Written 23 January 2010

The following happens often in France. One day, one moment, one series of events, or even a single event, lead to a fresh outlook or insight, which may perhaps be overturned tomorrow or the next day but, at least for now, becomes transparent, over-arching, and complete. Tonight, after eating with friends, a realization set in and it is as follows.

I enjoyed an american majority around the table this evening. Given our superior numbers, we pushed our preponderant agenda and established english as our language for communication. By the time we broke away for the evening, we had weaved a labyrinth of topics: politics, film, art, food, music, social and personal economics, college and our futures. The conversation was comedic, sympathetic, broad, particular and, at times, serious and austere. We would talk of the ridiculous style of fashion during the 80s, then switch to race relations in the United States or religious differences in France. I was at home, in a place I wished to settle as a repetitive part of my life, maintaing the same subjects, thinking abstractly and speaking in an exhibitive, intelligent manner. Yet, I noticed something unsettling about it all, something of a kick or a shiver which awakes one in the midst of a dream to a cold, dark reality. We live separate lives, one french, the other english, with correlating attitudes and personalities. That's not to say at one moment I love fast food and large cars and, the next moment, prefer small cars and foie gras. It's more of a definition of my means and abilities. In french, my world is what I can understand. What I can understand in french is a needle in a needle stack, when compared to my understanding of the english language. What does this mean? While in France, I stay on a fringe, in a mist of ignorance, naivete, and simplicity. Yet, when I have the ability to change to english, I hear what could not at one time be heard or understood. Suddenly, the mist clears and sight returns.

What do I see? Well, I see a darker side of life. I understand stories and experiences of the human appetite for vice, our weaknesses for prejudice and discrimination, our allurements to the debased, sordid sides of ourselves. In short, what I can see and, for once, understand are the problems I know from home. Montpellier is no longer a playground of education and new, fresh experience. Just like any other city, it has it’s cobwebs, it has what most want no part of and would feel completely content with pretending it wasn’t real. It is not that the enlightenment came as a huge surprise, but, for the first time, my cocoon of educational bliss was penetrated. For once, things aren’t so personal, they aren’t so defined by my own comprehension. It’s sobering, that in a place I found so intriguing, so enriching, can be a cesspool of pain, suffering, crime, greed, compulsion, and debauchery. In the end, I am thankful for the station I can claim away from all the madness, separated from severe pain, a situation in which I choose what to take away and what to leave, rather than being stuck in the mire of its woes. I can claim myself as what I make of myself and not what the city does. For this, I am lucky and forever thankful.

Each monday and friday I head southward from my apartment to the center city and my place of occupation, the International Relations House. Three stops and a seven minute tram ride, or nearly thirty minutes by foot and stride, I descend the tram at Le Corum, a tramway stop and major convention center in Montpellier, and begin my ascent of seven flights of stairs to the foot of l'Esplanade de Charles de Gaulle and the street level of downtown Montpellier. Facing the center city, and to the left and right of the staircase which snakes its middle passage up the modernized acropolis, lie Le Corum and La Maison des Relations Internationales, my building, each forming the final border of its respective side. Taking a right from the top step, I find three long, tree-strewn lanes leading through the park, l'Esplanade de Charles de Gaulle, to la Place de la Comedie and the center city and, to my right, a panoramic view of the north side of Montpellier, culminating in a mountain range, les Cevennes, at its far-off horizon. Continuing straight ahead, I pass through a gate and onto a path which leads me from my point of entry through a garden of palm and cypress trees, colorful flowers, and brown park benches, and eventually terminating at the arched entryway of the International Relations House. In the mid-section of each rectangular block of concrete making up the walkway lie marble plaques dedicated to each of Montpellier's sister cities. The building itself lies at the very edge of the right wing of the acropolis, offering the same panoramic view as listed above. Built in a colonial style of red brick, pale blue window boards, and creamy white cornices around each doorway and window, the two-story house is beautiful and picturesque.

Inside and up two flights of stairs, at one end of a narrow passageway, is my place of work. In the center of a large, rectangular room lies the table of my toils, flanked on both sides by two desks, one for the director of students such as myself and the other for a very hard-working, very over-worked secretary. On the opposite side of my position, separated by table and mine and her computer screens, is another office worker. To this day, I am not sure what all they do or if they do all they are there to do. The atmosphere is chatty and convivial, conversation is easy going and time never seems to be lost or squandered. At certain times, the boss of my bosses will come into the room to assign chores and ask for help on one of her seemingly endless projects. Overall the workplace is laid back and ritual. However, when a task duffs its ritual and seeks to be independent and unique, the place, as a result of its habitants, turns colorful, chaotic, and passionate. It's best at these moments to stand aside and keep to yourself lest you become the target or accidental victim of a flailing arm or an indecipherable, yet highly affective and hair raising, tirade my colleagues possessedly fall victim to.

As far as my tasks go, I run documents over to the hotel de ville, the sight of many government big timers, and research and/or suggest possible events or activities that link Louisville and Montpellier. I write articles on upcoming events and track down possible sources of coming-togetherness between the two cities. My research and writing has included the Derby, football, baseball, Kentucky bourbon, Joan Baez, writers from Louisville, Thanksgiving traditions, and, my personal favorite, Buffalo Bill. Today was a good day. To test the fluency of possible french exchange students to the United States, I had to make an english exam. I can proudly say I did not let the sudden power go to my head. I created a very thorough, but not extremely difficult or tricky exam made up of grammar, as well as, reading and writing comprehension segments. It was nice to be the warden for once and not the prisoner.

My sole ambition today was to re-introduce myself to the city I absented myself from for the past month. As if the quite pungent visit to my packed, poorly circulated gym without, at this moment, a serviceable air-conditioner was not enough to thoroughly satisfy me that, indeed, I was back in France, as well as service me with enough culture shock to keep me secluded in my room for the next week, I took to the streets tonight to see the town after dark. Montpellier puts on a new face after dark. During the day the city is a busy town: people hurrying from place to place, scents emanating from cafes, street vendors, and unscrupulous washers, sights of sunshine, brightly colored graffiti, the yellowish, cream coloring of stucco offset by roofs of navy blue, black, and red spanish tiling create a quite chaotic atmosphere. As the sun fades, the life, the color, the scars of a town packed with college students shed their poignancy; the city polishes and bathes itself in the white, golden hue of it's lights. The well-trodden town takes a much needed break from the pounding of its promenading populace, licks its wounds and offers a wonderful show for those who wish to partake. Its morphosis is complete and dramatic, ever evolving from that which thrusts itself upon you by day and coddles and pampers you by night. Throngs of busy-bodies going each and every direction are replaced by couples, groups of men and women with interlocked arms, the lonely photographer, those lost in sight, thought, and sensation, all quietly enjoying a private reunion with the streets and buildings they may know so well, yet appreciate only seldom. Shadow and darkness create a scene of the surreal as churches, cinemas, private dwellings, fountains and parks transform to literary, cinematic objects where beauty and perfection transport the viewer to heightened, dramatic senses of seemingly fictitious splendor. Perhaps one must read a book or watch a movie which romantically portrays the ambience of a European city to get this feeling. I know I feel it each time I am in the city at night. I feel a part of a world where its beauty and mystery can never be mastered, never understood or found dull, uninteresting, or uninspiring, a world apart which has a firmer grip on me than I have on it..

Written 15 January 2010 at 11;35 am Montpellier Time

I am glad I waited till today to write a blog. I can tell my story as a detached outsider looking back in time at a pitiful, distraught, and pained young man without being him, without being the story, as a mediator with a keyboard writing to mend the incongruence of yesterday's passion and pain with today's more settled perspective and outlook. The melancholic mists of despair dissipated with the night's rest and the morning's coffee and rising sun; I can be my own judge today, can escape being the prey of my fears and loneliness.

The fatigue of overseas travel will be my scapegoat, for I choose not to think I can be as emotional as I was yesterday without a dose of extraordinary circumstance. Nonetheless, I felt as if my world had fallen apart. Lonely, pathetic, miserable, disheartened, I moped from flight to flight, train to train, hoping for an invisible hand of fate to come down from the skies, scoop me up and drop me back in my home with friends and family. Needless to say, the hand of my escape never heard my cry for help, either taking a day off or being too busy with others in more desperate situations, I arrived at my planned destination last night at 7:30. I couldn't and can't help how I felt. I tell myself to stop each time, to be a man, to stiffen the upper lip and take what is on my plate without grimace or reservation. Each time, I am swept away by the moment, by the loss of those I left and will not see for some time. I know the time is not long and the situation I go into is not horrible, but it is not home and it is not with the ones I love, therefore, I come kicking and screaming. The frenchmen and women I see along my way become the handlers and creators of my pain, I glare at them with spite and malice, asking myself why I would want to leave loved ones in favor of the company of such miscreants. I tell myself the feeling will pass, tomorrow and the next day will be better, but, in the moment, I seem to be stuck in a quick sand of sadness that will not leave until it has sucked every last ounce of life out of me. This is how I felt; I can't claim it as mature or reasonable, it is what it is and will be how it is as long as I have leave those I love.

I feel better today, a little less lonely, a little more occupied by what I want to accomplish here, and, overall, like the French. I grew and grow to hate the feeling of yesterday, the way I am each time I leave my home. I wish it was as I feel today as part of a new chapter, the inevitable turn of a page at the end of another that creates a more beautiful, full, and better story.