Ticking away the moments

Sunday, July 17th 2016

Dear exiled French person,

I’m writing to you from my parents house you once visited, listening to music we both know quite well, and thinking about how many projects I’ve started without finishing them.

I was counting on you for this one dammit !

To be fair to us, life has been a little more boring geographically, and a little more terribly complex emotionally since our last exchange, almost a year ago. I wish I could update this rusty ol’ blog with exciting travel tips, endless tales of adventures and shenanigans, but the truth is, I’ve suddenly turned into a grumpy grandma who doesn’t even have gardening advice because she lives in a big city, admittedly your favourite in the world. But hey, hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way, so I’ll just dig deeper in my static melancholy for your reading pleasure. After all, your latest post mentioned a couple of existential questions so the tone is set. How are those going, by the way ?

Flicking through files of stories I’ve started to never continue, documents full of ideas, layouts for books never finished (or sometimes even begun), I can’t help but dipping into the spiral of identity crisis. I read a quote I wrote at age 15 thinking it was brilliant and don’t recognise the brain that wrote it, or the brain that judges it now. I can’t figure out quite how time passes, as the present has much more weight than any other time in my life, but scientific evidence suggests it’s all behaving linearly and politely. I’m tempted to delete the files. The people around me have been talking repeatedly about the Konmari method, and the whole idea of de-cluttering your life by getting rid of anything that doesn’t bring you joy. Most people do that by throwing all their books on the ground and going through them one by one, holding them and thinking about how they make them feel. And to be honest, it sounds great. I do feel cluttered by the weight of books unread, of clothes bought for nothing, of bright, brilliant ideas that make me a stranger to present and a disappointment to my past.

Time is being a problem, at the moment. A problem I haven’t really had before starting a long distance romantic relationship, where clocks seem to be ticking a little bit more than in a magical, transcendental unicorn union (Unionicorn ? Unicornion ? I need your linguistic input, dearest). It leaves me wondering : for which self am I doing things ? There is the personal pressure of making your (often past) dreams come true, but an equal pressure to grow out of them. There is the social pressure of living in the (often made more glamourous than accurate) moment, but an equal practical pressure to build a life for your self-to-come. There is the inevitable pressure of mortality that says all of this is meaningless in the end anyways, so even the future is unreliable !

I read this quote that struck me as meaningful enough to write it in my journal at the time: “Guess what ? When it comes right down to it, wherever you go, there you are.” (Jon Kabat-Zinn, my mad Googling skills tell me). It sounds reassuring in a way most #inspirational posts don’t for me. Because it’s true : where you don’t go doesn’t matter that much, because guess what ? You aren’t there. You make it about the journey or the destination as much as your personal philosophy wants you to, as long as you don’t make it about the journey you aren’t on or the destination it isn’t leading you to.

I’m glad we settled that. Genuinely. But.

Butt.

This quote is meant to be a gateway into mindfulness, the practice of valuing your present emotions and existence. Yet it is unquestionable that present decisions influence your future. And that it might be nice to be choosing whatever feels nice and comfy at the time, but if you’re setting yourself up for years of misery and difficulty afterwards, not worth it in my books. So how do you make decisions, then ? How do I balance between preventing myself from banging my head against a wall right now and also from doing it in two, five, ten years ?

To add an extra layer of difficulty, guess what ? People CHANGE ! Who designed these humans in the first place ? I was perfectly fine in a tree with my local source of potassium. Instead, here I am, 21 years old human, crying over stories I don’t remember the ending of whilst hoping I don’t slap myself retrospectively in half a decade.

This brings me to an endless spiral of mixed time frames and mild depersonnalization. I’m a little bit scared of backing myself into a corner and not being able to find the way out of my handmade obsessions. I can distract myself out of it, true. But what if by just staring at the sunset all the time, I stop exploring who I am, what I want, where I could be going ? Am I building problems by digging into myself or by avoiding to do so ?

Ahaha brains are so fun. Someone give me a 42 steps Swedish manual please. Anything but this.

I guess all this rambling is to ask you a question : what time frame do you live your life in ? Is it okay to put happiness aside for a couple of days, weeks, months because you’re fairly sure it’s necessary to get somewhere you won’t regret going ? How do you make the time in between meaningful ? How do you resist the urge of skipping forwards, or backwards, or pausing ? Have I asked you anything that is humanly possible to answer ?

Help me bake, please.

Find enclosed a picture of the last time we were on the road together. I am prouder every day of how well you drive that car, and a couple of other things.

I love you, past, present and future,

Astrid

A small adjustment

Sunday, August 30th

Dear not even remotely Australian friend, no really, stop saying “we Aussies” no one’s buying it,

First, let me just say.
I told you so.

Paris is a beautiful town and you were clearly missing out by focusing on its smell, really. But then Bordeaux is an amazing town and I completely missed that one as well. I think I want to add something to your “how to fit in a new life” tutorial: sometimes, it won’t work. Sometimes, there’s just something and it might be the town and it might be the people and it very simply might be you, but it happens and it’s no use getting yourself down bec ause of it. Just do your best and move on.

Which is what I’m doing now.
As in, moving. Quite literally as I’m writing as we’re driving to Calais, where we’ll be taking the shuttle to Dover, and then driving to a small town called Cambridge.
Heard of it?
It’s pretty.

Looking back, I think you could say this was all very predictable: you can’t spend 6 months moaning about missing the UK and then move there and expect people to be surprised. But of course, it was nowhere near that simple in the making. From looking for a Ph.D., to giving it all up and planning to go horse-riding in Canada, to receiving and accepting a job offer in Cambridge, and finally cancelling my plane tickets (much more simple than I would have imagined, thank you very nice – who’s surprised really – Canadian guy) to Vancouver. I guess the lesson there is, nothing’s ever set in stone. If you need things to change, well they can, and they will. And it’s never too late. Kind of gives you faith in life turning out not too bad, right? Or quite the contrary, if you’re the pessimistic kind.
Which I’m not.
No, really.

Can you see me trying really hard to squeeze out some blog-worthy life advice out of this mess? Because I am. We created this as an intent to combine both our writing urges – you adjusting back to life in France after a year in Australia and me flying off to Canada and, uh, petting alpacas – but now my side has turned into a whole different adventure, still exciting but much less exotic. I still have no idea what my input on the long term will be. I could try and make a lenghty post on how I built my home abroad a year ago, as you did, but the truth is, I didn’t really do much, did I. Unless drinking beer counts.

…Who am I kidding, of course it does.

What’s left now for me to do (once I find a room, buy a bike and sleep for 3 weeks) is to go on about my life, and to ask myself regularly: am I happy here? What do I want to do next? Is there an afterlife? Why is the sky blue? etc. I’m used to having the answers to these questions figured out (alright maybe not the afterlife one), so this will be an interesting change.

Love, puppies, and philosophical nightly debates,

Lulu

Make yourself at home

Paris, August 14th 2015

My dearest not even almost Canadian,

As the sun still shines in Paris (incredibly), I come to you stuck inside of a tiny apartment near where all the cool people live for this very first blog post. I have no idea what I am doing, nor what will end up happening to this letter. In any case it won’t be the last, it won’t be a first – rest in peace, teenage diary p 66 to 72, may you find solace within the sewer.

In a stunning turn of events, I am writing to procrastinate, which is how most masterpieces have been made (that, and the intent to get laid). We are supposed to get some groceries, fill our stomachs with veggies (pasta), fruit (pesto) and courage (wine) but instead I am going to lay down in denial and distract myself with another type of list:

Things I Have and Things I Have Not.

• I Have: a lot of thoughts about travelling and many ideas of how I could procrastinate some more on this new blog of ours. For instance, a couple of good friends have recently moved abroad to study and have asked me for advice about studying abroad, so let me make myself useful here with some things that were crucial to me – this is, after all, a travel blog:

• Say yes a lot.

• 

  (That’s eloquently put, stranger in the 18th arrondissement)

  First of all it’s a simple word to learn in most languages, so make life easier for yourself.
  Secondly, whether you’re travelling indefinitely or staying temporarily, a huge part of how enjoyable your experience will depend on connections you make with locals. They’ll take you to the cool places, teach you more about the complexities of their culture even if they don’t mean to (this may include uncomfortable discussions about racism and what the hell those Aussie sausages even are – seriously, you call yourselves barbecue specialists guys ?) and make your stay feel less like an endless walk through a museum where you can’t touch all the nice stuff.
  Thirdly, if you are planning on staying for a while, being surrounded is the best way to move into a new routine. Going outside of your comfort zone helps building a comfortable zone. If you’re an introvert (hi buddy), this may sound exhausting, and it will be. But it is also a good way get through the first, polite conversations and the endless mascaraed of one night friendships with high social energy costs. The more people you meet, the more people you meet. Eventually, you will find people you can feel at ease with and will even bring you bits of homeliness.

  – Play Quidditch.
  By which I mean engage in a local, regular activity that puts you in social situations where you can share a common passion and meet cool people that you’ll actually want to hang out with outside of said passion; and if this activity can help you be invested in a local community or travel within the country, even better !
  But I also mean play Quidditch, because it’s the best sport in TWO universes and so addictive you won’t be able to stop talking about it.

  

  (Yes, readers, I really did play Quidditch with negative amounts of regrets)

  – Do you. Yes, force yourself out, take part of what happens around you, volunteer for events in the area, work in a local restaurant, go to book clubs, shop at the market, meet other nerds at board games nights, but most of all, don’t let someone else tell you what your experience should be like, including your past self. You don’t owe yourself any crazy travels because you saw them on TV. You don’t owe anyone else to become president of a local charity because that one girl from the same school did so. You don’t owe your parents to see every museum in town and learn its history by heart. You don’t owe your school to be a perfect student. Your experience will be different to someone’s else’s, to the one everyone expected and the one you set yourself to have. It will be unpredictable and boring, alienating and empowering, underwhelming and unexpected. A healthy slice of life, in short.
  By all means, don’t focus on the experience you’re not living. Who wants to think about what you don’t have ?

• I Have Not: found, despite all these adventures, an apartment. Oh the comfort of sleeping in the same bed for more than three nights ! In the fashion of exchange students coming back home, my summer has been hectic, full of happy or hypocritical hugs, old stories chewed up and spit into new ears and more or less luxurious forms of couch surfing. As grateful as I am to travel around my dear Europe whose quaint beauty I sorely missed, I long for the familiarity of my own sheets… Help, have I arrived at that stage of life ? Will it only go faster and downhill from now on ? Should I be wearing a helmet ? (My concerns are getting older too.)

• I Have: however, a lovely, bubbly, awesome house mate (who despite all her adjectives does not come fed, so I should be looking into this groceries list deal)

• I Have Not: any amount of money. I have heard it is useful to survive, but I’ve also heard sleeping next to your phone is dangerous for your brain and you of all people know one can’t physically fall asleep without music so screw you, world.

• I Have: found Paris to be way more beautiful than I recalled. And yes, you’ve ‘told me so’ repeatedly. I won’t be
  the first traveller to learn the merits of home only after having been very, very far away – and hopefully everyone does not have to go on the actual other side of the world to do so. Paris however has been a tricky city to me, neither home nor foreign, either washed by rain or by tourists, leaving most in wonder but leaving me wondering. It turns out Paris is easier to pet if you wait for summer, until it curls its back under your hand and comes purring at you, laying its lovely streets all the way up to Montmartre and all the way down to the St Martin Canal (where all the cool people live). I discovered many new places to visit again, once I am able to focus on something else than amount of supermarkets close to the places we inspect.

• 

• I Have Not: eaten any chocolate since we got here, despite needing it deeply.

• I Have: a new swimsuit, a hula hoop and most importantly a skipping rope ! See, this is me trying to project myself in a better future. We cling to what’s left…

• I Have Not: done any of the readings I was supposed to do before the start of the semester. To be fair, my lecturer doesn’t sound too concerned as he has warned us by email we will together ‘wander on yet unknown paths’. I can only underestimate the work this year will ask from me, so I might as well start it of being legendarily unproductive. Low standards, working my way up !

• I Have: just been rick rolled with a 5 years delay. Thanks, high school friend and your music files played on shuffle. I thought it was a Valentine’s day gift. THIS IS WHY WE CAN’T HAVE NICE THINGS.

• I Have Not: applied any of my own advice to my life in Paris – yet. When I moved from my hometown to study here three years ago, I guess I didn’t think of it as as big a leap as leaving for Australia two years later. I’ve come back knowing I was, as per usual, completely incorrect, but hey, I’ve grown as a person ! (?)

• I Have: every intention of doing better this time around. It turns out nobody but yourself can make somewhere your home. Who would have guessed ? Is that the definition of a home being yours ? Maybe !

• I Have Not: made any progress on that fucking groceries list. I think that signals the end of this one…

By the time this is posted, I may have a place and maybe even food in my stomach. Until then, my brain feels like a cat falling from the third floor. I am aware we usually fall on our feet and the floor is there waiting for me. But right now, I am tumbling with no idea where up, down or the Mecca is, relying on nature doing its magic and life sorting itself out eventually. Are you familiar with this feeling ? Have you heard of any cat not landing ? Have you heard of any floor disappearing recently ? Are you a cat ? How are you anyway ? Also, what is home ? Tell me everything.

(My brain needs hugs)

I am sure this blog will be a comfortable floor to land on and I have great hopes for our future. Or at least for yours to make the average of ours combined decent. You’re the brain of this operation after all.

Greetings from wherever I found Internet,

Astrid.