In the year that I spent gardening and breaking up with my high school boyfriend, between high school graduation and college, my best friend, Trina, moved to San Diego to attend PLNU. After about a month there I noticed something about her when we talked on the phone: the same bursting laugh that I had listened to for more than five years had changed. I've noticed this phenomenon in a number of my friends who move away or are otherwise displaced.
In the process of leaving yet another home behind, and finding another part of an already remarkably small world, people infected with something called "Wanderlust" are losing their laughs every day.
It's not about laughing less; it's about laughing differently. I notice this in myself most recently. I'm well aware of the fact that I pick up other people's ticks like picking a ten-dollar bill up off of the sidewalk. But the lost-laugh is something that happens to a lot of people who must fully adapt to a place in order to live there happily. I'm not too concerned about losing it though... it's a relief that at least there are a lot of things to laugh at. And I'm relatively certain that, like Tim's rediculously loud yawn, which I emulate unintentionally only when I'm around him, it will pass with another change of scene. (Which is not to imply that I don't miss the Tim-Yawn. I miss the Tim-Yawn.)
In further French News yesterday was apparently some sort of National Crèpe Day because the Résponsables of our residence made and distributed a stack of crèpes that rivaled le grand Tour Eiffel itself. My recipe back home never called for beer in the mix but now I see why crèpes are a french national treasure. Never have I seen so many college students cook at one time. Every one of twelve burners was being used and every table was full. The french are indeed on to something with the importance they place on cooking and eating together. It might actually be my favorite thing about them.
Daily, the Americans roll into the kitchen around seven, along with Lee, the singlular Chinese student in the building (who prepairs four-course meals for one that look like something out of a book of beautiful foods). Lee has unfailingly already turned on the radio which plays mostly Beyoncé. We begin to cook and about the time we're ready to eat the french kids start to flow like banquet caterers, with loaves of bread, potatos, eggs, stacks of meat, pizzas, cheeses and all sorts of beautiful envy-breeding foods. From then until ten (when the spanish swarm in a hot rain of tapas, which they share) the kitchen is filled with food and sweaters that are cooler than any sweater ever owned by an American in the history of sweaters.
Speaking of which, I hate shopping. But comparing shopping in France to American shopping is a little like comparing a wine tasting to the trying out of slurpy flavors using the "layer method." Wherein you mix the flavors in the same cup and the melted bit at the end is all brown and syrupy.
The fabrics are the same everywhere in the world but it's how they cut and arrange them that makes all the difference. Not to mention that the "Soldes" here are actaully quite amazing as far as "soldes" go. If you know me you know I wouldn't be bringing this up if it wasn't phenomenal.
Also: see "Garden State" if you like movies that are near perfection in every way except when the baby deer gets eaten by the crocodile.
Don't see "Garden State" if you liked "The Wedding Planner" or some other equally horrible movie with a bad soundtrack.
Phrase du jour: "Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place." -Largeman
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