Fog

It is very foggy in the Bay Area.

You would think I would remember this, that 8+ years living away would not have wiped my memory of this integral fact, but it seems to have slipped through the cracks. The window that looks out onto the bay from the dining room at my mother's house here in Mill Valley is white with fog, criss-crossed with telephone lines and bordered with leafy green. And red. And greygreenred.

I went jogging today on the bike path that runs under the freeway, to Sausalito and San Francisco, and was almost trampled by a woman with an industrial-sized baby buggy and golden retriever.  They came out of nowhere. Manifested out of the white. I dodged them, barely. Must remember the sporty yuppy factor when in Marin. Not so much a problem back in Paris. In Paris jogging threats were mostly limited to guys overexcited about the idea of a woman with stamina. Or people picnicking on the canal. Or my own incapacity to multitask (unzipping my sweatshirt, changing my music, and keeping my feet going on uneven terrain having ended in bloody knees on more than one occasion). Here it seems the fog can hide all sorts of forgotten threats.

In the strong visibility of of the living room, my cats are having a face-off. Paris trying to gain terrain on California. Shady, so named by one of my college housemates for her ability to sneak around and grab at people's ankles from under beds and tables and couches, is trying to hold her home turf. Her low-pitched threats sound impressive, at least for a cat protected by the slats and legs of the piano chair. Shady is the matriarch. I left her here with my mother in 2003, when I went to Paris "for a year or so" to check things out. Shady has since been joined by Kittyton, the lumbering star of my brother's youtube channel, and now Maya, straight off the plane from France, has come to rattle the delicate balance. Right now Maya is lying on the floor, about five feet away, watching. Every now and then she sneaks closer, bridging the gap, working on reducing the space between them. 

I imagine them outside, in a ring covered in white fog, darting in and out, circling and hissing, until they decide it's not worth it and lie down in a dogpile. Well... catpile.

While the cats try to get used to each other, my brother is lying on the couch, watching baseball. He and my mother are teasing me for my lack of player and stat knowledge. I tell them that it's not that I am not a fan, I just don't particularly care. My mother says it's only a matter of time. That soon enough I'll be sporting orange and black, shouting at the TV and refusing to go to the kitchen to replenish snacks when it's my turn. Maybe so. 

But for now the fog is too much for me.

Le grand bleu

Well, here I am. In a tin can hurtling at 575 miles per hour 35,000 feet in the air. My cat is at my feet, enclosed in a tiny carrying case and swaddled in comforting-smell clothes (though I have a hard time believing that my unwashed T-shirt could be that much of a calming aid). She is doing surprisingly well. When we were delayed in Frankfort I tried to coax her out to share a pretzel and beer with me, but she was uninterested. Perhaps she just doesn't like Germany. Or pilsner.

8.5 years, 3.5 bags.

All my bags were overweight. I managed to look sad enough to get some of the fees ignored, but it still cost me 230 euros to get my two monolith suitcases, the cat, and the computer on the plane. No big surprise. 

les dernières

The night before I left Paris I flipped out. My good friends, coming by to wish me well, found me in a whirlwind of Unprepared. Boxes everywhere. Poorly packed. Hysterical. After preparing me a bowl of pasta and opening bottles of champagne, they proceeded to repack my bags, like my own personal transcontinental elves, whilst I wandered around collecting hugs and jokes and being invited outside for cigarettes. They then kissed me on the cheek and floated off one by one into the night and early morning, laden down with gifts and bags to store, in order almost exactly opposite to my meeting them. How's that for Poetry and Meaning?

When I unpack in California, it's going to be a treasure hunt. I have no idea what made it  in there. Don't tell customs. 

I was able to delay my trip back a week, but it wasn't enough. So many things to do, so many things left undone. Museums and long walks, contracts to break and medical care to take advantage of (why didn't I find time to get new glasses? WHY?). I suppose you are never ready to leave behind a decade of your life. But still, I think I may have truly excelled at underestimating the task at hand. I shudder to think of the boxes I have left behind.

lapinou

small-time treachery

What I was able to do, though, was probably the most important. A great big 12-hour goodbye picnic at La Villette with cheese and wine and badminton and hugs and photos and barefoot grass-walking. Beers with my music kids from the American Cathedral, ending in rounds of bunny-eared singing in the Irish pub down the canal from my apartment. A last board meeting or the Paris Choral Society, where I, the dome of the Invalides clearly visible through the 6th floor window, fell under the influence of fabulous wine, good food, and great company to accept responsibility for a swath of things I probably won't get around to for months. A lunch at Chez Paul entirely composed of escargot and escarole. Another at the Patache, bookended by oysters and tarte tatin. A last-minute recording session with the boys. A tagine dinner and reckless dance party out in the banlieue, pushing furniture around and wiggling into the night. Evenings and picnics with my dear dear friends, on the banks of the Seine, listening to jazz at the Parc Floral, at the Jardin de Reuilly by the sparkling-water fountain, on the edge of the canal trying to out-hipster the hipsters... Oh my Parisiens, I will miss you so.

It's difficult to believe now, now that there's no turning back. Now that I am sandwiched between the curved wall of the 747 and a Buddhist monk who I feel compelled to share my vegetarian meals with, trying to crane my neck to watch John Carter on the screen in the middle of the aircraft, while my feet twist around the cat carrier at my feet. Now that I have no more control even through lack of control (some part of me hoped that I would fail to leave, that the incapacity to let go would make it impossible to do anything but stay in Paris, in Europe, at least a little longer). I guess sometimes you've just got to let go. Especially when the airplane map shows us inching further across the Atlantic, and I left my inflatable raft in a box somewhere in Ile de France. California here I come...

I love you, Paris, I'll see you soon.