Forward

My whole life is waiting right there, on the edge of this year.  For the fourth year in a row, I will be in Europe, but this time, I don’t see myself coming back.  I am preparing to leave my home, and it is hard.  Every time I think about it, I feel so young.  I am a child, not ready to leave.  But I’m not ready to stay here either.  I want to see.  I want to fly. 

I’ve decided I will have a cat, for my birthday next year.  At that point, I will have been accepted to teach in France (confidence is key?).  My cat and I will live a blissful life fueled by baguette and fresh milk. 

Tomorrow, the first step in this process.  Not really the first, rather a long line of steps come to completion.  I will go to Atlanta to acquire my student visa and file for my long stay permit.  Then, two months from now when I am back in France, back in Grenoble, I will continue the process.

I have a job application to finish, that I am confident of.  I have a cover letter and resumes to send out to other schools, and I see everything hiding just behind the new year.

A Reflection on Bread

What is French cuisine?  When I arrived in Paris last January, I was unable to tell.  For my first three days, I ate nothing by Middle Eastern food.  Halal food galore, crepe not so much.  My first Parisian dinner was a halal kebab, from a Pakistani restaurant.  Then I had a sandwich cleverly named “sandwich chicken”, once again from a halal restaurant.  Then I had falafel.  Even in my second week, I didn’t have the time for anything French. 

This ended in Montmartre, where I had a Nutella crepe.  Still, aside from this, the only French food that is constantly a part of my life is baguette, both in France and stateside.  I should have seen it coming, the lack of diversity in my Parisian diet.  It’s what normally happens. 

Afore mentioned crepe

In France, bread is more than something you buy in a store, it has life.  The people appreciate every simple nuance.  Food is an enjoyment, not sustenance.  A boulangerie on every corner, pâtisseries more numerous than McDonald’s, this is where it’s at.

Bread has life.  It is made new each day.  Fresh butter, real butter.  Its scent reaches out into the street, inviting every passerby into the arms of the warm boulangerie.  Baguette in hand, the walk home is made enjoyable by bites off the top.  This should not be done in any manner, but delicately, with attention paid to the crumbs that are sure to fall into your scarf. 

It’s easy to forget in the US, that your bread had a life before it became yours.  Here, in Paris, that life consisted of organic flour and hours of growth.  Simple ingredients becoming superb.

Bread, the center of every meal

In France, bread is part of the history.  It tells of revolution and religion.  My fixation on bread began my first time in Paris, and continues now.  It inspired a poem:

"Our Daily Bread:"

 Crusty, hard on the outside,

The baguette sits—on the counter—

In the bread basket.

Yesterday’s crumbs still on the table.

A new loaf, the top nibbled

            Off—customarily—on the walk

Home from the boulangerie.

This culture revolves around pain

It was the cause of revolution

Now, a day cannot pass sans pain

Donne-nous chaque jour notre pain quotidien

Every day an eating of bread,

Mass— an eating of the Christ-body

Religion, like bread—

Hard to understand.  Inside comforting

But if forgotten for too long—

useless.

A Poem Written on Thanksgiving

 A found poem, hidden among mounds of essays.

 I didn't have the best of Thanksgivings.  Even though I don't normally believe in such nonsense, there is something horrible about being alone, when you know your family is together, around a table of pumpkin pies.  Visiting the catacombs that day was even worse than being alone.  It was a realization of death and the macabre viewing that we tourists were doing, underneath the city, looking at the bones of forgotten people.

 

Death and hatred, on this, the day of Thanksgiving

 

The catacombs, lacking magic,

Embrace palpable darkness,

but oh light

is helium carrying me away to the top of cloudy Montmartre as seen through the clock (or cloak), until I'm floating above the table, covered in rice and turkey, goat meat and pumpkin pie bie bye

Quiche:

No shaking butter

No fresh gravy

No body

But the bones of the people who were to someone somewhen the most important, beautiful being alive crackled by the weight of a million needless hatreds crushing them, until even they, the generations of innocents refuse to help the gypsy woman off the RER, even their 1/2 baguette to the beggar who sits under the Star of Montparnasse.

Can you hear the pup weeping yet?

He joined the dead yesterday.