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.