Thirty things before 30

Living in Europe, having the experiences of a lifetime by the age of twenty, I have a lot of time to think about my life & how I would like to live it. This is what I have come up with...
1. See the Northern Lights
2. Go to Alaska
3. Hike the Swiss Alps
4. Go to an Elton John concert
5. Climb Mount Kilimanjaro
6. Have a pig for a pet
7. Write a book
8. Have a tree house
9. Learn how to play the mandolin
10. Read the Bible: cover to cover
11. Book a random flight
12. Visit all 50 states
13. Start an art collection
14. Have a library that is bigger then my bedroom
15. Go paragliding in Switzerland
16. Spend my paycheck on something completely selfish
17. Have at least five pair of boots (hopefully Frye) in my closet
18. Climb Mount Fuji
19. Read everything ever written by a favorite author
20. Go on a cross-country road trip
21. Have one of my paintings hung in my house
22. Write an article on traveling
23. Buy all of my friends fresh flowers; just because
24. Make my parents cry with joy
25. Make my own wine
26. Grow and eat my own vegetables
27. Visit Auschwitz
28. Own a 1967 Red Ford Mustang convertible
29. Be a substantial member of a community
30. Still write letters

Swan Song

this is my life right now.
blue skies and pink tutu's.


my days here in holland are filled with nothing but the purest joy.

walking past a tenth century church on my way to class
(which is held in a converted monastery),
conversation about the nature of good and evil had under a chestnut tree,
writing a note of thanks to a new friend met on a train to austria...
these are my days.

my weekends are helium filled balloons of elation.
paris one weekend
prague the next
off to austria on thursday
and planning germany.

this season is the most enchanting.

Shorts.

Every weekend I find myself, usually after church, at a bookstore of some kind.
This Sunday it was the Barns & Noble by my parents house in Chicago.
Taking books off their shelves,
opening to a random page,
reading a bit,
deciding to read on or replace by another random selection,
is the most perfect way to spend a Sunday.

The gem at random this week was:
'Wonderful Town'
the New Yorker's compilation of
various short stories they have featured over the years.
It is wonderful.

Here is one of my favorites:
"The Whore of Mensa" by Woody Allen
"I think Melville reaffirmed the virtues of innocence in a naive yet sophisticated sense - don't you agree?" I let her go on. She was barely nineteen years old, but already she had developed the hardened facility of the pseudo-intellectual. She rattled off her ideas glibly, but it was all mechanical. Whenever I offered an insight, she faked a response: "Oh yes, Kaiser. Yes, baby, that's deep. A platonic comprehension of Christianity - why didn't I see it before?" We talked for about an hour and then she said she had to go. She stood up and I laid a C-note on her.

"Thanks, honey."

"There's plenty more where that came from."

"What are you trying to say?" I had piqued her curiosity. She sat down again.

"Suppose I wanted to have a party?" I said.

"Like, what kind of a party?"

"Suppose I wanted Noam Chomsky explained to me by two girls?"

"Oh, wow."

"If you'd rather forget it..."

"You'd have to speak with Flossie," she said. "It's cost you." Now was the time to tighten the screws. I flashed my private- investigator's badge and informed her it was a bust.

Dear Diary...

There is this boy & this girl
that sit on the tin roof
right across my window
every night.

He likes her.
Because she flicks her cigarette ashes the right way
and
wears the right shoes with her dress.

She thinks he is
romantic
and likes the way he
tosses his hair.

They are flirting
through smoke and on top of tin.


It makes me think of you.

Today is a Sunflower.

My days in Paris are now numbered, making my afternoons a bit more appreciated and my excursions more valued. In the build up of going home from a long stay, one always tends to find themselves feeling more reflective on the quality of time spent & pensive about lessons learned.

I am currently in said stage.

I have learned that Paris can be one of the most magnificent places on earth; full of aesthetic beauty, historical influences, cultured youth & moments you can only dream up. I have experienced the most beautiful way to enjoy a meal, the way to tie a scarf, what wine goes with what dessert, how to trek throughout the city in heels & how to assimilate to the point where I get asked directions in French.
But I have also come to realize that a place is only as beautiful as the people who frequent it. The French are a very majestic breed; very proud of their city, of their Republic & their pontification of attitude they project to the world. Surrounded by the right, home grown, down to earth people I have chosen to collect around, these attitudes are appreciated from afar, are dissected at the dinner table & has it's best parts written down in journals, ready to be rework & tried out back home.

*****
I came to Paris to try and find out more about myself; to try and figure out who I am when I am alone in a foreign city, speaking a language I do not know all that well, living with people I have never met. To seek out the person I am when my best friends & family are not around to sharpen me, to build me up & to bounce ideas off of.

Being here has made me realize, more than anything, not necessarily the person I am, but instead the type of person I want to try and embody.
The days are filled with introspection (sitting in parks & cafes, watching people interact & conversations being had it is hard not to watch & think) so the time spent has had unassailable value the life of my mind & the nature of my maturation. I, for the first time in my life, am able to look at my life objectively & be excited about the path ahead & the plan the Lord has for me.

And I am forever excited that He took me to Paris to
teach me who I am & to show me who I want to be.

Fête

Today in Paris it is Fête de la Musique.

All over the city today, bands, artists & symphonies play music all day and every show is absolutely free to the public. It is wonderful. There is classical music playing in the Luxembourg gardens, reggae playing in the street & this little Cuban group playing outside my window on the corner.

C'est magnifique.

*****
Today Hannah, Bree, Skyler & I went to the flea market or Marché aux puces

This market is one of the largest in the world. It is so vast that they have not only made a website for this little flea market but advise people to buy maps before hand in order to see the bits they want.

Today we stumbled across the Antiques.
It was the same feeling as finding money in your pocket. I
Gold chairs, dusty paintings, jewelry from every decade, sepia photos, vintage Hermes, tablecloths & camera lenses, five story bird cages, India bowls, Moroccan goblets, classical records, men's tuxs & tails: everything was hidden in this little world tucked away in the corners of this neighborhood.

Happy, happy day.

Packages & Profitérols

This afternoon, after class, I got lunch with my Aunt in the 16th.
It was absolutely perfect.
*****
My Grandmother took her in as an exchange student when she was twenty visiting from Paris and ended up staying in Washington for close to thirty years. Now that I am the twenty something traveler, she has extended the invitation and offered me an apartment for my week stay after the trip is up, gave me the secret street of Paris and taught me the best way to eat profitérols.

I have been sick these past few days and immediately when I opened my mouth, she curtailed our route to the cafe to make a stop at the pharmacie for some medicine. She was the type of french women you spend your life trying to embody.
The whispy short hair, the European hand gestures, the never ending entourage of cases, holders & leather bound what-not's & the subtle purse to hold it all perfectly in place.
Meeting her for lunch was like visiting the sister who moved to New York and got famous only to find her disarmingly warm affection stayed the same.
The afternoon was the color of a rose.
*****
The day progressed and only to get better with JoJo, the twenty eight year old "romantic" who decided to expound on the love of his life whom he met online to the entirty of line 2 Porte d'Orleans.
Jojo, as he clearly stated many a time, did not want our money, he wanted our ears and our sympathetic hearts. I do not know what for. Maybe the feather earrings in his ear and the telephone wire cord he had tied around his head as a headband. Or maybe the gameboy strapped to his body was what we were supposed to be sympathetic towards.
No money though.
*****