the back burner

two lists

"hitting the wall" currently looks like:
missing native English (and native English speakers)
wanting new shoes
having no teammates/living alone
missing family (&S)
seeing no gains acheived
having no gaz/electric/water
wanting to eat with churchmates
disappointing people

what currently seems to help:
writing and photography
sitting in the sun
tea
devotions/sermons (in English)
"processing" out loud with God
finding cheap food/deals

day trip to bruges

all the things I want to say

Ok, people. Serious back-blogging in progress. I never knew NOT having internet could make a man want to blog so much. Most of what's going up are pics. Some cultural observations...

For now, I just want to thank jeep and cmp for the hilarious skype message. AND nurse kim for the driving message. And everybody else who's called and/or emailed. Wish I were there eating your food, telling you lame jokes, and talking about life.

market day

My street's closed to through traffic each Friday. At about 7 am, big diesel trucks and vans start rolling onto the street. I pull myself out of bed, wash my face, and go down to join them.

Every vehicle is in various stages of being unloaded by different merchants and the local men they've hired to help. Heavy blocks are thrown into the street to anchor big umbrellas or poles for canopies. Tables appear, covered in felt or cotton cloths. Some trucks transform into cheeseshops, butchershops, or even kitchens, unfolding to reveal cash registers and rotisseries full of glowing poultry. As police officers ticket and tow the few cars inadvertently left on the street, the latecomers try to squeeze their merchant-vehicles into the new spaces. All along the street, salesmen and saleswomen are laughing, greeting one another, haggling over prime parking spots, or beginning to call out early-morning bargains.

Today the wind is blowing in gusts, promising a clear day and sunshine, later on. As I cruise through the market, I make a mental list of things I might need when I return from class. I can get a bucket and a clothes hamper here, fresh fruit for the weekend over there. For now, I settly for a pain-au-chocolat and an energy drink. By about 8h30, things will be in full swing, and I'll be on my way to school.

Although it would feel foreign to have neighborhood market days at home, here it feels essential. I can sense myself clinging to any source of routine in this new culture, since so much else seems strange and unanticipated. Funny how the marketplace can do that.

possessive pronoun

(my street)

(the city-center)

(my local catholic church)

being followed

i see people from my past on the metro
carrying familiar umbrellas on the street
drinking familiar drinks in a quiet cafe
waiting for someone else,
someone i don't know.

but the hair isn't right. the nose is wrong.
they have a funny walk that isn't the one
i remember from childhood, from campus,
from anywhere I've ever been.
i am now a master of the double-take.

you're different. you i get confused
with hedges, train schedules,
benches in the park.

streetlights laugh the way you laugh.
trees walk the way you walk.
and nowhere, ever,
can i shake the feeling
that it might have really been you.

statuary #3

(yes, they do dogs. i'm pretty sure this kind of aesthetic depends on some cultural foundations i don't have...)

statuary #2

statuary #1

sounds like home

I listened to Patty Griffin this morning on the train. Ahhh.

I told SJ in an email that I feel like the most important thing for me to do to get all set-up in my new apartment is to make a cd of comfort music. OBVIOUSLY, getting gas and electricity online is more pressing, but it sure doesn't feel like that. It feels like I need something that ties this new place to the other places I've lived, to my past.

Some good tunes could help. Music is funny like that.

class

Day 02 of French (B1.2) wasn't bad. I can tell that I'm really taking this class as an adult... all those Jane Vella texts about adult education are coming back to mind. Motivation is different than it was as a child. Needs are different. Even learning style is different.

But I don't think I'm a typical adult learner, because all those theories are coming back up to the surface, being re-analyzed themselves as well as helping me think about what the teacher's doing at the moment. Prof. A. is a Parisian woman who's finishing some advanced course in education while working at Alliance Francaise. She always surprises me, since just when I think she's really honing in on some content-specific goal, she's switch to asking us how much we can remember about other people in the class. Or she'll change directions and ask one of us to bring out some nuance in previously-covered material, or to define some word all of us should know but don't.

So. I like her.

And the class is quite international. Another plus.