~Gaston Bachelard
This is the excuse I use to justify my dismal blogging. My life is so full right now. I take advantage of the fullness every chance I get, opening myself up to adventure and exploration and accepting the unbelievably beauty of the life into which I've fallen.
And I write when not writing becomes too painful.
I taught a yoga class on top of Parc de la Colline du Chateau on Friday morning. Five people had signed up through couchsurfing, but only one girl from New Zealand actually showed up. Ach. This is the nature of couchsurfing. People are reliable when hosting or surfing (CS profiles hinge on dependability in this aspect), but seem to cancel willy-nilly when it's for coffee, yoga, or socca.
It felt great to teach and the location was picture perfect, but the inversions triggered my cough and I ended up keeled over, hacking up a disgusting amount of phlegm. No amount of mood music could cover up my beastly rasping, but my solo student was considerate and said nothing during the flow.
"You sound like you're dying," she said as soon as we'd finished, bowed and said "namaste". "Not dying today, but like, later this week."
"Oh good. At least I've got a few more days in France."
Patrick met both of us after class and we all went down to the Old Town and ordered espressos, watching people walk around the morning market and sharing travel stories. It was refreshing to talk to the 23 year old traveler from New Zealand.
It was nice to share --
"I don't want a career."
"Traveling can be so easy."
"People can be so welcoming."
"I'm happy with so little. I don't want more."
We're both educated with degrees (albeit her geology degree does grant more opportunity than my theatre degree...), but feel no desire to settle down and "be responsible", "grown-up", or "rooted". We don't want to pursue careers that tie us down. We'd both be quite content to travel the world with our rucksacks, teaching yoga and volunteering.
I realize that this is now and that now changes with each and every breath, but it was nice to talk to someone with a now so similar to mine.
I trudged back to Baris' flat after coffee, wanting desperately to flop down on the sofa with a cup of hot tea, sip it slowly while reading under a blanket, and then take a very long nap. Anything to get the death out of my chest.
So I did just that. The death was still there when I woke up, but sounded a little less imminent. I definitely had at least a week.
I suppose that's something.
Patrick picked me up at three o'clock and we drove to Saint Paul de Vence. My friend had told me that the town boasted some spectacular galleries, but I didn't even think to suppose that nearly every atelier was a gallery of sorts. One of the oldest medieval towns in the French Riviera, exquisitely beautiful and full of stunning Mediterranean views, it follows that Saint Paul de Vence is crammed with tourists and famous actors/artists year round. It doesn't even feel like a town -- I didn't glimpse the local boucherie or fromagerie -- only galleries and expensive restaurants. Saint Paul de Vence felt like a museum -- which makes it a marvelous place to visit if you want a museum experience, but a terrible place to visit if you want anything verging on authenticity and a horrendous place to live if you don't like tourists glutting your cobbled streets.
Please. For the love of god. Appreciate people who appreciate nice things and try to remember that you --
YES
you --
are also a tourist.
Now finish your pain au chocolat and go sunbathe on the beach with the rest of the tourists.
We stopped at a stream on the way back to Nice. I enjoyed hopping across rocks, feeling the mist of the waterfall on my face and hands and listening to its furious pounding as it cascaded down the mountain and through its shallow bed.
Preconceptions: I hear more American pop music than French music in the Riviera. Which is such a pity.
Challenges: none today
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