You know, I'm an idiot.
I've been living here going on eleven months, wishing for a glimpse of greenery through my window.
Granted, the imposing sculpted stone of every wall is a glorious vision, something I'd never had before and will never forget, but it don't replace trees. I'm a treehugger. Literally, I hug trees. Ever since I discovered that it's a free hug, entirely devoid of expectations or the risk of rejection one summer night in camp over fifteen years ago...
...I've been discreetly, or not very discreetly depending on the toxic levels in my blood, been traipsing up to trees and hugging them.
I had the opportunity to do that again today.
When princess, or Alexe or one of my beautiful visitors were here, we meandered a little further east than usual along Boulevard Ordener and passed what looks very much like a hidden, sculpted park, complete with pagoda and trellis.
"I should go there to read one Sunday" said I to myself.
I finally got around to it today, Sundays don't come cheap in this neighbourhood.
New book in hand, handful of paperwork that needed doing, waterbottle and cooled and washed strawberries in my backpack and I wandered down to that park, in a short skirt with my radioactive white legs sticking out.
The park was full but after happily aimless strolling through the ives of the pagoda, I found a hidden bench right in the sun.
And I sat there. For hours. I wrote my official letter to my landlords accepting their kicking me out in September, I filled out my hours thingie for work, I read countless fascinating pages of a David Sedaris book that a not-so-secret admirer sent me off my amazon wishlist. It's brilliant and beautiful, and just barely, manages to get my mind off the incredibleness that was "The Empire of the Ants" and the fact that I'll have to wait to see Corinne before I can borrow books two and three in that series.
A young man wandered past and asked for a cigarette and took a strawberry instead, grinning and surprised at the strange offer. He announced that I should have brought a towel to get some more colour. I must have been working very hard to be so white, he said.
Radioactive, I replied. From the computer screen.
To my surprise, we talked of linux for a while, and this random encounter in the park was suddenly bordering on magical, no creepiness, no anything. When he asked if I was looking for a "compagnon" I politely declined, but smiling. He was so very young, but beautiful in his exuberance nonetheless.
Walking past the bank on the way back, I finally picked up my fancy new checkbook and got a few questions answered. My bank has surprisingly good service for a place that won't let you pay your bills or deposit checks through the atm.
The teller lady was in spirits uncommon to a teller, and kept announcing that it's trop s�rieux in a bank and people should smile more.
I gave up on the sun (though I am still radioactiely gothic pale) and wandered back to the machine.
Seb has ordered me to go to the bar tonight, and since all his females are out of town and Guillaume is rumoured to not be there, I acquiesced to his pout. "But you haven't come out with us in WEEKS!"
He's got a point. And this should be painless.
Anna Maria wants to take me shopping for summer clothes. Th3 soldes are on. I have more money than I expected to in my bank account and the extent of my summer wardrobe is two skirts, a pair of checkered purple handmedown shorts that are too large in the waist, and various rude t-shirts culminating in the brand new "I read your email" shirt.
Maybe it's time for my summer wardrobe to be a little less agressive too.
I hate the idea, and yet I hate it less than last year, or the years previous.
Bernard Weber was talking about ants when he made a very good point that has been stuck in my head for days now:
From the Encyclopedia of Relative and Absolute Knowledge: "Is it better to have the skeleton on the inside or the oustide of the body?When the skeleton is on the outside, it forms a protective shell. The flesh is safe from external dangers but it becomes flabby, almost liquid, and when something sharp manages to pierce the shell, irreparable damage is done.
When the skeleton forms only a fine, rigid rod inside the body, the quivering flesh is exposed to attack from all sides. The injuries are many and permanent, but it is precisely this apparent weakness that forces the muscle to grow hard and the fiber to resist. The flesh evolves.
I have seen human beings who had forged "intellectual" armor to shield themselves from adversity. They seemed stronger than most. They said "I couldn't care less", and laughed at everything, but when adversity managed to pierce their armor, it caused terrible damage.
I have seen human beings suffer from the slightest adversity, the slightest annoyance, but still remain open-minded and sensitive to everything, learning something from each attack."
It's been going about and around in my head ringing against the paper-thin walls of my inadequate skull.
And the haunting sound of the melody is strangely satisfying, the way I read my first Heinlein novel at Steven's suggestion and realized that perhaps I was on the right track.
Last year, when David started teaching me to let go a little, to stretch a little beyond the armour that had kept me so rigid and tough for so many years, I was terrified, yet somehow strangely attracted to the idea of vulnerability. Of being at a point in my life where I could allow it. Of learning resilience instead of resistance, and perhaps hurling myself into great colourful things a little harder.
I had a hard time admitting it when I got to Paris and found myself floundering amongst agressive grabs on the m�tro, unable to react to this or that random crotch rubbing against me. But in the long run, David was still right, and he gave me the greatest gift of my young life. The ability to let go just a little. Just a touch. He got me thinking. Helped me lower my walls a little. I'd always believed in magic... But not other people. Not when they got too close.
Now I do, and some days I get thrown into the heart of a volcano as some sort of not-very-virgin sacrifice for indulging in intentional naivet�, but it never ends up hurting more than I end up learning in the long run.
Never. Not even that painful week in Montreal.
I walk headfirst into brick walls, knowing that I can count encyclopedias in my bruises, and I can feel the marrow of my brain stretching to near-mature size.
Nearly.
But I'm learning, and this resilience has so many people positioned at the most elastic nodes.
Somehow again, I find myself thanking you.