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.
