Love.

I've been feeling strong enough to start reaching out again. Amazingly, people have been reaching back. Why is it so hard for me to imagine that someone could care enough, that I'd be worthy enough for someone to love me and want to help?

***

Hope.

HOPE is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

-Emily Dickinson

09/02/06

***

Do I live for a challenge?

He seems understanding. He's so sweet and so generous to me. I'm attracted to him like to no one else I've ever met. The last thing I need is to fall in love, though. Especially to someone an ocean away, lots older than me, and probably not interested in such things anymore.

Right now, though, all I can think of is how I want to be with him. Of how good and safe it feels to fall asleep next to his warm body, his strong arms protectively but not suffocatingly around me.


***

Tears.
Cried a few times over the old love in front of the new lover. As I can't lie my way out of a wet paper bag, I decided to tell him the truth - that I was frustrated and unhappy about my past love and about how we cut things off. Honesty isn't always the best policy, but it's all I have, really.

***
Dreams.

I'm happy to be away from him, really. I just wish he'd leave my dreams alone. Twice while I was away, he woke me up, frustrated me because of the inability to talk/commit to anything, then left me so sad that I couldn't stop crying.

(From Grimpen Mire)

Local Colo(u)r.

Roxbury, MA -- A seven-year-old boy was at the center of a Boston courtroom drama yesterday when he challenged a court ruling over who should have custody of him. The boy has a history of being beaten by his parents, and the judge initially awarded custody to his aunt, in keeping with child custody law and regulations requiring that family unity be maintained to the degree possible.
The boy surprised the court when he proclaimed that his Aunt beat him more than his parents and he adamantly refused to live with her. When the judge then suggested that he live with his grandparents, the boy cried out that they also beat him.

After considering the remainder of the immediate family and learning that domestic violence was apparently a way of life among them, the judge took the unprecedented step of allowing the boy to propose who should have custody of him. After two recesses to check legal references and confer with child welfare officials, the judge granted temporary custody to the Boston Red Sox, whom the boy firmly believes is not capable of beating anyone.

-Found this on Craigslist Boston, so I guess it must be true.

La Rentrée.



A decidedly Pre-PC statement on a decidedly Pre-Corbu bit of architecture over at Versailles.

Returned yesterday from a very short notice, whirlwind trip back to France. This time around, visited the Picardy coast, Amiens, Rouen, Chartres, and some of the northern portion of the Loire Valley.

I think I'm starting to really get into this travel thing again.

Well, did some soul-searching, some poll-taking and counted the pennies in the coffeecan yesterday: am going to take off (tonight!). As an added bonus, I get to add a few more phrases to my internal polyglot dictionary.

See you in a couple weeks!

***

Food for thought regarding air travel this time of year (via instapundit).

Funny, but:

If I'd not known where this'd come from, I'd have sworn that it was an abstract for a Home Office publication.

4:45 am: While I engage in my ruminations of an insomniac, the moon gets a bit of competition from the other early risers two doors down.

Up until yesterday, I was trying to figure out how to scrape a few sous together in order to spend the last couple of weeks before la rentrée back in France (when else will I have the chance to do that?). Now, I'm wondering if that's such a good idea. On one hand, yes, people want us dead. On the other hand, security's pretty tight, so we might be safer than ever. What to do, what to do.

Never try to argue (Middle Eastern) politics on an empty stomach with a Frenchman: you can't win and you'll only end up getting really upset.



Completely fake but totally accurate representation of last night's discussion on media manipulation and the current Israel/Hezbollah conflict.

It occurred to me that part of the reason why I'm so miserable, so jumpy, so wanting to get the hell out of here right now is that normally now, I'd be up in Maine. A couple of friends invited me up to their family's camp, but it was for two weeks and I wasn't comfortable with that. I'd thought of running off to France again, but twice in a month during peak season's way too rich for my blood.

Right now, I'm trying to stave off the sadness by reading stories of strong women in Maine and essays by a strong woman comfortable with her alone-ness (something I have to relearn), as well as trying to take day trips around town.

It all makes me feel just a little bit less wretched, and stops the torturing, sehnsuchtensvoll thoughts of somebody way too far away from me for short stretches, so I should be thankful for that bit of an escape, anyhow.

***

My mother's on a campaign now to get me to move back to the Heimatsstadt and to live with her. She's worried about me, she says. Mmh-hmm, sure: spending more than the two-three hours a year with her that I currently do would fix me alright; I'm sure of it.

(From Grimpen Mire)

Generally, I'm pretty happy with my car-free state (18 years and still going strong). Sometimes, however, I do get to thinking about how nice it might be to have a means to get the hell out on a weekend or to not have to pay delivery charges for something I could fit in the trunk of a car.

So long as I live here, I won't own a car: it's too expensive, aggravating, dangerous to deal with for all the use I'd get from it. Was thinking of becoming a Zipcar member, but don't know if I'd use the service enough to justify the monthly costs. The pricing structure also seems in place to discourage daytripping. Don't know; I guess I'm just going to have to research more. I do really like the zipcar idea, though.

Mark your calendars: the Perseids are back in town.

They work fast...

Hats off to Kauri and Keenu who, after only just moving there, had their shop named Breckenridge, CO's business of the month!

Go little brother! Go sister-in-law!

Rats.

Saw one scurry across my neighbor's yard, pause near our trashcans, then continue on to my shade garden yesterday afternoon. Yes, I'm pretty sure why it was there. No, I'm not particularly happy at all about it, either.

I love where I live and love most of my neighbors. Living here, though, is getting difficult, as some are ruining it for the rest: namely some condo-dwellers who want nothing to do with their neighbors and slumlords who don't take care of their properties. The rat came from one of the two new crashpads that recently sprouted up a couple doors down.

Denouement.

The guy sometimes liked to give me things that'd caught his eye curbside and that he thought I might use.

One afternoon he rescued a basket of lopi-weight yarn from a sidewalk and brought it over. Pleased as I was by this bit of ground score, I was worried about possible tenants and infestations, so immediately put everything in the laundry.

What came out of the wash was a gorgeous but exhausting-looking mass of greens, blues, browns:



Some disassembly required. Mamasan not included.

As I didn't feel up to the task of neatening up, I just let it sit. And sit it did, until yesterday, when I found that I had the proper mindset (just the right mélange of depression and anxiety) to render this menial task meditative enough to be satisfying.

So far, I'm about halfway through with this work. I pick it up in fits and starts, always concentrating on a single color. It's amazingly soothing, and while loosening up snarls or finishing up a ball, I find myself actually not so teary-eyed anymore.

"As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing-"

Yes, even the breezes are hot. We're all in slow mode as a result. Tomorrow's supposed to be the worst of it (for this week, anyway). Then some respite, maybe.

Free Association.

Isn't it funny how the mind sometimes makes connections?



A rosette pattern on a lamp post along the Minuteman Bikeway extension brings to mind the rivets on a copper bridge across the ocean.



***



A Dionysian fun-fest in front of a Paris opera house brings to mind some nymphs and a satyr with misgivings out in the Berkshires.




***



The arrangement of some waterpipes in the sidewalk near my house evokes a (pie-in-the-sky) longing for Peace on Earth and Goodwill Towards Men.*



*A friend of mine who decidedly does not have the wolf at his door said that this reminded him of the Medici family coat of arms.