City of Lights

Sitting on my balcony tonight, watching the sun set and the moon brighten, I watched Paris pass by on the street below me. 

The street lights came on and the haze of the stormy days brightened everything. 

It was magnificent. 

If I had been an artist, I would have painted it, if I had been a poet, I would have lyricized about it, but I am neither, and thus would have inadequately portrayed the images that have been indelibly printed on my mind, hopefully for a lifetime. 

The best I can do, is try to describe it, as foolhardy as that sounds, I have to try.

The place I am staying is in a quieter part of Paris. The more suburban, family friendly, more appropriately higher priced area. Thus, it has a sense of tranquility about it. There is a quiet that descends with the sun, even at a late hour. My balcony extends down and around the entire floor and corner of the building. So meandering around, I watched. 

The weather has been stormy here. Thundering without rain, hazy and brilliant at others. The air has been heavy with moisture turing a 75 degree day into a scorcher and the metros into a hot bed of personal heat and angst. It's also tourists season and the terminals are a cacophony of languages, strollers and fanny packs. It's almost laughable, so much so that a fellow passenger and I shared a sigh and smile at the heat and tourists, and their eventual convergence onto our shared train ride home at rush hour. 

So as the sun began to descend and a cool breeze swept away the remaining rain and humidity of the day, I carried my wine out to enjoy the moment of outdoor bliss. But as I sat down, I was more taken aback by the interchange of light and light. Earthly light mingling with heavenly light as one took the reins from the other for the evening. 

The last remaining wisps of clouds drew themselves long and thin as if to heave a sigh of relief at no longer carrying their burden of rain that had already fallen for the day. The sliver of moon picked up it's brightness, seeming to smile at its turn to shine down, second fiddle to the star of the sun. The sky turned from a lazy blue to a lurid green cohabitating with the newly lit street lights and their golden haze. Slower than you would assume, inky blackness took over, waiting as long as possible to allow citizens to find their way home, or the the cafe situated directly below me. 

Down the street, the architecture blended perfectly with the scene. No higher than 6 stories, black iron balcony's and turn of the 19th century finery flow from one complex to the next, nodding their reluctant approval to the store fronts below. Gilded windows, shining a few family lights out added to the warmth of the aged buildings, bringing to life their character and stately structures. 

Trees lining the streets speak quietly to themselves as the breeze that has brought a coolness to the day kicks up their leaves. Full and green, they bring a lushes green to the now murky blue and purple sky breaking up the scene yet flowing perfectly. 

The chatter of the cafe below comes to life as patrons settle in for their Friday night rituals of three hour meals and the favored cigarette, wine and peanuts that I have come to find everywhere. Laughter mingles pleasantly with clanking silverware and the mopeds constantly zooming from one area to the next. Even the children passing by with their parents feel the calm of the moment with smiles and giggles. 

The cement beneath my feet is still warm from the afternoon sun, having soaked it up for hours evoking memories of childhood, summer late nights and sidewalk games. The smells of the city have been washed away leaving the aromas of coffee, cigarettes and clean are to mingle perfectly parisian. 

And as the evening continues to give way to the City of Lights, I hear myself sigh with it. For a moment all is peaceful, all is calm. Tomorrow with bring another day of sites, sidewalk wrestling and bad french attempts, but for right now, this is my favorite Paris. The one that doesn't know it is being watched. 

The Language of Change

Language is an interesting thing. Someone can speak the same language with the same dialect, the same inflections, and communication can be utterly lost and at other times, different grammar structures, different words, different inflections can be used, but communication can come easier, more freely, and more complete than the latter. 

Being in a country where I am lost, all of the time, I am beginning to see the parallel to my life where I am supposed to not be lost, or at least have an idea of where I am going. I am beginning to realize, I have been speaking a different language my entire life. As though I am from Britain or Australia, where I should be understood, but there are just enough words that have different meanings, different contexts that leave me utterly misunderstood, and worse yet, at times, offending others.  

And all the time, I have thought I was the strange one, the one that couldn't match heart with words. I was the one in the wrong, asking the wrong questions, saying the wrong thing. Misunderstood constantly, it has been a message of taboo, and being an outsider. Just on the fringe. Trying so hard at times to compare wounds, or express my own desires to be met with curious looks, frustrations and even at times harsh words of criticisms leading to a conclusion of my own inadequacy. The heart completely ignored, the wisdom painfully gained, worth little as it is not viewed as worthy given my different dialect. And at times I yelled louder and slower, as if to speak to the deaf and not those that just didn't comprehend. 

Then there were the moments of grace that only heaven could know were so needed. A look of acceptance and understanding, or better yet, appreciation. A word or phrase spoken in recognition of a heart that desired, more than anything else to be recognized for what it was instead of what it had been assigned. In those moments, my walls broke. Falling so easily under the gentle words of someone that seemed, for one moment, to see the heart, and to accept it. 

So I bent. I molded. I broke what could be broken to fit an image that would be acceptable. I took the group mentality and laughed with everyone... at myself. I encouraged though I lacked encouragement, I gave ear, though few gave ear to a language they didn't understand... and who would, or could? And after a while, I believed the looks, the criticisms, the graceless interactions. We are not worth what we can not provide. The lesson crept into everything, guarding my heart from more wounding, that seemed inevitable. A slip of the tongue would occur, a slip of the hand... and even the place on the fringe would be jeopardized and that was a risk I didn't want to take. Especially when acceptance only comes through right actions and words. 

At times I thought my language was understood, so I poured out, only to find I was wrong again. Something had been lost in translation, and again, I was misunderstood, heart connection gone. Walls back up.

Then something changed. I got it. When you have got nothing, you have nothing to lose anyways. Walking a fine line and all the work it entails means nothing when you are receiving nothing in return. Loneliness is not the absence of people, it is the absence of acceptance and if I already know that, what is there to fear?

Marrying the wrong man? I won't come. Divorcing the wrong man? I can't know you. Too melancholy? Get over it. Too hurting from a divorce? I don't want your friendship. Asking too many questions and still struggling? Maybe there is something wrong with you. Can't be what I want... then I don't want you. Messages heard loud and clear. 

The language I have been speaking, somehow, has lead to my demise. Guards upon guards have been needed, constantly watching every word, checking for offense, for acceptance, gauging and re-gauging every moment to make sure I was still at least on the fringe. 

Now comes the challenge. Too tired, too angry and too frustrated with faux friendships and communities lacking the grace needed for growth, the desire to bend and mold has broken. Another layer of skin has been shed, and this one is one of the most painful yet. More isolated than ever in a place where I can barely get by, the lack of understanding here is expected and part of daily life, at home, it is no longer. Finally wrapping my mind around the truth that I am not as lacking as I allowed myself to believe, nor am I as inadequate, or strange, or crazy... or whatever, I no longer want relationships based on that belief. Based on those patterns that I admittedly created. 

Dark is the road ahead. Cautiously I wonder what it will look like to walk down when I am on the same continent with those that have known a different sort of relationship with me. Accessible by phone... though I am not sure that would really matter since much contact with supposedly close friends (and family for that matter) has been little to nil. I will make exceptions for a few precious people that have birthed a new level of friendship and life that has been used by God to reveal these lessons in a gentle and amazing way. Friendships based on new patters, and a common language. 

But still I wonder, how dark will this get? Sitting on the metro with people refusing to meet eye contact, walking the streets of Paris alone, I can't help but think it can't get any worse, but one never knows. This path feels so heretical, so wrong, to shed what you have always known as good, but I can't deny the peace that flows in as I struggle through old beliefs. The comfort is, the language I speak is not from me, but is innate in my being, woven in by my Creator. As I feel Him sit down next to me, placing His hands on my chest, over my heart whispering words that only mean something to be, I hear more clearly than any spoken word I have ever encountered His powerful and perfect Heavenly tongue circling around me. A language I finally understand...

An American Cliche in Paris - Part Quatre

While walking down the Seine today, bag and camera in hand, one of my new found friends inquired into the status of my journal. She had started one for herself and had already recorded the fun, exhausted, trauma oriented and down right ridiculous outings we had stumbled upon. So in light of her wisdom, I thought a catch up for the record might be useful in the coming months as an indicator of has done's and has not done's.

I would like to go chronologically, but my brain doesn't work that way. Unfortunately, when referring to the past tense, I reserve on the ability to relate activities to overall thematic experiences. Hence: 

Days 1-4, Titled: "Bad shoes, bad taste and bad bed's."

I arrived in Paris with a good three hours of waiting in the airport for signs of American life. Not bad since I have done many a layover in my jet-lagged log. After a considerable amount of time, the others began to trickle in and eventually we made our way to the hotel. After lugging my luggage (that I proudly announced I only had one bag, not including the fact that it was 85 lbs) we arrived at our hotel which I promptly found out was a room the size of my kitchen in DC. If only I had known this was an omen. 

After two days of "activities" including touring our area, touring the area of our school, two orientations, the Eiffel Tour and adventures in finding out what "hashe" in french means, my feet hurt, I rudely found out what little french I knew, was dumb struck by the Eiffel Tour at night, was wind-whipped by it during the day and found the one gay area in Paris. It was insane to say the least. 

Finally upon arriving at my home-stay, I found a room twice the size (in living and in ceiling height), with a balcony, keys and family that promised I was "free to come and go" as I pleased. After being invited to her castle in the south of France, and given the option of staying here for the entire month of August since she would be gone, I immediately fell in love and in hope. 

The next day found another down and up on the roller coaster of culture shock... a trip to Versailles. There is no way to wrap this day up more than to say, after four hours of walking around a palace that is known as one of the biggest in the world, our "tour guide" kept asking "why are you American's always hungry?" Our group had mistakenly assumed that lunch would fall somewhere in between 11am and 6pm. Silly us. But not to be deterred, Larry and Mo (our tour guide and his BFF), snapped the whip every time we sat down until we lost a student (from a group of 12) and promptly staged a sit in until we found her. As fate would have it (and a lack of cell phones for fear of roaming charges), we left the Palace with no trace of her and Larry (the tour guide) stating it wasn't that big of a deal. Hmmm... Well at least the grounds were beautiful.

Days 5-8 have been titled "Getting acquainted with Paris"

After three days of more walking and less food that felt slightly akin to the Chinese death march, I decided to butcher enough French to get a pizza to go. Ordering the right kind I immediately offended the waiter in which I waited an extra 15 minutes and paid en extra 10 Euro. I love France. Pizza and bottle of wine in hand, I rang in the next days with a bottle of vino and a lot of cheese. Under eating be damned.

Starting school was another transition from which I was unprepared in the sense of practicality. Why is it that culture shock was not even in my mind from day one? I guess I thought 6 weeks wasn't enough time, but maybe it isn't enough time in one sense, but in another, like having to create a routine and actually DO homework never really entered my romance soaked mind of Paris. This was supposed to be all fun and games right? Not school work and tests. Wrong again. As wrong as the assumption that 45 minutes would be enough time to get to school, and that I would be able to do it without getting lost on the Paris metros. 

Well, as it goes, after numerous attempts at transitioning, the double and triple metro change-overs become another symbol of how making the harder for "difficult" decision is always the right one... right? Walking around Paris in heels at 11:30 at night lost, is not my idea of cultural transition, but hey, at least the next night found me in Leonard Skynard tee-shirt and fake vans at a feux-American bar playing hard-core beer pong. Now THIS I could do. A win and a loss later, my newly formed friendships had found a new local hangout... and a slight hangover on a Wednesday morning. At least school wasn't until 2:00, which I promptly arrived at 2:15 since I once again am a master of the Parisian metro system. 

The following days are what I would like to title "We're Not in Kansas Anymore."

Culture shock and the symptoms hit everyone differently and never with the same out comes. Some cry, some hide, some dow both... me? I turn into a doomsdayer with veracity attacking everything from my wardrobe to my hair to my weight... so basically an incredible sense of insecurity accompanied by an incredible case of "I miss my boyfriend." 

As the shock of arrival wore off and the newfound sense of "This is home for now..." settled in, the reality of no longer being home came with it. Hard to swallow, especially when you are basically by-coastal anyhow. Where is home becomes a weird question to answer. But a 24 hour fever down, tourism quenched and appreciation for cheap middle eastern food acquired, the practicality of the time and place is now settling in. 

Longing for home still settles in that deep down place, but not so overwhelmingly that the exploration of the 4th, 5th and 6th arrodisimonts of Paris did not hold a charm and promise of future luster calm to come. 

Though not detailed, the over all lessons of the latest and greatest in adventures are still to come, with many told... and untold stories to be paired. 

Goodbye's

7,000 Miles away, home makes more sense. 

In the last few years, I have mastered the practice of goodbye. Planes, trains and automobiles have taken me places to try new things. The move of geography by force rather than choice to obtain something not offered in a previous location. Be education, experience, freedom, or language, the choice of goodbye has always been geographical, and unforgiving in it's requirements. This is how I have known my goodbyes. This is how I have known the harder choice, the harder decision for the gamble on a better result. 

I have left lovers...

The first goodbye is always the hardest, and yet, the easiest. Instead of choosing goodbye, goodbye chose me with a good swift kick in the ass. With the subtly of a bull in a China shop, reluctantly, goodbye was more of the only answer rather than a choice. Ahhh, the wisdom of youth, as I have said before. Take away my options, and I still have a hard time choosing. 

But eventually, I smartened up and packed up, making one of the hardest, yet best decisions I have ever made... or not made. The risk of never loving again was much better, and much safer, than staying with the known enemy in the bedroom.

Then I said goodbye to geography...   

Though in the beginning, I did my best to take as much of the geography with me as I could. Trucks full of belongings, animals, people occasionally... anything to make my new home feel like the old. More than just physical baggage was represented. A new life blended with the old... what was it that Jesus said about old wine in new wine skins? Yeah, I found that out the hard way, $2,000 worth of hard way in the form of shipping costs. Oh the cost of learning.

But reluctantly, those ties gave away, and the baggage has gotten progressively better. Three large bags on the way home for Christmas, two for Spring Break and eventually, one for 7 weeks in Paris. The geography no longer holds my heart, and I have allowed myself to fall in love with new places and people and things in spite of my loyalty to a past that has rarely been loyal to me. Slowly acclimating to different ways of life, different goals and different desires, the future begins to have more attraction then the past and the goodbyes bigger, and more extreme - lessons in humility through idiotic exchanges of cultural missteps (and that was just DC) free of charge. 

But what happens, when goodbye becomes not a geographical move, but one of the heart? As the goodbyes have changed, their nuances have as well. From glaring as the lights off the Eiffel Tower, to the most subtle, in new ways of growth. The trouble is, the more subtle and less obvious, the more difficult and... almost more painful. 

These are the goodbyes of the heart. The ones you didn't know existed until they become inevitable. The crossroads not of life choices, but life pursuits. Heart pursuits guide life, not only by the extreme choices of work, school, lovers and geography, but the small everyday maneuvers that determine the direction of a life far more powerful than the forks in the road. Those daily choices are the river shaping the rocks. They come so fast and so easily, and yet before you know it, you wake up and are 49 years old wondering how you got there. 

The river is powerful though. It rushes with great speed, making it far too easy to let it take you away rather not knowing the direction, or caring for that matter. The patterns worn in by the river become difficult to distinguish between desire and fate. 

But as soon as the goodbyes previously made sink in and have their effect, geographies and new loves collide with the old, leaving the inability to mix worlds. All of the sudden the sound of the river is no longer comforting, but instead frightening and all too familiar. Old loyalties, paths, and patterns are unsatisfying, but goodbye doesn't seem right. How do you say goodbye to something that has been all you have ever known?

Whether it be a goal, a dream, a home, a friend... these are things I had once defined myself by. The collidascope I had determined my choices through. Right, wrong, or indifferent, it is what I have known, and now, now... saying goodbye to something that is ethereal, and ambiguous, and sometimes all to real, standing next me, seems counter intuitive. But just because they are what I have always known, doesn't make them good, or right, or acceptable. 

As I change, those things - people, places, or things - that can't change with me either chafe with the river to the point of bleeding, or more goodbyes have to come. The risk is once again, how do you say goodbye to one dream without another to lean on, or one home, when another is yet to be found, or worse yet... a friend, when they are so few and far between? Do I accept the present enemy hoping I won't find a worse one around the corner, or do I meet another challenge with another goodbye?

But as I look back at all of the goodbyes I have met so far, something dawns on me: I have always been met with a hello. It hasn't always been the greeting I have wanted, and it hasn't always been immediately following the goodbye, but there has always been one, and it has always been better than what I left behind. 

I can't determine my future, but I can determine in whom I trust with it. I don't fear loneliness as I once did, and I don't fear the unknown as badly as I have, what I fear is allowing all that once was to determine the rest of my life because I was afraid to say goodbye again. If the all that had known before, doesn't know me now, than maybe it never it did, and maybe that... that is why I have to say goodbye to it. And full circle I come, back to allowing Him to tell me who and what I am rather than a past and present I accepted because it was all I had known. 

Lost in Translation

I spent a good amount of time walking around with my camera in hand today. I sat on benches, and waited to capture an expression through another. Every time I look through a camera, I see something I missed before, and even when I take the camera away, I see the world different. As if it were black and white, still, telling a story. As if every moment had a lineage of thought and heart and lessons to the culmination of that moment. 

The older couple on the park bench, cuddling as though teenagers. Four friends laughing swapping stories, the man with his baby girl throwing her in the air as he takes her home from the park, the young man trying over and over again to get his skate board to do what he wants. Each with a story, a desire, a want, a belief that took them to that moment. Language holds to no barrier of words. In a camera's lens, we all speak the same tongue... 

It is no easy task living in a foreign country. The barriers seem innumerable. Lost in translation, the communication of logic is impossible. Nothing makes sense. Doing the smallest task can be a trial of patience, hope and well... self-confidence. 

What had been the mainstays of my displays of competence have been wiped completely away. I can't prove my intelligence through deep conversation and revelations of life. I can no longer show my complexity through the maze of my talents slyly woven into conversation. There is no ability to speak encouragement, or love, or... anything.

Only a few things translate fluently, neither through word of mouth. The best I can do, the most I can do, is be present, and exemplify humility. Though both would seem easy enough, neither allows for the walls so easily created through the language of excuse or desire. I can't explain the desire for alone time, or my appreciation for kindness, so the best I can do, is be present. Smile, laugh with others, show intent to be immersed in a life other than my own. Even in the uncomfortable moments of family time in another language, the only way I can express my love, my grace, my anything, is to be there. To listen and watch expressions, listen for intonations to make myself apart of relationships I can not enter into through verbal forms of communication. Presence being the one thing I have always thought was not enough, I have come to realize, is the keystone of relationships.

And with that, praying for grace (and the gift of tongues), the humility of diving in to a language unknown and making a fool by trying. Reduced to kindergarten level communication, barring finger-paints, the embarrassment of wrong pronunciation, the miscommunications leading to almost offense... daily trials of self esteem. What am I if I have no accomplishments to rely on?

But the strange thing is, there is freedom in the lack of pomp and posturing. To be a kindergartner again with those that expect nothing less... well, it's much easier than others have other ideas regarding what you should and should not be. And to know that my presence, my just being near, is the only thing I can, and should do, it stretches the mind and heart to a new place of realization. 

A piece of my heart melts into the pool of past lessons as I realize, that is all I have ever wanted myself. The desire that my presence be enough, and the desire that others be present while offering or requiring nothing... novel. Boundaries of language of come to parallel boundaries of heart that bleed into safety and understanding. Freedom in lack of requirement, freedom in the offering with no other hope, than to express love and appreciation, I am beginning to see, it the most basic cry of every heart.

So caught up in the language of excuse, the web of reasons we concoct to deny these truths, to defend actions - or inaction - we forget, words are only as important as the actions that accompany. 

There is no substitute for presence, or humility, or boundaries in the form of outrageous love. Exactly what He offers all of us, I have built an ivory tower leading to distance and longing. What I desire the most, what feels the most like purity, genuine love, a tower of safety, place to no longer fear what lies below the surface, that is exactly what He offers. 

What I have discovered as truth, as been truth all along and exists in Him. "He has placed eternity in the hearts of men...." different minds, different interpretations, but for this moment, in this light of truth and half a world away from the normal, it means answering the one question I have been asking for too long: What do you want from me? The answer: me. Just my presence. An acknowledgement of grace from Him by showing up, instead of choosing the isolation that is easier. A desire to understand the heavenly language of a trinity I don't comprehend. The humility to try, fail, and continue trying.

As I fumble through French, I am learning to stumble through the language of love and grace every heart so desperately desires and needs. The only difference is, in 6 weeks I will leave Paris, but Heaven, Heaven is still calling me home and the learning will never stop.   

Slightly Comical, and yet, frighteningly similar

A book I am reading for school in Paris states "The Nazis celebrated Hitler's accession to the Chancellorship on January 30, 1933 with a gigantic torchlight parade in Berlin. But it is actually rather hard to say what these supporters imagined what they wanted, or what they thought the new government could provide. Hitler had developed into an orator of greater passion and persuasion. He denounced his enemies - the Weimar political parties, the international system with its reparations and the League of Nations - with But his program was quite unclear. The denunciation of Jews as responsible for Germany's misfortunes, had been deliberately played down in the election campaigns of the early 1930's. The splintered and fragmented German political system, which had been a cause of Germany's malaise. How could this be achieved? He had not detailed plan for recovery, and the Nazi economic policy veered backwards and forwards between inconsistent plans and ideas."

I know the connection has been made before, and I know it is a straw man argument, but if for one moment you pardon the pun of terms... didn't we learn anything from Munich? 

Bon chance!