Packing, dreaming, leaving

The past few days have been devoted to packing, and the next several will be too because I've accumulated a ton of stuff over the past two years. I left a bunch of stuff at the inspection this afternoon for next year's assistant (who will not be in the same schools I was). Now my room is starting to look empty, like I'm really packing up and getting out of here.

I'm trying to come to terms with the fact that I really am going back to the US. I am still hoping to get a job, and planning to apply for a few more positions, but realistically, it just isn't going to happen for me. There is a part of me that is ready to go back and start the medical school prereqs, the part that is already resigned to the fact that my life in France is coming to a close, but the other wants nothing more than to stay and have one more year in France. I find myself daydreaming of living in Paris, thinking of arrondissements I would like to live in, how much I would be willing to pay for a place, swiping a navigo pass instead of buying carnets all the time.

But it seems it isn't meant to be. And so I am planning to (hopefully) get out of the lycée next Monday, attend the Katia and Kyliemac Bastille Day picnic, and then spend a few more days in Paris before I leave.



I first heard this poem by ee cummings about four years ago. It popped into my head a couple days ago, probably because I was already thinking about carrying France and the experiences I've had here in my heart, the thought probably springing from my knowledge of the poem. This poem isn't totally relevant to someone thinking about a country, but it's a lovely poem that deserves to be shared. The words are so intimate and yet open and public, loving, painfully devoted and true. Reading it pulls my heart out.


i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)