cinq cent vingt

I left Tucson last week worried and anxious as I always am before any kind of trip, yet hopeful. After a year of tumultuous travel experiences in 2010, I was optimistic that my bad luck would end there, and so far, so good (knock on wood). After arriving on Thursday night, fast-forward to jet-lag, long work days, new clients, beginner clients, cheeky clients, thirteen hours of sleeping, you wanna go out to a movie?, let's have brinner, too tired, too tired, then -- wait a second, Tucson makes the headline news? And not in a good way...

I came home Saturday evening after giving and planning lessons all day completely and utterly exhausted, and ready to collapse in bed. Then, what started as trickles of news soon became an outpouring of headlines from AZ about people being shot, attempted murder, crazed pseudo-Nazi shooters, a young girl dead and there I sat, swarmed by violent images of a place where I had been not even a week before, on a road I took on my way out of Tucson, in a shopping complex I knew.

The remainder of the night, I sat glued to my computer screen for hours and hours, watching live television of the breaking news, which in retrospect was probably not the healthiest choice. But here I was, an ocean and a river away, feeling gut-wrenched, distraught, confused and revolted by what I was seeing. 

Monday morning I left for work after a night of tossing and turning and was handed a newspaper as I went down the stairs to the métro. As I stood on the platform amongst a crowd of well-dressed French commuters, I took the newspaper in my hands, hesitant to look down. When I did, my eyes fell immediately upon a headline on the front page: 

"Fusillade meurtrière en Arizona: samedi six personnes sont mortes et une élue démocrate a été grievement blessée"

 ("Fatal shooting in Arizona: Saturday six people were killed and one elected Democrat was seriously injured")

I closed my eyes and the newspaper for a moment, taking a deep breath inward. When I opened them, I looked around and saw many French faces scanning the same article before casually averting their gaze and turning the page. My heart sank heavily into my chest. 

That's kind of the way I've been feeling since Saturday night: heavy hearted. I know there are worse things going on in the world and that I should be so thankful that I didn't know anyone involved in the shooting, but I feel so removed from it, like I'm watching it happen from a sound-proof glass box on a desert island. Though it's front-page news here, people are naturally going to be less bothered by it as it's not in their country, nor do they know know where Arizona is located or even who Gabrielle Giffords is. And it's the strangest thing for me... Who wants to see images of their neighborhood, their own backyard, a mere eight miles from where they grew up, in a state of disaster and violence plastered across foreign televisions screens? To tell people who have never seen pictures of it that, yes, Tucson, Arizona... That is where I'm from. 

Another reminder of the things I left behind, but I'm feeling pretty far away right now. 

Let's hope for Tucson.

tout va bien qui finit bien, deux

So, what's it like being home after a year away? How's France? Isn't it, like, cold there?

hello, jet lag.

Since coming back to the USA nearly two weeks ago, it's felt pretty weird. In the weeks leading up to my departure, I started feeling really anxious about coming home -- would all of my friends be different? Would they see me as some sort of...Euro snob? Would I feel that same sense of belonging that I left behind?

At first, it was strange readjusting to the kinds of things that I didn't even realize that I missed. For example, since I've been back, one of my favorite things to do has been to make small talk with pretty much everyone I come in contact with: the sales clerk ringing up a Christmas present, the guy behind me at the grocery store, even the old man I sat next to who was waiting for his wife at the hair salon. I've never ever been the kind of person to talk to strangers -- but the fact that I'm capable of carrying a conversation and knowing that Americans are generally more open to chit-chat has made me a pretty annoying person to have to wait in line with.

Driving, eating Mexican food, paying for things in dollars, having to flash my ID when going into bars/buying booze, that was all ok. I wasn't used to eavesdropping on people's conversations and understanding everything, to not having to think about exactly what I said before I said it, and I even dropped the occasional "bonjour" when approaching the cashier and saying goodbye after I paid (why don't we say goodbye after we pay for something here?). Those things are weird. Otherwise, I feel quite myself being home and honestly, that's such a relief for me.

In terms of going back to France, I think the only thing I'm worried about is getting back into the swing of work. Once I return, I'm going to be so busy with new clients and taking care of things while my boss is on a three-week holiday and I'm a little nervous about holding up the fort in her absence. Maybe that's the dread that I'm feeling about returning (not to mention the travel anxiety... Woof), not so much the cold, or being alone or all the kinds of things that I was worried about last year.

Jesus, you guys. Do you remember how out of my mind depressed I was at the thought of going back? Well, maybe it wasn't so obvious via my lame blog, but I was dreading it more than I've ever dreaded anything. I sat in the Chicago O'Hare airport waiting for my flight to Heathrow crying and crying on the phone to my mother who tried her best to console me. I think I spent the majority of January and February planning my escape and hating my life in France -- and the reason I can tell you all of that now is because I feel like that was a different person ago.

I feel different being back, I feel much more self-assured and generally more confident in myself, which leaves me with a feeling of accomplishment for 2010 and I hope I can translate all of this back to France in 2011. Though I may often say or do totally dumb shit in France, I'm still capable of being a fully functional and happy person in my own country. Even if I still say and do lots of dumb shit in the US.

Go, go 2011.

bisous, putes.