Too many homes is a step up from no homes at all.
So many homes. Antibes, where the greatest family of mine lives and waits for me. Brussels, where two of the greatest people I know live. Montreal, which has fifteen years of my life and the extended family it took me all fifteen of those years to create. Paris, where the kids stopped by on Monday night to welcome me back after all.
(Not that many of them, thankfully, Sophie and Seb to drop off the book I'd left in his car which they ended up forgetting to bring up so I'm re-reading Callahan's stories for morale, and Guillaume who appeared shortly after I'd crawled into pyjamas and demanded that I help him decipher the origami diagram for a butterfly that he'd found online... I hugged him hello and thanked him for the warm welcome and sent him off again... He left behind a photograph that Dan had taken at the raclette party, a black and white monstre with a big marshmellow rat hanging with it's tail from my mouth... Cheeks puffed out comically - mine not the rat's - announcing that Dan and He decided to print it since I looked so beautiful in it... I thanked him for the compliment, by rote reaction, and proceeded to blush when he felt the need to explain why, the monstrian-mischief slitted eyes, and the maniacal grin despite the wad of 'mellow in my mouth. He surprised me with that, somehow. Appreciating mischief rather than boobies, I'm ashamed to say I hadn't expected it of him. Dan yes, but Dan's a maniac too...)
Now there's Limoges, where the receptionist was thrilled to see that "Mam'selle monstre" was "back with us again", where suddenly I'm not the Parisian pet monstre or the runaway Montreal monstre, but the "respectable mam'selle monstre"...
"We had a fuckup with our reservations so we've put you in the honeymoon suite, but at the usual price, I hope you don't mind..."
Normally I wouldn't, but standing out on the balcon with the wind wrestling my hair, overlooking yet another park, deciding whether to take a bath in the great tub with the complimentary bath gel, or to simply collapse and give in to post-jet-lag random sleep patterns...
...It just felt strange.
This morning, mam'selle receptionist number two announced that "the charming gentleman from last time" was asking about me, just as he came down to share the breakfast nook with me.
We talked of the weather and the gorgeous scent of the wet earth, of how he'll miss my "charming company" in three weeks when my trips here are over. He's still here until September.
At the bus stop, the usual students said hello this time, asking me what I was studying. Turns out if I ever want to go to medical school in Limoges they'll help me with my homework.
Four stops before I get off, the usual three little boys raced on and exclaimed "she's here, the girl's HERE, daddy!" And the youngest brother grabbed my fingers with his tiny little hand and asked if I'd be his girlfriend. When I regretfully declined he asked instead if I knew any girls his age who'd like a gallant gentleman to play on the swings with.
He's four.
The charming gentleman from Nantes wanted to know if I'd be available for dinner tonight, but I told him I didn't know when I'd be off work.
There's so much of it, I was only partly making excuses.
The honeymoon suite, the charming gentleman, the greetings when I walk into the coffee room at work...
Mam'selle monstre, it tastes strange on my tongue but the taste of the greenery on the air is balancingly euphoric.
The trees are rustling outside the open windows, and I have to figure out where to put this or that certificate in the LDAP directory so that uw-imap can find it before we start playing with the SAGEM toolkit that we were waiting for.
I am wearing the new blouse that I bought after the meeting yesterday (not a habit I plan to cultivate, but it was quicker than laundry), black linen that laces up the front and has clever little triangles dangling off the sleeves.
It's comfortable, but I am cold in it.