11 Septembre 2010.

So I've been home for a month today.  What a strange, long, oppressive, interesting, whirlwind, surprising month it's been.  I lost my job, which actually turned out to be fine despite the amount of stress it caused initially.  I reevaluated what I'm doing with my education, like whether or not I really want to jump right into my Master's work or if I want to spend some more time on my B.A. and get endorsed in other areas of education, perhaps TESOL or simply something humanitarian.  As you can see I haven't reached a conclusion quite yet.  Another strange realization that I came to over this past month was that there is a good chance that I am having a love affair with something I never fully experienced.  You know how when people attempt to praise a city/state/province/town, they usually say they love it, or they're "in love" with it?  Well I've never completely understood this notion until now, and it's quite funny actually because I realized it about my hometown before I realized it about the city I spent the summer in.  Let me explain.

A love affair with something one's never fully experienced seems like an impossible notion, but to me it's not.  I think that when you visit/live in/study in an iconic city, one with rich history and depth of culture and variety of ethnic background (etc., etc., etc... I really could keep going), you don't realize truly how tremendous of a place it is until you leave.  I've definitely had "fun" trips other places, spent time in states all across America from Hawaii to Minnesota to Washington D.C.  Ventured up to Canada close to home in Victoria and Sidney, and a bit further from home, crossing Manitoba from Winnipeg up to Churchill.  Spend a handful of spring breaks in Mexico.  A week in Puerto Rico and the beautiful islands below it; St. Lucia, Barbados, Martinique, Dominica and Antigua.  I've road tripped with my family from Frankfurt, Germany through Switzerland and back up on the border of France.  I've seen castles in Edinburgh, Scotland and clocks bigger than I could ever imagine in London.  But nothing compares to my summer in Paris, and for what reason?  I still haven't been able to put my finger on it quite yet.

Maybe it was walking down the dirty streets near Pere-Lachaise alone in the late afternoon, entering the graveyard alone in search of Jim Morrison's resting place, refusing a map because I thought I could do it alone.  And after hours of wandering these strange little cobblestones streets running between small stone homes full of useless corpses, guess who never found Jim Morrison's grave?  On second thought, it was probably those simple nights spent with new friends, drinking real French wine straight out of the bottle along the banks of the dirtiest and most beautiful river I've ever seen that separates Paris in half, boats full of tourists lighting the center of the Seine, couples closing their padlocks on the lock bridge where so many have gone before them, the city of lights at night.  Perhaps it was the mix of language and culture readily accessible on every street corner, at every coffee shop, in any department store, outside of any one of the many beautiful brick buildings of the institute we studied at.  Strange how you don't realize the beauty in such simple things until you aren't experiencing them on a day-to-day basis.  Sometimes I even find myself missing the sexual prowess of the French men, like wondering after the sun goes down why I don't suddenly feel uncomfortable in this place I call home.  Yes, living in Paris made me realize how much I loved Bend, but along those same lines, returning home to Bend has also made me realize how much I love Paris.  If that doesn't click I don't know how else to explain it.  A love affair with something I never fully understood, and probably never will.

Fitting, I think, that I would miss this beautiful city so incredibly much on my one month anniversary of being home from Europe.

Soundtrack:
Samba de Bencao - Bebel Gilberto
Heart of Gold - Neil Young