Final Days(in reflection)

As I begin to write this I find myself sitting on the floor of a run down apartment in San Jose. I have been back in the states for about 2 days now. Since my arrival back, I have been staying with my friend Johnny at his new place. It’s a bit more that fixer-upper. Originally, I thought perhaps it would be a good way to reintegrate myself back in the American culture. However, I am second guessing that. I find San Jose to be nothing more than some sort of weird transitional state of purgatory. This town sits between the ocean and the bay. (Santa Cruz-San Francisco). Its big with wide streets, contains countless apartment complexes, a few towering buildings that make up this odd area of town which is filled with nothing but high end hotels and yuppie-filled business bars. It is wholly and utterly ordinary, unfortunately familiar, and lacks any uniqueness or appeal whatsoever. It feels so typically suburban, anywhere America. If it wasn’t for the occasional yummy Mexican taqueria; I feel I could be in anywhere right now. Indiana, Florida, Colorado…fucking ten minutes down the street. It doesn’t matter. It lacks culture; it lacks history…thus the condition of many places in our country. We are young and big and have a lot of people who like to spread themselves all over this land. It’s not bad, it’s not good, it is just different. And this definitely is not the ideal place to come back to become an American again. Whatever that means anyways.
However, I find myself in the passenger seat of a Honda civic, flying down the freeway with the windows down, my hair slapping against my face and I am having a hell of time keeping my eyes open. Of course, the California sky is completely cloudless and a faded blue and the horizon are stained with a light brown. And as I find myself in this position, I can’t help to find some sort of comfort in it. It is what I grew up on. This experience is like a house to me, its home. The endless chain-link fence interspersed with the 8 foot concrete block walls that line the freeway. The droopy trees and their dusty, dirty leaves that arbitrarily appear to poorly decorate the 10 lanes of asphalt. The self storage buildings and the labyrinths of industrial areas colorfully adorned with sedans, gas stations, green and white signs telling you how many miles until your next exit and of course, the billboards; advertising a friendly reminder of how wonderful alcohol, vacations to Hawaii and low interest rates can be. It was what I was nursed on for the first sixteen years of my life. And as much as I do not particularly enjoy its presence now, I can not help to find some sort of strange familiarity that feels like home. At last, welcome back…?
There is one particular day I go back to as the beginning of the end in Europe. Or perhaps my realization that it was almost over. I had just got out of class and was back at the foyer. Eddie and I sat in his room, making sandwiches out of baguettes, drinking wine, and listening to Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto. It was partly overcast, his window was open and a slight breeze came through. Although, we were listening to music, the leisurely French attitude and quietness of the town surrounded us and seemingly invaded our minds. You could just feel it. Maybe that’s why this moment sticks out. Nothing particular was happening, however, it just felt like a perfect example of the sometimes indescribable fundamental difference between Angers, Europe and anywhere I have ever been in the states. I say this with no contempt or negativity towards the states. It’s just different. Upon my return to the States, Johnny asked me if I gained any sort of appreciation for aspects of American culture now that I have been to Europe. Hm. Not really. The beer is cheaper and the Mexican food is better, and yes I am pretty damn proud of being from the West Coast. However, my appreciation hasn’t gained. If anything it has made the difference between the style of life and the general attitude of the people more apparent. I enjoyed it while it lasted. Sitting in Eddie’s room, eating baguette and cheese, drinking wine, letting the rest of the day slowly pass, I realized that in many ways Europe compliments me well, and I was going to miss it.
The last week in Angers was a wild one and I think Europe and I parted well. Each night I went out to a bar and stayed out until at least 1. However, usually it was until 2. In this week, I really got to know the French people that worked in my program and I was speaking French more than I had the whole time I was there. The last day of the program an “International Soiree” was put on by the school. At this soiree, each country was suppose to get together with other people of their country in the program and put on one or a couple of performances that supposedly represented a part of their countries culture. At first, I did not want to really have any part of it. My reasoning for this is that I honestly did not like almost all the other Americans in the program. I can sum up their general attitude with a big loud sigh. “Pfffff” (hang head low…mumble something about missing your boyfriend, Jack in the Box or how weird France is…etc.) On a side note, it really is a bummer that the lamest people in the program were pretty much the Americans. Maybe I was just more aware of their attitudes because I am American. However, the perfect example of their lameness is that they were the only ones who could not put together a performance and almost altogether flaked out. This is where Eddie and I come in. Two days before the performance, one of the monatrices who we were a bit more friends with, came to us asking us to help her because all the Americans had flaked. She was in charge of getting the Americans to put on a performance and was extremely frustrated with their attitudes. So…in two days time, we put together a rousing performance of… “Hallelujah, I’m a Bum”
Classic folk song. Check out the Pete Seeger version.
The performance went over relatively well and was funny compared to some of the other performances which might of…err…represented…their country a little bit…err…more…accurate.?
AHEM.
Nevertheless, the rest of the night was wonderful. And I would cut the story short if I did not say I feel in love with a hand full of people that evening. In my experience, the French seem to sort of throw around this term a lot. Maybe it is just when they are speaking English. But many times, upon speaking to some of French I got to know, they would say how in love they were with something or someone they really liked. In the states, I feel we use this term only on much more serious terms. So taking a cue from them, this night, being the last that I would see most of these people possibly forever, I began to realize how unique some of these people are. A month since my arrival in Angers and three days before I departed, I finally found myself creating true friendships. Conversations finally went elsewhere. Il passé trop! (It goes quickly)It’s those fleeting moments and faces of people that always seem to leave me momentarily changed for a few days. I don’t know how to understand these people and these moments in the context of my life. What was their affect? Where has it left me? What was the point? Those whose faces remain imprinted upon my memory so vividly for a few days afterwards. The intensity when they spoke, their smiles, the laughter, the confusion when language broke down and we found ourselves grabbing for words and descriptions to explain that which up until then had never needed any explanation because it was always understood. It’s all apart of the experience and all apart of what leaves you sort of melancholy the next day when it’s all said and done.
That night, I stood outside a bar and defended myself to a quiet Russian girl named Dasha after she called me a strange American. I stood briefly face to face with French police men who arrived at the bar because of a call from the owner. There were so many people there he couldn’t close the place. I backed away through a thick crowd into the establishment and finished my beer. Walked, ran, piggy backed down the streets of Angers with students and French alike. Danced to James Brown in a small French apartment in the midst of several people and several different languages. Spoke mildly serious with a monatrice named Aline. We concluded our conversation with an agreeing that we both wish we could speak each others languages better. Angelique made me speak like a cowboy-hick in front of everyone because they think it’s hilarious. Champagne. Cigarette smoke. Jumping jacks to keep yourself awake. Ray Charles. Looking out a window at the top of a four story building onto an empty street and noticing the faint horizon briefly becoming illuminated over a quiet town. Hammocks in the living room. Post-modern light bulbs in the hall entrance. Goodbyes to Eddie at 6 in the morning as he left to take a train back to Paris then onto the states. Falling asleep on a floor with your shoes and jeans on. Waking up two hours later with it all over and done, the morning light rudely scratching at your eyelids and running back to the Foyer because we had to move out by 9. It was 8:40 when I arrived.
The next two days I spent in another small apartment with a friend from my program named Markus. He is Austrian and had a big laugh that will scare you when you first hear it. He was spending the next 6 months in Angers and let me stay two night in his place until I finally left to go back home. The next day I found myself drinking coffee in his quirky apartment, church bells ceaselessly rang from the nearby chapel. I felt partially empty and melancholy. Almost everyone was gone now. And in two days time I would be as well. My mother related back to when you perform in theater. You spend a good portion of your life for a couple months in the midst of the same people. 8 hours a day, in and out, and then when the performance has run its course; you must part. It is truly bittersweet. You made great relationships and had wonderful experiences but now you must part. However, that is all as much apart of the experience as well. The goodbye. Everything has a farewell. And afterwards you find yourself questioning if these moments even ever really existed. In the span of a one’s memory it seems to become so brief. Just a shadow, a brief existing human who once sat at the banks of a river, in the presence of a chateau built in 900 AD. To not be stone like its walls. Only to be 22, spend 29 days in its presence and wander around its streets, then disappear. Conclusion unknown. Remnants undefined. Actuality of existence unclear. I sat in Markus’ apartment for two days doing almost nothing. I watched the shadows change on the kitchen table, read, wrote and tried to take in France, Angers, and my whole European experience as much as I could. Breathe it in and hold it in as much as possible. Make it stay.
Au revoir la France
« dimanche
tombe sur moi seulement ici
sans difficulté »
My last day in France, I got an early morning train to Paris. When I arrived it was raining. I had ideas of staying in a park and taking a nap until the time came to hope another train and catch my flight back to London. I sat in a train station for an hour contemplating what I was to do since the precipitation had ruined my loose plan. I texted a new friend who had recently moved to Paris the day before. See if she could take me in briefly; offer me a cup of coffee. Never got a response. So I wandered around the neighborhood for two hours. Cut through Montparnasse cemetery. Half way through looked to my left and noticed I was in front of Jean-Paul Sartre and Simon De Beauvoir grave. I stopped. Let the rain fall. Spend the next 2 hours sitting in a McDonald’s window, writing emails and watching Paris life for the last time on this trip. It was grey and rained the entire time. 4 hours later I was gone. I stepped off a train in London. It was dark. The street lights hung low and seemed to illuminate only a 6 foot orange circle on the sidewalk. The shadows of London were enormous. The brick was overwhelming. Sweeny Todd and Jack the Ripper brushed by me.
London.
Fucking eerie.
A friend rescued me and I spent my last remaining hours in Europe talking to him of literature, the “English literature crisis” of the last 40 years, sex, stereotypes, work, the differences between the states and Europe and various other things. The conversation was wonderful. We drank about 5 cups of tea each until the milk ran out. Then I rested for a couple hours. Wondered back to Heathrow through the thick, fast paced underground of London, and hours later bid ‘Adieu’ to this side of the Atlantic, but definitely not my final goodbye.
Anyone care to join me in 6-9 months time for another rousing trip?
Maybe we can get lost there…