collected orange

one more chance

I’ve hit a blogging wall.  This post will not come.  I feel the need to produce some sort of “year in france” summary, but it. won’t. come.  And so, someone who says better than I ever could.

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I am glad we did this.  I am glad I won’t wonder what it’s like to pick up and move to Paris.  I am glad to have had the opportunity to step outside myself, my world, my familiars to feel discomfort and anxiety and longing.  Why?  Because along with the general unease brought about by those feelings, there is also the creativity that strangeness brings, the new friends, the adventures, the rewards of stepping out of the system (or at least sliding into a new one) for a while.

I’m still amazed at how much of this city I saw in one week back in the 1990s on a trip with my parents.  Perhaps I’ve had a handful of days as ambitious as those were, but there hasn’t been any urgency.  And that’s the point to one year abroad, right?  One takes it slow, embeds in the neighborhood, meets the corner baker and rarely leaves the little quarter like the locals?  Yet we are far from being locals and that is apparent everyday.

There’s the way I thought it would be, the way it is, the way it still might be.  I have high hopes for year 2, but they come with a dose of nostalgia.  We have been pulling off the industrial sized bandage that is home millimeter by millimeter all year long, and it feels like this upcoming trip to San Francisco will be the final tug–wrenching yet freeing all at once.  We will pull some treasures out of the heap in the basement, pack the rest away, eat burritos and give lots of hugs.  Then will we fly back on T’s silver airplane and give Paris one more chance.

You’ll know where to find us.