October 21st catch up

Sitting out on my terace looking out through the thinning fig trees, over the brown and red tile roofs and various chimneys to an incredible patch of sky—the ony part in the region it seems that is not part of the otherwise uninterrupted grayish mass above—but that is changing as I speak—the grey mass with its cooler air is displacing this strangely warm afternoon. The mountains have lost their snow. The significance of this is that I can actually see the mountains in the distance. From my little terrace (or balcony) I can see the Jura mountain range that ridges its way through Switzerland(and parts of france I think). It is not too long in comparison to others but it is gentle and sloaping at this distance and there is just enough haze between me and it that it looks like a painting- edges crisply defined—more of a sillouet than an actual massive geological formation. The light falling onto the mountins makes them look sort of orangy-brown in patches. It a striking sight agains the blue sky, with bits of white and grey underbellied clouds drifting through. These mountains are not as accessible as the Causses near C. I have made coffee with cinnamon in it and I am enjoying listening to the birds. The surprise and delight of the first time I drank the cinnamon infused coffee in our apartment (the first time I believed in the possibility of making good coffee in the percolator) that time you came to visit is always contained in these decidedly gourmet cups of coffee, so is the company we kept that day. I have been kind of withdrawn since the rainy wheatehr arrived. I have also started to plateau in my (cough cough) jobperformance (and is it ever a performance) —I need to come up with things to keep me and them interested. Action words when we return from the break I think. (infusing Action words into my daily life could be a good idea…to run, to move… although I think I almost have enough of that right now). I am sitting out here writing this because it has been so rainy and don’t know when I will get another opportunity, but really I should be …well there is always a should be…. None of this is really what I want to say.

i can handle this...

A Picture Share!
Originally uploaded by doctor paradox.

I have a home. I live behind one of my collegues homes in a small appartment built for thier mothers who come to visit from the south. I will have to leave for 10 days in December and 10 days for Toussaint (which starts next week)and that is just fine with me. my home looks out over a garden that still has tomatoes and a lone hanging eggplant in the large square garden beloz my little `terrace` and when the wheather clears and the sun sets I see a marvelous shilouett of the mountains I passed on my way out of the region on my way south. I only discovered this yesterday evening . It is very cold here but my house has heating and my bed is comfortable. I left H`s on the 12th, exactly one month after having arrived in France. After an interesting boarding-in-the-living room experience all I have wanted was to be alone. Today however with the grey over cast and my chapped hands and soare bum (my beloved bike seat is still too high,alas) i cast my thoughts to montreal and remember cold fall walks. The sharp smell of fall mulching leaves and Winter cold mingled with grey sky had me wandering into the dorways stairs and kitchesns of my memory... I made hot chocolate and ate bread and cheese and Doux butter (un salted) and dipped my bread in my hotchocolate and invited you all in. times up...so zithlove from me.

October 12th catch up

-made my bed, sheets, blanket. Always bring something to sink into (pillow) or lanket…. Pictures!!!
Tuesday October 12th

First Night in My Place> even though I am weary of the honey-moon period, tonight I took a bath in a yellow tiled bathroom, with wooden paneling and white lighting and a curved roof painted white I played music and washed my hair. I discovered today that I hadn’t washed my hair in a few days. For all my searching to be With people, all I want is to settle in, and I think that will always take alone time. I have after all taken care of myself alone for years. I will not fade or crumble if no one knows I’m here. I feel myself slowly entering into another head space. I love my life. I look forward to waking up in the morning and seeing what it feels like and looks like. I look forward to buying coffee and bread and sitting on my terrace and looking out at the garden. So much so that I will fore-fit sleep. I am so ready for this. Even if the first two weeks are temporary I don’t care. I feel that I don’t care right this second, at least. I am looking forward to vacationing around/away, I am also looking forward to returning and settling in. so exciting. I love the garden down stairs, I love the 4 and2year old that live in the house of my collegue and land lord. I love my green bike that will be stationed in the rooms below this apartment. I love looking at the mountain as I ride my bike. I love the colour of the river. I love that today I reminded myself of myself. There was a woman walking with bags I asked her if she needed help. G is originally from Cameroon, and lives with her family in Geneva. Buying groceries is cheeper on the French side of the border, even if you have to walk over 20-30minutes with arms loaded and bags stretching out at their handles. I helped G carry bags to the border half carrying half leaning them on my bike- eventually we traded. At the frontiere or Douaine G kindly helped me figure out that no one cares that I have a work visa if I don’t intend to work anywhere else. I can leave france is what that means. Barcelona…Geneva…the world is exciting> this is such a privilege. I did a singing session called Circle-Songs with H. Weird that I was the youngest in the room but you wouldn’t necessarily know, or I didn’t necessarily feel it. Alright im faling the sleep. I am looking forward to this being surprisingly goood but I am going to hang onto a healthy dose of skepticism. It could be really lonely, but so will any place.


Rx,

confusion

confusion
Originally uploaded by itsnihal.

Behind me a teacher is speaking with a students parent. Today one of my english classes began with a lesson in a cassual usage of a french inversion of Juif. I got the gist of most of it. I had no problem with this lesson replacing my first 10 minutes of teaching time --it is worth more than the lessons i give. Give me an A. Give me an R for Rqcism and a P for priority Schools. Last week there was graffiti on my primary school wall that educated me in the equivalent of Fuck in French follozed by other slanderous verbal gesticulations regarding those of arab origins. 3days. Day 3, when i returned to the school to find the graffiti sitll hanging out with no comment other than the free hand scrawled defence declaring the long life of islamic countries, i asked the principle if i could borrow a felt marker to colour it out at least. He had called the city to clean it up. I dont think i would have left it there naked raw and biting. The thing with hatred on q primary school wall or anywhere is that it gets under your skin. I wish that the pink skin of the outer wall of my school wouldnt buble forth tuch toxin. They reflect the neighbourhood challenge whihch is apparently much less of a problem than the Bonlieux sourrounding paris. I am reminded every day that I am a breath in the world. may it count for something.

I have managed to surround myself with some friends. Well, i dont know when people get to be friends, but i think when people are tossed into a new place there is a bond created by the necessity that there is no one else. And so long as they dont disturb you wholy, and if youre lucky they surprise you pleasantly, then you hang on. The other language assistants fit mostly into the latter category; and actually most people i have met fit into the latter category so far. Except for one huge blaring smudge of an encounter that still leaves me a little nervous in the pit of my stomach. I'm still digesting that experience; but i prefer to maschinate on the recent good encounters that lead to among other things a walk in the Closer-to-the-mountains Than I am Now walk-- mont Blanc was hidden by beautiful Cumulus clouds (i dont actually remember the types of clouds; but what Cumulus cloud sounds like is the kind of cloud that was hnging out and reflecting sunlight. The mountains around are still striking. I also had the opportunity to collect Noix/chest nuts and noisettes:hazelnuts. I love collecting things i can eat later, unbelievable satisfaction. Oh there was a chemin de Sanglier here too (c.r.)There is hazelnut spread in the cupboard right now that belonds to H. It may have to stay there when i leave. oh yes. I didnt quite last a month. I dont knoz if i feel settled; it comes in waves. Waves that are trained by other thoughts that ride the crest of my memory and suddenly find my blank gaze staring out a balcony window at green out door furniture-- or mountains-that-are-really-plateaus. with a calm garden hushed beloz a terrace. I want to stop and be alone. After all this. I want to never be alone and carry my loves with me. I want to never be alone. I want this spinning feeling to settle into something. I need a Chez Moi in every sense. Until then, well be learning fruits and reviewing questions. A plus, R

somewhere in the middle of Something

Desert dance
Originally uploaded by Mme Wuji.

Im definitely a little here and a little there but i am comfortable with that for now (as comfortable as sitting on a fence is...) I have met the other language assistants at the lycee (hs level) they are hillarious. They also have housing so when i do go a little fou, which i actually think is inevitable in my current living situation (i will either go fou or age 25 years: one year of ageing at a time stresses me out enough...imagine.) Alternatively, i have a bike which i love love love (yes it is a material posession that i adore)--and it comes with a story which will be forth comming.
I also have sweated out the sugar and salt i have unhealthily been piling in my body by boxing (yes i took a French style Boxing class; in french. I wore red boxing gloves and literally dripped sweat. it was great.) Following that i replaced the toxins i had sweated out with some home grown fun ;) and a metal/electro concert--except the place was kind of empty, but my company was super into music and so i was educated about it and preped so it was still fun; it also helped that i enjoyed it along with some beer to replace what ever toxins hadnt been adequately replaced by midnight and jumped around a bit with my backpack on-- i didnt know where id be sleeping, and; en fait, i ended up sleeping in The House That Is Not Mine; but that is supper welcoming to my transient self so it feels like home enough. It is all about the people. That said I have recently failed in my Colocation (or roommate:boarding) duties and forgot to pick up lettuce; creme and more tragically bread. That last may have some reprecussions, but i havent been back to H's yet so i dont know. Oh the guilt of responsibility to others. But; on the very bright other hand, there are others. A plus, Rox.
ps listened to the eagles today and thought of you.

October 5th catch up

Strands of harp and pixie music strain its way through my speakers. I am eating decadent vanilla pudding sitting on the bed I sleep on. I sleep ontop of the yellow cover rolled into my sheets and sleeping bag (my portable home) because I don’t know the last time it was washed. This permanent bed covering is some sort of mustard yellow courduroy with small half-inch long tassels running along one side. It also suggests its origins as a curtain by the pleats on the Other end (the end I tuck into the other mattress that lies against the wall like a couch back- it is for extra guests and it is apparently very heavy but comfortable). H has already said that my friend from millau can stay on that mattress since it is more comfortable than the other temporary mattresses, which hence forth I will call the Bathroom or Kitchen mattresses (if you are reading this and feel a little dubious about the nature of the origine of these names, it has to do where they spend most of their time in relation to my life: the kitchen floor where I spent my first nights here in Annemasse was spent on these body forming mattresses, and when not there or conforming to some other transient visitor’s body, it is stored in the crevice at the back of the toilet room (because literally the BATH room is another room all together). M asked me to keep a journal of all the methods of flushing in European toilets—“an alternative look at the other wise boring Northamerican commode we use every day” or something of the sort. Actually too cute. Not quite as (cough, cough) cultured as the cheese journal but alike in taking heed of the details. (when you think cheese journal, feel welcome to attach it to a (yet to be mentioned) protractor on the lemon pie in Paris incident, heheheh)

I have about 40 minutes to get to my next school, but in the meantime let me take you on a little morning walk (through my thoughts): Today I left The House That Is Not Mine in Ambilly where I slept again on a fabulous bed, again. This house is the one filled with the potential roommates I almost lived with but couldn’t afford to, and it is a place where although I feel lonltey and some times like a social outcast because I just don’t have the comprehension, the two people that Would Have Been My Roommates are super kind and teach me vocabulary regarding growing a special kind of plant in Piccardy... The house is dominated by people from the North of France. MA (one of the WHBMR)’s mother was born in Douay (sp?).

Dear K. Yesterday H said that the Johanna Newsom song I was playing reminded her of a cat… I thought of a particular pixie and chou. How are you?

…walking lets me chew on my thoughts.
5 minutes: the time it took for me to get from THTINM to the main road called “Route de Geneve”. The clouds were pink on top with shades of shadow-silver, and glowed as though from the inside against the bleary eyed sky. I had a great cup of coffee this morning. I was not bleary eyed. Queasy stomached, but not bleary eyed. The clouds contain a quality of light I have seen in the paintings by a Dutch painter… the one who painted the girl with the pearl earring. I just breathed it in. I have to say that I still cant put my finger on this town. I can say how ever that I am infatuated by the combination of cement sided houses in various washes of muted colours with wooden painted shudders with cross pained windows and flower boxes and curtains and ceramic tile roofing and most especially the way the ceramic/Spanish tiled roofs look in just the right morning or evening yellow/white light with the stone and cement globbed chimneys that seem to have a different conversation along this route than the architecture of other parts of the city. The chimneys and rooftops hang around as though they are older…grandparents of the mid air range that they occupy here. Older and have a sense of humour. Even more fascinating is the way they talk to the various antennae bent at various awkward angles trying to get the best of the signals in this basin, like modern dance on the roof tops. They make me laugh. Who knew there would be such humour on the rooftops. The shades of oranges, greens, grays, sky and purple haze that waft from the houses, cement walls, roof tops and jardins of these streets in the morning light seemed to skim the cloudiness left in my head. This is a beautiful morning---“Ha!” sparks through my mind as I catch a glimpse of another chimney and antennae conversation.

15 minutes: the time it takes to walk from The House That Is Not Mine (but would have been) to reach my first school of this morning, where I will be teaching today. The tinge of regret isn’t gone yet (for the House That Is Not Mine and the memories that might have spun from it), but I am relaxing into the feeling, trying to see if I cant let it fall away and be enlightened by what lies on the other side of the occasional waves of disappointment and lonliness.

I calculate in my head roughly. I mean I calculate roughly that it is early and you are sleeping. I wonder if the sky is burning trough its indigo winter-night-like starry sky, to its beautiful 5 am splendor. It is too much to think about the light particles weaving and wavering their way through the atmosphere, piercing yet another layer of air, cloud…sending into the atmosphere just That kind of light that goes straight to my middle and opens me up.

The sky line of Mtl just this side of the overpass,
is back lit by the lightening morning.
Hope you have a good day.
I have a fantastic cup of vanilla Yoghurt to finish. Thanks for introducing me to it. Food is like having you here. Pies, vanilla yoghurt, chickpea curry, chocolate croissants, coffee. I eat half to nourish myself half to nourish my memory and warm myself when the chill of away kicks in. You know I still can’t remember the recipe for That Great Soup… the one that was all puree because you were just getting ready to get well again. I thought I would make a recipe book and include it. Oh, and I added fresh ginger and walnuts to the apple pie recipe.

in the mean time

hum; What exctly is the meantime between France and mid to eastern Canada ( not including beloved Nfld). Im sure the answer will have something to do with time marked in quantities of cheese eaten in home regions vs imported; the time it takes bread to rise and be exchanged for a Euro and an accent that gets laughs and chicanrie thrown my wy often. I didnt take Stats for a reason. Currently i am exiled from my newest temporary home where i have graduated from matress on the kitchen floor to matress on wooden crate-things in piano/living room. Rents here are rediculous but my currentl home is an energy and water conserving center of action. Also soon to be the centre of some sort of special ami action so hence my exiled state. once again i have found myself with only the things in the bag on my back and eating home toasted almonds. time is up

in the mean time