My kitchen is lit by the glow from this monitor, I sit in the dark wondering why tonight the lights in my cour are all out by one in the morning.
I sit in the dark and ponder denouement, after the myriad of emotions today, after hugging Maja goodbye and kissing the boys on their ruddy cheeks, rather than head directly for my metro line I ventured outside to peer at the gare de l'est against a black sky.
The Gare de L'Est was one of my first visions in Paris, as I lost my way heading for my first appartment viewing, the one with the cockroaches fighting for space on the walls.
Leaning against the stone parapets that seem to appear randomly in parisian streets, I let the lights lose focus and cried into the blurred visions.
I cried for the sweet soprano in Dvorak's opera, cried for her when her sisters condemned her faerie soul to wander from tomb to crossroads to tomb, for having loved a human soul.
I cried for that moment during class today, when Maja stopped playing accompagniment and sat back and stared while I struggled with the four half-notes in "Lektion 5" otherwise known as "how to make the wind cry".
"Monstre, you're not tone deaf. You're not even half-tone deaf. It's official. You're not."
Half notes are so melancholic, perhaps it is the melody so firmly entrenched between my eardrums that has decided upon this mood.
This is my first time on this side of a goodbye. I have to admit, it's easier when the other person is leaving. It's easier to stare off into a black sky and pledge yourself to keep in touch with just one person, than it is to turn your back and pull yourself onto a plane and fight back tears for six hours, saying goodbye to every beautiful soul that you know will sit in anger or despair or simply forget you even before you've touched foreign earth.
Holy shit, I'm beating records even for angsty goths, here.
But the opera was so beautiful, Sven and Andreas so subdued amidst the looming white stone, and I have to admit that when Sven proferred the crook of his elbow, all gentlemanly in comparison with the wild discussions from the metro, my heart did pitter most patteringly. Something about that gesture, gets me every time.
During the entre-acte, I asked Maja if the incredibly sweet quaver that "Ruselka" did was what she intended by a crescendo, and we decided to climb up to the very top of the opera house, outside, staring at one of Paris' great phallic monuments, and practice. Her, then me, then her, then me, higher and higher until we passed out of her range.
The boys were mercifully silent while we serenaded the setting sun, against the backdrop of the heavy stone of this city.
By now, they must have left Paris city limits. It was a delight to glory in their souls, but now we've returned to our regularly scheduled programming.
This afternoon I reached fifty - according to the adage that you get one interview for every fifty CVs submitted.
Tomorrow I will reach a hundred.
Perhaps that melancholic moment at the Gare de L'Est really was in part a bidding adieu, first and last memories intertwined with a similar lead weight caught in my throat and leaning on my chest.
And no, I'm not wearing an anvil around my neck. ;)
But you know what? Today was a big day for me. I am now the proud owner of my first book of musical notes, lessons 1 to 20 of classical techniques.
I'm on lesson five, learning to make the wind cry, more commonly known as "half notes".
The words to the pieces are still in italian, but there is a little catch phrase at the beginning explaining the gist in english.
My first lesson, the one that I sing faithfully in the shower every morning (a warning to all future roommates), is about love.
"The flame that lets itself be buffeted by the wind, is the first to be extinguished."
I like that better than the bit about ever loving a human soul.
And I am no tapered candle, not in any endeavour, and I've learned to make the wind cry.
Never extinguished. Ever. I promise myself that every year, sometimes with tears, sometimes with gritted teeth, always with emotion.
And unlike cobblestones and rollerblades, of this one thing I am unafraid.
Or as the germans put it "just plain crazy. not like a soft city girl." ;)