Meditation, Mountains, Monks, and More.

Move the body, still the mind. 

Part one: Meditation 

I think a lot, and I talk even more. I find it nearly impossible to clear my head. The ex boyfriend of mine once foolishly suggested I try meditating. I knew that wouldn’t work. To actively attempt to sit alone with no distractions and clear my head is impossible for me. In fact, this is when my mind is loudest.  

There are only two places where I know I can clear my mind. Two places where I can focus on nothing but the sensory experience of the place around me. Those places are where my mind can reset itself to calm.

The first is the shower. While some people find baths relaxing, I cannot get behind the idea. It just seems like a wet place to do this so called “meditation process”. What am I supposed to do in the bathtub besides stare at my feet? I just don’t get it. Sitting in a bowl of hot water while it slowly gets colder and my fingers get prunier just is not pleasant to me.

Showers are different. Showers are symbolic. They give you a clean start, literally.To stand in the shower with the warm water massaging my scalp is a total sensory experience. To be warmed up on damp days when I am cold to the bone is revitalizing. To be cooled down on summer nights and wash away the stickiness of the day is refreshing. 

A shower is always how I start off before I get all dolled up. It allows me to start with a clean slate, freshly shaven legs, silky clean hair, exfoliated skin, and a blank palate for makeup. After an excursion such as a date night, three days of backpacking or anything in between, the shower is what I look forward to most, it is where I will wash away the mascara and the blush, the mud and the dirt, and the sweat and the blood.

Some people measure their days from when they wake up until when their heads hit the pillow. I record my time counting down until my next shower. Collecting traces of where I have been. I can record my day by the dirt on my shins from a game of softball, the grease in my hair from an all-nighter in the library, or the sweat on my brow from a night of dancing. Whatever comes from the day, the shower brings a time to reflect, be alone, and create a clean slate.

 By focusing only on myself in an atmosphere where there is no one to judge, no opinion to worry about but my own, and nothing to feel but the hot water running down my back, the shower is the perfect sensory only, head clearing, body cleansing experience. 

Part 2: Mountains 

The second place is a little different. In nature is where I find my almost parallel, sensory only, head clearing experience. However, instead of it being a body cleansing experience, it is usually the exact opposite.

Have you ever sat and really thought about why people go to the beach? Why they choose to spend their time in that natural setting? 

People go to the beach to feel the heat of the sun kissing their skin (or in my case sizzling it). They go to the beach to appreciate the texture of the sand slide beneath their feet, grit between fingers, clump in their baiting suits, gather on their towels, and stick to their snacks. They go to taste the salt on their lips and to breath in the hot humid air. They float in the ocean and listen to the water crash against the shore.  

On the beach people walk, they play sports, they read, they swim, they nap, they do  so many things that they can do at home. Why do they do them at the beach? Why do they choose to be in a nature setting? For the sensory, for the sunsets, for the sight of a seashell and the slime of the seaweed. People go to the beach to observe the world in its untouched form. 

People go into nature to feel at peace. They go to get back in touch with their most primal form. The beach is not the only place for this experience; there are the woods, the fields, the lakes, the mountains and so much more. These places offer revitalizing and healing fresh air, relaxing sounds, and the purest sights. 

Part three: Monks

From a young age I remember being very opposed to cities. They were dirty, smelly, gray, concrete, busy, crowded, and people were homeless. As I got older I began to see the positive aspects that came with cities such as diversity, activities, history, culture, museums, and opportunities. I grew up on the East Coast of the U.S. and lived within a very accessible distance of three major cities. I always enjoyed going and visiting them whether it was for dinner or for the weekend, but I also loved that I could go home.  When I decided to live in Paris for four months I somehow did not take into account my dislike for cities. 

After about two weeks in Paris I was antsy. In my life I had never spent so much consecutive time in a concrete world. I needed to get out and away from the concrete and the cigarettes. Every time walked past fruit and veggie market I found myself inhaling deeply, to smell something fresh and something natural. So I begged Becca to flee the city for the weekend with me. 

After the ordeal it took us to get here (See Becca's blog for explanation) , we were able to see a beautiful lake and to hike. Up and up and up the muddy mountain we went until we found a clearing with a little stone house. We must have spent an hour 

lounging around the lawn and looking out across the lake towards the snow covered mountains of Switzerland. We stretched out and lifted our shirts feeling the warm sun on our pale faces and bellies. 

We sat in silence and listened to the sounds so different from the city: the wind through the trees instead of the whoosh of the metro tunnel, the wild birds chirping from their nests, instead of the pigeons picking from the garbage, and the sound of the bumblebees buzzing around the daisies.

Becca said to me, “I now understand why monks live up in the mountains: to be farther from the manmade world, and closer to nature, and therefore peace. Here they can meditate and see much more clearly.” In that moment, I realized the ex boyfriend’s foolish suggestion was maybe not so foolish, and that maybe my preconceived notion of meditation was wrong. I could meditate and I had already been doing it for years.  I have been finding peace while being outdoors and clearing my head with views of perfection and calm in nature. A place where the world is not corrupt and ecosystems live in perfect balances. 

My Nana has an impressive collection of books, one of which includes a wonderful book of hand colored photographs and discusses the relationship that people have with the beach. Growing up we read this one many times together and often still reference it when visiting the seashore. The author lists the ways in which people entertain themselves at the beach, he says something along the lines of “some come to lay in the sun, some come to eat ice cream, some come to swim, some go timidly into the water, some dive right in”. 

When I am in nature I am reminded of the ending to this story.  Whether I am looking at the mountains of Switzerland covered in snow or on the beach watching the tide pull, I find that my mind has been cleared and I imagine the last page of that book. There is a photograph of a man sitting in the sand looking out at the waves, just enjoying the natural beauty that exists in the world.  I am reminded of the very last line in the book, “And some come just to watch the greatest show on earth.”

                                                                        Part four: More

 Just as quickly as the rest of life passes by the weekend came to an end. We rode past almost nothing but farm fields for nearly four hours until we were about twenty minutes from Paris when the buildings began to appear and the views of nature were gone. Our high speed train arrived into Gare Lyon station and when I got off the train I searched for Becca in the mass crowds of people. We headed for the metro as more and more people surrounded us. We passed a small string orchestra playing by the entrance to line one, the oldest line in Paris. When the train pulled up there were even more people, it was packed like the New York Subway. Our sweet little town of Annecy quickly became a far off land in my mind as I rode the elevator up to my apartment. I dreamed of the long, hot, cleansing, meditative shower I would take after a long damp, dreary, day of train travel.  

Silence and Silliness in French Class

       In high school, I took four years of French and had the same teacher throughout. Referred to affectionately as "Madame," she put up with so much when it came to our class. We were loud, obnoxious, late, distracted, we never sat in our assigned seats, and usually at least one of us was eating at our desk or was asleep. If I ever have students like us I know it will be karma biting me right in the butt.

She had a lot of reasonable rules and requests that she constantly reminded us of, and that we constantly chose to ignore. I am sure her voice is ingrained in all of our heads with the phrases "pas de telephone"(put your phones away) or "assieds-toi"(sit down!).

Madame pretending to ignore my goofiness. 

We almost always did our homework as teams during our lunch periods, or as she was coming around to check it last minute, but it always got done. We often talked during tests and quizzes but we never cheated on them. We ratted on each other constantly and may have given her more than her fair share of trouble, but it was only because of how much we loved her and believed she was an equal member of our much loved and crazy group.
   
We were an unavoidable nuisance at the end of the day but we knew that deep down she looked forward to having us in class (whether she would admit it or not). We loved to joke and we would laugh until we cried. The shenanigans were endless and our crazy group of ten gave our French teacher one hell of a ride.

She was a wonderful and knowledgeable teacher and everyone else in our class seemed to understand the material. I remember one day I was absent and everyone joked that they had learned the secret to French that day and everything suddenly made sense (I still wonder if that is true).


French was not my forte as I would often remind myself and my classmates. It was fine though because as long as I got my homework got done, raised my hand at least four times in class, and participated in the vocabulary games, I could almost always pull off a B on my report card. And since I stuck with the class all four years I got college credit for it and believed I would never have to take another French class the rest of my life. I was wrong.

For some silly reason when you study abroad in France, your home university expects you to also take a French language class. So, even though I have spent over 700 days of my life in class with the beloved Madame, despite all of her valiant efforts, I can not speak more than one full grammatically correct sentence in French. I could study French for the next 700 years and I would still not be able to say anything other than "J'aime au foot" (I love soccer). This incidentally, I wrote on every quiz and test from chapter one French one, until the final exam of French four in June of my senior year of high school.

Today was day one of classes here in Paris, and my first class was French at  eight in the morning . My first French class since high school as well as my first time being-up-before-the-sun-for-class since high school.

I would like to place this two hour class above the grocery store incident on my list of traumatic incidents so far while studying in Paris.  During the lesson, taught entirely in French, I only understood every 9th or 10th word. I could not follow what the professor or the other students were saying, I could not understand any of the questions the teacher asked me, and I could not answer them. There was no English translation afterward like there used to be, and there was no group of close friends to look to for help as English was not the first language for many of the other students in the classroom. The girl to my left was from Brazil and the girl to my right was from Taiwan.

Laying on the heater instead of my
assigned seat while taking notes  in class . 

The first day of my high school French class we were told that everyone was going to mess up and that we should not be embarrassed or upset, we should be encouraged to try again. We quickly learned that we still got points even if we were wrong and that when others messed up it was good because it gave us a chance to correct them and get the participation points for ourselves.

 Above all what I got out of my high school class was a supportive group of friends. By senior year the eleven people who were in that room at the end of the day were a nice escape from the intimidation that high school struggles can bring. Had we never had class together I most likely would never have gotten to know those people. Looking back on high school a lot of my best memories came from that room in the northern most hall of our building. They were the reason I stayed with French until I graduated, not because I understood any of it.

While sitting in my classroom today watching the outside turn from night to day, I went from stressing and struggling to daydreaming about my old friends. When the professor randomly called on me it was nowhere near as safe and fun of an environment as before. Suddenly eyes from around the globe were staring at me, the dumb blonde American, who didn't even know how to properly say what nationality she was.  I started sweating, did I say "Je suis americaine"? I wasn't sure. I freaked out because I would never say that in English as generally I tell people I am from the United States. I didn't want to offend the Brazilian girl or the Canadian girl who were also American. Then I realized that if I decided to say United States I would have to say "Etats-Unis", but that didn't make sense either I couldn't say "I am United States"! I'm not that dumb!

I sat through the next hour and forty-three minutes watching the clock and trying to avert my eyes so as not to be "randomly" called on again. I imagined myself running home and climbing back into my bed for the next five hours in hopes that my next class wouldn't be so bad. So at 10:01 when she let us leave I raced home to dramatically proclaim to Becca that I was buying a plane ticket and flying home.

 I then rationalized. I made myself breakfast, took a long hot shower, and sent my supervising professor an email to find a solution. Her response was hopeful and so am I. She has helped me so much already on this trip that her patience for my problems (whether they be French or not) remind me greatly of my dear Madame from high school. I am hopeful that I can spend the next four months in France the way I spent  my four years of high school French. I plan on making good friends, laughing until my sides hurt, taking lots of photos, and knowing just enough French to get by.

"I am salt"

Stranger Than Normal Strangers.

Becca and I at our last and least
traumatizing stop of the day. 

      Have you ever had one of those instances where a stranger starts talking to you about their life? Maybe you are at a party, or maybe you are at the post office? Has this ever happened where the conversation was completely unprompted and you have no idea what you did to make this person start talking to you?

      What makes the situation even more uncomfortable is when you have no idea how to make them stop talking to you. The conversation is inescapable and so strange that you are trying not to make any comments or ask any questions for fear of leading them on.

      This happened to me today. The conversation lasted five whole minutes. Only it wasn't a conversation it was a soliloquy.  Only the soliloquy was in French and I don't speak French well at all. We were also on line four of the metro with no escape until we reached Saint-Michel.

      Becca was sitting across from me and when my new friend sat down next to her he seemed normal enough. A glove fell unnoticed from the lap of the woman opposite us and my friend was kind enough to point it out to her so it would not be lost. For the next few stops he read his book in Arabic. Then he noticed me and it got strange.

      One or two sentences were said in French and I quickly gave Becca my panicked, "please-translate-for-me" look but she had not heard anything yet. To my surprise, he continued speaking and I had no clue if he was asking a question or looking for some sort of response from me. So naturally I stared back, mouth ajar, panic in my stomach, looking forth and back from Becca to this man as he continued to chat casually.

      He was doing some sort of motion. Was he scratching the back of his neck? Was he trying to say something about my braids? There was no telling. I looked back at Becca who had begun listening to our one way conversation.

      I heard him say croissant. I knew that word. I nodded still bewildered that he thought I was following what he was saying. The train came to a stop, he didn't get out, neither did we.

      There were still four stops left, until I could escape. That meant about four more minutes on the train. I was counting.  Was he going to stop soon and go back to his book? I had no idea. None at all. Then he said something about Amsterdam and I knew there was no hope for even pretending I knew what was happening in our one way exchange.

     The train stopped again and he still didn't get off. Neither did we. I was starting to worry this would never end, what if he followed us off the train? I just wanted to see Marie Antoinette's prison cell in peace! Becca was looking out the window acting as if nothing was happening. This guy was definitely off his rocker and she could actually understood what he was saying!

     At this point it was too late to politely turn away, I knew I had to just smile, nod, and make polite eye contact.  Meanwhile he was still chatting at me, I could have been agreeing to wear a puffy shirt for all I knew! Becca let out a giggle and I knew it was all over. I tried to hold my laugh in while she composed herself but it was only moments before our suppressed snickers escaped again (he continued with no notice).

      Finally we had reached our stop and I practically leaped over the girl next to me to escape. Before we were even out the doors of the train Becca and I were bent, holding our sides, and crying with amusement. It took us so long to settle down that when Becca finally told me that he was talking about Jesus we broke out all over again.

       Apparently my braids made him think that I was Dutch, and he began talking about Amsterdam. Him and his wife had been there many years ago and they thought it was very beautiful. According to him however, Paris is a much better place to raise a family because it is not as free and the culture is more focused on Christ.

Standing outside of la Conciergerie with my Dutch

 braids smiling about seeing Marie Antoinette's cell in peace.

A man feeding the pigeons outside the modern art museum. It dawned on me
moments before it happened that someone was likely to be pooped on.
Turned out that someone was me. 

 Only it took him five full minutes to tell the story and Becca did not intervene. She only laughed at me because she knew that I had no idea what he was saying. Some friend she is huh?

However, later on in the day when a pigeon pooped on my head she did clean it off for me, so I guess that was some redemption. 

After the pigeon incident there was an encounter with a Parish Priest who begged me to take a photograph. That story would have been exciting enough to be blog worthy had I not run into my new friend on line four of the Paris Metro. 

Sleepovers and Shenanigans

Girls are famous for sleepovers. No nudity or pillow fights involved. Just staying up late, giggling, and  gossiping. For my seventh birthday I had a slumber party. My first sleepover. We stayed awake until one in the morning (the latest I had ever been up) then my parents came down and scolded us.

I remember sleeping over my best friend Christine's house when we were eleven and watching High School Musical with all of her neighbors late at night and thinking Troy Bolton was so dreamy, while also hoping I wouldn't have to sing that much in high school.

In the sixth grade my friend and I did not fall asleep until seven in the morning. We made a game of sneaking out the back door and seeing who could race down the street and back first. My parents weren't too happy to hear about that one.

For my friend's birthday in August right before the start of sophomore year we planned a scary seance. We walked our friends through the farm field to the old haunted Hooten house. What was once the largest and wealthiest home in our community, is now long abandoned, and over grown. We sat around the blanket holding hands and waiting for signs. By the time a boy we know happened to zip past us on the street by bike we had successfully freaked out our circle.

We were sixteen and our Ouji nights had evolved into scary movies. We would huddle together on the couch gripping each other and screaming when Freddy leaped out of the water at Camp Crystal Lake on that dreaded Friday.

After middle school dances, high school football games, and day long track meets, sleepovers were to follow. There was just something unique about staying up all night with the girls you spent all day with. The jokes are funnier at night and the secrets are shared during the sleepovers. Talking until you fell asleep was normal, but you never wanted to be the first asleep.

Sleepovers were the highlight of the weekend, but by senior year our sleepovers had taken a turn. They quickly became alibis so that we could  get into late nights shenanigans with our high school boyfriends. "Sleeping over Hunters" usually meant making out in the back of a car until two am.

Those days were long gone and like many other aspects of life that slowly fade away, you never realize they end until they are over. But then college comes along with new late night adventures that are just as memorable and just as bonding in their own way. Tonight in Paris my new friend Becca and I combined these two ideas: college and sleepovers.

Alone in Paris away from everything we know the two of us have paired up. We are living side by side in a hostel while we search for a flat to live in, we have been scrounging on food to save money for the traveling we want to do, and we have been figuring out this big, beautiful, scary city, together (and BONUS her French is impeccable so she does all the translating).

Becca began by telling me about her two sisters while we ate our dinner on the floor. I in return drew her a chart to explain my siblings. Soon the stories began flowing and before we realized it nearly six hours had passed. We were giggling and talking about everything from our friends at school to the boys we had made out with on golf courses, cruise ship elevators, and all the details in between. At some point her parents rang and when they asked what she was up to she smiled and said, "Oh, Abby and I are having a sleepover."

Serendipity In Paris

Place des Vosges

Today was the first official day in Paris. Even though I arrived about four days ago I had hardly left my room. Instead I spent time recovering from a violent stomach bug.  

Today the goal was to go to Musee Carnavalet and learn some of the history of the city I will be studying in for the next few months. Instead I wound up at the Louvre and the Place des Vosges.

Mona Lisa. 

Today I saw Napoleon's apartment and the Mona Lisa herself. I remember first learning about the Mona Lisa in my first grade art class. She was supposed to be the reason for my "quick stop" tothe Louvre. Instead I spent the most time studying the Victory of Samothrace statue that I stumbled upon. 

The spoons player was my favorite!

Today I came upon a band of four playing on the street. This was when I was suppossed to go into the Musee Carnavalet and learn some history. Instead I tapped my feet to the music of Swing Paris. A cello, clarinet, a tin can harmonica, and a spoons player!  It was wonderful! I listened to four songs including some variations of my favorite American swing music. 

Today was a good day. I can check the Mona Lisa and the Louvre off of my list of things that I have seen and I can add Swing Paris to my book of serendipitous moments. Millions of people go to the Louvre every year to see the Mona Lisa. I got to see her for free as a student so instead I put some money into the Clarinet case for Swing Paris. 

 To me my favorite travel moments are the little ones that are stumbled upon that not everyone can see. Swing Paris was much more memorable to me than the da Vinci painting I have seen in a thousand places. I am looking forward to more checklist moments and serendipitous moments as the next few months fly by!