I must first start this entry with an explanation for my months of silence. The best response I can give is that I’ve simply gotten lost in France. As if the self-assurance and self-discovery I have had in my years far from the country that I know best just suddenly vanished and left me here. In France. I have no good explanation for this phenomenon. Perhaps this lost sensation is simply the way one feels once a dream is accomplished. Here I am, living in the country I’ve always dreamed of living in, speaking the language I have spent years studying. So where has all the excitement gone? Perhaps it’s simply that I have built this experience up so much in my head over years of envisioning my time in France that real life simply can’t live up to this. Or the sudden emptiness the darkened future holds without a dream to reach for. Yes I am well aware that the simple solution is to begin to reach for something new, but maybe I’m not ready yet.
France has proven to be as French as I could have hoped. All that self-esteem I had built up as the exotic American in small-town Benin and Spain has slowly been dwindled down to nothing by this country. Days when I am feeling down it seems to me that the country is designed to keep your spirits low. The simple act of walking with your head held high is a sure fire way to wind up knee deep in shit. Yes, this could more simply be explained by the French love of dogs yet disinclination to clean up after them. But as I walk down the narrow sidewalks with my eyes surveying my next step I feel like this is just one more effort to drag me down.
I find myself regretting the wish I once had in college. I dreamed of one day talking with an accent. The idea, from within the USA, seemed rather abstract. Now I would give anything to lose the accent. Everyone is quick to point it out to you. The simple question of, “Où sont les toilettes?” (“where’s the bathroom”) is more likely to be answered with “Where hare you from? Ah yes, I ear yoor haccent” than by any useful information like, “to the right”. And yet my boulangère still greets me like an indifferent stranger although I have bought bread from her every day for four months; with my noteworthy accent one would think I stick out a bit.
France still has her way with me. Despite the frustrations I still seem to be madly in love with her. Like the dog that pees on everything but you just can’t stay mad at. A big help in this positive attitude has been the people. For the first time ever I have very few Americans in my proximity. A small fraction of my time is spent in Lodève, where I live and work. Lodève, aside from housing one awesome American, is also home to an El Salvadorian, two Italian artists and a myriad of French people. In this quiet town we amuse one another by sharing our culture. Be it and international dinner, too much pasta and buffalo wings, or line dancing and French Risk, a dull night is usual made less so in the company of friends.
The people.
Through my travels I have had the opportunity to meet an array of fascinating people. Maybe I am lucky, maybe passion attracts passion like magnets and we are drawn to one another. Who knows how the universe has a way of bringing you together with the people that inevitably spice up your life. Watching an old Thanksgiving episode of How I Met Your Mother got me thinking of what an amazing phenomenon friendship is. Day to day we have the chance to meet a lot of people, and yet only a small percent of these interactions will blossom into friendship, and fewer still into the friendship that will withstand years, distance and change.
I have tried to force a friendship, to create a bond where one simply does not exist. It makes both parties involved feel somewhat awkward and does nothing to brighten one’s mood. Friendship in the end can be nurtured but it is a natural force that I feel I ultimately have no control over. Every once in a while I meet someone who sparks my interest and I sense the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Over the past year in Europe I have met singers, song writers, painters, quantam physisits, rock stars, teachers, hair dressers, archeologists, psychics and so much more, all equally fascinating. These are the people with whom I have connected, from whom I have learned and who I will never forget from my time abroad. Often they are fellow travels, others with a story to tell in their own unique fashion.
Here in France I have already met quite an array of people from a wide assortment of backgrounds. Some have simply come and gone by during an evening with no real attachments while on the other hand some have stuck. So I thought that I would share with you some of my best encounters.
The Organist:
We walked into the old church that sat in the middle of the seemingly deserted town; taking refuge from the silence outside. The church walls rang with a loud somber melody; dark and beautiful all at once. The music was not perfect, and that imperfection made it more beautiful still. Approaching the alter we turned around and saw the artist high above our heads, frames by a soft glow of light. The antique organ towered over its mysterious musician. The deep chords carried deep into my heart, causing emotions to arise and play around within me. The deep endless sounds of the organs chords intermingling and chasing one another made me want to flee and fly all at once.
After having soaked in enough we headed to the door; stepping softly to not disturb the atmosphere of the church. Slowly the artist turned his head and greeted my friend. In a small town it is a given that you begin to know just about everyone. I soon found myself high above where we had been standing; standing next to the monster of an instrument. This organ had seen centuries pass by, had felt the hands of hundreds of organist and delighted the ears of far more.
He explained to us the intricacies of his art. How he had come to learn such a unique hobby, how he creates such an array of sounds from so few keys. He had mastered the art of using each limb separately. His hands danced over the black and yellow keys, while his feet did the same over the wooden keys below. His love for his art made it all the more fascinating to learn about. The excitement in his voice making me fall all the more in love with the music that seemed to reverberate deep down within.
The Hitch Hikers
Hitch hiking is an activity that we know all about in America but so rarely participate in. That being the case I had very little faith when my friends asked if I wanted to hitch hike to Collioure, a picturesque town near the Spanish border. And yet the following weekend I found myself following seven other people down a large road in search of cars. We split into teams of 2, set a meeting point and the race began.
As I stood on the side of a road, smile on my face and finger out I still had doubt, though I had watched the other 3 teams climb into cars already. But luck did not seem to be with us that morning. Soon we got a ride. A retired gentleman who was on his way to surprise a friend in Bordeaux, we could ride with him until Narbonne. I got the feeling that he just wanted someone to talk to as we sped down the highway. He recounted tales of he travels in and out of France, hardly stopping for a breath.
In Narbonne our luck seemed to have left us entirely. For over an hour we tried in vain to get a ride as my friendly smile slowly melted into an indifferent frown. But as patience will do from time to time, it eventually paid off and we made our way slowly - getting a ride from town to town. It was mostly young men excited at the chance to practice their English or just have someone to talk to about music, France, travels, life. And thus we arrived to find our friends awaiting us on the beach in what truly was a breathtaking town sandwiched between sea and mountains.
The way back went much smoother. Maybe it was my new faith in this manner of travel, maybe it was that unspoken knowledge that we really had no other choice, we had to get home. On the way back we talked with a mountain guide, a young girl and her mother who was teaching her daughter how to drive and, my favorite, a retired woman who had been all over the world. She was an unlikely candidate to pick us up, but she pulled over as we stood stunned on the side of the road. In her youth she had visited every corner of the Earth and I’m still not sure if the joy in reliving the memories with us out did my own pleasure in the encounter. As she dropped us off in Montpellier I was exhilarated by our success and the amount of positive interactions I had had with French people who can be so often a very closed society.
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