-3 Degrees Celsius.

9:15 on a winter Monday morning. I wonder what the Parisians are doing right now. I'm sure the city is mostly desolate, as many of its inhabitants have headed to the mountains for their winter ski trips. But I'm sure the natural sparkle of the city goes on. Family-owned shops are still opened, and sidewalks must be swept up so that les propriétaires des brasseries can begin a new week. And while the weather may be drastically different from the 95 degree sweltering heat I grew accustomed to, and while the clouds may never part during a winters' day, I'm sure that the radiance of the city's wonder will shine on nonetheless.

Madame Dru must still be sleeping, or either sitting in her kitchen smoking while enjoying a cup of steaming hot black English tea. A piece of toast will suffice until she heads off to work, grabbing a bit of quiche or salade on her way. I wonder what free-spirited ring she has selected for herself today. Perhaps the clear ring with all the rhinestones to compliment her black sarong, or maybe a swirled design to jazz up her simple yet purposeful Birkenstock sandals.


«Les Bagues des Rêves», Chez Rosine, 2010

Then again, this is Rosine we're talking about. Two days after Christmas, she probably hasn't seen her children much this fall, and she doesn't really enjoy working. So she's probably traveling, or sleeping in late-- enjoying a good existential piece of literature, sipping tea and/or Diet Coke.

And here I am, restless and neurotic in my home-home, at 2:15 in the morning. My mind wanders from street to street, trying to relive all the life-changing moments of my Parisian escapades. As frustrating and confusing the city was on a day-to-day basis, I couldn't help but fall in love with the wave of emotions. For such a seemingly reserved culture, French folks really wear their emotions on their sleeve. When they're mad, they show you...in hand gestures, in words, and in eyebrow scrunching. And when they're happy, they attempt to smile and usually kiss your cheeks like they've just seen a long-lost friend. But one thing you can count on with any strong emotion is the repetitiveness of their words. Usually in threesomes.

Très très trèèèès bien.

But why do these peculiar details intrigue me so? Why do I weep for the strange friends I made on the streets, in cafés, in dark bars and late-night streets? Why do I crave the scent of foreign second-hand smoke wafting through the streets accompanied by the distinct scent of freshly baked croissants and quiches? And why is it that I'd rather sit on a dirty metro for 30 minutes than in my own air-conditioned car during a traffic jam?

I of course have an answer for all of these questions, but am not brave enough to face it. So I lay awake sometimes for hours each night, thinking about my life in Paris this past summer, the friends I made out of complete strangers, and the odd sense of welcome I felt each night at la fontaine Saint Michel. And despite the fountain being a tourist hot-spot, I never felt like a tourist. I always received a warm greeting from the performers who recognized me, who understood that I could not pay them each night I watched their routines, but saw how much I valued their passion and talent.

So I lie here awake, feeling guilty for wishing to go back so soon in life. Guilty for not wishing to visit my own country in greater depth, fearing that if I don't go back now, I never will. Or worse, my friends and French family will have forgotten me by the time I manage to "get my act together" and return.

But somehow, the mere image of crowded outdoor cafés steaming with guests and their daily gossip brings me right back into the wave of French culture I dreamed about before even embarking on my adventure. My heart aches for so many things. And right now it aches most for my humble yet dark and twisty hippie of a host mother, the reassuring feeling of solitude, Centre Pompidou, a quietly messy salon, the shuffle of the metro, and a 4 euro bottle of Champagne to be shared among friends at sunrise for no particular reason other than the sheer factor of being young.

My heart aches, and it's an ache that hasn't faded. An ache that won't fade.


«The Best Chicken on a Stick Ever», Chez Rosine, 2010

The Shack

I'm not quite sure where to begin. This was more than just a book, it was an insightful legend to what it means to be a human being. I probably should have taken the religious aspects a little more seriously, but the advice that was given spoke to me in a much different way. And to be honest, the overtly religious aspects more often than not offended me a little bit. Mack, the protagonist of the novel, raised a question during one of the meals he shared with Papa (an African American female, who we know as 'God'). He inquired about which of the three, the Father, Son or the Spirit, were most powerful. He wanted to know if our version of their hierarchy was the reality of their relationship. And what Papa revealed to Mack was nothing he expected. She explained that they are a circle of relationship, not a chain of command.

Jesus chimed in and noted that humans created the hierarchical systems of everyday life. "Once you have a hierarchy, you need rules to protect and administer it, and then you need law and the enforcement of the rules, and you end up with some kind of chain of command or a system of order that destroys relationship rather than promotes it. You rarely see or experience relationship apart from power. Hierarchy imposes laws and rules and you end up missing the wonder of relationship..."

So then I started thinking about my relationships, and how I approach them all. In some, it is very evident which role I play in the pair. Whether I'm the strong one, the weak one, the smart one, the chaser, the chased, etc. And others, I find that there is that sense of equality that Papa, Sarayu and Jesus were attempting to teach Mack about throughout his journey. In some of my relationships, I do in fact feel like I am trapped by rules, following whatever the other person orders me to do. And in other relationships, I wonder why I feel like I am the responsible one, trying to hold the two of us together-- when in reality, if we just let each other live and understand we have differences, there would be no need to enforce rules on each other. There wouldn't be a need to fight for understanding or argue against each other's methods of thinking.

Sarayu, the personified spirit of God, further explains, "...broken humans center their lives around things that seem good to them but will neither fill them nor free them. They are addicted to power, or the illusion of security that power offers. When a disaster happens, those same people will turn against the false powers they trusted."

If I constantly live in this illusion of power and weakness, I don't think I'll ever truly be happy. If I continue to live in this world where I think certain people are better than me, while others rest below my 'status', then I will always see people in tiers. This kind of relates to something my Grandmother has been getting me to understand, I think.

She tells me to let go of anything and everything that is not related to Love, Truth, Beauty, & Knowing. It seems so simple in text, but when I try to apply the concepts, the challenge sets in. It's taken me years to figure out just what I find beautiful, and what I usually fall in love with. But knowing and trusting truth, that's a whole other type of game for me to try to play. But something this book has shown me, is that we can trust our gut...after it's been trained. We must train our minds, and our gut instincts to steer away from snap judgments and categorizing habits. Ultimately, it will be my gut who tells me whether or not something is true, but until I can definitively stay away from categorizing people and things, I won't be able to see the beauty and know that something is truly amazing, or truly worth my time. This stagnant routine of judgment I've created for myself closes in on my perception of life and clouds my ability to distinguish good from evil and truth from falsehood.

There were a number of themes brought up in this novel, and many I'm sure I will have to reevaluate for myself, but this one really stuck out to me. This theme of how we treat other humans really swept me away to another world-- a world where I could judge myself and how I judge other people. It seems so normal to shape people into certain types of human beings, to see them in one, maybe two ways, but nothing more. And here I always thought I had a pretty wide open perception of the world.

A little help from a wise woman.

"Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it toward others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will also be in our troubled world." --Etty Hillesum

Helping others find peace does not find me peace. And it doesn't find peace for the people I interact with on a daily basis. Instead of looking to fix everyone else's problems, why can't I just stop and look at the situations I'm creating? Why can't I look at the people I'm hurting, instead of the strangers who are hurting themselves and begging for help? I'm a troubled, reckless little girl with only a few vague directions in life. And I guess that's how most twenty-year olds are, but for some reason I find myself in this extreme version of that lifestyle. And I'm not at all sure how I ended up in this place, hurting the people I love the most and only feeling bitter and alone at the end of the day.

"It gets more confusing everyday. Sometimes it's heaven sent, then we head back to hell again." --John Legend

midday fight.

ever since i can remember i've fought for the underdog, given the sucker a second chance, and always tried to see the brighter side of things for everyone...but myself. and it's never really occurred to me that fighting for myself is just as important as fighting for the world. i never felt gipped or jaded by what has happened to me-- just hurt and confused.

but i do ignore myself a lot of the time. i do worry about others when i should be worrying about myself; and to be honest, i'm not entirely sure what it feels like to fight for myself anymore. i have these passive mannerisms that i use to imitate what fighting for myself would be like, but i haven't directly fought for myself in a very long time.

that's not to say that i just lay down and surrender to people, but when it comes to making decisions for myself, for what i want, and for what will make me (and sometimes only me) happy, i let a lot of opportunities pass me by.

there's a huge difference between being selfish and wanting what's best for yourself.

so maybe for now i can just work on fighting for myself, for what i believe in, and for what i need from life.

"They say time heals everything, but I'm still waiting."

“The fight for you is all I’ve ever known…so come home.”

Okay, so it’s been predominantly an internal fight—but a fight’s a fight, right? Too much rhyming for the mood I’m in.

People don’t give kids enough credit. They think that because their brains aren’t working at full capacity, they can’t interpret the world around them; they can’t understand fully what an adult says to them; they can’t understand the difference between being treated well and being neglected. For those naïve parents out there reading right now, you’ve been dead wrong since Day 1. Your kids notice anything and everything.

Kurt Vonnegut made an excellent point about children in saying, “They aren’t moving hand-carved animals on and off a Noah’s Ark, believe me. They are spying on real grownups all the time, learning what they fight about, what they’re greedy for, how they satisfy their greed, why and how they lie, what makes them go crazy, the different ways they go crazy, and so on” (Mother Night, 265).

Do you really think that shutting a wooden door mutes the fighting? Do you think kids don’t pick up on your hateful eyes reflecting in the rearview mirror? Did you miss those things as a kid? Because that would be the only way you could think your children wouldn’t notice the same treatments. How do you think they developed facial expressions? They don’t just come from nowhere, it’s called mimicking, and every species from the idiotic fruit fly to the great blue whale learns from what they observe.

But I digress. A little.

What I don’t understand is how parents can expect their kids to grow up sane and well rounded when they themselves don’t show the kids two cents worth of respect growing up. If you blow your kid off when they’re eight years old, what do you expect them to do when their eighteen years old? If you yell at them for speaking their minds at ten years old, do you expect them to want to open their mouths at twenty? Logic would tell you, no. But somehow, you expect different results.

When you say you’ll call, you better make damn sure you call. And if you don’t, don’t expect the same courtesy in return. Because trust me, people are only as disrespectful as the person who disrespected them the most as a child. There’s a little food for thought. Instead of focusing on how you treat people on a day-to-day basis, let’s focus on how we treat our youth…because then maybe, just maybe, we can breed a generation of kids who won’t want to cut each other’s throats, drop bombs on complete strangers, and who have the guts to call their fathers when they can’t attend a holiday dinner without fearing a confrontation from a couple hundred miles away.

But I digress again. A little. At least we’re making progress on the frustration front.

Ooh, maybe that could be the new nickname for the “War on Terrorism”. Sidenote: Now that we’ve destroyed a country from their infrastructure, out, how does that not make us the terrorists…since that’s what we were ‘trying’ to prevent them from doing in the first place?

My point is, kids internalize everything about their surroundings. If their environment is nurturing, they most likely won’t turn out to be baby-killing animal torturers….to a certain degree. Of course each person has the capability to be a good or bad person, but in general the way they are raised dramatically affects how they turn out as an adult.

“Hopefully the hate subsides and love can begin…and maybe I’ll just dream out loud until then.”

So, now that we’ve covered the nature versus nurture argument (a little), let us turn to the affects of such treatment. It’s really quite simple.

If you’re not around, and you don’t care…don’t expect them to be around and to care once they’re capable of making their own decisions. You only have so much time to repair the pain and fear you’ve instilled in a child’s eyes…before they’re so far jaded by the world they don’t know who they can rely on.

If you have daughters, you better hope they find a man who can give them what you didn’t and protect them from all you let them encounter. And if you have sons, you better hope they somehow learn how to treat the women they’re meant to protect.

Subliminal message: If you don’t want to be a parent, don’t have sex. Just whack it at your earliest convenience. Lord knows we don’t need any more bad parents running around with their children on monkey-backpack leashes.

Wow, lots of skeletons in my closet I guess.

New Beginnings

It would be an understatement to say that I can't count on two hands how many times I've searched for something new-- for how many times I've run away from what I have. And I don't necessarily only run away from things I'm scared of, upset about, or even angry at...I tend to run from things I grow tired of. It's not that I'm a bored person in general, because I can always find something to do, or something to entertain myself with, but I never feel satisfied with what is in front of me.

Some people call that ambition, or a taste for adventure, but sometimes I think of it as a curse. Never being fully satisfied with the life I have is very tiresome at times. Always wanting to help people, travel somewhere new, make more money, buy something else small that makes me happy-- it all just exhausts me.

And when I can get away from my life, I pretend that the few days I have to ignore reality will somehow fix every problem I'm faced with. Those few days where everyone wears a smile and gets along, will somehow finish my homework assignments, clear up my daddy issues, and deposit money into my bank account.

The Holiday season is approaching, but all I can think about is how I will do at the Orange and Green Meet...how I will do on my French paper that I haven't started...and how I will ever be able to clear my mind into enjoying the Holiday season.

Maybe, for the next two weeks I should just close my heart into a library book and hide it away on a shelf in the stacks. That way, I can get my work done and train the way I need to without having to stop and worry every three seconds if someone is trying to break into my house, if I paid my credit card bill, or my never-ending medical bill, or if my car has enough gas to get to class tomorrow. And maybe after finals are over, I'll be able to focus on what I actually care about, solving worldly issues and falling more in love with my best friend.

untitled.

it's silly, really. very, very...silly.
to let an absent human being
determine my level of happiness
it's silly. but very much my reality.
i've seeked approval and temporary
love from too many boys/guys/men
for it to not be my reality.
but every once in a while,
i still feel silly about it. very, very silly.
if i'm out of his mind, then
he can be out of mine.

(i think.) so silly.