Mr. Pyke, his book-bringing visit last November, and my surprisingly-minimalist-lifestyle-started-from-scratch-cluttered bookshelf is indirectly responsible for my (admittedly proprietary version of) sanity being preserved despite the cellphone holocaust on the train.
Wilhemina Baird is a stunning writer. Her imagery is so thick and intelligent that I often re-read paragraphs wondering if I'm really getting stupid or if I'm losing my english due to long stints of not even using it to read documentation sometimes.
I realized the ancient patchwork train (every car was different as I wandered from car fourteen to car seventeen, each set of seats different, some faux-leather, some striped TGV grey and black felt, some utterly unrecognizable green) when my backpack stopping leaning so heavily against my leg.
Noticing the slow shifting of weight was a slow rediscovery of the conscious presence of my own limbs, my brain finally slowing down off its technical-starved high.
We made contradictory RFC implementations sit up and beg, and I thought of Steven all the way through.
Steven, if you ever offer me a contract (and a chance to finally try school) again I'm going to have a difficult time not taking it.
I have now learned to walk in stiletto heels, am immensely proud to know I can do it just like everybody else, and even prouder of myself on the days when I realize that I have little need to.
The past two days were such furious activity that my only space for breath was a late dinner last night at the "Air de Campagne" restaurant where the cow tongue they served in fancy wild-italian-mushroom sauce was dizzying. Gourmet peasant food, it was terribly confusing and surprisingly good at once.
And such a far cry from the large grey cow tongue that would threaten me from its styrofoam plate everytime I opened the refrigerator in my parents' house around the holidays.
Limoges remains heartachingly beautiful, and the hotel...
...which doubles as a gramaphone museum filled with the most anciently beautiful things that I almost missed my bus staring at over breakfast...
...I'm tired and fading fast and David's ICQ session seems to have crashed and I'm filled somehow, enough to begin looking towards the corner of this room that the beg happens to be lying in.
Filled with compliments from the stufflist, filled with the slap on the shoulder from Patrice, and the sound of his voice when he shouted "Elle est drolement intelligente la petite!"
A monstre, in none-too-clean jeans, a wrinkled blue pinstriped blouse, lost in RFCs and terribly technical things where entire paragraphs were nothing but numbers.
And I understood. And learned. So much, more than I have in the eight months up until now.
Everything is brimming, swimming, lost in the familiar quagmire of the sort of rush that has so often made me thrilled to be alive and gifted with this strange, strange brain of mine.
It hadn't happened in too long. And now I'm praying to the serenity that is slowly strengthening itself in my heart for me to be able to keep making it happen.
I'm learning. I can feel my experience, feel my confidence hardening despite the extra-rush of tension before every launch.
Slightly performance-enhancing nervous good, unsure bad.
And I am learning the difference.
And the paysan accent of the Limogeois is just a touch softer than the comical Marseillais, and I am learning to love it.
Learning to love, it seems, has been a thrillingly recurring theme the last few years.
Tuesday night I couldn't sleep despite the echoes of David's soft voice into the hotel telephone, and whilst I idly watched "American Psycho" on Canal+, I realized -- I don't identify so much anymore.
I am healing.
Thank you. Namast�.
And for your viewing pleasure, a picture of the outside of the building in Limoges where I'd been hiding, along with ANtoine and Patrice's motoration:
