Which is brilliant. I've just returned from a night with the French; I didn't understand everything when the music was blaring, but I understood enough to respond sufficiently. And hopefully tomorrow we'll do it again. I just worry about losing my German. And gaining ridiculous amounts of weight, because I've already put on a bit. And losing the class in seconde, because they're chatty.
That said, I do like the class in seconde. I think they're still enjoyable to work with. I will associate more with the Germans so as not to lose my German completely. And I'll bike more and eat more vegetables to stop gaining weight. Done. I'm on it.
Oooh. Il faut que j'elle donne un nom secret... the doer of good deeds? That's what her name means. The bringer of luck? She always says it's luck. It's luck that she found me a flatshare with someone lovely, it's luck that she's potentially found me a tutoring job, it's luck... it's lucky that I met her. Out of all the lycees in Paris, I happened to fall upon one with a responsable who smokes weed, who introduces me to everyone I want to know and wants to chat to me and offers me her sofa for a week when I'm desperate... and, of course, whom I fancy desperately. That's not exactly a quote from Casonova. I saw someone tonight with long, thick, dark hair and thought 'oooh... it's you'. Even though it wasn't, I couldn't take my eyes off the girl. Same posture, same build. And it wasn't, at all. Though there are those remarkable features that I remark in others, her nose, her hair, her face. Her eyes are never the same; I asked her once, 'tes yeux, ils sont les couleurs differents, n'est ce pas?'. Apparently not, but it seems so to me.
I saw her today and we spent an hour correcting French children. She's wonderful when she speaks English, but she doesn't think so. I think she knows deep down, but she doesn't know how fantastic she is. Her class was so easy to be in... I just float about and do whatever I want to with the children, and sometimes she asks me to come with her because she's unsure of how to express something. But she doesn't try to cover it up, she simply asks, and that's brilliant in itself. No artificial edifices. And she goes to staff dos and integrates, speaks to everyone and doesn't bat an eyelid. She was cold. I went to smoke with the surveillantes, and she appeared towards the end. She shivered and stepped from foot to foot in her boots. I was wearing a duffel coat and my scarf, and my woolly hat. I wanted nothing more than to scoop her up and wrap my coat around her. Ha. It would be difficult to do alone, yet alone with a group of people. I just watched her, being beautiful and needing a coat. Hopefully I'll see her in the holidays. I want to sit on her sofa again and dire des ragots, just to mimic her posture and elle donne le soulagement. Ah, elle est si jolie qu'on faut tomber... I don't know if that's the exact expression.
Friday 21 October 2011
Thursday 13 October 2011
I've been drawing you wrong
When I looked at your face tonight, I tried to remember it so that I could commit it to paper. You don't know that you're my muse. The things that I remember are your pointy chin and your nose (you say it's a witch's nose, that they meet, but this isn't true). Her nose is long and straight and her chin's pointed. I've been drawing her face broader than it is. I put in the cheekbones, the eyebrows close to her eyes that make them so expressive. She's short and I manage her hair; long, dark, straight, that catches the light with a central parting with a kink in it. Someone said to me 'si belle qu'on faut tomber'. Or something like that. It's not the direct translation, and I've got it wrong... so pretty one could fall to the floor. That's her, for me at least.
All the world probably thinks she's pretty. Between pretty and beautiful. Attractive, desirable (she worries that she isn't because she's been told she isn't by those she adores). That's not true. She is most certainly pretty, attractive; I thought so the first time I saw her, and now I think she's the most beautiful thing... I wish she could know it. At least that she's pretty. In my first week I told her, because she said he'd said she wasn't, that she was desirable. That someone would want her. In fact, I want her. I find her desirable. I wouldn't tell her that making love to her was a matrimonial duty.
All the world probably thinks she's pretty. Between pretty and beautiful. Attractive, desirable (she worries that she isn't because she's been told she isn't by those she adores). That's not true. She is most certainly pretty, attractive; I thought so the first time I saw her, and now I think she's the most beautiful thing... I wish she could know it. At least that she's pretty. In my first week I told her, because she said he'd said she wasn't, that she was desirable. That someone would want her. In fact, I want her. I find her desirable. I wouldn't tell her that making love to her was a matrimonial duty.
Beaucoup de choses cette semaine, mais tu es si belle et si triste que ca m'empeche de faire des betises comme toujours.
Things I have done this week:
1. The first group at the lycee.
2. Translated a CV into English.
3. Fait la fete with the Germans.
4. Seen a French film that was incredibly French. This pleases me. Listening in snatches is far easier when you don't have to respond constantly, even if it is hard.
5. Found the bin place in the underground cavern.
I adore my job, and I adore Paris. I can't stop thinking about how she's sad at the moment, and it's not her usual way. It's because of traumatic life events. I don't think she wants me to be around, but it is difficult to tell. I went to see her tonight and she looked rested but distracted. She walks me to the bus stop as if we're small children, as if we're reliant and need each other; I haven't done this since I was small, walking along step in step, halfway between both our houses to check the other person's safe though there's no need any more, because we already both are. We are grown ups, I am used to going around at five in the morning on my own, she's got children... but I like it all the same, and I wish I could give her that feeling, of being watched over. She told me about her aunt dying, and I asked what she did in the day, and I think she thought this was a change of conversational topic when it wasn't, really. She said she was crying very easily. This happens when she stops smoking or is just generally feeling emotional.
There are so many times when I just want to take her in my arms and kiss her forehead and stroke her hair, to tell her that she is beautiful and I can't comprehend that she would ever have believed otherwise. When she cries especially. 'Don't be scared of me crying', she says, but I'm not. I just want so desperately to hold her till she's finished and make her feel safe. This wouldn't solve everything, and it probably wouldn't work; maybe it would if the man she's seeing did it. She has a tendency to throw herself after people that don't return much; or they do return it, but via giving things, for parties, via skirts and shoes and doing things around the house. Maybe this is what she wants. I can't provide financially; I can assemble things, but I can't do advanced plumbing, I can clean. I like doing things for her. But it doesn't matter, because she adores him, and the biggest thing that makes her adore him is probably the way that he is superficially kind but tells her what to do (even if it's not what she wants to hear, it's someone in the driving seat) and that he doesn't return affection. Maybe if he did, she wouldn't want him so much. And this is the area in which I would fail the most, because when I fall I fall hard, and I can't stop myself from adoring. It's not always what people want, though.
1. The first group at the lycee.
2. Translated a CV into English.
3. Fait la fete with the Germans.
4. Seen a French film that was incredibly French. This pleases me. Listening in snatches is far easier when you don't have to respond constantly, even if it is hard.
5. Found the bin place in the underground cavern.
I adore my job, and I adore Paris. I can't stop thinking about how she's sad at the moment, and it's not her usual way. It's because of traumatic life events. I don't think she wants me to be around, but it is difficult to tell. I went to see her tonight and she looked rested but distracted. She walks me to the bus stop as if we're small children, as if we're reliant and need each other; I haven't done this since I was small, walking along step in step, halfway between both our houses to check the other person's safe though there's no need any more, because we already both are. We are grown ups, I am used to going around at five in the morning on my own, she's got children... but I like it all the same, and I wish I could give her that feeling, of being watched over. She told me about her aunt dying, and I asked what she did in the day, and I think she thought this was a change of conversational topic when it wasn't, really. She said she was crying very easily. This happens when she stops smoking or is just generally feeling emotional.
There are so many times when I just want to take her in my arms and kiss her forehead and stroke her hair, to tell her that she is beautiful and I can't comprehend that she would ever have believed otherwise. When she cries especially. 'Don't be scared of me crying', she says, but I'm not. I just want so desperately to hold her till she's finished and make her feel safe. This wouldn't solve everything, and it probably wouldn't work; maybe it would if the man she's seeing did it. She has a tendency to throw herself after people that don't return much; or they do return it, but via giving things, for parties, via skirts and shoes and doing things around the house. Maybe this is what she wants. I can't provide financially; I can assemble things, but I can't do advanced plumbing, I can clean. I like doing things for her. But it doesn't matter, because she adores him, and the biggest thing that makes her adore him is probably the way that he is superficially kind but tells her what to do (even if it's not what she wants to hear, it's someone in the driving seat) and that he doesn't return affection. Maybe if he did, she wouldn't want him so much. And this is the area in which I would fail the most, because when I fall I fall hard, and I can't stop myself from adoring. It's not always what people want, though.
Thursday 6 October 2011
I can't believe I'm here... a Paris.
C'est ca.
Incroyable.
And I've hitched myself to someone unlikely, someone I can't be sure of or confident in, someone that is impossibly devoted to someone she shouldn't be. And yet, je ne peux pas m'empecher de me bouger pour lui.
It takes three short weeks for me to fall. Coup de foudre. Maybe it's because I'm in a foreign country. It happened a lot with the men at the shelter; they'd go for the first available person, because they were desperate for some sort of connection, and the romantic one is the easiest and hardest to make. Easiest because you can have anyone if you're desperate enough, but if no one else will do it's exceedingly difficult. Currently, no one else will do. She's wonderful.
I know she's not perfect. I know full well that she is selfish and narcissistic, and bitchy like I am, and I can't trust her to do the right thing because she doesn't want to look at the hardest things within her own life. But she's so lovely. She is open and generous, and sweet without being saccharine, and shares her secrets so readily. Of course I've fallen head over heels for someone funny and kind and strong in situations I can't be strong in. Of course she's beautiful. When I first saw her coming round the corner of the accueil, I thought she was pretty. Reasonable. Chic. Well-kept. And now I think she's beautiful, the most beautiful in the world. As always, as always. This crept up on me slowly; from liking being around her, to being wary of falling for her, to actually falling for her. Well, nothing is going to happen. I'll just have to ride it out.
She was sad today because someone's dying in her family, and although they are old and it's for the best, and she knows this because, if one is French, one is always to the point, she was tired from the long trip and from feeling too much for too long. All I wanted to do as she recounted the history to me was to wrap her up in my arms, kiss her forehead and stroke her hair. I listened instead, and touched her elbow. We sat on her sofa together, both slouched in crouching posture- legs tucked under, facing each other, arms round legs, leaning on the back of the sofa- mirror images, but how I wished we were touching instead. She'd said she was tired in the day at school; I wanted to take her hand (smoker's hands with gallic, tanned skin, that look weathered but not as old as mine) and lead her to her bedroom, and just sleep there. Just lull her to sleep, leaning against me with her soft body and her sharp French cheekbones. Her eyes are almost the same colour as her skin, but they glow green or sometimes blue. I would like to hold her and tell her that, contrary to what she's heard from vicious sources, she's so beautiful. I may not think that she is perfect, but I will always think that she looks perfect. Her hair, her face, her body that she doesn't feel OK with, it's all perfect. I want someone to tell her that would make her smile, lift her worried eyebrows, make the sun shine out of her face as it does. Her face is as evident as the weather. As obvious, as easy. It's just the thoughts that are difficult to conjugate. I adore her.
Incroyable.
And I've hitched myself to someone unlikely, someone I can't be sure of or confident in, someone that is impossibly devoted to someone she shouldn't be. And yet, je ne peux pas m'empecher de me bouger pour lui.
It takes three short weeks for me to fall. Coup de foudre. Maybe it's because I'm in a foreign country. It happened a lot with the men at the shelter; they'd go for the first available person, because they were desperate for some sort of connection, and the romantic one is the easiest and hardest to make. Easiest because you can have anyone if you're desperate enough, but if no one else will do it's exceedingly difficult. Currently, no one else will do. She's wonderful.
I know she's not perfect. I know full well that she is selfish and narcissistic, and bitchy like I am, and I can't trust her to do the right thing because she doesn't want to look at the hardest things within her own life. But she's so lovely. She is open and generous, and sweet without being saccharine, and shares her secrets so readily. Of course I've fallen head over heels for someone funny and kind and strong in situations I can't be strong in. Of course she's beautiful. When I first saw her coming round the corner of the accueil, I thought she was pretty. Reasonable. Chic. Well-kept. And now I think she's beautiful, the most beautiful in the world. As always, as always. This crept up on me slowly; from liking being around her, to being wary of falling for her, to actually falling for her. Well, nothing is going to happen. I'll just have to ride it out.
She was sad today because someone's dying in her family, and although they are old and it's for the best, and she knows this because, if one is French, one is always to the point, she was tired from the long trip and from feeling too much for too long. All I wanted to do as she recounted the history to me was to wrap her up in my arms, kiss her forehead and stroke her hair. I listened instead, and touched her elbow. We sat on her sofa together, both slouched in crouching posture- legs tucked under, facing each other, arms round legs, leaning on the back of the sofa- mirror images, but how I wished we were touching instead. She'd said she was tired in the day at school; I wanted to take her hand (smoker's hands with gallic, tanned skin, that look weathered but not as old as mine) and lead her to her bedroom, and just sleep there. Just lull her to sleep, leaning against me with her soft body and her sharp French cheekbones. Her eyes are almost the same colour as her skin, but they glow green or sometimes blue. I would like to hold her and tell her that, contrary to what she's heard from vicious sources, she's so beautiful. I may not think that she is perfect, but I will always think that she looks perfect. Her hair, her face, her body that she doesn't feel OK with, it's all perfect. I want someone to tell her that would make her smile, lift her worried eyebrows, make the sun shine out of her face as it does. Her face is as evident as the weather. As obvious, as easy. It's just the thoughts that are difficult to conjugate. I adore her.
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