(no subject)
Last Christmas, one of my presents was a little black notebook. Simple, but it's come to be one of the greatest gifts I've ever been given. It's priceless now. I wasn't allowed to open it until I got on the plane, and so the first page is flooded with the inspired prose of a girl who feels herself ascending into something incredible. It soon gives way to incertainty, to longing, to discovery, to vocab lists and phone numbers which will never ever be dialed, but the scrawls of which contain memories quandmeme. It's funny how between June 4 and December 29th, a mere six pages were used. And yet this cahier is chunking out with words and pictures, souvenirs. It occurred to me today how tragic it would be if it ever dissappeared. I think I'm going to start translating some of it into the virtual universe. It loses a lot of flavor, but it's nice to know that I'd have a little bit of backup, just in case.
So here's the latest.
Note: This is my notebook. It's messy, bilingual, and I don't give a damn about complete sentences or explanations. Let it be.
12/30/06
Aterresage
Familiar landscape, this time.
A train in outskirts = SNCF
A complicated social situation lies straight ahead, and I haven't even debarked, yet. Typique.
Complimented before even entering France - by customs guy.
Retro-Metro - crappy metro music (RER to be exact) and yet I missed even that.
+ Singer on first ride, followed by the choice song des filles Romaines :)
The way the metro smells
Riding the metro [and feeling] like it's nothing. Like I did it yesterday. Like I do it every day.
Taking my luggage tag off in the RER so I look like I've been shopping and not traveling.
Posters in the metro for films which I have not seen yet (posters or films)
Being so tired but not wanting to go to sleep
The smells of patisseries aux Halles (metro).
Sweet, glazed, golden and almondy. This is just the smell.
Can they tell I'm foreign by the way my scarf is(n't) tied?
1/1/07
Wow.
Less than 48h in this country and already, I'm doing all my thinking in French;
This is so good for me.
2 weeks seems...impossible.
Perfect word.
Impossible to stay only this long.
Impossible to be so finite.
Impossible that I've only been here 2 days.
Impossible to do all that I want to.
Impossible to learn everything I can.
Weirdly, I feel completely at home. As though I left only a week ago. Souhay got me back into the swing of things immediately. Bastien gave me a home to return to. Jordan + Donald made me feel as though I'd known them forever and saw them yesterday (solidarity of character). But I know it's technically only vacation. How situated will I feel when I'll have to leave again? Impossible to say. (Already franglaising). I know the concrete date of my departure, this time. So lets see how strong her pull is. Will that knowledge of finity change things? Or am I too adaptive to be capable of leaving so soon, again?
On verra.
Try to imagine the character. EX. Olivia (p 150 or so in Oleander). What would that person do? The goth chick. The beautiful confident woman. The overly made-up woman. What if a book was defined entirely by its cover?
Exercise: Look around. What would the person who lives in this appt be doing? Well, I imagine he'd be having wonderful sex. Who is the person who is in it tonight? She is la fille qui pense first in french, meme en ecrivant in english. She's lying warm and clean in a silk nightgown that noone else will see. The Eiffel Tower is litarlly down the street, quite visably, especially when she shimmers. But she lies on a bed, thinking in french as seh writes en anglais. Enjoying the solitude, ignoring time (for it must be very late), forgetting desparation that people feel when their time is limited. Literally no cares. As though this is a reality which endures. Timeless. So content, she doesn't even eat the way she usually does, despite the avalible kebabs, the real baguettes, the cheap, amawing frommage.
This choice. To be here, alone, relishing the knowlege of what one has, choosing to appreciate it by not clinging to it. To savor it as a beautiful thing to be taken for granted. This is luxury.
I have never really known it, before.
And I love it;
Bonne nuit, 2007.
Assignment:
Try to feel the way I look. Make it feel good. Never be plain. Be daring or elegant or free, but never plain. Use it as an opportunity to step outside of the cz, to learn + grow. Always be self, just try to be a different side.
Gotta catch 'em all... all my sides.
There is nothing worse than unrealized potential.
"A lament for life's wasted sunshine" ~Hawthorne
Remember: Don't be a stereotype. Just embrace it's potential.
A boy is making me dinner and it smells delicious. Curry. The rest can wait.
So here's the latest.
Note: This is my notebook. It's messy, bilingual, and I don't give a damn about complete sentences or explanations. Let it be.
12/30/06
Aterresage
Familiar landscape, this time.
A train in outskirts = SNCF
A complicated social situation lies straight ahead, and I haven't even debarked, yet. Typique.
Complimented before even entering France - by customs guy.
Retro-Metro - crappy metro music (RER to be exact) and yet I missed even that.
+ Singer on first ride, followed by the choice song des filles Romaines :)
The way the metro smells
Riding the metro [and feeling] like it's nothing. Like I did it yesterday. Like I do it every day.
Taking my luggage tag off in the RER so I look like I've been shopping and not traveling.
Posters in the metro for films which I have not seen yet (posters or films)
Being so tired but not wanting to go to sleep
The smells of patisseries aux Halles (metro).
Sweet, glazed, golden and almondy. This is just the smell.
Can they tell I'm foreign by the way my scarf is(n't) tied?
1/1/07
Wow.
Less than 48h in this country and already, I'm doing all my thinking in French;
This is so good for me.
2 weeks seems...impossible.
Perfect word.
Impossible to stay only this long.
Impossible to be so finite.
Impossible that I've only been here 2 days.
Impossible to do all that I want to.
Impossible to learn everything I can.
Weirdly, I feel completely at home. As though I left only a week ago. Souhay got me back into the swing of things immediately. Bastien gave me a home to return to. Jordan + Donald made me feel as though I'd known them forever and saw them yesterday (solidarity of character). But I know it's technically only vacation. How situated will I feel when I'll have to leave again? Impossible to say. (Already franglaising). I know the concrete date of my departure, this time. So lets see how strong her pull is. Will that knowledge of finity change things? Or am I too adaptive to be capable of leaving so soon, again?
On verra.
Try to imagine the character. EX. Olivia (p 150 or so in Oleander). What would that person do? The goth chick. The beautiful confident woman. The overly made-up woman. What if a book was defined entirely by its cover?
Exercise: Look around. What would the person who lives in this appt be doing? Well, I imagine he'd be having wonderful sex. Who is the person who is in it tonight? She is la fille qui pense first in french, meme en ecrivant in english. She's lying warm and clean in a silk nightgown that noone else will see. The Eiffel Tower is litarlly down the street, quite visably, especially when she shimmers. But she lies on a bed, thinking in french as seh writes en anglais. Enjoying the solitude, ignoring time (for it must be very late), forgetting desparation that people feel when their time is limited. Literally no cares. As though this is a reality which endures. Timeless. So content, she doesn't even eat the way she usually does, despite the avalible kebabs, the real baguettes, the cheap, amawing frommage.
This choice. To be here, alone, relishing the knowlege of what one has, choosing to appreciate it by not clinging to it. To savor it as a beautiful thing to be taken for granted. This is luxury.
I have never really known it, before.
And I love it;
Bonne nuit, 2007.
Assignment:
Try to feel the way I look. Make it feel good. Never be plain. Be daring or elegant or free, but never plain. Use it as an opportunity to step outside of the cz, to learn + grow. Always be self, just try to be a different side.
Gotta catch 'em all... all my sides.
There is nothing worse than unrealized potential.
"A lament for life's wasted sunshine" ~Hawthorne
Remember: Don't be a stereotype. Just embrace it's potential.
A boy is making me dinner and it smells delicious. Curry. The rest can wait.