12.12.08
I hate Fridays. Fridays are the day on which all of the tension and exhaustion and stress and lack of sleep and disappointment of the week comes crashing down on me and as I drive home from work I have to concentrate extra hard to make sure that I don’t veer off the road or something. There is tension in the back of my head, the right side right where my neck meets me head and my jaw aches. My back is all twisted and out of sorts from sitting sideways at my desk so that my computer monitor doesn’t face the entire office. I get home and want nothing more than to sleep for a hundred years, but the gym closes at 7:45 on Friday nights and so what I try to do is to find a way to gather some scrap of energy to allow myself to change and get over to the gym because inevitably I’ve skipped more times that I find acceptable during the week either because I had a fever or my period or a family night or there was a birthday or whatever. And if I can find that little bit of energy to get over there, I push push push through the workout, wanting nothing more than for it to be over and done with because it is no longer enjoyable but a chore to get done because the rest of my life feels riddled with requirements and should dos and so working out has become something I have to stretch to do.
And so today I came home with a lot of pain in my right side. I had polarity work done at work today, which is energy work. I was upset because I had been expecting a massage and ended up getting polarity done and it wasn’t at all what I wanted. There were other little things throughout the day that built up – crap with health insurance, feeling like I’m doing a job that I am not getting paid for, long boring meetings and the like. By the afternoon I was dragging and in pain. It was to the point where I took painkillers. I probably could have survived without them, but I really really wanted to get to the gym and so I thought “may as well take them in hopes of it helping me later on today.” Then I even left work a little early in hopes of being able to have an extra moment for myself before going to the gym.
It is now 6:06PM and while I know that if I were to jump up, change and rush over there right this minute, I could get in my workout. But I’m tired and frustrated and so so so angry at feeling this rushed and unable to do what I want to do that I can’t even do it. I started to write last night about how I miss France and as I lay here in bed hate hate hating that I can’t even find the energy to go to the gym and that I have no desire to go to the pot luck at Cinizia’s tonight, I thought about how different my life in France as and how I miss it.
I think what I miss most is that France was this space in my life in which it was totally OK and easy to make myself the number 1 priority the majority of the time. It was such a luxury to be able to think of me, my wants, my needs, my emotions, my time, my goals, and my happiness first almost always. I guess maybe it spoiled me. But it seems so wrong to me that my life should consist of spending more time doing things that I would not actively chose to do if I really felt like I had the choice. And it pisses me off to think that this is what it means to be an adult and to be grown up. And I know know know that in some ways I am playing the victim and that I do make choices and decisions and that it is up to me to prioritize things, but when student loans and rent and bills have to be paid, when a lease has been signed, when there are people you love who want and need you in their lives, when there was only one job interview and lucky that job was offered to me, it doesn’t feel much like there’s a whole lot of room in there for constructing the life that I want. And maybe I am just giving up too easily or being far too stubborn about the things that I want. But even so, I could not help but start to cry as I lay here tonight thinking about how I couldn’t even just go for a walk, just a simple walk today. All of the “exercise” I got in my life today consisted of me walking around the Head Start. On an average day in Paris, even if I did not find the time to take a walk for the sake of taking a walk, I got in at least 45 minutes worth of walking through the city, up and down stairs in subways and at school.
And now I’m at that place where I feel so much anger and frustration churning inside of me that I need to do SOMETHING to get rid of it. But I am so tired and at a loss as to how to deal with it that I can’t figure out how to even get out of bed to deal with it. And no, I am not on hormones and no, I am not pmsing and no, I am not sick. I want to break something.
One of my gripes living here is that I feel like I have no friends of my own or life of my own. Tonight I have been invited to Cinzia’s for a potluck. Cinzia taught ESL with me and potentially could be my very own friend. I have no desire to go. In fact, I actively do not want to go. So the one time something of my very own presents itself I can’t even figure out how to want to participate.
Living here makes me feel so crazy. It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. I know staying in France would have been hard in its own right. I mean, I think about that every time I start to miss it. I pull out my list of reasons why it’s really OK that I’m here not there - my list of why it would have been hard and not the same and not satisfying and not what it was had I stayed there – finding a job, finding a place to live, working out visas, not having the same social network, being far away from home, not having furniture, etc. In the end it doesn’t help to think about those things. In the end I still miss my life there. I still miss the city and how it felt to spend hours upon hours wandering through the streets, usually the same route over and over and over again but sometimes a new path, a new back road, a different turn, or just noticing something that I’d passed a million times and never seen before.
Sometimes I think I am meant to live a really solitary life. Human relations exhaust me and I feel like I’m not really equipped to maintain really close relationships with people, or at least not to do so for extended periods of time in one place. Sure being far away and alone has its drawbacks, its moments that don’t feel so great and are hard. But life is like that no matter what. You can be in a room with the people who know you best and who love you more than anything and still feel like complete and utter shit. You can be there with them and have them holding you and telling you it’ll be OK, listening to you, supporting you and doing everything in their power and more to make you feel OK or to let you feel what you’re feeling and STILL you can feel like shit. It happens with our without witnesses, and sometimes I think that maybe for me what works best is being on my own and being OK with it for the majority of the time and then when I’m not so OK with it, just going through that and coming around to the other side of it.
Of course I’m not actually going to act on this. I’m not going to become a recluse or a hermit lost somewhere in the streets of Paris though that seems like exactly what I want the freedom to have right now. I mean, I guess being on my own just feels like so much freedom and coming back into a situation where I am more actively involved with people I love feels like losing a lot of that freedom. And it feels like such an awful awful thing to say – that being with those people who love me and who I love is stifling and holds me back so I don’t say it. And I don’t mean it that way. I just mean that it brings about a really unique set of challenges for me and it really overwhelms me and I feel ill equipped to deal with them.
Did I write about the family night on Monday night in which we talked about stress management? Did I talk about how part of the info packet had a worksheet about transitions? Did I mention that I realized that these past six months of my life have included at least four transitions that are a lot bigger and more major than I had ever really realized? It’s hard for me to give myself the time and space to deal with them. It’s strange because last year in France (and when I lived in Dijon as well), I learned to be super compassionate and kind towards myself. I learned how to set outside of myself and take care of myself how I would take care of a friend. I learned to let go and to lower the bar and that it’s fine to not live up to all of the expectations that I set for myself.
Those were all strategies and ways in which I was able to cope with the challenges in my life – transitioning and acclimating to living in a different country, on my own, and such. Now here I am hit with all of that (yes, even acclimating to living in a different country and going through culture shock counts) and I feel like my body is in constant rebellion and like I am never doing enough or doing it right or balancing or showing up for people or showing up for myself and I let it get so big and impossible that its crippling to the point where I get home from work on Friday evening with one single goal – to go to the gym- and I end up in bed feeling angry with myself and my life. And it doesn’t seem to even matter anymore or to work anymore to tell myself that its really fine and that I need to be kind and compassionate to myself, that one night of being less active than usual won’t kill me and that I need to rest and relax. Those thoughts that used to work seem to just make me remember all the other nights I’ve had like this here (and maybe in reality they are not as many as they seem in my worked up mind right now) and then I start thinking about how many more there are to come.
One major strategy that I think has worked wonders since the end of high school has been writing and maybe I need to come back to that and be more intentional about that these days. Walking and going to the gym, of course, were other huge de-stressing techniques. Of course now they only seem to add to the sense that I am overextended, overwhelmed, overly obligated and incapable of figuring out how to balance my life. But maybe if I take more time to sit and write I’ll be able to readjust my life in a way that makes sense and allows me to feel like I am living up to my own expectations, meeting my own needs and being the person that I want to be both for myself and for the people in my immediate day to day life (and really there are only a few of those people and even then it seems to be way more than I can handle – I really should become a recluse).
12.9.08
I have an appointment to see an obgyn tomorrow morning. I am a little bit excited but also apprehensive. The excitement lies in the possibility of a new doctor being able to tell me something new, something concrete, something informative, something helpful . . . I mean, something really. Of course the apprehension is due to the fact that I am well aware that I might just hear the exact same thing that I have heard from other doctors – inconclusive sounding, tentative, unclear explanations and reasoning for why my periods are so irregular. Of course that response will likely come with the recommendation to either take progesterone, a hormone, once every three to four months for ten days in order to induce a period that would otherwise refuse to happen, or to go on birth control.
Neither solution has had much appeal for me and I’ve spent the past few years not feeling very concerned about the problem. I was reassured that my lab work was all normal and fine last time I went in to talk to someone and also about a month ago when I went in for an annual. However, I am starting to realize that this really isn’t normal and probably isn’t so OK. In preparation for my visit tomorrow I went through my calendar to make a list of when I have had my period and whether it was natural or induced hormonally. At first I started in 2006 and then ended up going back as far as 2005. I discovered that from January 2005 until right now (November 2008) I have had my period a grand total of seven times, four of which were hormonally induced. Were I regular, or mostly regular, I would have had it about 46 times during that span of time.
The point of this really wasn’t to get into my gynecological issues, but rather to allow myself a moment to think about what I really found tonight. The process of figuring all of that out included me looking through my calendar, which I have done a decent job at keeping up to date with the goings ons of my life, over the past four years. It took me from living in Dijon through my senior year of college and my Masters degree back to France and finally here to Santa Fe. I had to try hard not to read too much of what was written in the years in Dijon and Paris because the second I started to allow myself to do so, I was hit with a feeling of longing and sadness.
Even just letting my eyes scan over the days, weeks, months and years was neat though. Just to think about how many places I’ve been and how many people I’ve met. Today I got to thinking about skydiving and it took me a minute to register that I have actually jumped out of an airplane. It almost doesn’t seem like me who did it and though it wasn’t even a year ago, it feels distant. I don’t think I’ve ever missed a place the way I miss Paris.
Last night I stayed late at work to host a parent training on stress management. The training itself was not the most inspiring, but at the end of the handouts was a section on transitions. The very last page was a worksheet that simply asked that we think about transitions we have gone through, how we dealt with them and then transitions we are going through and how we can deal with them. I quickly started to list transitions I’m currently or have recently undergone and was surprised to find that the four bullets were quickly filled and I felt as though it might not have even been enough space. I chose to write down that I am living with my sister for the first time in seven years, I moved away from Paris, I’m in a relationship for the first time in a long time and I’m working a full time job. Then I tried to think about how I’m giving myself space to deal with it and I came up with . . . nothing. The key word on the worksheet I think was “space” and as I thought about it, I realized that I’ve been so busy that I don’t actually feel like I’ve had much space. Sure, I could say that I go to the gym, but with my time crunch even that has become stressful. I haven’t had time to write, and I seem to be so focused on getting through the things that I have to (or that I feel obligated) to do. I do have moments of clarity in which I can step outside of the hecticness and try to prioritize a bit, but I have a hard time with it. I also think I’ve been having a hard time allowing myself to feel and experience just how hard these transitions are.
Anyway, it was fun to look at a calendar overview of how I’ve spent the past four years of my life. All in all I have to say I’m rather pleased with how it looks. And after having thought a bit about transitions and some of the stress causers in my life right now, I’m feeling a bit of calm and peace, and optimism that I will be able to be more present, able to prioritize and happy in the moment when I get back from winter break.
12.8.08
It’s early morning – or at least what counts as early to my groggy body. I haven’t even had coffee yet, but I’m already driving down the highway, pulling into the exit lane as the mountains disappear beyond where the highway continues. Pulling to a stop at the end of the exit, I think about the very first time I made this drive, not knowing if I’d ever make it again, not knowing exactly where the pueblo started, not having any clue what lay inside the pueblo. I wonder how many times I have made it since. I fiddle with the radio in hopes of finding a better song and turn left under the highway.
As I turn onto the frontage road that parallels the highway, I remember the warning not to speed because there are days when the police like to set up camp at the very spot where my day begins. Looking around to make sure today is not one of those days, I accelerate. It’s hard to drive parallel to the highway at a slower speed than the cars next to me. Plus, the road stretches out in front of me, slowly rising and falling, yet unable to hide the distance that remains to be driven to the stop sign by JR Clothing where I will turn left.
The pueblo lies at the end of the road where I turn left by JR, but by the time I have reached the frontage road I am already on reservation land. I am on reservation land because someone or somebodies drew a line and created a boundary stating that the piece of land beyond this line belongs to these people. There is a sign that alerts you to the crossing of the line, as does any “Welcome to Blahblah state, home of smiles and rainbows and sunshine!” sign. The sign for the reservation is more straightforward, “Now entering Tesuque reservation,” or some such message.
There is no dramatic change in the already dramatic landscape – mountains growing up on either side of the desert, sky expanding beyond any expanse I can describe. There are less visible signs of human inhabitance than there are in Santa Fe, but Santa Fe is a city. The houses on the pueblo do not look significantly different from my neighbors’ homes, except perhaps for that some are a bit more rundown looking. The dirt roads that wind their way through the pueblo seem rural or of another time, and everything feels dusty and is some version of the color brown. There is a sign on one house indicating that one can buy pottery there, but no storefronts or gas stations or grocery stores exist. There is a recently renovated church that stands over the plaza. Groups of stray dogs, some recent mothers clearly still nursing their young, run around after cars, get into fights with one another or sit by the side of the road watching all who pass by. Old bikes lay on their sides in front yards bounded by barbwire fences. Piles of scrap wood, metal and other miscellaneous items decorate sides of houses and back yards. Fancy cars looking slightly out of place are parked in front of some houses. Shades are drawn; there is an eerie sense of emptiness.
From the moment I pass under the highway after the exit until I park my car, I raise my hand slightly off of the steering wheel in an automatic salute to every car that I pass. Having worked on the pueblo for barely two months, I only know one or two of the people whom I salute, if even that many. When I first witnessed my boss wave at every passing car on my first day of work, I assumed she must just know everyone. I came to learn that it is not an interaction based on friendship or even actual acquaintance, but rather a custom, a tradition or perhaps simply a habit. It’s an acknowledgement of having seen the other person and though I felt hesitant at first to initiate the ritual, I quickly discovered that people I did not know would raise their hand at me if I did not and if I did it first, I almost always would get a wave in return.
It seems like such a small gesture and not very significant. My experience of real life interaction with people I met on the pueblo varied greatly, but my very first reaction was that they were not overly friendly. This is not to say that I found them to be mean, unpleasant or unwelcoming, but simply not overly, outwardly, animatedly friendly. I suppose that’s why the hand wave seemed a bit incongruous at first.
One of my interview questions for this job was about how I would handle getting to know another culture. Going into the interview I realized that working on the pueblo meant working with a culture different from my own, one about which I had no knowledge. Having lived abroad twice, I felt confident in saying that I have lived through culture shock and really appreciate the process of getting to know another culture, despite the fact that at times it can be frustrating and confusing.
There is still much that I have yet to learn and much more that I likely will not learn at all. I realized that today marks two months at my new job and I take comfort in raising my hand to salute passing cars. I don’t really feel part of the community in any significant or important way, but I no longer feel completely outside of it. I even catch my hand starting to loosen its grip on the steering wheel in an effort to wave at passing cars when I turn onto the less traffic-filled streets of my neighborhood. So far I have been able to catch that hand and place it back down before waving at total strangers who would likely either wonder if they knew me or think I was crazy.
11.27.08
On a day of giving thanks, today I found myself doing just about everything but. To make what could be a long story that a public audience might not have much interest in hearing short, after about ten months of skipping my period, I got a prescription for hormones that would induce it and started taking them about eleven or twelve days ago. The period-inducing process takes a lot out of me. Well, it puts hormones into me that seem to cause a lot of intense and sometimes irrational emotions, exhaustion, physical changes in my body, and basically all of the other crap you go through during puberty. The ten days of hormones is followed by a regular menstrual cycle and when you haven’t experienced this in almost eleven months, it is really intense. At least it is for me.
So today I woke up particularly sensitive and irrational. I had kind of been dreading Thanksgiving here. My sister, Adi and I made plans but throughout the morning little things kept setting me off and I kept finding myself on the verge of tears. I felt tired and not very good in my body. I felt lonely and isolated, nostalgic for France and generally difficult, unresponsive, cranky, distant, disconnected and sad. My Thanksgiving plans involved going to two separate Thanksgiving meals. One was at a friend of Kt’s and the other was at a friend of Adi’s. Neither of these households are places were I feel especially at home or like I belong. I mean, I’ve never actually been to Kt’s friend’s house but in general both places just felt like places that I was tagging along to. As a youngest child I’ve spent a lot of my life feeling like the tag-along who isn’t necessarily wanted or invited but who shows up anyway or who gets invited as an extension of another person.
As an adult I still find it hard to relax and to be myself in certain social situations and as today progressed, I felt more and more anxious and full of dread about going to be social with people I don’t really know on what traditionally is my favorite holiday because I spend it with people who I love and who I know and can feel care about me. I didn’t feel so much invited to these places and in some ways it felt like intruding on someone else’s holiday. And the worse I felt throughout the day, the more I felt like whether or not the intrusive feeling was in my head and stupid, my mood was such that I would not be fun, happy, talkative, social or enjoyable as company. The thought of showing up and having to make the excuse of not feeling well or having cramps was enough to make me periodically burst into tears. It’s one thing to make that excuse to people who know you, who really know you well and around whom you feel comfortable just being yourself. It’s another thing to make excuses and then sit in the corner quiet, feeling like a total alien, forcing a polite smile from time to time.
I cried harder this afternoon than I have in a while. I think that I may have cried that hard within my first week of moving here. Everything built up and suddenly I felt like I was ruining Thanksgiving, letting people down, hating myself for being upset, hating myself for not being able to have an easier time being social, and not living up to expectations. The part of today’s plan that involved going Adi’s friend was harder for me than the part that meant going to Kt’s friend’s. I have met Kt’s friend once or twice and had pleasant interactions with her. It felt really low stress and low key. It was with people I hadn’t met before and could easily never see again. There was no pressure, no real importance to going there specifically other than it was where Kt was going and since she’s the only family I have here, it was important for me to be with her on Thanksgiving.
Going with Adi to her friend’s house, on the other hand, felt a lot harder and more emotional for me. When she invited me, she made it clear that it was important to her that I go with her because it’s important for her to be able to share other parts of her life with me. I’ve spent time around her and this friend before and have not really clicked with the friend. Usually when we’re all together I feel left out or like it doesn’t matter if I am there or not at all. It’s like watching TV in a way because they have their dynamic that has been established and rather than being a part of that dynamic or what is going on, I am observing it from the side. They clearly get along well, share a certain sense of humor, care about each other and have fun. I haven’t felt like I’m a part of that. I take responsibility for the fact that I don’t always go out of my way to make a huge effort. Unfortunately this has happened a few times when I just have been low energy or not in a great mood to begin with anyway. I just can get really shy and quiet around new or different people and it’s not always easy for me to find a way in. And if my experience has been that I don’t think I’d be friends with this person in other circumstances, it makes it even harder. But at the same time I get that Adi wants to bring together two parts of her life that are important to her. So it leaves me feeling guilty for not trying harder, torn about not necessarily feeling like I have the energy to do it and sad because she actually has community, friends and a life here in a way that I don’t feel like I have.
That last bit is a challenge because that is totally up to me and I can’t get mad at her for that and I’m not mad at her for that, I just have a hard time when she tries to involve me in those things that I feel I am totally lacking here. The few times I try to put aside feeling anxious about being around new people, feeling super conscious of it being important to Adi and making a good impression, well, I’ve not really been able to put it aside. Today I kept thinking about how if I needed to spend the day in bed crying, she still had somewhere to go where there would be people who wanted her there, who invited her, who would welcome her and around whom she would feel comfortable and cared for. I, on the other hand, felt like my options were to stay home, to tag along with Kt or to tag along with Adi. And that’s not to say that I didn’t want to spend the holiday with them because I really did want to spend the holiday with both of them. It’s just to say that I feel limited here in a way that I am not used to feeling.
Anyway, emotions, hormones, nostalgia and life collided today and made it really hard for me to feel much in the way of gratitude. I did finally go to Kt’s friend’s house with Adi. It was nice and low key. There was lots of good food and we played cranium. Then Adi and I stopped by the other party. I spent the whole drive over telling myself that I would go in with a positive, open attitude because I strongly believe that you get what you give. I thought really hard about going in with a smile on and trying to make it genuine. I thought about trying to make conversation and to really get myself involved. I thought about how despite my feeling less than enthusiastic about being there and interacting, it was really important to Adi and therefore needs to also be important or taken seriously by me. Then we got there and I felt invisible. I’m sure I contributed to it and at one point I had to duck into another room to make a phone call home. I think what happened was that I tried to make conversation a little at first and it got interrupted or side-tracked or just died because I didn’t know what to say. After that I felt like I wasn’t even there or didn’t need to be there. Conversations picked up and I didn’t have anything to say, any way to relate or any way to get into what was happening. When I was on the phone in the other room I could hear everyone laughing and chatting away and I thought about how it didn’t matter if I was in there with them or on my own on my cell phone.
And as I write this it sounds really whiney, victimy and immature to me, but sometimes you just feel the way you feel. That’s how I felt. And in addition to feeling that way, I didn’t really realize how I was feeling or why I was feeling like that. I didn’t realize until I started writing this really. I just felt bad. I guess I felt like I wasn’t make enough effort or doing enough but I also felt so invisible and little that making an effort felt impossible or just like something really unappealing at the time.
Anyway today was just rough. One bright spot in an otherwise dark, rainy, snowy day was finding a missed call from Sue on my phone and having a message from her wishing me a Happy Thanksgiving. I think she saw that I had written on my facebook that I was having a hard day because she said something about hoping that my day had gotten better. It was a nice reminder that there are people in this world who do care about me and know me and around whom I can just be me. There are people whom I might not see or talk to on a regular basis but who I could call if I needed to and who will reach out to me if they discover I’m in need of it. I might not feel as though I have much in the way of community here in Santa Fe, but I have a network of people all over and for that I am beyond thankful. Maybe tomorrow I will take some time alone and do some writing about what else I am actually thankful for as an exercise in gratitude and an attempt to reframe my attitude and to adjust my emotions.
11.20.08
For some reason tonight I decided to browse through old entries in here. I like to do it from time to time and generally I find it to be an interesting, gratifying exercise. It made me feel sad tonight. It also made me feel super grateful and almost surprised at who I was last year and the life I lived. I got to the entry that contains pictures from Amsterdam and thought, "wow, I really lived that? I got to experience that? That was me? I was there? Wow."
Wow.
11.19.08
It’s been a while, huh? It seems a bit daunting to try to catch up with myself, but tonight I got to thinking about this journal and how neglected it has been and decided that I should at least giving writing a shot.
So where have I been? Well, it seems like a lot and nothing at all has happened in the past two or so months. One of the biggest things that has happened is that I have started seeing someone. It began as friendship and intensified until neither one of us could continue ignoring what neither one of us knew how to address. And then one evening through a kiss on the cheek and a few simple words so much of what we had been holding back spilled into the open. I feel like I’ve become that couple-y person who I never thought I would be and whom I scorned a bit throughout my years of singledom – that person so wrapped up in the excitement of a new romance that the rest of the world seems to recede. But it’s also more than the newness, it’s the fact that I have found someone who I can trust, who I can be myself without reservation around, someone who I care about and who I know cares about me. It’s feeling safe and feeling important, it’s feeling excited to make another person smile, it’s knowing there is someone who will listen when you need to talk, who will buy you soup when you are sick for the third time in two months, it’s the look you get when you’ve put on something nice and done your make up a bit. It’s enjoying a night in watching a DVD and eating soycream as much as you enjoy going out for a nice dinner. It’s all of those things that sound so flat when written out like a laundry list, the same old laundry list that makes up what we deem as loving relationships. But while they may seem flat on paper and while I may not yet (or ever) have the right words to explain why this is anything but flat, I am feeling lucky to know that I am cared for and to know that I have found someone for whom I can care as well.
The other big change in my life these past months is that I have started a new job. After what felt like an eternity of searching for a job, I got an interview and was hired. On paper it seemed like a decent job for me – administrative assistant and family services coordinator for a Head Start pre-school. Sure, it wasn’t teaching, but it meant working in a school. Sure I’ve always said that pre-school is not the age group for me to work with en masse, but the job was not to be a teacher. My first week was miserable. I hated it and wanted nothing more than to quit. However quitting was not an option because, well, I needed a job. Since that first week it has gotten much better. There are days when I like it and feel good about it and days when I feel bored. There are days when I feel frustrated by basically everything, but at the end of the day I do realize that I am paid well, I work with good people and it is a fairly flexible, not too demanding job.
One of the interesting pieces of the job is that I am working on a Native American reservation. About half of the kids in our program are from the tribe. The other half of the student body is from Mexican families who live in a trailer park on the reservation. When interviewing for the position, one of the questions that at the time struck me as odd was about culture shock and adjusting to new cultures. I was told that working on the reservation means working with a distinctive culture and one of the goals of our program is to embrace, celebrate and teach the children about their culture. At the same time I was also cautioned upon beginning work that I’m not really supposed to ask too many questions about it. I was given the impression that the tribe is rather protective and perhaps even a bit closed about their tribe and cultural heritage. The non-tribal students in our program are not allowed to participate in the language program provided by the tribe to teach the children the tribal language. I use this as one example of why it seems that they are protective of what is theirs.
So far my experience has left me, well, a little confused. I am trying really hard to bear in mind that there is a difference between the tribal culture and the tribal administration. Perhaps what I mean is that there is the culture (language, music, ritual, ceremony, beliefs, story, etc.) that the tribe is working to preserve and pass on and then there is the current culture of the administration, the government and the day-to-day running of the pueblo itself. They are two different cultures, in my opinion, which rest upon one another and at times are hard to see clearly or understand. As an employee of the tribe, and especially one who works in the administration of their pre-school, my experience lies mostly with the tribes government and administration, which from where I sit at my desk at times feels unorganized, frustrating and slightly chaotic (and coming from France where needless bureaucracy, red tape and disgruntled government employees are part of the joy of day to day life, I am at least used to, if not at this point fairly immune, to dealing with this type of irritation).
In terms of the cultural heritage, as I mentioned, it’s often hard to suss out what tribal culture actually means to the tribe. For me as an individual, that lack of understanding comes from my hesitancy to ask questions. I have tried unsuccessfully to research it a bit on my own, but there seems to be almost a complete lack of written records about the tribe. There are little hints here and there – the language classes, some instruments and music in the classrooms, costumes that we worked on making, etc., but I don’t quite have a grasp on what it means to be a member of this tribe to the members of the tribe. Today I had the opportunity to hang out with the three-year-olds and two of the language teachers because the Head Start teachers were sick. I was really impressed and enthralled listening to one of the teachers read the story “No, David!” Her animation, improvisation and interaction with the students kept them all engaged and involved.
It got me to wondering if she knew stories that had been passed down in the oral tradition from her ancestors. It also got me to wondering what stories she herself had about her own life – did she grow up on the pueblo? What was it like when she was young? What traditions did her family have? Were there tribal traditions, ceremonies, rituals that she participated in? Are they the same today? I wanted to ask her but found myself keeping quiet, I guess for fear of asking something that I wasn’t supposed to ask. I doubt that it would have been offensive, but I didn’t want to risk it I guess. It seems silly though because in my experience most people like to talk and to tell stories about themselves, and when given the time, the space and the attention I think that most of us can come up with a few anecdotes that we would be a little happy to share with someone else.
My grandmother is a good example. Growing up she and my great aunt and grandfather were our babysitters. My father is an only child and his parents and aunt lived in our town and we were lucky to have them around as we grew up to take care of us on the few occasions that my parents went out or had a meeting or whatever. Going to their house meant running around outside on their big lawn, climbing trees, playing ping pong in the basement, baking cookies, playing hide and seek, playing dress up, drawing, drinking “tea” which was really just hot milk with a ton of sugar and a tea bag dropped in the cup for .2 seconds. It also meant stories. There were pictures to prompt stories but most often we would just say, “Grandma, tell us about when you were a little.” I remember her chuckling a bit and telling us that we’d heard all of her stories. We would insist that we didn’t mind and she’d say, “let’s see” and pull out one of her stories about growing up in rural England during WWII. There were stories about her being forced to swim at school in cold weather, stories about the big tree on the main road, and watching boats pass by on the Thames. There were also stories of food rations and black out curtains. She carries with her still the fear and anxiety of living through a war, never knowing how close it would actually come to her country home and her family. I can hear her voice now talking about how awful it was, “absolutely awful!” Awful being the hardest, most bitter word she could summon to talk about the war. I think about the arsenal of words that I have, much more caustic, shocking, violent and angry than her simple “awful” and as I hear her voice and her modifiers “absolutely” or maybe just repeating the word twice “awful, awful,” I wonder if those words spoken with that tone and that experience are more powerful that whatever with which artillery I could arm my speech.
These days the same old stories are not quite as exciting to me as they were when I was young. In fact, there are times when it seems frustrating that she is so stuck in the past, so fixated on what is long gone, and I find it impossible to relate to someone who seems so out of touch with today. Then there are times when it seems sad to me that she has not been able to let go of those stories and that she has not found new stories from the intervening years to replace, or at least to accompany, those same stories that I grew up hearing. As an adult, some of the details seem suspect – a little romanticized, a little exaggerated, not the same as they were when I was younger. But part of story telling is knowing how to emphasize, de-emphasize, embellish, exaggerate and appeal to your audience. Stories that rely upon memory will inevitable mix up some of the facts and details and be subject to the interpretation of the person who is putting the pieces back together and their intention in doing so.
And so there is also a part of me that will always cherish those stories and hold them close. They are a piece of my own personal history and my childhood. However accurate or inaccurate the stories may be, they are the stories of my family and I will pass them along to my kids one day as well. I had the opportunity to visit my grandmother’s home village in England last year. I went with a dear friend of mine and as Sue and I walked up and down the main street, delighted in the quaint old houses, sat on the bench where the old giant tree used to grow, and scoured the cemetery for any name that might be a part of my family, my grandmother’s stories hummed gently in the background of my thoughts. I have already passed some of those stories along to my host family in France and to friends who are patient enough to listen as I talk through the ancient history that has lead up to who I am today, laying here on my futon bed in Santa Fe, NM typing this and thinking about the power of story.
Maybe the elders of the tribe do tell their stories to their children and maybe those children will pass the stories to their children and grandchildren. What we have to say is important. What we remember has significance and sharing memories, experiences, emotions, interpretations, ideas and stories brings people together and is exciting. Maybe I can work on trying to get some of the elders to come tell stories to the children as part of my job.
9.24.08
I am usually very meticulous about time. I keep track of it and guard it closely. Dates generally stick in my mind easily, and in my mind where I am is directly related to where I have been, where I am going and how long to and from each of those. I keep track of time in the large sense of months and years and I keep track of specific dates, hours, weeks and days. Time is even and regular, yet at times it feels as though two identical units can have entirely different durations. I guess I like having my life made up of units, despite how unequal they may be at times. I like structure and being able to visualize.
Santa Fe has done some strange things to me. I have lost track of time and my life seems to be very fluid, morphing days into nights and weeks and months and I don’t even remember when I got here. I honestly could not remember if I arrived in July or August. Normally I would have not just the month, but the specific date fixed in my brain as an anchor for this new life I’ve begun. My horoscope for the week from Free Will Astrology begins with: “Against all odds, you are finally finding a way to quit that nagging "addiction." You're shedding a dependency that isn't worthy of you.” I have to wonder if the addiction was my fixation on time and mapping time. I kind of hope not because despite the fact that my life has become so amorphous, I still like and find comfort in the idea of being able to break it down into what seems quantifiable. But maybe it’s not specifically about how I visualize time. Perhaps it has more to do with the fact that since arriving here I have just let go in general. The situation in which I currently find myself (not fully employed, not in school, not scheduled, not structured, not stressed, not required, not restricted) is one that I would expect to find uncomfortable and hard to deal with. However, for some reason I’ve just slipped right into it without anywhere near the discomfort that my logical mind tells me my emotional self should be feeling.
I don’t entirely credit Santa Fe with this, however. I think that Santa Fe is where I happened to have landed after years of slowly letting go of neurosis and the slightly uptight pieces of myself. I feel at peace and at ease with myself. I am happy with where I have been over the past several years and not even thinking about where I am headed. I am just here and focusing on how I can enjoy that. Yes, of course the lack of a job is a stress and I do hope/need to get that taken care of soon. But I’m working on it and hopefully it’ll work out soon. Speaking of working out, it’s time to go buy a new bathing suit since my old one has gotten so worn and tired that I am surprised that it has not yet disintegrated off of my body. I have been wearing a bikini bottom under it for weeks in order to spare the pool crowd the sight of my bare butt. I also had Adi tie knots in the straps because my chest kept falling out of it every time I pushed off the wall to start a lap. Unfortunately, it’s gone far beyond what a bikini bottom and knots can save.
9.9.08
Last night I was cold in bed. I had several blankets piled on top of me and yet every so often the chilly air would settle on my face and send a shiver down my body. It was nice. Fall is around the corner and I have heard from various people how beautiful fall is here. The New England snob in me scoffs a little bit on the inside because it’s hard for me to imagine any fall that could compare to the fiery reds, vibrant yellows and the rich oranges of a New England fall. I have been told that the aspens turn an intense yellow and that there is nothing like it, but I would argue that there is nothing like fall back home. Truth be told, both statements could very well be true and it seems that there has not even been a satisfying autumn since before I studied in Dijon, which is now . . . three or four years ago. I remember distinctly missing autumn when I was in Dijon and feeling so excited about the prospect of returning to the kind of fall I grew up with. Then I got back the following year and it did not live up to my memories. I suppose the problem is that I had certain expectations of what I would return to.
In an attempt to preserve my ability to savor this time of year in Santa Fe, I am doing my best simply to not have expectations for what it will bring. This strategy is my attempt to preempt any disappointment, for if there is nothing built up in my mind, whatever happens cannot be worse than the nothing. I was telling Adi about all of this on Saturday as she and I drove up the mountain to the ski area for a nature adventure. She agreed that the no expectations approach was a good plan, but also reassured me that I will enjoy autumn in this area.
Our nature adventure, by the way, was just that. Last weekend she went off for a hike with a friend of hers and afterwards told me that it was awesome and she found something super neat, but would not tell me what it was. She wouldn’t tell me because she wanted to show me and that is what she did on Saturday. The mysterious something is a big fort made out of big branches just off one of the trails. It is kind of like a teepee made out of wood and you can sit inside of it. There are also some parts to it on the outside that you can access by climbing the ladder that whoever constructed the structure also constructed. It is clearly well made and sturdy. Immediately it evoked a memory of Yellowstone National Park where my brother, sister and I discovered a similar structure on one of my family’s cross-country trips. That structure, to the best of my memory, was more underground or at least not as built up into trees as this one was. We took some pictures and hung out there for a while, laying on one of the decks looking up through the aspens at the blue sky. It was one of those moments that would have been eternally satisfying. Of course it did not last an eternity and eventually we journeyed on.
When Adi was there without me, she had not ventured much further than the structure. This time she wanted to continue down the slope that it was built on to see what else we could find. So up and off we went, barreling down the mountain until we hit a little stream. I slipped at one point and my hand got a little scrapped up when I put it down to break my fall. It was nothing serious but it stung and I figured that the best way to numb it would be sticking it in the clear, cool running water of the stream. Umm, hm, “cool” does not really accurately represent the water. No, the water was freezing cold and was perhaps more painful than the scrape. We had had the foresight to bring my digital camera so we took some pictures, looked at some moss, swapped some stories about who knows what, and pressed on.
Leaping from one side of the stream and then back to the other, we followed it for a while. Not too far down we came upon a trail and decided to see where it would lead. Full of fresh air and energy, we ran down the path through the woods until it suddenly opened up on a field that looked as though it belonged in a fairy tale, and that is no exaggeration. The grass was a lush green and large trees and huge plants – some ferns, others I didn’t know, surrounded the opening. The stream bordered the field on the left and there were actually two that came rushing out of the forest over rocks in two small waterfalls and converged by a large rock. Bounding down towards the water I proclaimed my urge to jump in the water and Adi encouraged me to take off my shoes and socks and at least to stand in it. While the clear, shallow water and sandy bottom of the stream were really appealing, I hesitated. Then Adi took her shoes and socks off and I figured that I might as well follow suit. I waited for her to test the water and she said it was cold, but also bearable and worth it. I took a deep breath and stepped in. “Not so bad,” I thought as I walked across to the other side where she was standing. By the time I got to the other side, however, the cold had taken hold and I leapt out with a shriek. We waded around a bit more. Then we took turns taking pictures and laying in the sun.
A giant rock on the other end of the clearing where the forest took over again was calling to me, so I ran off ahead to climb it. Taking a few more pictures, Adi hung back but soon joined me at the top. It was chilly and we realized that the day was slipping away from us. A few more pictures for good measure and we headed back. The return trip was easy and much quicker because we followed the trail directly back rather than following our own trail. Having cut through the woods down a fairly steep slope, the return trip involved a great deal of uphill and thoroughly wore us out. We got back to her car simultaneously exhausted and elated with what a fun afternoon in the woods it had turned out to be.
It is so easy for me to lose track of how much enjoyment I can find in the forest doing nothing but walking, running, splashing, talking, exploring and being in nature. The outdoors was such a huge part of my childhood in many ways – family camping trips, canoeing, hiking, the motor home, afternoons in the backyard, bike rides, etc. Somewhere along the way, in adolescents I believe, I kind of forgot how to be and appreciate nature. I guess I became preoccupied with adolescent stuff. I’m glad that it was such a big part of my childhood and I’m glad that here other side of the teenage years I am able to find it again and again. It also helps to be around other people who not only like it, but who react with such energy and enthusiasm as Adi and as my social circle here. I like feeling excited about being connected to the earth. Oh that sounds cheesy. But whatever, it’s true.
You know what else I like? I like teaching. I can safely say that now that I have finished teaching my very first adult ESL class today. I was feeling very nervous and also rather ambivalent about it all day today. My students are the lowest level (other than basic literacy) and they are all native Spanish speakers (well, that is not entirely true, but to the best of my knowledge this afternoon it was). Speaking not a single word of Spanish, I felt concern over my ability to communicate what I would need to with my students. Of course not once did I teach a class in French last year, despite the fact that I could have, so my inability to speak Spanish theoretically does not matter. But theory is theory, and the reality is that it was always comforting to know that worst-case scenario in France I could break into French and clear up any major confusion or issues. I also felt very unsure of how much to plan, and what to focus on. The class is two to two and a half hours long (depending on if anyone can show up early), which is a long time. It is especially a long time to drill the same five sentences over and over again. I mean, drilling isn’t really the best or only teaching tool available to me and two hours is nice in that it gave me a lot of time for a lot of different activities. My nervousness there came from whether or not I could come up with those activities and whether or not I could explain the instructions easily enough. Oh, and when I get nervous, I talk more and I talk faster. That’s a great way to help my non-English speaking students – talk more and more in half-sentences that are mumbled and to myself quickly because I realize that they are not understanding and I am sinking fast.
As I planned my lesson I tried not to focus on any of that. Because we had made the decision to continue registration this week, I decided not to use the book at all. I also decided to err on the side of too easy and very repetitive. One of my big concerns was making sure that the students felt welcome and not too scared of the fact that class will be taught entirely in English. To this end I bought candy and a ball to throw around a bit. I planned a lesson that would focus on introductions. I made myself notes and wrote down important things to remember, such as “model everything I want them to do.” I arrived very early and was able to breathe a bit before everything got going.
As I could have anticipated, when class began everyone was rather quiet and shy. The silence, blank stares and realization that they have no clue what I am saying always causes a panic to wash over me. I became a bit flustered and started to doubt my lesson plan. I started in on, “Hi, my name is Becky. What’s your name?” and went through that a few times. Then I remembered that I wanted them to write their names on an index card so that I could take a picture of them holding up their name. I am terrible with names and really, really want to learn them as soon as I can. Pictures help. Whipping the camera out, I tried in vane to explain that I wanted pictures to help with names. I’m assuming that when I held up my card in front of me to show what I wanted them to do, they figured out what I was doing. Again I felt a moment of panic and feared that I was going to totally embarrass, confuse and scare them. Then I decided just to focus on telling them to give me pretty smiles in the picture. I did so by grinning the biggest, cheesiest grin I could muster as I said, “give me a beautiful smile Ana! What!? Ana? Where’s the smile!?” I went through that whole bit with everyone and it actually got them laughing. Some speak more English than others and so there was some murmuring in Spanish that seemed to help clarify things for people. Once I got through taking everyone’s photo, I felt more relaxed and the class also seemed to be a little more at ease.
We went back to the sentences and practiced some more. I had everyone stand up, and then I stood on a chair so that I could see them (oh how professional I am). I had my trusty bag of candy in hand and got one person’s attention. “Hi, my name is Becky, what’s your name?” I asked. Maribel answered and I asked if she wanted a piece of candy. I asked the whole class if I should give her one. They seemed to agree she earned it, so I threw it to the back of the room where she was. Candy throwing never falls to get a laugh out of a class, so there was some more laughter. Then, instead of calling on someone else, I asked Maribel to pick someone and ask him or her his or her name. Once she did, I asked her if that person should get a piece of candy. Once I threw the second person the candy, I let Maribel sit down. We continued on with this until no one was left standing and everyone had a piece of candy. The exercise was helpful for me because it indicated a few people who are clearly struggling more than the rest. The few people I am thinking of seemed a bit confused as to what the question was and what the answer was. There were also two or three who were clearly having trouble pronouncing the words. Hopefully I did not embarrass them too much. It’s helpful for me to know who they are.
As we were going through the various exercises, a few new students trickled in here and there. One of them was a Chinese guy who will actually not be in my class in the future; he was with me today because the other ESL teacher was doing registration, so I took her students. We moved on and learned how to ask where someone is from and how to answer it. One of the activities that I wanted to do involves breaking the class into two circles, forming an inner and outer circle. The inner circle faces the outer circle and everyone should have a partner. They were to introduce themselves to their partner using what we had learned. Then once they finished, everyone in the inner circle would step to their right and introduce himself or herself to the new partner. Well, talk about complicated to explain. I started out by making everyone go in the hall with me because there just wasn’t room in the classroom. That was fine and it was actually a relief because the hallway was cool and the classroom was hot. Then I set up the circles, which involved physically moving some people around. I tried my very best to demonstrate what I wanted to have happen and it worked until they had to rotate. The rotation just led to chaos and they ended up randomly introducing themselves in what was more a lumpy mass than two organized circles. But really, they practiced, they were up and moving and they were out of the classroom for a bit, so in the end it wasn’t a total failure.
Continuing to fly by the seat of my pants (for my “lesson plan” had been a bit too much of a rough sketch to serve me beyond a very general idea of what I wanted to get done), we went back into the room and worked on, “I speak __________.” Seeing as all but one of my students are native Spanish speakers, it didn’t really last very long. Xue Liang got to say he speaks Chinese, and I got to say that I speak English and French. I also made everyone say that they speak Spanish and English, which caused them to all laugh a bit. I insisted that by being in my classroom they spoke English – at the very least five sentences. Feeling a little worried about filling the rest of class and being too boring/repetitive, I gave a five-minute break. Being the genius that I am, I had forgotten to tell them that they needed to stay in or right outside of my classroom so after making a huge deal of saying “FIVE MINUTES,” I ended up chasing several of them down the hall. One of the more advanced students said, “five minutes already!?” with a wink and a laugh. I was able to corral them back to the classroom area and show them the bathrooms that are closest to us.
My little forgetful moment reminded me that I needed to tell them a few basic rules/procedures, so after break I went over things like “stay here during break” and where the bathrooms are. I also took that time to go remind them that class takes place Tuesday and Thursday from 5:45-8:00PM. Wanting to make extra-sure that it was clear and also wanting to show them that I know how hard learning a new language is, I asked one of the guys in the front how to say Tuesday and Thursday in Spanish. They got a kick out of it. Then I turned to Xue Liang and in one of those moments where my memory kicks in and astounds me with what is tucked away in my brain, I said, “and in Chinese it’s xingxi . . .” and forget the last part. Well, let me tell you, they were all impressed that I knew that much and again we got some laughter in. Xue Liang reminded me of how to say it. Then I asked how to say 5:45 in Spanish – much harder than the days of the week. I finished up class by throwing the ball around in the circle and having everyone ask each other one question from the lesson. It seemed to go fairly well. As they exited I stood by the door and offered one last piece of candy to them all. I know there were a few women who were rather lost and having a really hard time, but my hope is that they felt welcomed, cared for and relaxed enough that they won’t be scared off.
Oh, the other interesting thing that happened is that the custodian popped in and hung out for a while. Last week he was talking with another ESL teacher who was helping with registration and who speaks Spanish. She told him that I’d be teaching level one and his eyebrows went up when she also told him that I don’t speak Spanish. He was very curious as to how I would pull that one off, and the other teacher simply said that we use a lot of gestures and pictures. He still seemed a bit skeptical and when he popped in today, I invited him to have a seat and to hang out if he could. He ended up staying for a little while and we made sure to include him. I get the impression that his English is a little better than most of the class, but it didn’t really matter much. Technically if he wants to be part of my class he would have to register. He also might actually be on the clock and therefore not really able to be in class, but I told him that he is always welcome to join us.
I guess what amazes, fascinates and excites me about teaching is how much goes into any given class. I suppose that is why I am so addicted to journaling about it and writing down all of these details, reflections, thoughts and stories that are most likely boring to anyone other than myself. I’m not trying to be conceited talking about how much we laughed or how successful various things where (really, there was a lot of chaos and a decent amount of disorganization in what happened in my class tonight). I’m just trying to sift through the layers of what happened/happens to figure out what works and how it works (was it successful in teaching them new vocab/expressions? was it successful in achieving my goal of welcoming my students? was there some other goal that I hadn’t consciously considered? etc.). I am sure that the majority of the class missed the majority of what I actually said tonight. But, that is part of immersion and of jumping into a new language. I get tomorrow off and then have to continue on with them Thursday. I hope they all come back.
Hm, last thing to note here is that I finally was able to submit my application to be a substitute teacher for the public schools so hopefully I’ll be getting called soon and finally get a foot in the door here, which more hopefully will lead to something a little more concrete, long-term.
9.6.08
I had a dream last night that I was at Lise and J’s apartment, helping put Lise to bed. In the dream I realized that I had been doing these for several days, commuting to their apartment in the evening to spend a little time with her and to make sure she got to bed safely. She must have been a little younger in the dream than she is in real life because in real life I never actually had to put her to bed (though I did have to nag her to turn her light off and to actually get some sleep). In the dream I was happy to be there with her and thinking about how I didn’t mind stopping by every evening even though I no longer lived there and was not paid for it. Then I started to think about how it took me an hour to get there and to worry that maybe it wasn’t sustainable because of the price of gas. Now I am awake and thinking about how wonderful it would be if Paris were only an hour’s commute from here. I would definitely spend the money to go all the time.
I am sure the reason this dream constructed itself last night is because I e-mailed both Lise and J two days ago to say hi and to give them a brief update on my life. I have e-mailed with Lise a few times since being back in the States but it was the first e-mail I sent to J. I seem to have a bad case of the “people hate me” complex and have convinced myself on some level that J didn’t really like me and kind of just put up with having me in her house for the year. She wrote back yesterday morning and said “nous sommes ravies d’avoir tes nouvelles,” which means that they were delighted to hear from me. Stupid complex, of course she doesn’t hate me. She sent a nice little note about their summer adventures and it was so clearly J that it made me smile. I heard back from Lise this morning. She’s starting high school this year and she told me all about it. Strange to think that one year ago I didn’t even know them. Also strange to think that I lived with them for a year and then one day just went home. I mean, the day was planned and all (duh), but I could so easily just disappear from their lives never to be heard from again.
I have gotten quite good at the disappearing act recently it seems. I guess growing up in the same town does not quite give you the opportunity to attempt it or to need it or to play around with it at all, and when I left for college I was still so attached to my past that I was terrified to let go of it and to lose it. These days I find a different kind of comfort in coming and going, losing touch, watching invisibly, forgetting, neglecting and erasing myself from places I’ve been and people I’ve known. Sometimes when I lose touch with someone for a while I fear that they are going to be upset with me, and so the longer I am out of touch, the scarier it is to try to reconnect. There are other people who don’t intimidate me that way and it’s always fun to send or receive a random e-mail reminding me that there are people all over this world with whom I’ve shared experiences and moments of my life. I am generally up front these days with people about the fact that I can be rather out of sight out of mind about relationships. It sounds awful when I put it down on paper like this. To give myself a little slack here, I will admit that it partly has to do with the fact that I am much better about living my life in the present these days rather than clinging to the comfort of moments already lived and therefore safe and understandable.
Sometimes I wonder if my newfound ability to disappear is indicative of an inability to connect, to trust, to truly open myself to other people. This thought sounds depressing and the fact that I can just as easily slip out of touch with my family and my best friends when I am not living in close proximity to them makes me think that I’m not entirely incapable of emotional relationships. I did realize the other day that it is easier for me to have love affairs with places than with people. It seems like a paradox for me because when I think of this past year in Paris, one of the big waves of thoughts that washes over me is, “Oh man I loved my third year students – they were just so awesome! Oh and my little tiny Thursday afternoon class . . . they were so much fun and so adorable and so great to work with! Well, all of my first year classes were adorable really! Damn and those second year kids I had second semester . . .” This line of thinking, of course, refers to groups of people and to students with whom I had a very particular relationship. I was a certain version of myself and I knew them in a very specific way. Granted I pushed and blurred the teacher-student line a bit and ended up hanging out with many of them outside of the classroom once I was done being their teacher. Even so, it was . . . particular.
Maybe what I love about places is that you can love them without worrying about whether or not they will love you back. Hell you don’t even have to worry about whether or not they will like you back. They just are. They are there and I can do with them whatever I want. It is up to me to figure them out; it is up to me to find my place inside of them or to pass through them. When I leave they won’t get mad if I don’t stay in touch and I can always go back without wondering if they want me back. Sure they will change over time, just like me, but I can still go back looking for the familiar. Places don’t move and I don’t have to keep track of where they are headed off to this year. Falling in love with a place allows me to be as much or as little of an egomaniac as I want. It allows me to be as much of an observer as I want and to choose my level of participation. The people who make up a place fascinate me, and being able to connect with them on whatever level I can certainly adds to the way I experience a place. But it’s not necessarily establishing long-lasting relationships with the people that makes the place what it means to me. In fact, sometimes it is the fleeting, brief interactions that get stored away as small pieces of what Paris or Dijon or Strasbourg or Santa Fe or Worcester is that are so precious to me.
In some ways I think that this theory is complete bullshit. It came into my head the other day and I’ve been teasing it out a bit. I love people too, but I guess maybe I am more guarded with people in general and that’s the difference. Cities don’t judge, cities can only break my heart as much as I let them, cities don’t care to know my secrets or stories but let me create more of them thanks to our relationships. Relationships with people are satisfying and one of my favorite activities is spending a long, leisurely, late night swapping stories and dreams and fantasies and ideas and secrets with another human being in the safety of the night. Relationships with places are easier to manage and simultaneously so much more and so much less about me. I remember that on the very first day of my “Paris in Arts and Lit” class my sophomore year in college the professor began simply by asking us to discuss what a big city means and what it feels like to be in a city. At the time my city experience was rather limited and I was stuck in the mindset of “have to impress professor, have to be smart, have to understand the material and get good grades,” so I was a little confused by the vagueness and openness of his question. I didn’t have much to say but I do remember how excited he got as he and some of the other students talked about feeling tiny and insignificant, feeling awed and dwarfed, feeling lost and found all at the same time. In some ways it seems a shame that I took that class before living in Paris, but actually I think it was a really great way to introduce me to the city and to get me primed for my then unknown to me rendez-vous with Paris. Huh, I went to Paris, the city of love and romance, and did indeed fall head over heels in love. My love affair was just with the city itself.
