May 6, 2008

• Paris

  The sky is blue, dark blue as if to say "look how far above the equator I am!"

  And the sun hits the warm red bricks of my parisian apartment complex warmly as if to say "look how charming and Parisian we are!"　

  But when I combine these warm sunny days with the aching voice pumped into my ear from across the sea, the sky explodes into nuclear waste and the buildings collapse into graffitti'd, dusty ruin. Its amazing how profoundly ugly something wonderful can be when you've paid too high a price for it. But in life there are things you do for yourself, and things you do for others. The things you live with, and the things you know you have to give a chance. I'll never experience Paris the way I was meant to with half my heart still someplace else, but I can reconstruct as much of a body as I need to stop floating and let my feet land on the cobbled avenues of the City of Lights.

  In as much irony as the universe can command, the language I mocked my fellow high schoolers for learning (because it's useless) has suddenly catapulted itself onto the top of my priority list. I've mastered enough of the language to buy bread and go to the grocery store, but not enough to save me if they ask if I want my bread sliced, or if I'm paying by cash or credit. At these junctures the only thing I can do is pull out the deer-in-the-headlights look I tried so hard to shelve in Japan and hope they give me a break.

  Living abroad has made me think of life in terms of a hundred or so little procedures that combine to give you a week, or a month, or a year in some place- like the procedure of buying a train ticket, or getting on a bus, or ordering coffee at a cafe. Each procedure comes with its own little script, and in big cities where people tend not to ad-lib, you can survive fine if you just remember your entrances and exits and the few lines allotted to you as a struggling expat actor. Someday you may graduate to advanced roles like "I need to refund my train ticket" or "I need my shoe repaired", but I'll be more than happy just to stumble into a cameo like "I need this dry cleaned" before retiring from the French stage forever.

  So, living. An hour commute, kidney-stabbing phone bills, beautiful apartment, Spring weather, grocery stores closed on Sundays. One day at a time, and thats all there is to it.

  • 4:59 am
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