Je pars!!!

Incoming. Watch out!

My mama said I need to come home before I vaporize. She may have a point.

While talking to Courtney yesterday, I suggested that leaving France is like dying slowly. (To this, she responded, "Now's the time to write!"). You see, when speaking French, I already feel myself losing words and the American accent shows itself once again. But we're okay. I heard that the French never goes away entirely. It just a matter of shaking it awake from time to time.

I, also, talked to Sunny yesterday (she's my "stuffed" rabbit--although she doesn't much like that term). I said, "Sunny, it's alright, you're gonna see Pat soon." At that moment, oddly enough, I felt a weight lifted off my chest. I hadn't said anything to Sunny in a good long time. And I certainly hadn't thought of Pat or Mr. Bean or any other furry friends. If I had, they were simply my "stuffed" animals, not the friends I know them to be. Shocking, I know. So, while this year is unforgettable, an experience full of color, taste, and poetry, I feel as if I slipped into the adult world.

I saw Monsieur Mont Sainte-Victoire on Saturday from a distance at dusk. His voice softly rumbles through grasses and pines. I hope it can travel over oceans, too.

Becky, the archaeology major, said, "Wow, that's a big pot!"

Sur Le Cours Mirabeau

Rue du Quatre-Septembre

CSU Office

Scottish? Aie.

The other side

There's some sort of plasmic, magnetic, what have you, field between here and HOME. The others are falling through, one by one. "Rie left the 23rd." "Ah, oui." "And you?" "The 16th." "That's soon." "Ah, oui." It's as if you're gone forever once on the other side. You're not. You'll see the others in the future. But, will you ever be on this side of the shield at a moment like this, talking of Taiwanese government or a certain professor who smoked too much? The sun is brillant now. The tourists pass through like ants. Aix is chic-er than ever before with it's cafés, boutiques, and markets. I finally feel like a part of the charm--never true Frenchie, but charming. I lived here. I've seen the streets in focus and out.


I'm struggling with my feelings for this place, wanting to love it for the sun, knowing the loneliness it provoked. I'm struggling with my feelings for America, wanting to love it for it's love and hate it for it's hate. I know that I don't hate America. I feel a greater love. I now understand what it means to be American. It's not America that hoards and abuses as it pleases, but people make a mess--whether in the US, France, Japan, Taiwan, Russa...

I want to detest. I want to be discontented with every country I cross. I no longer like this earth. Honestly. Give me something else.

Give me God. Once again, my rambling points me in one direction. I want to find beauty, My Dear, and swim again through peace or daffodils or clouds or iced tea. I want to let go. I'm gripping something but don't know what it is and I want to release. I can't. Or won't. I want to be the thorn in Your side, My Dear.

...

Are we really in June?

I was in Scotland but I might as well have dropped off the face of the earth since then. I'm already back in Aix with two weeks to go. Warsaw and Budapest seem like a dream--which is how it usually goes. Even Giverny, with its smiling blooms and lethargic lillies, is only just there where I can no longer touch.

There are books to ship and clothes to pitch, music to buy, cafés to sip.
Maybe I sound like I've got it all together, but I don't.

I can't help but need to hear someone's heart beat for me.
Architecture can only reach so far. A Japanese bridge can only inspire so many.

What fuels me is the beat of a sister, a mama, a father, a brother...
I'll go speak some French, live it up with the locals and my Japanese.
But I love you.