The Last Week, Abridged

The language on some of the websites I frequent has switched, automatically, to French. It has been about a week since I last wrote anything, and it has been a... an unusual week. There have been parties, last-minute preparations, and things that stressed me out beyond measure.

There were long goodbyes to people I love, and in particular, a long goodbye that I had no idea how to impart to someone who may or may not know what it means that I will be gone for as much as one year. And there was the sharp pinch behind my nose and eyes when I dropped him off at his house.

There were the last minute efforts to finish the music I'd been working on all summer, both my EP and my stepmother's Christmas CD.

There were departures; arrivals; connections; planes, trains, and automobiles; and clouds that looked like glaciers butting up against mountains that were young by both atmospheric and geological standards. There were clouds thousands of feet below, set ablaze by the light of the morning sun and looking like cotton balls that someone had partially pulled apart.

There was a panic, lasting all day on Wednesday, as I arrived in Paris and found that I couldn't access my money. A train journey with a surfboard in tow and in the company of a French surfer who was similarly encumbered, and hours spent fighting fatigue in the compartment between train cars, shuffling the boards from one side of the train to the other at every stop (somehow, we always managed to place the boards on the side with the platform of the upcoming station). There was the arrival in Royan, the trip to a local restaurant to use the internet and Skype-call Wachovia, and the relief when I realized I'd have access to my funds. Then there was the surrender - after 36 hours of consciousness - to a sleep that could no longer be refused.

Yesterday, I went to my place of employment and was oriented. Then I walked around for a couple of hours and found a tree branch that was lodged in some rocks, rocked continuously by the incoming swell. Grateful, I took at least 50 pictures of it as the waves crashed and swirled around it. Then I went and moved into my apartment - a nice and reasonably spacious place downtown. Finally, there were drinks at a coworker's house, and then back home for a few episodes of The Office before bed.