Hello! This is the 101st post, and only the second time I have written in this on American soil.
I'm back home! I skipped writing the last few days in France because I had too much in my head and didn't feel like any good could come out of sharing that confusion with cyberspace. But now I am ready to wrap up that adventure (sort of), with hindsight and home on my side.
Leaving was totally surreal and way less dramatic than I feared it would be. I had pizza and beer on my last night in France, made friends at the airport with a Mormon flight attendant and felt blatant resentment towards the crowd of English-speaking people flying stand-by with me... I realized later that I shouldn't have been so harshly judgemental of them and their totally banal conversation; in France I could simply tune out conversation that irritated me, but in English I was totally defenseless. The strangeness and simplicity of English was like a FastPass to the front of the line -- straight to the frontal & temporal lobes of my brain, past all kinds of censors and resistance.
In usual form, I got stuck in New York JFK airport for two days, spent the night in a Howard-Johnson hotel where the night desk attendant quoted me some Biblical wisdom when I asked for toothpaste, and then told me the following morning that it was his birthday. I bought some deodorant in the airport and then headed off to Ohio where I feared I might get stuck again... but eventually I got back thanks to Lady Luck and a ridiculously good-looking pilot who gave up his seat.
While in Ohio, I found a wifi spot and discovered in my "In Box" that I will be teaching in two middle schools next year, somewhere in France! I start work again tomorrow at the good ole' driving school, which will hopefully allow me to save up some cash for my European travels partie deux, which await me. :)
It's wonderful to be home!
And I love to know that I still have everything that matters with me -- no matter where I go, no matter where I live, the lessons I've learned and the personal resources I have developed are integral parts of the continually developing and constantly evolving newer, improved version of moi.
Have a happy summer, everyone.
There will be more to come this fall...
