To the Land of Poles…

I could conceivably be distracted to do anything that would tear me away from the hair pulling, things-everywhere, tedious chore of packing, but cooking is always a good bet.

And so I found myself this morning knee deep in assorted papers, clothes, and other knick-knacks (seriously WHERE does this stuff ome from? When did I aquire a travel sized door alarm?). Deciding that it was time to not be packing, I whipped up this little number: fried zucchini with garlic and quinoa and barley. Nothing special. But. (*Insert Homer style drooling noise here).

And with that folks, I’m off to Poland.

I’ve always found that with Spanish, French, and English, I can get by pretty much everywhere Ive traveled in my life. And maybe that’s a testament to knowing more than one language, but it’s probably more of a testament to how little I’ve actually traveled. Ooof. I don’t speak a word of Polish. Not a single solitary word.

Today’s been mostly sunny with a smattering of showers here and there. I stopped by the fruit market on the way home and bought a banana and dried apricots for the plane ride tomorrow.

I’m well intentioned.

But by the time I got home, the banana and half the apricots were eaten.

Panic

The past two weeks or so, Dieppe has been navying into spring (or perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part), but at the very least the bone crunching cold has given way to milder jacket toting temperature.

It’s also given way to the now inevitable lurch of uncertainty that seems to plague me every year when the time comes to transition into something new. I guess I should be used to being a niche searching nomad at this point, because the fact is I’m twenty-three years old in a crap economy, and maybe I brought this upon myself by choosing vague humanities angled subjects to study. I’m getting used to my yearly pseudo-existential crisis, but the truth is I’ll never get used to the reccuring anxiety attacks that lurch up inside of me at three in the morning and spit me inside out like a jellyfish attacking a minnow, and it wouldn’t seem so helpless if all of my other talented intelligent friends weren’t going through the same thing.

Ohh the nails that have been bitten to stubs as I contemplate what the heck I’m supposed to do next year, and why nothing I commit to in life has a longer expiration period than 7 months.

What does it mean when we live in an economy where a job in service or applying for grad school loans to put off the inevitable are the two most viable options? We were 80’s children who were encouraged to do whatever we wanted. To reach for the stars. But how do we measure our dreams and passions when we live in a society that places the highest bottom value on a person’s wage earning potential?

I’m not saying that I ever intended to “have things figured out” by twenty-three, but I used to imagine myself ending up in a squatters residence, and as the years pass, I’m starting to see this as a real possibility.

My friends are out there serving in the same restaurants they’ve worked in for the past 4 years because there’s nothing else available.

The 3am panic butterflies are working their way through my entire body, making my veins expand and contract to the point where I think they’ll jut collapse in on themselves. They claw their way up and pull my lungs down to where my stomach should be. What’s going to happen when an entire generation is defeated and tired before they ever get offered a chance? I’m in France teaching. Do I want to be a teacher? no. How do I get started on doing what I want to be doing? No, no. What the heck am I doing?

What up France.

Getting maladie assurance in France is a lengthy process indeed, and finally after 4 months here (five?) I received my application for the ever elusive Carte Vitale, just about the time I’m getting ready to consider what I’ll be doing with my life in 2 months.

Of course this means I have to get an official photo taken, which for those who know me also know that my photos usually bear little to no resemblance to my actual being.

I’ve really just stopped trying. Usually when taking an official document photograph I try to look as presentable as possible (NOBODY wants trouble at customs only to have a photo that looks like you’ve been on a 5 day crack binge). But as I looked in the mirror this morning, I really couldn’t be bothered with things like brushing my hair, so this is the result after walking 2 kilometers to the center of the city.

Also, let it be known, it is strictly forbidden to smile or make any facial expression in official photographs in France, as was expressed by the million instruction pictures that flashed before my face before the actual camera turned on. Hence the fact that I look like a heroine addicted serial killer in the above is no fault of my own. I’ve never been to jail, but if I were arrested at any time, I have an inkling that this is how I might look.

Disregard the rumpled hair, two black eyes, jaundiced skin, and manical expression ok? I expect to be contacted by the French ministry in the upcoming month to be featured as their poster child for health and vitalite. This shit cracks me up.

Gettin’ Jumblie with It

I had resigned myself to spend Saturday by myself, cleaning my room and listening to Carrie Brownstein and Bob Boilen duke it out on All Songs Considered. Erin and Sam, however had other plans. One Alice, one Babs, one Sam, one Erin, and one Fraser and Kelly later…

What can I say? Valentines Day got a little Jumblie. Like neighbors complaining Jumblie. Like sharpie tattoo jumblie. Saturday Jumblied right into Sunday. Things Jumblied out of control.  It was so good to see those kids. Ehhhhh (loosens collar)…

Dear Dieppe,

I realize that due to circumstances beyond your control I haven’t really been on speaking terms with you lately and I’m sorry.

It’s just that you’ve been all gray and temperamental lately and it’s getting me down, and then when I’m ready to interact you shut down, shutters closed and all.

And  just when I’m about to write you off… you pull some shit like this, and all of a sudden it’s all sunny skies and crap, and “hey check out my sweet cliffs and pebbly beaches and historical chateaux, babe.”

Love, Lara

Cans of Corn and Cancer

There’s something inherently disconcerting about being sick in another country. It’s not that here there’s nobody around. Even when flu happens in the states, it’s not like people are at my beckon call 24/7 or that my mama will show up on my doorstep everyday with her her made-from-scratch simmer-for-hours extra-love and a dash of hugs miracle cure chicken soup (although she’ll still make it for me if I’m sick- some parts of motherhood never expire).

But still having the flu in France seems to have thrown my carefully constructed routine into haywire- and I realized for the first time in the midst of fever and chills just how comforting it was to know that friends lived two blocked away or at the very lest a cheap phone call away, or that mom was a 10 minute drive, and at the pharmacy people could understand me even if I did sound like I were talking through a pillow.

All these comforts I didn’t realized I missed until well, until Monday when trudged to Auchun in the rain with a fever to buy tylenol only to discover I had lost my bank card AND that my phone card was defunct. Put into emergency mode fueled by a recent dose of nyquil and fever, I used what money I had to buy food that could very well equip a bomb shelter. Canned tuna. beans. Canned corn (I’m not sure how long it’s been since I had canned corn, and now I’m not sure why. It’s pretty delicious). These were uncertain times indeed.

Ohhh the scenarios that ran through my mind on the way back up hill towards Neruda. Was my account empty? Had somebody stolen my card? Was I stuck in France forever?

Melodrama aside- I guess it’s always disconcerting when all your safety back-up options (phone, errr money) are taken away, and you’re left huddling under the blanket hoping somebody decided to invent teletransporters in the last 24 hours so that parents could appear and give me some tea and a hug.

And the thing that kills me the most about this post is that I should have written about how my aunt is having a mastectomy and starting chemotherapy today and all the millions of women who get breast cancer instead of the flu and losing their bank cards.

I should have written some long entry praising survivors and spreading helpful information about the disease and how it affects people and the great strides that are being made to make recovery much more managable.

I should have posted statistics on survival versus diagnosis rates and how fucking awesome and amazing my aunt is, because she is and really you all should know that.

I guess that’s beyond the scope of my ability to articulate myself right now. Because cans of corn and fevers seem so much more manageable.

She’s in New York right now dealing with things I can’t even begin to describe and all I can do is sit here in Dieppe and take dose upon dose of tylenol pm.

Bop. Shift left. Shift right. Riiiight.

February has been a bit slow lately, so luckily I have Dom and Andrea to provide me with an endless suggestion of things to do.

Expect me to have this down by June, preferably in with a perfectly synced partner to initiate random dance offs in the middle of the street.

I mean who could come to France and NOT learn tektoniks?

Problem with how to use the 11am-3pm class block Tuesdays? Solved.

Happy Valentine’s Day? (early)

Sample Valentines Day gems my professor shared with her class today:

It was love at first sight

When I saw your (face/brace)

I can’t sleep at (night/fright)

without your embrace, Robby.

There’s nothing quite like trying to explain the concept of Valentines Day with a fever of 102 and chills to a bunch of skeptical twenty-one year old BTS students , using materials given to me by my professor that are more suited for 13-year olds than people who are old enough to drink in the United States.

I tried explaining that Valentines Day is taken with a grain of salt in the states- that if you literally ran around saying saying stuff like “without your embrace, Robby” (I love the Robby tacked on at the end) people would either laugh with you or at you. I tried explaining that to me, choosing “brace” and “fright” made for a better poem. I tried to explain why we celebrate (in the most PC version possible) that Valentines Day is a consumer holiday created by chocolate and card companies and that the tie to St.Valentine is fabricated or questionable at best.

I don’t think they understood, because Florent and Gregory kept looking at me from the back like, “I can’t believe she’s teaching us this.”

Adventuring…

Saturday started with the often promise and never followed through declaration of embarking on an adventure. At 2 o’clock and still lounging around in pajamas and eating brunch cooked up by Erin, the promise of escapades in Le Havre or any other site for that matter, made by Sam were growing ever increasingly dim and foggy.

It wasn’t until after getting cafe, we decided to climb the hill next to Rouen to find the Panorama- a place where you can look out over the entire city that has been nicknamed the city of “cent cloches” (city of 100 steeples *I think).

Since my Grandmother passed away 3 years ago, I’ve forgotten about exploring, and adventuring, and getting up one day and taking five hour hikes in the woods.

Saturday may not have been as epic or eventful as other escapades in foreign lands, but the air was crisp, and as we climbed and trudged through craters and thorn bushes yelling “retreat!” and sliding down mudhills, all in all it was pretty much a perfect day. Muddy knees, holes in tights, scraped knees, and rosy cheeked perfection.

First Snow

It’s a fact, 2 inches of snow puts Dieppe in total lockdown. All day the parking lot was filled with impromptou snowball fights and the nervous twitterings of teachers asking “il ya des nouvelles?”

People don’t drive. They don’t want to walk anywhere. They’re shutting down schools. Stores were closed by 6, not 7. It’s madness! Madness!

According to my students though “c’est trop cool!”

I’m inclined to agree.