unremarkably content

I wrote this eariler today and figured it belonged on my blog. So here it is folks.

I'm sitting here in my friends tiny one bedroom appartment that she shares with another realizing that my life is no longer in the United States. I have spent a mere three days in a city which has and always will have a part of my sould. Currently, as I look outside at the Eiffel Tower, I am realizing that my life is just beginning and I have the world by the balls and I am ready to fly out into it. Yet this is not my option...This is not my fate. Unfortunately I am stuck in the middle of my sorry existence at Smith College, worried that I can't leave and worried that I can't stay. So now this intense dicotomy (a word that I have yet to learn to spell). Where am I going? How do I do it? Everytime the universe seems figured out, the seine reverses it direction in a way. I simply don't know how or why I am supposed to figure all of this shit out.

Ever have the feeling where you are simply sitting reveling in your own contentness and then suddenly your stomach turns upside down and an edge is discovered out of nowhere? Well I have that feeling right now. Between Florence, Rome, Spoleto, Paris, and my other travels in Januaray I feel split in two, or four, or ten, or fifteen. Every place I have been has a piece of me, every lover I have had has a piece of me, every person who has ever walked in my life and then out again has a piece of me, every shitty paper I have ever written has a piece of me, ever class, every professor, every child i have babysat, every person i have stared at--they all have pieces of me. So when I have all these people, places and things that have pieces of me I begin to wonder wether I have any pieces left for myself...for the people that have yet to come. For the papers I have yet to write--for anything at all. And that is when I begin to lose my breath.
Life is such an intense wave of emotions that come in the way of a large tsunami. Who knew that these things would be so intense, and make so much sense, yet no sense at the same time.

Yesterday I received an IM from a love of my life asking me what our relationship meant to me, and I couldn't respond. It meant so much yet I couldn't find the words, and it had been so poignant for so long. And at my lack of response she told me she had a new involvement. A rower (go figure) who is twenty-three and lives in Boston. My body felt used, run over, and exhausted. I left my obscure internet cafe feeling overwhelmed and unable to bring myself to reality. I wandered around the left bank and bought a crepe. Sat down on a bench and began to breathe again. Realizing that it didn't really matter that she had a new anything, considering everything else that I have done. What happened in those moments between the IM and the epiphany was my realization that I can actually move on now, move on in a new direction. But the problem is moving on requires giving more pieces to people in bigger ways, bigger ways I don't think I can tackle.

Paris is amazing. Paris is my haven. Paris is my home.
Florence is amazing. Florence is my haven. Florence is my home.
Cambodia is amazing. Cambodia is my haven. Cambodia is my home.

And with these repetitive statements I realize that my restless soul truly has no home, which scares me. I need a home, one that I can call my own. Yet maybe the world is simply my home, and that anywhere I go (give or take south vietnam, and the united states, parts of South America, etc) will be my home.

I want to see the world. I want to go everywhere and do everything. But all of this requires giving myself away to everything. Can I do that? Can I even try to do that?

I'm so lost, yet at the same moment so profondly found. (I was blind by now I see...Ha.) I am realizing slowly that running to Paris at the American University is not the way to go. I need to stay where I am, and breathe. Learn to breathe in the places I feel uncomfortable, because growth in something comfortable never happens. To grow and to change we have to be in a place that is completely the wrong size, the wrong fit, and the wrong time. Smith is like that for me. Nothing comforable ever produced change in the world, same goes in life.

On a lighter note, the crepes flow in rivers here. The fondue is like floods. Everywhere smells of hot chocolate and coffee and an air of freedom surrounds the city. The bustle of people on the metro is made cacaphonus (spelling again) by the sounds of accordian players, guitar players, people giving their life story in hopes of a euro or two. The people move between stores lined with soft cotton and designer names all at discount prices due to the change of seasons. The Eiffel Tower looks over Paris with a watchful eye and breathes new life into each motion the city takes in unison. The air is cleaner than the air in the United States. The cars are smaller and everyone seems to be in less of a hurry. People in Paris breathe, it is such a relief. Paris reminds me a lot of Florence actually. Paris is like a larger Florence. Both are split by beautiful rivers and littered with people from all over the world. The languages are beautiful and the shop keepers are friendly. Artwork or all forms and sizes and shapes drip from the museums that surround the towns. Both cities were loved by the great minds of the world, both were fallen in love with.

At night the city lights up in brilliant splendor. The Eiffel Tower shimmers (quite litteraly) , the Champs-Elysees is alive with a calm bustle of thousands admiring the shops and the sounds of the city, the seine moves with a majesty unsurmonted by anything I know--busy with bateau moches (squatty long barge like boats), and Notre Dame's rose window stares out into the world.

I fell in love again, it was easy to do.