Fin d'été

It's been a busy summer.  Jetting to and fro, lots of planes, trains, cars, boats, and endless miles on foot.  It was a season I didn't give myself much time to anticipate with my anxious end-of-spring activities.  I don't think I had enough time to prepare myself for the fullness, the headiness of going home one way and coming back home again in the opposite direction.  Two places to call home.  My heart still feels a bit torn.

I meant to write when we got back from the US at the beginning of August.  I'm glad I ended up postponing that post because I was an emotional wreck when we returned to France.  I hadn't seen my parents in nearly a year, and it was my first opportunity to meet my beautiful, perfect little newborn niece.  When we finally got back to our apartment after two weeks in the US, I couldn't even think the word, "Mom" without bawling.  A little distance from that fragile state has been necessary, though perhaps not long enough as there are little droplets again threatening at my eyes...

I wish I had taken the time to prepare myself for this summer.  This was the first time in my life I've been in this situation.  There were times I needed to go on autopilot in order to deal with the burgeoning feeling in my heart, but I had no emotional muscle memory to fall back on.  It was raw and new and sometimes really uncomfortable.  Seeing my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and niece was all too brief.  If I could, I would install myself in the sunny nursery Sal and Courtney built for Penelope.  Either that or back in no-longer-my old room at my parents' house.  These people who are a home in my heart, it hurts to leave them.  I return over and over again to the theme of home in this blog, mostly because mine has been so radically upended within the past year, but writing this out helps me to deal with the inner turmoil generated by sharing my heart over two continents.  It's simply a reality of our interconnected world that we move farther and farther away from those we love.  New opportunities and adventures beckoned, and I blindly, naively answered that call a year ago.  I knew I would deal with some measure of homesickness for family, culture, and language, but I never gave thought to la rentrée américaine.  Ahead of me one year ago was an undefined, terrifying block of months, and I couldn't spare the energy to think about going back to where I came from.

Sweet niece Nuggs 

Summit selfie atop Mt. Mansfield, Stowe, VT

Wildflower heaven on Mt. Mansfield

Besides wrenching my heart in two after leaving my family, I found it very difficult to deal with some well-meaning but rather insensitive questions about my private life in Lyon.  I understand that people are curious or just want to make conversation, but there are certain questions you don't ask an unemployed (broke) girl in her nearly late twenties.  By August 3, I felt wholly overwhelmed, unable to cope, and the seams of my heart were in a tattered shape.  Truly, I hadn't had a moment to stabilize since before my conservatory rejection.  Up and down and up and down with little rest since May.

In any case, I've now had some time to process my feelings from our vacation in the US.  We spent a delightful ten days with Ben's parents in Aix-en-Provence and Lyon.  Though we walked several miles a day, it was a much calmer time than in the US.  I got to entertain in my own home, which I love, but we also had some parental TLC right here in France.  We then spent five days in Italy, where Ben had a conference in Padova.  We made a first stop in Venice, which is insanely overcrowded with tourists at this time of year.  Padova is much smaller and quieter, a charming and ancient university city.  If the botanical garden had been free, I would have spent all our four days parked on a bench amidst the verge.  We returned from Italy today, which was a bit of a relief after five days of feeling terribly embarrassed that we don't speak a word of Italian.  Whenever someone would speak to me in Italian, I would start to answer in French because that's my knee-jerk reaction when someone talks at me in a foreign language.  Despite the language barrier, the food and wine and blueberry liqueur inspired me to try some new things in the kitchen, namely pistachio pesto and creamed eggplant.  Mmmm...

The basilica of Saint Anthony as seen from the botanical gardens
in Padova, Italy

Gondola selfies in Venice.

Petit déjeuner français

Sunrise in Aix 

Venezia

As this summer comes to a close, and as I prepare to begin my first year of grad school, I need to take une petite pause and reflect on the last few weeks and months.  I have a solid year of expatriatism behind me.  I speak French well enough now to be accepted into a master's program at a French university.  I know my way easily around the city of Lyon, I got to know and adore some twin girls through babysitting.  I somehow managed to move in with my previously completely long-distance boyfriend.  We even put together an apartment's worth of Ikea furniture together with minimal swearing.  Not to mention the stress of finding that apartment, moving our entire lot of earthly possessions, and then bagging it all up again to deal with bed bugs.  We've made these walls into a home.  One more home to add to my ever-lengthening list.

The best pizza in the world, in Padova

Botanical garden, Padova

Sometimes I wonder at myself thinking that there is an end date to feeling so torn.  For eight years, since I began college in Boston, I've been torn from some portion of those whom I love.  During all that time, I've subconsciously imagined that that tear would be healed someday in a near or far ambiguous future.  But this isn't the kind of rip that gets repaired.  Once torn open, it can never be stitched back together quite the same.  Instead, different patches are sewn in to cover the rift.  Some seams are delicate and lovingly placed, while some leave a trail of anguish and hurt.  Each patch represents a time, a place, a person, a love, a sadness, an uncertainty, an adventure.  On and on this goes until we recognize the quilt sprouting from that initial tear.  It's at this moment that I've just clearly seen this quilt in my own heart.  Maybe now I'll stop looking for a perfectly repaired rip and start fully appreciating all the beautiful and somber colors I've sewn in without even realizing.

All the pretty flowers in the botanical garden.

At the close of August, with the hot wind blowing in our open windows, I feel like a pungent overripe fruit pulling heavily on its branch; waiting and wanting to be plucked, but also hoping for the strength to hang on for just a few more days.  My heart is brimming with delicious memory and quiet sadness at the end of this season, but it's also safely encased in a protective shell of gratitude and love.