You know the world has a problem when you start dealing with genetically mutated baguettes…
Archive for March, 2009
Even France has genetically mutated bread (except not. mutated. well genetically)
Published March 31, 2009 Uncategorized 2 CommentsNormally I only sit down to write when I feel like I have something to say. That isn’t necessarily to say that I do, but I usually have a feeling like a little bubble building that climbs its way up my insides like a vine. Lately however, there’s been such a lack of need-to-write feelings that maybe I need to do the opposite. Maybe I need to write in order to have something to say (doubtful, but well worth the shot).
For some reason today two different people in two different classes asked when I was leaving, and when I got here. The very fact that I’ll be a small blip in these kids lives is just plain perturbing to think about at times. Come six months these kids will be like “oh yeah the English assistant from last year… she wore the purple cardigan”- and even this is self flattery to the extreme.
I literally transplanted myself and plopped myself into the middle of their days, unattached, and quite frankly (and sadly) that’s probably the way I’ll leave as well.
This week.
Is all
I have.
I find it equally humorous and equally pathetic that of the four blogs I’ve sat down to write this month, one of them is about… my ipod. Nothing makes me feel more like a spoiled 21st century brat than sitting down to whine and bitch about the malfuncioning of my apple device. But you know.
My dad once said that in Africa he spent so much alone that his harmonica became sort of the closest thing he had to a companion. And while I certainly can’t boast of spending nights alone in game parks or weeks on end with pigmy tribes, my ipod has been (and ill try to make this sound as least bratty as I can) the most consistent thing I’ve had here since coming to France. And while it provided me endless hours of distraction and comfort on the interspersed days where loneliness would set in, it also became a sort of isolating armor against some of the disconcerting stares that seemed to follow me everywhere the first few months I was here. And in a certain sense I felt better about being semi-isolated if it was partly my choice to distance myslef from a culture that seemed to difficult to break into.
I’m not sure what prompted the little guy to self implode yesterday, but as it spurted and flickered even in the dark of my room, reminding me of 1920’s horror movies where you know something is wrong from seeing the flicker of white light flashing against a wall, I knew it was the end.
We live a society now where you could hardly have direct interactions with anything if you didn’t want to. I know this is an exaggeration, but it’s so easy to live in a tailored artificially constructed environment. And that’s not to say that any society you live in isn’t an artificially contructed environment, but it is organic too in a sense, and the one thing technology has allowed us to do is place a greater personal control on how these constructons are experienced, and until yesterday I thought I had avoided this. But I haven’t. I haven’t at all. And that’s not to say thing should b on way or another, but I always see people walking around with headphones and think about how inaccessible they seem, that I never stopped to think maybe that’s how people perceive me.
Today I walked to the grocery store with no buffer, with no armor. And I noticed things. I took longer strides because I wasn’t keeping pace with music. I smiled at people more. And they smiled at me. Maybe I was unnecessarily shutting myself out by clamping plastic to my ears and pretending I didnt exist.
At any rate. RIP little guy.
Spring has hit here in full force, leaving me spinning the little cogs in my head into hyperdrive but not channeled necessarily towards any sort of useful activity.
And it’s probably a good thing, because my sense of mediocrity has also hit full force lately, so taking walks on the pier and having bees buzz around my head and (oh HEY there daffodile!) helps alleviate this. I guess. Or something.
This week Jimi visited- and it’s not often that I get visitors here in Dieppe, and probably for good reason, because everytime they leave, I get a pit in my stomach that just won’t leave for a good couple of days.
I always underestimate the feel good factor of coming home to see a familiar pair of shoes or the tap tapping of a keyboard, and knowing you have a friend to hang out with.
Sometimes I feel like I’m living here on somebody else’s time- that I’m just borrowing a year before I return back to “normal” friends and my “normal life”
And before I get too deep in throwing myself the pity party of the year, let me just say I started this morning munching on nutella crepes that hurriedly cooked and sipping peppermint tea and watching the sunrise.
But still, is it terrible to say that I miss my friends?
In my kitchen-
My favorite part of the day comes right after rubbing my eyes awake and before slipping on a sweater and gathering my things to start the day.
It’s 8:30 am and the sun has just begun to peek past the parking lot and into the kitchen window, warming my hands, and the expanse across my feet and and all the way up my legs, as they tingle with aliveness- a window of alertness that seems to escape me for the rest of the day.
I like drinking my coffee alone in the morning in my kitchen because I like the act of being alone- I like the solitary act of waiting for the day to begin.
The pot bubbles up and down creating a wash of impatient sound across the tile floors as my egg bounces up and down inside it.
I pour the water out into the sink, submerging my egg in cold water before taking it carefully and peel it right over the counter, balanced cautiously on one foot, sprinkling a few flakes over the smooth white surface.
I eat breakfast alone, and always standing, and usually in my underwear,
like a victorious warrior, on the brink of the day.
It’s difficult to believe that things have been so sparsely documented lately, but maybe that’s just and indication of the matter settling in my brain and not a lack of things happening in it- or at least maybe that’s what I like to tell myself.
And as much as I hate to admit this, as the days wind down here, I think I’m kicking into saying goodbye mode (already geez), and sitting in front of a computer documenting it seems a little counterproductive.
Why is it always as I get used to something my nomad existence is already letting it go?
grr it seems to be a disturbingly familiar pattern.
One week in Poland, and I have five words of Polish down solid. And while in most circles this might elicit a sarcastic round of applause (“yeah lara good JOB! you learned five words!”), I must point out that the Polish alphabet is crazy.
Armed with my little phrasebook on the train last week, I was psyched. You know, yeah! I can figure out how to say “good day” or “how are you doing”, until I whipped it out to ask a man where the toilets were and realized I was reading the words, but not phonetic recognition in any of the sounds. like how do you say the sound dz? or when it’s paired with cz? and then an l with a line through it?
I walked around with the phoenetic spelling of of thank you written on my hand for a solid day. I couldn’t tell you how it’s actually spelled, but jin-koo-ye (Dziekuje- seriously?).
Sorry for anyone who actually took the time to read this. My brain’s been spinning circles ALL week.
