There seems to be no other way to start this than by expressing my gratitude, love, and appreciation to the wonderful, merveilleuses, caring humans in my life. Voilà, cette la raison pour laquelle j’ai besoin d’apprendre plusieurs langues. I need more precise adjectives to accurately express just how great you all are. This is not of course isolated to now, but has certainly been highlighted by the recent events in France. No, I am not placing more importance to November 13th than the other tragedies in Beirut, Bagdad, and Syria. Yes, I am bias because I am here. Yes, it makes me uncomfortable to have to defend this. No, sadly, this debate is not over.
However, being inside affects perspective. It affects the way of coping when you are not separated by the big, blue void of water that swallows the emotional toll and immediacy of tragedies. It is different to listen to incoming news and updates when you know they are happening close to you. Ignorance and distance really are blissful sometimes. And in fact, part of coming to terms with what has happened derived from that. That is to say, my complete ignorance of the extent and gravity of the events. The day after the attacks in Paris, I went to an excursion to Quéribus and Peyrepertuse, nearby castles that were used as shelters by the cathares fleeing religious persecution… The night before I had gone to bed early. I hadn’t checked the news. The next morning, I woke up late. I put on pants and ran to the meeting point of departure.
There, I encountered tired eyes, sleep deprivation and a feeling of anxiety and gloominess. Others hadn’t found peace in sleep, but instead had been haunted by a darkness filled with uncertainty, confusion, and impotence. I felt uninformed and uncomfortable in my ignorance, but I didn’t really need the facts. There was a willingness, an unspoken agreement, to take up to the heights between earth and sky and breath—a willingness to seek shelter away from the ugliness of the world, the same way other feet and other minds had done so many hundreds of years before us in those same mountains.
We were displaced—both, temporally and geographically. We existed neither here, nor there. The unending waves of grass and greenery didn’t leave room for any other type of breathlessness than that associated to their appreciation. We habituated a space as beautiful as it was isolated. It was otherworldly, and as such, it was the perfect antidote to the shitty state of the world… As the day progressed, I gathered the main ideas of what had happened, but it wasn’t until getting back to Montpellier, when we had an emergency meeting at Le Bureau du Minnesota that the preceding 24 hours really hit me. It all came at me with a wickedness resolute on charging me extra for each hour I had in oblivion.
It was the first time I opened Facebook, the first time I looked at the newspaper, the first time I really saw the extent of the attacks. I saw the numbers and I saw the faces reflecting my disbelief and overwhelmingness. And while I freaked out, I didn’t feel alone, at all. Sometimes time difference or the realisation of the distance make for lonely days, but this was not one of them. There was support and inquiries and company. I called and Skyped. I felt so loved. I also felt so selfish and guilty… I know my decision to be only partially present in the cyberspace has caused a fair share of headaches. I know I put you all in a complicated situation every time you need to have access to me. Again, this was not isolated to this situation, but it was the first time that my sporadic disappearances, and my inability to have access to communication had severe consequences.
There was a knot in my stomach from imagining the feeling inverted. Both of my wonderful sisters were quick to cover for me and pacify the concern, but those messages awaiting for me shouldn’t have waited so long for an answer to know I was safe… Thus, I am sharing my decision to get a permanent—or as permanent as things can be—phone number. Yes, with Wifi. Yes, with WhatsApp. Yes, with direct, uninhibited access to me, and I will try to actually answer messages in a timely manner. This has been a long time in the coming. I knew I couldn’t fight technology much longer. But I am doing this as a compromise between staying true to a character that is a little reckless, a little adventurous, and too spontaneous, and a self that truly does value each and every human in my life, and wants to do the little things I can to pacify hearts and minds distressed by my actions.
There seems to be no other way to finish this than by again expressing my gratitude, love, and appreciation to the wonderful, merveilleuses, caring humans in my life. You’ve been by my side, sometimes I don’t know how or why, but you have…And with less than a month to go, each day I am grateful and a little more excited to come home and relish in amazing company because the world might be dark and terrifying sometimes, but it is also one of the most beautiful things we have, and the best way to live is finding those souls worth being with. À bientôt!
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