My Blogger welcome page informs me that I last published on August 11, 2010. At 2:49 pm, to be exact. It has been 45 days, 6 hours (actually, I just looked at my clock and it says 2:49pm, which reminds me of an earlier post titled On Coincidence, but there is a time difference to take into account), two different jobs, several suitcases, lots of packing, a couple of airplanes, and a foreign country since that day. When it comes to such lapses in time in my own journal, I always feel obligated to spend a couple of pages filling in the gaps, recounting all the significant events that I have neglected. I feel the same impulse here. But I will resist for two reasons; the first being that I don't want to bore my lovely readers or myself. The second is that there is something almost blasphemous about writing what has been when what currently IS is so much more...well, now.
For this reason, I will not go into detail about my first week in France. It was not pleasant. At the time, it seemed insurmountable. If you are curious, I would be more than happy to rant at you for a little while over Skype. But not here. Because I've started over. I have a new place to live - the walls are a burnt orange that reminds me of a pair of crushed velvet bell-bottoms I might wear were I a teenager in 1968; the door to the bathroom is broken, and the window in the bathroom faces east, meaning that it is bathed in a lovely autumn light each morning. I have discovered the French version of Pandora (deezer.fr for those currently in the +33) and have been treating myself to an odd assortment of French pop and American hip-hop. And, of course, the occasional Edith Piaf ballad. I AM in France, after all. I have discovered a plethora of supermarkets, pâtisseries, open air marchés (including a bizarre sort of antique/yard/get-rid-of-everything-you-don't-want-in-your-house sale next to the Cathédrale St. Michel where I was given a very dirty strainer as a gift), and épiceries. I have opened a French bank account. This week, I will be renting a bike that will become my own personal chariot for the next 4 months. I have attended my first class, a comparative literature class called "Oeuvres, textes, et contextes in which the professor lectured for two hours about the history of the bible. I have plans and ideas and hopes. It feels like, 12 days after getting off the plane in Bordeaux, I've finally arrived.
More specific and, hopefully, more frequent updates to follow. For now, I leave you with a quote from The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho - a book I read while in Morroco. It is a touch didactic and overly moralistic at times, but has its moments of profundity. In this case, a camel driver explains why he is not concerned by the threat of war:
"Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man."
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