Two weeks from now, I will have arrived in Manchester Airport and in search of a train with destination York. These last few weeks in France are the beginning of a long end and the start of a new beginning. There are only 2 assistants left apart from me. Ana is Spanish, and lives in Lavlanet, a small village further south and Oscar is still in Pamiers with me. Ana comes to Pamiers to sleep on my couch each weekend and this weekend I am in Lavlanet. We have become very close, by default. Just kidding, actually, it's great to have a good friend still around, and we spend most of the time giggling and talking. Laure is a bubbly french friend, who spends the weekends, coming to dinner or taking us for picnics at the Domaine des Oiseaux near Mazères. She brings cherries and corrects my mistakes when I talk. Last weekend Laure brought Ana and I to a gorgeous house in the countryside where her friend and some others were giving free massages (the real kind, with proper chairs and explanations and everything). Needless to say, it was a delightful way to pass the afternoon. We spent the whole day outside taking turns getting massages and drinking herbal tea. Cherries are in season and Laure took me to her grand parents house to climb ladders and pick the cherries right off the trees. It was hard work since the cherries often went directly into my mouth instead of the basket. I loved it!The weekdays have been crawling along, but I keep busy playing the guitar, studying English vocab, French and Spanish. I swim 2km almost every day. I used to boast that I had never seen American Idol, and now, eating my own words, I am fervently rooting for Cedric on Nouvelle Star. It will be a bit of a shock when I return to TV in English. I've even gotten used to American Actors new French voices. Haha.
The weather is abnormally horrible. It is overcast and rainy at least half of every day. The other half the sun shines but it is difficult to predict and you have to keep your umbrella handy. It also means that though the exterior pool is open I have only swam outside once. It felt great though, I can't remember the last time I swam in a 50m pool. There's not much else to share. I'm beginning to get a bit down about leaving Europe and the friends I've made here. I'm ready to return to the States and to sort stuff out, but at the same time, I want to always be a part of the lives of the friends I have made here. People have an added specialness when there are differences. Maybe, I speak to them only in French, because they don't speak English and I don't speak Spanish. Or maybe I speak to them in their native language because they don't speak mine. We talk about the differences between what we eat and what is the same about our families. We share music, and art, and books. We share vacations and recipes and photos. It's already interesting because it's different. I have family scattered around Europe who know more about the last 2 years of my life than anyone else, who've fed me, opened up their homes, invited me into their lives, shared their cultures. I don't know how to thank them, how to leave without knowing when I will see them again. It sucks. But then I remember that there are no goodbyes anymore, with email and internet and skype and cheap flights. In any case, goodbye is a very small price to pay for saying hello.
I feel like the luckiest person in the world sometimes. When I remember my life, and my family and my many homes, there's nothing to be sad about, only happy to live and to make friendships and see the places I see. And that's the path I'll take for the rest of my life, en route to the next adventure and to the next new person to share something with. And on that note...
See you soon...
