Fools Rush In

            Spring has ( not ) sprung. Paris was blanketed yesterday under a sheet of grey clouds that dropped, at one point in the afternoon, while I was working in the 8th, small snow flakes from the sky. This is tourist season? It is freakishly cold.

           Yesteryday, despite this cold, I braved the Trocadéro in the early evening. I had Berkeley friends, older alumni I know, in town, and was meeting them for wandering and dinner, with a rendez-vous at the vista point. They had also said we should talk about my latest postings involving FWB ( they are readers and know who they are, hello!), so I was interested to hear what they had to say.

            Dinner was at a delicious place in the 6th on rue de Seine, a restaurant run by the folks at Cosi, named Semilla. Heaven on a plate, in a nutshell. We got to talking, laughing, and generally having a good time, and then these folks told it like it is. I like it when people tell it like it is. Life is too short to skirt around the bush, to not say what you think and how you feel. I appreciate them for their insight and their honesty. Their basic gist was this: that I had really come on strong with the FWB and that I had probably scared him off, once in November after my first weekend there, and another in January.


              In retrospect, I can't say they're entirely wrong. 

              Fools rush in.

*  *   * 

           In The Great Gatsby, Daisy exclaims about her daughter that ¨I hope she’ll be a fool

that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.¨

                     I don't want to be a little fool. But it is true that I probably was one. I know about myself that I am intense, unbridled, passionate about everything I invest in, or that I chose to invest in, whether it be a project or a marathon or a love interest. 

                     And my intensity scares people. 

                     I seem to have the opposite problem of most people my age, which is not that I am afraid of commitment ( and not just in the romantic context, but with even opportunites or getting a job done...). If I chose to take something on or commit myself to something, I will see it through, one hundred and fifty percent. I am not a flaker and I do not pose les lapins. Loyal beyond loyal. 

                      In the romantic realm, this translates to hyper fixation and hyper fidelity. I wouldn't dare look at another person if I'm seeing someone. And it is true that I was a fool. 

                       In retrospect, maybe this whole FWB blowing up was my fault. 

                       Or at least a large portion of it. 

                      Now I am thinking about how I was maybe too glued to him, maybe shouldn't have sent a thank you card after the time I spent in the South, maybe it was too much. Maybe I shouldn't have told him I was willing to make it work because I thought we were worth it, though that was sincere. I don't believe in not saying how you feel, life is too short, you never know what will happen. Maybe it was too early to say that to him when he wanted to cut the cord and let me loose. 

                      Maybe I shouldn't even have responded to his email this past week about his job.  It reminded me about how when I ignored him for a few weeks last summer, when he invited me down South the first time, he tried calling me nonstop and emailing. Maybe I need to play it cool, keep my reserve, not tell people how I feel in this crazy game we all call dating. I am not so sure anymore. 

                      All I know is that what happened is what happened and I deleted his email and am not going to contact him anymore. 

                      Fools rush in. 

Ne te prends pas la tête

             Distraction. A simple, simple, three syllable word for what I attempt to do when I want to forget. Often, this takes the form of me throwing myself into my work with 150 percent, and it is also how I often channel my heart ache and anger when I am upset. When I was bit younger, my perfectionist drive was a perfect distraction. Upset? Climb into the Ivory Tower. Lock yourself away in your books and distract yourself. Sad? Angry? Lock yourself away in the Tower, it's a safe place.

              Boy broke your heart?

              Go work two jobs. Add a trial period at a possible third and a Masters degree.

              Distract yourself.

              Forget.

              OK.

              And go.

             There is a weakness to this equation: the distraction method works if and only IF said cause of heart ache leaves you be, drops off the face of the planet, and you don't ever hear from him again. Then, the distract-and-forget method works quite, quite well.


               It was working VERY WELL for me. I was forgetting quite nicely, with the exception of occasionally passages by wine shops that reminded me of the FWB, or of my random random streak of missing him.

               I had even gotten to the angry stage.

               The ¨why the EFF did you do THAT?¨ stage where I convinced myself of his selfishness and his immaturity. The part where I figured he needs a lot more time than I thought to grow up and I need a grown up and not a capricious boy. The part where I swallowed the pride pill and said to myself that he just wasn't that into me because if he had been he would have made it work. The bitter, bitter bitter angry part of me that was upset for feeling used and then so hurt by him going RADIO SILENT after my birthday.

                And then the part where I was starting to tell myself to forget and move on, because he is clearly not worth my time and he isn't even going to contact me again anyway. The part where I can, with some difficulty, acknowledge that I deserve better and am worth more.

                That's where I was until Tuesday.

*  *  * 

               I am fighting internally not to me prendre la tête, which literally means to give myself a headache, but more closely means not to get worked up over this. In the grand scope of things, it is probably very small and stupid and insignificant. And I'm spending way too much time dwelling on it. 

               I can't help but get upset by him emailing me randomly though, most because I don't know what he wants from me. 

               You don't just send cut and dry emails out of the blue after two months of radio silence without some sort of agenda behind it. The basic gist is this: ¨I am emailing you because I want you to know I have a job and it is in France and therefore I am not leaving the country.¨

               But why does that matter? Why does that matter anymore? Why does it matter when you told me that you couldn't juggle the distance and job search and me? Why do you think I would care? 

             Why does it matter when I put myself out on a limb for you and took the risk of telling you I wanted to make it work because I thought you were worth it and what we had is not something easy to find? And then you basically threw that back in my face and broke my heart? 

               Do you think I am ever going to trust you again and believe you ever could and ever would want to do distance again? 

                I am in the middle de me prendre la tête. 

                This is what happens when you can forget what someone said, and what someone did, but you realize you can't forget the way they made you feel. 

                Make it stop.

*  *  * 

              I responded to the FWB and told him I was very happy for him. And then, very dryly, the same way he told me in January, I added: ¨Bonne continuation.¨

              Because I don't know if I will ever see you again.

             I have three jobs for another week and a half.

             Hopefully I will be distracted enough. 

                

               

Just What's A Girl To Do...With these Frenchies!?

                  Last night I got dinner with some Berkeley friends who were in town. Adorable younglings who were freshmen when I was a senior. I was waiting for them at Odéon at 19h30 when the time passed to 19h40. The air was nippy and I curled closer into my coat and scarf.

                  Then I felt a hand on the back of my hood.

                  A little freaked out and assuming it would be one of my Berkeley freshies, I turned around to see a smiling E half laughing half grinning. We had gotten drinks after my hell day of work with his friends on Saturday night, so it hadn't been that long since I'd seen him.

                  ¨I just got out of a movie and I was thinking of calling you,¨ he chuckled. ¨Funny that I run into you here.¨

                  Funny? Rather freaky if you ask me, but I'll run with it. He then cracked a joke about being a stalker and proposed we grab a quick coffee while I waited for my Berkeley Youngins to show up. It was roughly 19h45 and they were no where to be seen. I chatted with him but said no to coffee, I was afraid I would miss them if I moved and had no way of contacting them. They showed up about five minutes later and we parted ways. He is leaving today to see his family in Bordeaux.

                    What is a girl to do with these Frenchies?

* * *

                     It's second day of second week of work at trial period job with visa. And today, rather conveniently since I am training in the planning department, I knew that hottie half-American half-French soccer playing F would be doing a morning intensive in the office. I planned outfit accordingly. Oh shit, I am a girl. I even whipped out light makeup and the red Dior lipstick so I would feel attractive. It's amazing what a small stupid boost that provides sometimes!

                      I happily walked in the door at 9 am and he was at the water cooler grabbing a drink. I didn't recognize him in his tie at first, but turned to see him in the eyes.

                      And then I happily noted that I managed to turn his head.

                      We'll see where this goes....Just what's a girl to do?

*  *  *

                      Even more strangely, I am on my lunch break and finally checked my personal e-mail.

                      I just got one.

                     From the FWB.

                    Telling me he just got hired full time IN FRANCE and is therefore not leaving the country.

                   And that he figures I am near the end of my nannying and that he hopes all is well.

                   I told my possible future French colleague in planning here at trial job about this.

                   ¨ He's still thinking about you then,¨ she said matter of factly.

                    Which is rather funny, because I have been missing him like mad this past week, for no stupid reason at all, but with no contact between us. I have truly really been missing him. And thinking about him.

                  And now I don't know what to think about this?

                  Can somebody translate what this means from boy to girl, from French to American, for me?

                 JUST WHAT is a girl to DO with this one? Just what does he want from me? Why does he feel the need to tell me about this job after cutting me off entirely and leaving and breaking my heart in January?

                 Why does he feel the need to tell me this after telling me that in the coming months he wouldn't be able to juggle seeing me and finding a job and with all his projects?

                 Why?

                  I don't know whether I want to cry right now or smile or just laugh at the insanity that is this universe. Or maybe all three of the above.

                  I have my stomach in knots.

                  I don't know what to do or think anymore.

                  Just WHAT DOES a girl DO with these Frenchies? Or in particular, THIS FRENCHIE?



The Promise of Spring

       Spring is on its way in Paris. The days are longer and the the snow that dropped from the sky has turned into rain. I have less than two months left as a nanny and I couldn't be happier. I, however, am currently working two jobs, have a trial period at a third job with a visa, and am at the tail end of my Masters and, needless to say so, am rather sleepless. Oh bloody hell, somebody help me now!

        With this said, you can all imagine that I don't have much time to date, much less glance, at a member of the male species. I've been salsa'ing every now and then with E, but he once again hurt his knee, probably fractured it, skiing again a few weeks ago.

         ¨ No more sport for you!¨ I teased him at dinner the other night. He was asking about how my trial period was going.

          ¨Well,¨ I replied, and smiled.

          I genuinely like the work I would be doing, and I love the girls I'd be working with. It's a female dominated office, though most of the language teachers at this particular language school are male.

           One of these individuals I happened to meet on Tuesday. I was helping out the Admin staff when he waltzed into the doorway and started chatting with S, who like me, was entering data and organizing files. In slacks, a button down, a cleany placed tie. Blue eyes, luminous smile.

           ¨Hi, are you new?¨ he held out his hand to shake mine. ¨I'm F.¨

           ¨Lindsay. Training to possibly take over B's spot in planning.¨

           ¨Welcome,¨ he added. ¨ This is a good place to work. I think you'll like it.¨

           Oh, I think I'll like it all right if you work here!

           I then started chatting with S about F.

          ¨Is he French? His English is so good!¨ I asked.

          ¨No, he's like, half American half French. His dad is French or something like that. He has that American boy charm.¨

           We proceeded to talk about how we both have a mutual distaste for American men. They by and large seem to lack refinement, for a better lack of precision. Forgive me for stereotyping. It is also just quite possible I haven't met the right American yet. Who the hell knows?

            This one though, ladies and gents, was a hybrid. A rare, rare, rare occurence indeed. I got excited. I got more excited thinking about his pretty pair of eyes.  Later that night, armed with my entire roster of teaching staff, I went about stalking said fellow. Grew up in Socal. Soccer player. Semi-pro. 6'1 and 175. DF. Teaches English and plays for a team in Ile-de-France...

               Oh please do not turn out to be some cocky jackass full of yourself athlete.

               It's my third day here at trial period, and he is no where he to be seen. I don't know when I'll run into him again. But I sure hope that I do...

                We shall see what spring will bring.
          

The Other Love of My Life

                     As I've sat tucked away this past week in a châlet in Megève, I've been doing what I do best in my nannying down time: reading. This week, in particular, my reading has been Maurice Blanchot's L'espace littéraire, which is essentially a critical essay on the art of writing and what the boundaries of the literary space are--what makes it, what its demands are, the relationship writing has in an artist's life in the realms of solitude and death, and just how closely they are related.  I also tackled an anthology of critical theory of poetry, several articles on narratology (thank you LORD for Hayden White) and, to my delight, stumbled upon a compilation of Fitzgerald short works.

                    Talk about bibliomancy.

*  *  * 

                   At a time in my life where I am not seeing anyone and have no prospects, it has been rather lovely to have free space for the smoke and dust to clear so I can see what matters most. I have been conjured from the dead realm where I try and forget what has been my siren song since I was very, very young: writing.

                   It was in reading Blanchot and his case study of Kafka, particularly Kafka's struggle to let himself be a writer, the difficulty of releasing the ¨I¨ and the ego, of the self-effacement necessary for the writer, to speak about the ¨he¨ or ¨she¨ or ¨they¨ that it all started to come into high definition lucidity for me. The absolute and sheer brutality of the solitude the writer needs to disappear, to vanish into his art and let himself become a vehicle for something else and someone other. How this, in a way, his a death, a willful suicide the writer commits for his art, and how in many ways, this takes the form of a written journal: many a famous writer has kept a personal journal, as if this were an anchor to his former self, the self that exists in non-existence, so the artist will not forget who he is when he resurfaces and is not simply a host to something higher.

                  Writing is the other love of my life. I have been scribbling stories since I was in the fourth grade, conjuring my own neologisms into my invented universes. By the time I reached sixth grade I was dabbling in poetry, and by 7th and 8th I had progressed to novellas. At 15, I had written a short novel, sought agents, nearly had one, but was all around rejected. Rejected, but told I had talent and to keep at it and once day I would be published.

                  My relationship with writing has been rocky ever since. School demands have often forced me to put my art on the back burner. But I am at a point where I am tired, utterly exhausted, of analyzing other people's art and work. I do not simply want to sit on the side line and analyse: I WANT TO WRITE DAMMIT.

*  *  *

                  Accomplished writers will often say that a first novel is largely autobiographical and this has to be written out of one's system. After deep grounding in mimetic theory (thank you Aristotle and Eric Auerbach), I understand why this is true and am glad to have done it at fifteen.

                The one upside of having such good academic training in my field is that I have an insane three hundred and sixty degree view, inside and out, of just how this thing called literature works. I have felt the demon tug of being dragged, tooth and nail, to the paper and the pen as the trance like force of inspiration overtakes me, screaming screaming screaming screaming until I wield. It is one thing to read Plato's Ion and another thing to know, instinctively and deep in your gut, to the point where it raises the hair on your arms, what he's talking about.

                 This love I have for literature and for writing is not my choice: it is unconditional, woven into my DNA. It is the other love of my love, and I suspect it has drawn me to a country with a sacred respect for the writer and language.

                  It was after reading an article, Louis Mink's, in fact, on how narrative is a cognitive human device that we use to make sense of our world and construct meaning, that I began to construct one of my own, another piece of my own story: I am a little girl whose imagination was so big it spilled onto the page and into novels as she grew, it was put on hold as she went through high school and college, and now as she looks back she knows: this is what she is meant to do. She has been a creator, an imitator, a dreamer, for too long and with too much investment to turn back from it now. The word, the written word, is her stormy lover who throw her into tempestuous fits of passion and then she scorns him, leaves him jilted, comes clawing back.

*  *  * 

                    I am a bit like Henry James. Maybe not as scandalous, but as raging in the sense that my emotions, the powerful and torrent waves that wash over me, the result of failed relationships, of anger, of sadness, fuel everything I write. I write better when I am jilted, bewitched, irrational. It bleeds out of me like a swan song as I wilt into suicide.

*  *  * 

                    My boss's brother is a player. One who has attempted hitting on me more than once. Not going to ever happen. But I am always curious as to what he reads. On his bedstand this trip is a copy of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet. It made me smile. As if the universe were speaking to me. 

*  *  * 

                      Once Kafka got there, he became nothing other than literary. Unapologetically literary. Several failed engagements later, he committed his life to writing. So I ask myself: what sacrifices are going to be necessary for this love of my life? Will finding a significant other and writing be incompatible? Are they incompatible? 

                      I don't know. All I know is that writing is the other, very powerful, love of my life. 

                 
             

Knowing What You Want

               Monday was gloomy and I couldn't help but feel pensive and a bit philosophical as I walked through the odd mix of February slush and rain to meet R for our weekly apéro near Bastille.  I gave up walking the whole way, hopped onto line 87, descended near Sully-Morland, and traipsed up the boulevard Henri IV missing the sun and warmer winter of California.

               In several days I leave for two weeks of nanny vacation duty to the Alps (round three of four! and possibly my last vacation with these folks! HALLELUJAH!) and the French countryside and R will leave to the States to go home and see her family.

*  *  *

                I am not currently seeing anyone, and I really like it that way for now. I have, however, restarted Salsa lessons with E, which has been fun. Punches me some what in the lonely portion of my psyche, but reminds me thoroughly that it is better to have none than to have the wrong one.

* * * 

                  In the rush and thunder that is my life, I started this post over a week ago, put it on pause with the intention to return to it, and then left it scorned like a lover. So here I am, at eleven p.m. on a frosty Megève night in a châlet that costs 15,000 euro a week to rent on this insanely and inanely boring round of nanny duty ready to rip my hair out. 

                   Here on this vacation is the elder brother of my boss, older by a mere two years, and a serial monogamist at that. A serial, unfaithful, monogamist who is on the continual hunt for the next good looking woman of any age older than illegal. This morning at breakfast my two girl kiddos were asking their mother if their ton ton had met his new amoureuse yet. Let me explain: this man has a long history of meeting women on Facebook only to finally meet them in reality and have it blow up in his face. This was apparently the case with an Italienne this past fall. I wanted to spit out my orange juice and laugh. He's forty and afraid of commitment, it seems.

                     I don't see it as that. I see it instead as not knowing what the hell he wants. But how the hell do we ever KNOW what we want? Even when it comes down to stuff as stupid and simple as a flavor of icecream?? What part of our brains our our beings screams out ¨THAT is what I want!¨

                     And then there's the mystery of knowing the difference between what you want and what you need. They cruelly do not always align.

*  *  * 

                        This ski station, Megève, is beautiful and seated in Savoie near Mont Blanc. The little down town area is quaint and lit up under a fluttery canopy of twinkling lights topped by a layer of Chantilly-ed snow. There are traditional horse drawn calèches in the town square near a fountain to transport you back home up the winding snowy roads after a day of skiing.

                        I started thinking about how much I wanted to share it with FWB. How if he had been there we would've been laughing and holding hands. Cuddling in one of those calèches, and hunting out the best and biggest fromagerie in the area to buy massive blocks of beaufort d'été. 

                        How is it this is what my heart is telling me what I want? And is it just because I know it is something I cannot have? I miss him so much on days like these when the sun is long and drawn and all I really want is to share it with him.

                        I was headed back to this expensive-as-fuck châlet in a calèche next to my boss's brother and wishing instead that FWB were next to me.  I know at least this is what I want. But maybe what I want is an illusive, temporal desire, a shadow that will shift and warp, infinitely subject to change.

                         How do you ever know what you want for sure?