a thought from rilke.

"Do not observe yourself too much Do not draw hasty conclusions from what happens to you; let it simply happen." - Rilke

pense.

I haven't been without experiences these past few weeks; I have simply been missing the words to describe them. The winter has been a little more bleak than usual for no reason at all. It seems the absence of the sun took a toll on me more than I'd like to admit; I spent much of the end of January sleeping late and ignoring my blog, my writing, my personal goals in France. January was an insane month. I flew back to France for a week after the holidays to teach only to find myself on a plane the week after, flying to Boston for a job interview. The week in Boston was fantastic. I got to spend an entire week with Clare, explore Boston, and had a very successful job interview. I am looking forward to the upcoming life experiences, the program and the move to Boston. But afterwards, it took me a few weeks to recover from 3 transatlantic flights in 3 weeks and to find the sun again.

The number of weeks that are left for me abroad can be counted on two hands, a number still large enough to feel like "I have time" but small enough to feel "There is so much left to be done." The sun has been out the past two days and I am grateful for it. This city can be so sad when it is all gray and rainy. There are adventures left that are planned (first a trip to Antwerp, then a trip to Budapest) and adventures left to be discovered (I'm learning how easy it is to get out of the city, to breathe some country air, and there's still a play I want to see, a new Joseph Mallord William Turner exhibit opening, parts of the city that I would still like to wander, and Monet's garden! I want to go!). What I've discovered most about the past month of not writing is that I miss it when I don't do it but forcing it brings little happiness. While I pay attention and I stay astonished as those seem to be natural actions for me, the telling takes time. Life takes time.

"I want to pense!" Andy declared at the end of a long school day.

"You want to think?" I replied, a little startled. He had curled up against me, under his oversized zip-up sweater and had been reading aloud to me from his favorite series, The Magic Tree House.

"Yes! I want to pense!" He declared again and put his book down. "Let me explique. All day that I am in school I want to pense of these histoires, but I can't! You know, I have to do my maths and my mots and my blah blah blah. But I have all of these histoires that I want to think of and I can't. So now I want to pense. So I will sit now and pense. Do you want to pense with me?"

"Yes," I reply, trying to hold back my smile. "I would love to think with you."

The silence lasts about a minute.

"Ok! Now I am going to tell you my histoire!"

"Your story, Andy?" He still prefers to speak in Frenglish, but I am working on it.

"Yes. Okay, so there is this boy in my class and he is a VAMPIRE."

"He is?"

"Yes! He has ...has..." and he gestures towards his teeth.

"He has fangs?"

"Yes, he has fangs and he tries to eat his classmates but I save them!"

"How do you save them?"

"I will finish the histoire later. Let's play with the Wii."

The next day, he wanted to pense again and told me stories starring the actor and actress from Un Gars/Une Fille, a favorite show of mine that isn't really age appropriate but his brother lets him watch it anyways since he doesn't really understand the sexual overtones. The story is more complicated, more involved, and lasts longer than a minute. The simple fact that he is so interested in "pensing" (as he calls it) amazes me.

A few weeks later, playing in the garden, Andy has just finished acting out his own made-up version of "George of the Jungle 3" for me (in this version, George is also a pirate), he asks, "When are you leaving?"

"April 21st."

"Oh." He pauses. "So then I will act out my last movie for on April 20th."

A plan is made.

And each day that I am here, I hear the countdown clock ticking a little louder, I feel the pull to get outside and love the city and the country more, and I feel, too, the excitement building for my next adventures in Boston. Each day, each opportunity to pense feels like a gift, even when I don't have the words to describe it yet.

Seugy, February 14th, 2010

Royaumont, February 14th, 2010

A 13th century abbey an hour outside of Paris.

This was the dining hall.

falling in love.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am a crier. Not of the town crier sort, but of the "something is about to happen, here comes a rapid change of emotions" sort, leaving those who know me well nodding and smiling and waiting it out, while those who have just met me wondering if I am ridiculously unstable.

As far as I'm concerned, I am not.

I am the daughter of not one but two therapists. I have a lot of feelings. I've always had a lot of feelings. Not only do I have a lot of them, but I tend to express them, to revel in them, and whenever something funny or sweet or sad or serious or exciting or traumatic happens, my tear ducts make their grand entrance and I simply let my heart and eyes sort things out.

This was something that I was teased about greatly when I was little; it is something that I have learned to embrace now that I am not. Yes, I cry, but yes, I know it, and no it doesn't bother me much and no you shouldn't take it so seriously.

So when I headed to the airport yesterday to fly back to Paris, I was in tears. Just as I was in September. And just as I will be in April. No, that flight won't be leaving Philadelphia, it will be leaving Paris, it will be the end of this experiment in international living, and I am certain it will come with a host of emotions that will manifest themselves in a small salty flood.

Because if there is one thing that I have learned from having all of these emotions, it is this: I am very good at falling in love with wherever I am. As a twelve year old, I cried and cried and cried the day my parents dropped me off for my first stint at overnight camp. Two weeks later, when they came to pick me up, I cried and cried and cried. As a twenty year old, I cried and cried and cried when my parents dropped me off at the airport for my semester abroad; four months later, I was crying about leaving Paris. So yesterday, leaving Philadelphia after a two-week stay at home, I cried because I had fallen in love all over again with being home with my family, and though I knew I had a lot to look forward to in France, it is that simple transition of one place to another that gets me every time. Once I bury myself back in Paris (I've been back for twelve hours and I've already seen two of my friends), I know that I will fall in love with this place all over again and months from now I'll be thinking, "How did I ever think that I didn't want to be here?"

On Christmas Day, I was unreasonably unhappy because of a week-long stomach flu that was testing my patience and my intestines. I felt this enormous sadness creeping in while playing board games with my family and I realized that I wasn't so unhappy about being sick as I was about feeling that my time with my family is so limited. Now that all four of us children are done with our undergrads, we must bid farewell to the 4-6 week long winter vacations, the long afternoons in pajamas and the restless feelings of, "When will school start again?" The questions now are, "When will vacation start again?" "When will we find ourselves together again?" "When did we start getting too old for family game time?"

I hope that we never get too old to sit around the fireplace and laugh because we're bad at following directions and because Ian is attempting to train Nora's dog Eloise by barking at her. I hope that we never get too old to play board games and tell stories and have Dad come down the stairs wearing an Elvis Presley mask to greet our guests. And I hope that I never get too young to let my cry-ability get the better of me again; that is to say, I'm just starting to get used to it.