It's been a week since I last wrote. So sorry. It's strange but I really am "busy" while I'm here. I like it. It makes it feel like home.
Alas, I'll start with the weekend. Friday night was my night with my drea friend from Argentina, Silas. One of his best friends (also Argentinian) joined us. It was a meal of rice and foie gras stuffed quail. For dessert a delightfil apple tarte. Then there was music and dancing. Things got silly as we listened to Rossini's "meow" aria- an aria in which to women sing back and forth to each other... only in meows. We tried among the three of us, and we succeeded fro about 20 minutes, to speak only in meows. It was a lively evening and a precious time with Silas.
Saturday and Sunday it seemed that I did nothing but eat. Ratatouille, Mussels, Lasagna, Fresh Fruit, Macarons, Esgargot and Lamb... that's not even all of the food I tasted and ate. Holy shit. Needless to say, I have returned to nomal gastronomic intake and my meals have been delightfully simple since the feasting.
On Sunday afternoon a close friend of mine from St. Olaf arrived here in Paris to spend a few days in the city with me. I loved showing her around to my favorite places and spending evenings cooking, talking and enjoying wine. Time has passed so much quicker with someone else around, and it makes me more aware of my surroundings strangely enough. Perhaps I have become almost wholly introspective since my time in Paris and seeking the company of others serves to rejoin me with an outside world.
Kate and I "did" Paris- and so efficiently! We went to the gardens at Versailles, picknicked under the Tour Eiffel, shopped in Opéra, went to a poetry reading at Shakespeare and Co. (more on that to come) and smoked cigarillos on the Quai St. Michel.
The poetry reading at Shakespeare and Co. was a British poet reading from his introspective work combined with guitar lusic and drawings by his younger brother. We had the best seats in the house. The creaking, leaning bookshelves stacked to the ceiling rose above our heads and a thunderstorm and downpour clattered and spittered on the roof. It was a wholly satisfying experience, and KB and I lingered long enough to talk to the author about his work, and he sincerely asked us about ours and to send him samples of writing. I personally intend to and have felt very inspired to write since the reading.
Paris looks beautiful in almost every light, and today as the grey-blue light camein through the windows I whispered my temporary farewell to my city. Leaving the apartment and going out into the street a violent wind swept up behind me, as if my city is telling me to go- to leave and explore. I leave with KB to go to Lille and then Brussels. it is time to put on my backpack again and look to the horizon. KB asks me if I'm sad- sad to leave. I reply, somewhat to my surprise, that no, I am not sad. In fact, I'm content, in almost every way.
Silas KB and I had drinks last night in a café and both of them commented on how much I've grown and changed. In many ways, I am the same as I always have been- tehre are the quirks no amount of time can erase. But looking back over the time I've spent with these friends and the phases of life I've experienced therein, I can see how my life is both mapped by my solitude, in cities abroad or home, and in loving company with my dearest friends.
I return to America in six days. I am neither sad nor happy. I just am. It's a state I wouldn't have understood a month ago, or even last week. It is like enlightenment and hox Buddhist teachers often say that it cannot be described- you simply know it, yet cannot express it beyond yourself, because there is no longer confined self. There is only you and the universe looking at one another. I'm not enlightened, at least I don't think I am. Bhodisatvhas haven't appeared to accompany me to the Western Paradise, but I feel a peace inside me that is new and sweet, yet something I feel has always been there, waiting to be discovered.
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