FIELD NOTE 5.44 - French Sundays.

I think when I am back in Virginia and all things fall back into their old ways, one of the things whose absence I will miss will be French Sundays. Before this moment I didn't think it would possible to miss a day, but now I know it as a truth.
Sundays here are so different: almost everything closed, no one in a rush, no schedule. It's a far cry from America where life goes on in the same way regardless of what day it might be.
I tell myself that I will still try my best to observe French Sundays when I return, but I know in my core that this is a hollow hope. After all, how long can a French Sunday stand when there are papers to write, books to read, and errands to be run?

FIELD NOTE 5.43 - Between.

The French have an expression: avoir le cul entre deux chaises - to have one's ass between two chairs.
Variations of this same expression are common in the English language but the one I have come to know the best is: "You can't haul two horses with one ass, Sugarbean." It's a line from Sweet Home Alabama, that almost completely forgettable movie that came out some time when I was in middle school.
But that is exactly what I am trying to do these days. I am trying to figure out where this world fits in with the one I've known and how I can reconcile the two. It seems wrong that in a little over a month I will be back in Virginia and all this will have been a memory.
Tonight I talked with Ge about living life between the chairs. My chairs are countries and here I am between the two.

FIELD NOTE 5.42 - Saturday.

Perhaps it was the fact that there was a jour férié this week or simply just that the weather is finally beginning to return to a more springlike temperature range, but today the streets of Commerce seemed particularly full as I exited the tram and made my way to the stores I planned to visit and some that were unplanned.
I am at the point where I can walk the streets here without fear of getting lost. I can almost always find a random store or marker that I've seen before and remembered for one reason or another. I don't know the names of most of the streets, but that's not really surprising since French streets have a tendency of having a few name changes within a 50 meter distance. But I count knowing where and how to go to get all the things I need as a sign that I have come to create a life for myself here.

FIELD NOTE 5.41 - Understanding.

I think I have finally begun to understand the French. Not everything about them, of course, but the big things. I tell myself that we have finally reached an uneasy peace. They realize that I break their stereotypes when they talk to me and I realize that they aren't so different.
Now come the little things like "bonjour" in the hallway or small smiles in passing. Now I can see the similarities in our dress - although whether this is due to the fact that I am absorbing their tastes and beginning to reflect them or it's just my own changing, I don't know.
Still, it is a wonder.

FIELD NOTE 5.40 - Croque monsieur.

Today Darryl and I went down to Commerce to have one last coffee with a girl we met on the tram a few months ago before she leaves for the United States. Somehow we ended up sitting down to lunch at a little café on the street corner called La Mayenne where we dined on croque monsieurs sandwiches that were followed by coffees and a shared slice of chocolate cake.
It wasn't the best croque monsieur that I've ever had, but still it was quite wonderful after my endless lunches of cheese sandwiches with Dijon mustard.
Lunch was nice but all the talk of endings was slightly upsetting because it made me realize just how close I am to the end. I don't think I will ever leave this space of wanting the end and hating it at the same time. I think this is how all students who study abroad must feel.
Life here is not a reality, it is a dream - and today this dream featured a mediocre croque monsieur. In August I will be back in Richmond and back to reality - a reality that will probably mean days of being once again too busy to stop for lunch and me growing too thin.

FIELD NOTE 5.39 - Weather forecast.

For the past 2 weeks Nantes has constantly had cloudy days with highs in the low 50's. This wouldn't be such a hard thing to deal with were it not for the fact that my residence turned off its heating last month and hot water is not always guaranteed.
So I have shivered my way through these last few weeks, curling myself into as small a ball as I can at night and making my showers as quick as possible. All the while praying for the weather to change and become warmer.
Not summer hot, just warmer.
Today when I checked the weather forecast online for Nantes I saw something that I haven't seen in quite a while: temperatures above 60 degrees. It seems we finally have the end of our cold streak within our sights. Now all that I have to do is shiver through what remains.

FIELD NOTE 5.38 - Phone call, 1AM.

Tonight I called a friend I haven't talked to in nearly 3 months. She has a tendency to spread herself too thin between school and work and the silence was upsetting me. In 5 minutes we had fallen back into our old ways of half-formed sentences and complete understandings. I have missed this.
Sometimes I feel that I could easily forget the world I knew in Richmond. We've grown distant and I worry that when I return we will find that no connection remains between us.
Already this silence has stretched between me and everyone I once knew. How much of this is my own fault I don't know. All the people I thought would send me messages or emails regularly are the very same I am hesitant to see.
There's little joy in the thought of return when it means returning to an emptiness. Still, my conversation tonight reminded me that perhaps everything isn't as dark as I am making it. Maybe it will all settle differently than I imagine. But is that what I want?
I think I still hold onto that impossible dream: recreation. I think I can come back and start over. I should know by now it's impossible, that my baggage has followed me once across the sea and it will follow again. But still remains the idea of coming back and having no ties. I would be free.
But free is just a word, isn't it? It has no real meaning. It is the reason I can't bring myself to be angry that I always seem to have to start the conversations with people. It is the reason I can't seem to delete people from my Facebook or my address book. It's the reason I have no answer when Jagna or Ziming or Ge tells me to stay and I can't think of a single reason why they're wrong.
Free is a cliché and we all know it's the clichés that cause the problems.