Time of Day

I spent the last week doing... essentially nothing. I wandered the city and familiarized myself with the metro system. I stayed pretty much north of the river, though I crossed over to the Latin quarter a few times. Becca and I went to the Cafe du Marché and I had foie gras for the first time. It is supposed to be a French delicacy but to me it tasted like wanting to vomit bicycle tires, metaphorically of course. You probably wouldn't have tried it if you had known what it was made of. Apparently foie means liver and gras means fat. I guess it's straightforward enough if you speak French, which I don't. I thought I kind of did until I actually heard it spoken by French speaking people. I thought a lot of things on that side of the ocean.

But now I'm on this side of the ocean eating "fatty liver" with no job and no plan, only an abstract goal to not leave before I understand why I'm here... Before I understand how we got here, metaphorically of course. Unfortunately, I don't have any set of finite questions that need answering, or any way to know when I have an answer. I avoid asking myself what I am expecting, not wanting to face the inherent arrogance of my goal. As if I can just pick up and move to a city and months later discover something about myself, about human nature, about love... something that's never been known before in the thousands of years of recorded history... Or, maybe, my true arrogance is assuming that because I can't define love and I can't understand love and I can't... love, that means that no one can, and that no one ever could. Of course it's ridiculous when you say it like that, but my brain has a way of holding on to the idea that it can't be the one at fault. I think it's just naturally resistant to change.

But change is exactly what I am after. I don't want to keep being like this, like... Can something be loved in retrospect? I mean, once I learn how... will my love count for anything by then.

I wonder what time it is. Not that I have somewhere to be, I'm just wondering. Right now I am at the metro stop at Bastille. I am staring at what I assume is a French girl, though one can never be sure in this city. She has brown eyes, milky skin, and black hair and coat and tights. She has a french nose (not a big nose, just french) and I'm trying to work up the courage to talk to her. This is a ritual I go through almost daily... So far I haven't talked to anyone. But nothing changes until you change it. And you have to start somewhere.

Me: Quelle heure est-il?

Most-beautiful-girl-I've-seen-in-my-life(today): ... (no response)

Me: ...Pardon... ex... excusez-moi mais, tu connait l'heure?

Again nothing, she just kept that french nose (not big nose, just french) pointed forward as if nothing else in the world existed, as if she weren't actually sitting in a metro station that smelled slightly of piss whenever the warm breeze rolled in from who-knows-where, as if there weren't one hundred-seventy-five pounds of America calling down to her in broken french. How do they do that? If she would have had an American nose she would have needed to bury it in a book.

I wonder if French women read less...

The train arrives. The most beautiful girl that I've seen in my life(today) gets up and walks calmly onto the train leaving me behind to consider what has just happened. She didn't give me the time of day. The buzzer rings and the doors on the train close.

Damn it. I was going to take that train... somewhere... I wonder what time it is.

Oh well, there will be another one. There is always another one.

Sincerely,

Willim


Currently listening:

Super bus - Mes défauts