C’est parti:
Red wine in a white glass jar and a sandwich of gouda and camembert on a day old baguette: I am enjoying what zhey kowl een fraynch un pique-nique. Pleasantly surprised at having found myself here, I squint at the waning sun's reflection on an all but stagnant stream or pond or creek just outside Guer proper. These days the sun seems to start yawning, yearning for sleep, at about 3pm even if it knows its day is not done for another three hours. Among a scattering of small, lobed oak leaves, brown and dry, I stretch out on the large mossy stepping stones that allow one to cross this still body of water, and I listen as the birds declare their living presence. Every few minutes a slight breeze tricks me into believing that the stream is flowing, though, audibly, the rustle of the leaves above betrays the stillness of the water below. Clad in the Standard Adam Fleischmann Biking Gear® of UnderArmor compression shorts under black cut off jeans and a hat with a flipped up brim, I have somehow found a small stint of real forest, probably no bigger than 3 sq. km. I was led here on this unseasonably warm Saturday by a waking and biking path that continues for about 26km all together, cut in half by the village of Guer. The forest trail that split off from that path and led me here to my stepping stones and my still creek and my lunch, continues up and to the west, spluttering to a sudden halt at the Chappelle St. Etienne, a tenth century church and priory settled in between farms, the smell of cows and the distant sound of a hunter's missed attempt with a shotgun.
However, I am convinced it is this tendency to romanticize, this romanticization itself, which makes any narrative portrayal of oneself--be it a diary entry, travel writing, memoir or blog thingy--interesting and readable; and this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I've long recognized as an essential ingredient to any first person, semi-nonfiction piece of writing, some small notion of romanticization and, also, something else--what, pride? vanity? arrogance? or just self confidence? Got it: a romantic self-awareness matched with enough of a mastery of the elements of written English (thank you, GRE) to mask that self-consciousness and turn it into something universal, or unique or believable. I guess it’s an essential part of the medium, what makes it more than a list of things accomplished. And, boy-o-gee-golly, how I can’t stand the idea of cataloguing the quotidian.
Further, though, I’ve also noticed that by writing about (romanticizing?) elements of my everyday life here in France, I’m able to cement them in my memory and better appreciate them in hindsight. However, the moments in which I am most fully absorbed make the best content for writing. It’s like some perverted combination of Baudelaire’s desire to step back and view himself from a subjective distance and Zen Buddhism’s objective to literally always live in the moment. Or perhaps, more simply, a content little act of recognition for the awesomeness that is now, when now is happening.
Sorry for the lack of updates, my small readership.
All of the above is probably just some reticent expression of latent guilt involving my hate of tourism. Or something about Freud or something.
À la prochaine (bientôt, je vous avoue),
Adam
