Part 3: Remembering to be an asshole

I have to keep reminding myself to be an asshole.

Thank God for stop-and-go traffic. Something to cut your teeth on. Approaching the cluster of merging cars, I put the car into second, very consciously. It's been a little while. Both for the car-driving and for the manual transmission. So far so good though; no stalls. I am confidence. What was I nervous about?  So far, I had only ever ridden as a passenger in cars in France. Or, as a pedestrian, almost been killed by cars in France. French people seem to drive like they walk - step first, look later. Or maybe just more aggressively than in the United States. Like a high schooler; Brand new license ...in public, French people seem to move so... myopically? Aggressively? It's a mystery to me that I don't see people on the sidewalk run into each other more often. Two people, walking toward each other, not acknowledging each other, not willing to adjust course... and then just bump into each other. Then awkwardly shuffle past. A tiny, bizarre moment then move on.

When Americans drive like that, I think they are assholes. Not in general - just on the road.

***

I grin closed-mouthedly over at Rebecca. It's a road trip. We're moving, and I say where and how fast. What freedom means. I really do love public transportation, but... Maybe I'll tell Rebecca that.

"I really do love public transport, but..." Inhaling for effect.

About two hours earlier we had left Jonah's apartment trailing all our luggage and a bag of recycling. Doing our part. We stepped out into the rain and turned right, hugging the awningless buildings for cover. With no wind the rain was falling straight down, and we were getting soaked. I saw the squat, half-dome shaped recycling containers across the street, and coming to a crosswalk I glanced up at the signal to see if the green man symbol was illuminated. It was not... I plodded on. There was sure to be a place to unload the recycling before we got on the tram.

***

I can't remember what it's like to ride a tram in Bordeaux without being minutes from missing whatever it is I'm trying to catch. Teeth gritted, jaw muscles twitching. Fists clenched and unclenched. Curse words muttered, muted; Rushed, harried. Stressed. I'm not used to being so stressed, and I'm silently holding it against my guileless fellow passengers. Where are YOU trying to go? I'm in a hurry here! You... possessed of neither so important a destination as mine, nor so dire a need to arrive there quickly! 

***

We spilled out of the tram dragging our luggage and the recycling through the sea of people behind us. It was time to talk strategy. I'm really hoping that this card will work. If not... Dramatic ellipses. Or a phone call to my bank. But that would involve speaking French, which is apparently(?) not something I came to this country, this France, to do. Rebecca hitches up her gigantic backpack, and I grab the suitcase.

***

- Oui.... eu... j'ai un reservation sous le nom de Boyette.

- nD'accord... Looking... looking.... Oui, Mr. Boyette. First sigh of relief, don't overdo it: I still don't know if the card will work.

- Pourriez-vous me donner votre carte bancaire pour que je puisse verifier qu'elle va bien marcher? Here goes.

In what seems like seconds, the clerk returns my bank card, and hands me the keys to the car and my rental contract. Rebecca and I thank her, exit the building, and take our luggage (and the recycling) out to the parking lot. I reach the car first, then turned to look at Rebecca with exaggerated bemusement. Like I was wearily looking "to camera". Like Jim on The Office.

- We got a soccer-mom car, I said. Bemusedly. She didn't hear me.

- What's wrong, does the key not work?

- Oh no, it wor... well, I think so. I hastily pressed the button, and the locks clicked.

- Oh, well, what's wrong? She: Slightly annoyed by the delay for dramatic bemusement in the pouring rain.

- Nothing's wrong. Weirdo.

We threw our bags in the trunk. I stood for a moment, irresolute, grasping the recycling bag. I went to put it in the truck, then stopped. I shut the trunk. We are not bringing this fkn thing with us.

Back across the station.

- So, we need a map, and we need to get some food.

- Are you going to get your Prince cookies? Rebecca teases.

- No, I say, witheringly. Lip-curlingly. The tiny newsstand is packed.

- Can I have that map of France, s'il vous plaît? I looked to my left. The lady behind me was stretching her hand full of euro bills toward the counter.

- Ma'am, I can't reach you; you'll have to wait a moment.

- Well, I can't get any closer because there's a sac down here, she fumes. Looking down, I see the offending sac: My bag of recyclables. Gently I nudge it farther along.

- I'm sorry sir, we can't use a card for purchases of less than five euros. Looking... looking... I need something to make up the difference. My eyes alight on a pack of Prince cookies. Sighing, I reach for it.

- Et cela aussi. This too.

***

Before we left for good, I had to pull the car around to a garage so that the technician could give it a good looking-over. We walked around the car, and then he glanced over my contract. Pointing to a part of it, he went over something very important, in very serious tones.

- ....Do you understand? he finished.

- Oui, tout à fait. Yes, totally.

- What did he say about the contract? Rebecca asked as I climbed into the car.

- I'm not sure.

***

French for "detour" is détour. French for "France by car" is labyrinthe.

***

Having a car for those four days never got old, and it was exhilarating at the very beginning. I kept grinning and glancing over at Rebecca. Then, turning my eyes dutifully back to the road, I piloted the vehicle gingerly yet confidently. I was stoked. There was more to it than just the feeling of freedom. There was another feeling. Contentment. A domestic feeling; In a safe, practical car. It was easy for me to forget the month-ends spent flirting with poverty and ruin. At the start of our drive, I felt... responsible, and mature. Like this was my car, which I'd earned through some successful - though indeterminate - activity. I was a successful twenty-something without having gone through the trouble of being a success. That was my life for four days. Feeling mature, domestic, successful. A rental identity. Rental car, rental feeling.

***

As it turns out, the French are good drivers. At least, they're no better or worse than Americans. Still, as I maneuvered onto the motorway, I clung to my preconceptions of how to survive as a driver in France.

"I have to keep reminding myself to be an asshole," I told Rebecca.

Then again, as someone who indulges as freely as I do in stereotypes about French people, and their driving habits, perhaps it was mere self-flattery to think that I needed any reminding.

Here's our car, and Rebecca, in the mountains:

Next Part: The Pyrhenees!

Vacation Part 2: Bergerac, and the Ballet

Benji saw me whisper to Rebecca, and saw her laugh indulgently.

"What was the joke?" he asked.

"Oh..." Eyes turned to me. I didn't really want to tell it. If I refused, of course, they would insist and thus, exalt the joke. Then it would be a disappointment when I finally did tell it.

"Je ne sais pas la dire en francais..." I pleaded.

"That's okay, say it in English." I wondered if Benji was actually British. He wasn't. His accent was. I told the joke. What happened to the cannibal that was late for dinner. Baptiste translated the joke into French for the rest of the party, then translated the chorus of "quoi?" back into English for me.

"He got the cold shoulder."

Translation. Explanation. English expression meaning battre froid à quelqu'un. Or maybe tenir à l'écart. Also a cut of meat.

Baptiste is a friend that I met through a mutual friend. Rebecca and I are staying with him in Bergerac for a few days before we take off for the Pyrenees. We will see him again in Paris. Tall. Dreadlocked. Music enthusiast and avid reader. And excellent cook. I am still picking errant bits of duck out of the greasy pan. This is rapidly becoming gross; the pan is cooling and the grease is beginning to... the only honest word is "congeal." I am struggling vainly to follow the threads of conversation around the table. From the general hum themes emerge now and then and I understand them, well enough to comment on them. But by the time I've worked out the grammar, I've been distracted by another conversation, and the first conversation has sunk back in. Disappeared. Seamless, drop of water in a puddle. Every so often, someone gets the attention of the rest of the dinner party and tells a joke. We are fourteen at a tiny table. The guests vastly outnumber the wine glasses. We pour our wine into any old cup, heedless; the bold and unconventional. Emancipated. Some people worry about wine glasses. We do not.

After dinner, Baptiste and I will grab a ukulele or a guitar and learn "Take Me Home, Country Road." It takes every one of the four chords I know on the ukulele. We play country songs from O Brother Where Art Thou. We try to play the George Brassens songs I promised I'd learn but haven't quite yet. We don't play a lot, because this isn't that kind of night.

Baptiste offers to show us around the Christmas Market tomorrow. Vegan food. Organic food. Local beer producer... your beer handed to you by the man who brewed it. Je suis producteur. On est producteur. Hot wine. Strange, loquacious man selling vegan food. Should've sat elsewhere, because the aforementioned will not shut up. "Don't talk while you're eating!" It's my life, man, and your food is... well it's okay. Stinging nettle soup. Artisanal soap. Man chipping flint into arrowheads, making fire. Bookshop, back home. Singing in the Rain tomorrow evening.

We agree to the Christmas Market, and to things we do not yet know about - it's your town, we'll follow you. Then we descend to our basement guest room. The space heater works. Tant mieux; In spite of the sunshine today there are still pockets of snow clinging to shadowy patches outside. We'll have to change places in the night when one of us gets too hot.

I must have heard a round dozen or so jokes in French tonight. I can't remember a single one of them.

***

Our last day in Bergerac was spent almost entirely in one of Baptiste's favorite restaurants: The Bodega. Spanish style food. Rebecca and I shared a tapas plate. Then the main course. Washed down with Sangre del Torro. Out on the front porch under the awning. The rain... pleasant when it doesn't make you wet.

After lunch, we went inside for coffee. Baptiste disappeared for a few minutes, then reappeared with a deck of cards. We played a game (the name escapes me) in which you place cards on top of other cards, looking for a... repetition of some kind... when you see it, you slap your hand down on the deck. I don't really remember. I won a couple of times. I don't usually do well with fast-thinking and observing sorts of games. I was the President. That was part of the game. President, Vice-President.

After the card game, when we still had over an hour to kill, Baptiste and his cousine showed us card tricks.

On the way back to the station, we stopped by Benji's residence, a house that he is restoring. Beautiful, and old. God knows how old. It's like that with a lot of things in France. We walk inside. There's a wide doorway leading to a living room on the left and a stairway on the right. Ben leads us back to what must be a den of some kind, where he's laid out a makeshift bed on the floor. There's an overgrown garden behind the house; this will be tilled, groomed, replanted. We retrace our steps and climb the stairs. At the top of the stairs, we saw a large room filled with bookcases filled with books. Then, up a narrow spiral stair to the attic. He'll completely redo this whole area. Talking and motioning with his hands, he levels walls, installs doors, raises handrails. Interesting guy, Ben. An artist. His work is stacked against the walls of a sunlit upstairs room. Salt and pepper hair. His face still seems young. Sharp eyes. Always seem to be observing the scene from just above or beyond it. And perfect English, I'm sure I've already mentioned. At the party two days ago, he observed:

"The cat never eats the dog's food, but as soon as the dog arrived he immediately ate all of her food. Dogs are quite ecumenical in that way."

That's an example. Not everyone uses the word ecumenical, and to use it to say that a dog will eat anything was a stroke of brilliance, I thought.

***

For the second time in almost as few days, I found myself on the tram in Bordeaux, drumming on the vertical aluminum handles, with very limited time to get to where I needed to go and do what I needed to do. Arrive. Get to Jonah's. Upstairs, shower? (probably no time), change, walk over.

We were going to see Swan Lake. I knew the music - everyone does - but I had never seen a full ballet before. I have wondered, a few times on this trip, to find myself enjoying things that I might not have even thought much about a few months earlier. Wine is one of these things. I have opinions about wine now. I wonder if my new taste for wine is anything to do with Rebecca. The timing is, I can't argue... suspicious. Let see, how long have I liked wine? A few months... and when did I meet Rebecca? Oh well... I like to think that I'm open to new experiences. That's why I'm here, after all. In France. In Europe. At the ballet tonight. In my new outfit.

I had been genuinely surprised, a few days ago, to discover that old, loose-fitting jeans and graying tennis shoes were not considered appropriate opera-wear. I think Rebecca finds my lack of polish and savoir-faire amusing... cute, maybe? This is what I hope, anyway. God you're beautiful, I thought, standing in front a mirror. I called to Rebecca in the other room, apologizing for looking so good, for raising the bar so high. I needn't have bothered. When she stepped into the room, many thoughts occurred to me, each one sounding more stilted than the rest. "Picture of elegance": True. Lame-sounding. You look beautiful, I told her reverently. She did.

"Deux billets, s'il vous plaît."

Apparently, this request did not plaît: The woman behind the counter attended to us with thin-lipped impatience before stepping away and leaving us at the counter. I looked around, theatrically confused, until another, much sweeter, clerk motioned us over and sold us tickets for the best seats she could manage to find us. Then, stepping into the hall, we bought a program and went to find our seats.

There's no point in trying to describe the beauty of the ballet that evening. Part of the reason is that we only saw half of it. Next time, better seats. Tickets in advance. Still, what we saw and heard left my chest aching dully. At intermission, the woman next to us asked us if we were English. We told her we were American, and she told us that she has a son in America. Had married an American girl. She told us she had left her husband and little niece behind to see tonight's show. Wanted to see the ballet, those philistines of a niece and a husband be damned! Later, as we sat in a nearby restaurant called the Bodega (second of the day if you're counting), Rebecca confided that she wanted to be just like that old lady, and go to ballets and things even if her husband didn't feel like it.

"So what did you think of the ballet?" She asked.

"I... I liked it." (Much more than that, but talking about it wouldn't add anything to it. It was beautiful.)

We sat in the noisy bar, thinking about the show, humming the themes. There is a beautiful kind of solitude in disappearing into a noisy bar. In my memory our high, round table was an island -  peaceful, isolated - in a sea of the self-absorbed and raucous. Our thoughts were still on the spectacle we had just left; we were savoring the aftertaste and enjoying each other's company. Around us people were shouting jokes, trying to be the last to say something apt or witty or intelligent about whatever topic. I looked at Rebecca, and did not tell her I thought she was beautiful. You tell her too much, it probably doesn't mean much anymore.

"I liked it," I finished.

Rebecca, in front of the Grand Théâtre, where we saw Swan Lake.

Soon... Part 3: The Pyrenees

The Vacation, First Part

The afternoon before I was set to depart on a two-week vacation, I stood anxiously before the ATM at my bank, Credit Agricole, awaiting my receipt and holding my breath. I was down to ten euros and a generous Christmas gift from my mother, which was currently unavailable; seeping through the regulatory maze of two different banks, in two different countries, in two different languages. And after a week of trying to shepherd my mom’s generous Christmas stipend across this electronic frontier, I had the impression of trying to bottle molasses, or that someone, somewhere was counting my money with stiff, cold fingers.

With the burst of the mechanical chatter that printers make, the white slip appeared. I extended a furtive hand, flipped over the receipt, and knew my fate: Salvation.

Hallelujah! The money had made it!

God, the relief. I had left myself no other recourse than to “somehow get money before tomorrow”. Now I could get through the first two stages of my winter travels. Stage three… well, I had a few days before I needed to worry about that. I set out to give my last English lesson before the Holidays, sobered by my recent poverty and determined to exercise good money management from now on. Thriftiness… that’s who I was. My father was thrifty, my grandfather was thrifty… Now I would don the mantle, take up the torch… I walked through town, passing with studied indifference the shops that sell my favorite things, with the contentment and self-assurance of a man who knew who he was; who had taken control of his destiny.

It was going to be a good vacation, but a modest one.

A month later, I’m broke again. I’m asking God for a second chance, and I know that this time I can really manage my money. Now I know my weaknesses. I can do better. For now, however, there’s nothing to do but make do; to spend with care the little I have left in my bank account, supplemented on a weekly basis with the money I manage to raise teaching English on the side. I look back ruefully on the profligacy of the holidays; on trains, rental cars, apartments, ballet, wine and cheese courses... I lived better than I really could, but I don’t regret it too much. I lived a hundred days in ten. It was a beautiful vacation.

Here are a few scenes from it:

Bordeaux: Part 1

“Do you want to wait here while I go check on the rental car situation?” I asked Rebecca.

She nodded and took a seat in the waiting room. Her expression was neutral, the stoic mask of someone who was in a truly bad mood. So was I. It was understandable. The train was over three hours late, and she had spent three hours in a poorly heated train station. Then, on the train, she had learned that the cause for the delay was a chevreuil… which is, well…

“I think it’s a deer,” Rebecca had said. She tried to confirm this with another passenger on the train, but his English was not perfect. The final translation came out as something like “It’s a like a goat, but with… (he mimed a set of antlers with his hands).” Rebecca was still pretty sure it was a deer.

“Worst case scenario,” I added, “the train hit the deer. How does that take three hours?” The frustrating afternoon had eroded most of my humanity.

I went to check on the rental car. I had waited too late to reserve one online, and I was now in a panic. Could I reserve a car? Would the prices have gone up?  At the desk, I told the gentleman I would like to reserve a car for next week, from the twenty-third to the twenty-seventh. After a few staccato bursts on his keyboard, he sat back to await the results of the search.

- I’m sorry, we don’t have anymore cars at the price you were quoted.

- Oh…well, do you…

- Let me check the next price level up…

- Oui.

- Okay, we do have some cars at the next price level.

- Oui…

- Let me check the prices.

- Oui.

- Okay, we have this one for ___________.

- So… a difference of three euros?

- Oui.

- Okay, um… oui. I’ll… I’ll do that.

He handed me a slip of paper with a reservation number on it, and I crossed beneath the station and rejoined Rebecca, grateful for the good news I was bringing. In writing, no less. Good news you could touch. We bought our tickets and boarded the tram just outside the station. Destination: Quinconces.

****

Less than half an hour after we boarded the tram at the train station, we rolled to a stop at the Place de Quinconces. I flashed our still-virgin tickets to Rebecca triumphantly – we can reuse these babies later! (After you board the tram in Bordeaux, you are required to insert your tickets into a machine aboard the tram that time-stamps them – this rule is not always respected, and it’s rarely enforced. However, if you get caught without “composted” tickets, the fine is pretty heavy – at least $50.) With bags in tow, we set off across the Place.

I had been living in France for about a year by this time and, gun to my head, the biggest difference between the two countries is not language, architecture, nor anything tangible, but rather a general impression of history. It is a country that is much more connected to the past than the country in which I grew up (up in which I grew?). In La Rochelle, there is an apartment in which the windowpanes were installed before the founding of my country. In Saintes, where I lived last year, there are the remnants of an ancient Roman civilization that was founded during the lifetime of Jesus Christ. Antiquities that boggle my American mind are the trappings of daily life for the average Frenchman. Just the names of the streets and squares in France represent an incredibly rich history unto themselves.

I had arrived at the Place de Quinconces many times, and I had always wondered at the name. Who were the Quinconces, anyway? A group of resistance fighters in WWII? Victims of Robespierre and his Reign of Terror? An ancient Roman religious order?

Turns out, a quinconce is a geometric pattern. The 5-piece in dominoes: That’s a quinconce. That’s how the trees on the Place de Quinconces were arranged, hence the name. Goddammit.

Either way, it’s a beautiful square, one that occupies the space once occupied by the twice-built, twice-destroyed Château Trompette. On the side facing the river are two pillars; at the other end, a statue commemorating the Girondins. In the middle is a lot of empty space, and the Place often plays host to enormous flea markets, antique markets, carnivals, etc. This time, in the middle of the Place was…

“…a reptile exhibit? That should be interesting in the winter.” I sneered, remembering that cold-blooded animals tend to be pretty sedentary when it’s cold out.

The wheels on my suitcase sunk into the white clay mud of the Place as we trudged along cutting across the western corner, toward the statue. My friend Jonah’s apartment lay just beyond, and it was with Jonah and his girlfriend Allison that we would be staying this weekend.

“These statues were actually almost destroyed in World War II,” I told Rebecca, “to make bullets.” As we walked along, I rattled off every piece of information that came into my head on the subject of Bordeaux, a free-association of barely-relatable factoids. In case she had forgotten, I had been here sooo many times.

“Lots of monuments were lost that way in World War Two… And speaking of lost things, there used to be a castle here… I think Napoleon destroyed it, maybe… Oh, and speaking of Napoleon, there’s a bridge that you can’t possibly see from here, and he had it built…And now we’re approaching Jonah’s apartment, which, if memory serves, is number 11… yes, now I’m sure that was it, and if I’m correct, the keys should be… yes! Alright, we’re golden… there’s a golden statue on top of Pey Berland tower, we’ll see it from Jonah’s window…”

****

On one of my last nights in Bordeaux before I went home for the summer, Jonah had paid for the first round in what turned out to be a one-round evening at the bar. Now, months later as we walked into a local wine bar, I was determined to pay the tab. The bar had just opened, but the hostess looked mildly surprised to have clients already (another gun to my head, a huge difference between the New World and the Old is that people seem to start their evenings much later over here…). Rebecca stepped up to the bar, and asked…

“Are you open?”

The bar tender seemed taken aback for a moment, then coyly responded “Why yes, I’m open!” Wink, wink.

“Oh là là!” exclaimed Rebecca. I was puzzled by the reaction. She had used the “vous” form, of course, which can be used to address either a group (“Are y’all open?” in my part of the USA) or a single person to whom you would like to be polite. Hence the confusion, I guess, although I had asked a thousand people, men and women, if they were open… now I’m wondering…

We chose a wine from the Côte de Blaye, which is near to Bordeaux. It’s also near to where I live, so I’m kind of proud of it. (Like any good Frenchman, I have a proprietary love for the things from my adopted region, which is Charente-Maritime. Of course, I am not a Frenchman, good or otherwise; my pride is a poseur’s desperate plea for legitimacy and sophistication. Oh well. I am as God made me, as they say, and I suppose it does no harm.) I swirled the wine around the glass, raised it to my face and inhaled deeply. Then, after holding the glass up to the light to check its color – it was, I can report with full confidence, “red” - I raised it to my lips and took a sip, swishing it around my mouth. Taking in a small amount of air, I swallowed, and gave the wine taster’s nod – a modest display of approval, carefully calibrated to avoid showing too much enthusiasm. It’s a carefully jaded culture, that of the wine connoisseur.

“No one ever sends it back… have you noticed that?” I asked, after we had each filled our glasses. “I mean, they always nod…”

“Well, you’re the one who ordered it. It’s your fault if you ordered a bad wine; you wouldn’t really send it back unless it was corked.” Rebecca replied.

There was no need to send this one back; It was a nice, woody red wine that splashed against our palates with the mild bite for which wines from that region are known. I tried feebly to analyze the taste, wondering vaguely when I even started caring about wine. The bar was warm against the winter chill, and I felt satisfied. It was a good start.

Coming soon… Part 2: Bergerac

The State of Me: Update: Sorry It's Been So Long

Though I'm not quite back to work yet myself, it would not be premature to say that the vacation is over. January is traditionally a period of want after the extravagance of the Holidays, and by me the tradition is honored to a tee. This is a month to count centiemes and celebrate - albeit in a rather Spartan sort of celebration - the days when you can get by on very little.  It distresses me slightly to think of my poverty at the beginning of 2009, and to reflect on how short a distance I seem to have come in a year. Of course, I had a lot to celebrate at the beginning of 2009, and I have a lot to celebrate again this year. And, if it's not incredibly indelicate to say so - I am not really, REALLY poor, after all; not compared to far too many - there is something kind of life-affirming about being down to your last pennies. You are more engaged in your vie quotidienne, you pay more attention, you make do with less, and for the days when you can get by on very little, your thriftiness alone confers a sense of accomplishment that few other accomplishments could match - apart from, perhaps, that of making enough and living within your means, but what would I know of such things? This January, I will avoid the months of debt into which I entered last year, and that will be good enough for me. I will not borrow as heavily from future Jon, who will be even older, more cantankerous, less able, and less disposed to foot the bill for his free-wheeling counterpart, yours truly. Well, the time has come to end a brief rhapsody about poverty.

I walked Rebecca to work today, and told her that I could spend another fifteen or so days of nonstop hanging out with her. As I told her, she makes me want to be better than I am, and I feel that I succeed often enough to stave off my discouragement at my own shortcomings. In point of fact, I actually do the dishes when I'm with her. I surprise myself when I see other peoples' dirty dishes and I think things like
"Why did he leave that? That's EASY to wash! Dare I say, it's almost FUN to wash! I might do it right now, just to keep a hand in it!"
Still, one must be charitable and remind oneself that he or she is only a few months removed from his or her own more, um, relaxed attitude about cleaning (in fact; a few miles removed, for I am not as conscientious about the washing-up chez moi). Still, my little successes in life make me feel happy and useful. I don't think it's just the usual phenomenon of being on your best behavior in a new relationship, either, for two reasons:

1) My facade has worn clean through in other areas, and she has seen some of my old chinks-in-the-armor (notably, my insecurity, but then again doesn't everybody...?).

2) I get a real pleasure from thinking of her while doing things for her, and such pleasures can be addicting.

3) I know I promised two, but it is also important to note that Rebecca is an excellent cook. Saying that, I feel like I haven't really explained the depth of it. One gets the impression that cooking, for her, is an artistic outlet, and she takes to it with a creativity and dexterity that makes me simultaneously despair at my own lack of facility in the kitchen and revel in my circumstances. So, really, it's only right that I should do the dishes.

So, today I walked Rebecca to work, and then I installed my headphones snugly in my ears and drew my scarf tightly against what - at within a few degrees (give or take) of freezing -  strikes a resolute Floridian as bitter cold. I retraced my steps, taking in the morning and taking stock of the 'state of me'. I am a few days removed from the first decade of the second millennium, depending on who you ask. Already, OK Computer hits me with much more whimsy and much less claustrophobia than when I first heard it. I don't know what to make of that; perhaps things were even worse early in the millennium than we could have thought when Radiohead released their "millennial" album in 1997, and the alienation that they evoked lo! those many years ago falls flat on the ears of a hardened graybeard like myself, who has seen too much.  

On the other hand, maybe the pre-millennial angst proved somewhat unfounded. The cynic in me is repulsed by that interpretation, but the idealist is smiling indulgently at the cynic: Here I am, after all. I have made it to 2010, none the worse, and quite a bit the better, actually, for it. We still have racism and political parties and poverty; I hope that I can be part of mitigating the effects of these cancers in my lifetime. However, I am also living proof that theaters still mount beautiful productions of Swan Lake long after Tchaikovsky left this world; more on that later. I felt a great flutter in my chest this morning as I walked, with no obvious proximate cause other than the brief sight of a small, elegant tree in the tidy courtyard of a home. I am pleased to find that in 2010, my heart can still break for joy at the slightest provocation, and I resolve to waste less time this year than I did last year.

Also, I will try to keep up with this blog much better than I have in the past.

Happy New Year!

(Soon to come, a series on my travels during the vacation!)