doesn't matter anymore. The people I'm surrounded by have been here, for the most part, their whole lives, and so have I. It's like I can't conceptualize the distance between me and where home used to be, but all I know is I'm here and living here is as easy as breathing.

Thank god I wasn't ever tempted to go just for the semester.

One thing about having a time limit -- something I know far, far, far too well -- is that no matter what you're doing, it stays with you. Or at least, it tries to. It's like the more fun you have, you know the harder it will be to leave. And so I suppose I have the choice -- but for me it's not a choice. If I leave my soul behind in Paris, well, then so be it. But it's true that sometimes I have trouble not thinking about it -- about the fact that February absolutely vanished on me and now we're halfway through March and I'm now over half done with my time here. Booking my flight for August 1st means that on August 1st I'll be boarding a giant ass jet with two giant ass suitcases that can't possibly hold my life here. It means that life goes on.

Before I left, I sometimes had the strange thought that the people I know won't recognize me when I come back. Of course that's not true, but recently I've been thinking that, in some ways, it's true. The girl who I was when I left will never come back, because she doesn't exist anymore. The one who's coming back -- well, you'll see. She'll the same person you always knew, but she's nothing like her. It's hard to explain.

I think I've said this before, but sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to build a life somewhere and then finish it --- instead of leaving when the bloom is just on the rose, so to speak. But I guess that's not really fair -- because maybe on August 1st, I will have finished. I will have lived an entire life, and finished it. Or maybe I'll just leave it for a time and come back. How should I know?

In any case, spring is coming and my nose is thanking all the pollen. Construction has begun -- directly over my head -- and the sun is out a noticeable percentage of the time more than it used to be. The wind is doux, and you can feel the world starting to pick up it's winter-weary head and sniff the air. I was here for fall, for winter. Now for spring, and soon -- summer.

A nice full circle. A complete life.

I do seem to go through them.

A Week in Avignon, just for variety's sake

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.