Life, lights, TBD

I haven't been inspired to write for a few weeks.  This really annoys me, but it also strangely comforts me.  It annoys me because I actually enjoy writing this blog, and writers block is such a bitter staleness.  I'm comforted though because I realize nothing too out of the ordinary has happened recently.  That's to say, nothing absurd, frustrating, agonizing, depressing, or overtly français has occurred since I last wrote.  Which means I haven't had cause for any minor or major panic attacks in French grocery stores.  I count this as a small victory.  But it's no great fodder for blog posts.

I have had collective inspiration not from recent events but from recent scenic memories.  Specifically les Fêtes des Lumières and the magnificent fog that rolled over Lyon this past week.  These two visual displays, combined with the nearing end of the year, have turned me rather (more) introspective.

Les Fêtes des Lumières is a festival of light exhibitions and shows all throughout the city of Lyon.  It was originally intended as a festival of thanks for the Virgin Mary when the city was spared from the plague hundreds of years ago.  The Lyonnais place little candles on their windowsills every December 8th in thanks, and the city of Lyon puts on a grand festival that attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world.  The festival lasts four days, with the grandest displays on the 8th.  After class on Monday the 8th, Ben and I went down to the ancient Cathédrale St. Jean for a rather epic show.

There is something about the glittering intimacy of holiday lights that sparks a childlike wonder in me.  I remember every Christmastime when I was young, I would lay under the Christmas tree and stare up at the twinkling lights through the branches of our trusty fake pine.  It smelled of moth balls, old, loved ornaments, and the peppermint of candy canes.  Contraband  tinsel always wound up stuck to my clothes and hair, and errant pine needles scattered around me on the rug my mom had just vacuumed.  But I loved every first time I got to hide away under that tree in the dark living room, illuminated only by the string of lights my dad had carefully untwined hours before.  It's a memory of such a happy childhood when nothing was uncertain, and I always felt safe and secure.  Something of the twinkling holiday lights evokes that feeling again in me.  It's a feeling that is rather harder to come by now, and I felt it once again in the crush of the crowd in front of the Cathédrale St. Jean.  Safe and secure, childlike revelry illuminated only by dancing lights on an ancient cathedral.

Not every memory from this time of the year is a good one.  I struggled with a lot of bullying when I was in middle school, and the very worst of it was when I was around 12.  Right after Christmas, the dread of returning to torment at school started to set in, and that New Year's Eve was a miserable one.  The total opposite of safety and security; rather a veil of despair, anxiety, and uncertainty.  Not a fond memory, but a memory nonetheless of one of the first times I summoned the inner courage to go forth in the face of so much fragility and vulnerability.  The pain of anxiety is manifested in many ways, and when I was 12, it manifest very physically in some very unpleasant anxiety attacks.  With help from my patient parents, I was able to conquer those inner feelings of despair and cease the anxiety attacks.  It came to a point that I told myself to stop, just stop.  An anxiety attack doesn't improve any kind of uncertain situation, I told myself, it only adds to the hurt.

Some 13 years later, the uncertain introspection of the holiday season has returned.  This year, thankfully, there's no bullying to deal with.  But if anything, the future is more veiled than it has ever been.  Bullies are terrifying to a 12-year-old; the near future is terrifying to a 25-year-old.  This week, I had the chance to mull this over, appropriately, in the midst of a great fog on the hill of la Basilique de Fourvière.  The entire city was shrouded in a thick, unforgiving sheet.  I could hardly see past the Rhône on the far side of la presqu'île.  While up there, I thought about the coming new year and the inevitable march of time.  I realize that the older I get, the less sure I am of anything in my life.  I'm less sure that I want to commit to anything, I'm less assured that I've made the right choices, and I'm certainly losing certainty on what I want to do with my life.  At 17, I had my life planned out, step by step.  Now, I feel lucky if I can get the next 6 months locked down.  I see friends and acquaintances advancing with such certainty, and it makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me.  Sometimes I feel as though everyone my age is in such a rush to get married, settle down, have kids, buy houses.  With such a great fog over my future, it doesn't seem possible that I'll ever feel in the right place to do any of the above.  Why is everyone in such a hurry anyway?  At the top of the hill, I retreated in from the oppressive fog, and sat in peace inside the Basilique de Fourvière.  Inside the quiet church, I sat still for 20 minutes and admired the ornate stained-glass windows and marble mosaic frescoes.  No demand on my time, no need to commit or settle, just a silent appreciation for the present.  When the fog surrounds me, I retreat into myself and meditate in the moment.  If I can learn how to commit to myself, maybe someday I'll learn how to commit to the bigger things.  Maybe that metaphorical fog will burn off with time, and maybe I'll learn to summon that inner courage to break through the uncertainty on my own.  In the meantime, I'm happy to have ancient French churches in which to sit and ponder these mysteries of life.

Happy holidays, joyeuses fêtes to all.  May your lives be filled with shimmering, glimmering lights.