So, that's what happened. I started getting so wrapped up in my life that I stopped reflecting on it. I stopped noticing the differences between Paris and home, in it's many American forms and I just starting zipping through my days and letting them vanish without a trace, without a single memorable moment sans getting to page 3 of my dissertation or finishing my grammar work à l'heure. Il faut ce ça cesse, maintenant.
I have two weeks left in Paris, two weeks left in this city that for years and years has been my ideal, like Oz or some fabricated never never land to which I escape in all my dreams and fantasies. It still is. Only now I am on the otherside of the Looking Glass, watching life pass at it's maddening pace on the other side of the ocean and I am yearning to get back, to jump in, to start again. I want internet all the time and a cell phone that works, I want to grocery shop on Sunday. I want to be surrounded by people who wear deoderant not just for special occassions and to be in a lit class where I can revel in the poetry and construction of the words.
But at the same time, I can't imaging being anywhere else. Nowhere else but Paris. I came here to find myself, I think, to recover the part of me that has been lying in wait for me to return. A part of my soul has been hiding out in a cafe somewhere and when I pack my bags to come home, that little part of me will remain. I'm coming to see now that I will never be able to tear myself from Paris, but that I also can't stay here forever. I have an enormous amout of work to do before I leave and even more grueling tasks which await me state-side. I need to take my life off of pause and to launch myself into the future.
My feet at this very moment are touching the ground in Paris, I am breathing Parisian air, and typing on Parisian keys. I am here. For today and for fourteen tommorrows. And I'll never really dit au revoir.
Vive la France
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