"I’m looking for the tower of learning
I’m looking for the copious prize
I saw it in your eyes what I’m looking for
I saw it in your eyes what I’m looking for
I really do feel that I’m dying
I really do feel that I’m dead
I saw it in your eyes what I’m looking for
I saw it in your eyes, what will make me live
All the sights of Paris
Pale inside your iris
Tip the Eiffel Tower with one glance
Stained glass cathedrals with one glint
You smashed it with your eyes, what I’m looking for
One blink and then my heart wasn’t there no more
I’m looking for the tower of learning
I’m looking for the copious prize..."
~Rufus Wainwright, Tower Of Learning.

Someone played me that song two months before I left for France the first time. I remember listening to it in the Kentucky dark and almost crying, knowing it was one of those things that would stick with me. And it has. And now I listen to it and I remember hearing it for the first time, and then I think about the Tower that I could see out my bedroom window, and I think about everything I am about to leave, and it is such beautiful melancholy. I am going to miss this place so much, I don’t think I can really even fathom it yet... I know I can’t.

Because the thing is that I’ve become used to it. And that makes it so much harder. When I got here it was this gorgeous new life that I was going to lead, and so it didn’t matter (No, it did matter, but I convinced myself that it would be ok) that I was leaving behind all these amazing relationships I had– people from Emory, new friends from summers, etc.

And if I had left in December, then the four months I spent here would have been a respite from American culture which I would have returned to still able to understand.
The thing is that now I’ve forgotten how to be an American. Oh, that sounds so dramatic. And I don’t mean it that way– I still remember that our presidential terms are only four years, that Ford was Kennedy’s vice-president (no, wait, Nixon’s?), and what we celebrate at Thanksgiving.

But I am afraid to go back, in a way that I was never afraid to come here, because going back means having to quit living THIS life, and quitting means forgetting. I know that I won’t understand the way living in France has affected me until later– but I know that there are certain things that are going to be hard to shake:
The words "Zut" and "Alors" are going to take awhile to get out of my vocabulary, as well as "Oh-la-la."
My taste for strong, soft white cheese at the end of every meal is not going to fade easily.
My masochistic enjoyment of red wine that makes me feel sophisticated is not going to be understood by my very American non-alcohol-drinking friends.
And there are all kinds of things that I’ve forgotten we don’t DO in the US: I don’t think I’ve ever been to a grocery store in the States with a cheese counter, and I am fairly sure I had never had camembert, comte, reblochon, or REAL brie until I got to this country. I know I am going to miss being able to pick up a crepe at any time of the night or day, and I’ll miss national holidays that completely shut down the country. I’ll miss knowing that I can get home from anywhere within half an hour because that is how long the Metro always takes from where I live, and I’ll miss having to buy all my groceries from a grocery store instead of from the market. I’ll miss clubs that don’t get hopping until 1am, and knowing that if I miss the Metro at 130am, I have to stay out until 530am when it opens again.

So, yes, I am going to miss this country more than I missed my own when I first arrived here, because leaving here is so much more final than leaving the US ever was. Leaving France is leaving the adventure I’ve lived every minute for the last nine months, and through the lenses of the life I live now, I am finding it harder and harder to imagine that there ARE any adventures to be had when you speak the same language as everyone around you. The simplification of everything can not be over-emphasized.

But there are things I have missed about the US... what am I going to do when I get back?
I am going to take a long hot bubble bath... and when the water gets cold, I’ll put more in.
I am going to eat sweet pickles, my mom’s homemade macaroni and cheese, and doughnuts from Dunkin Donuts, and MEXICAN FOOD.
I am going to drink iced coffee, and, yes, finally, Dr. Pepper.
I am going to listen to the radio and not have to risk the threat of a DJ I can’t understand or French rap (shudder).
I am going to get my hair cut, without taking a picture to the salon, and while the stylist is cutting my hair, I am going to make small talk until I am blue in the face.
And I am going to pet my cat until she has no fur left.

Those are all my planned activities. The inadvertent things I will probably do are as follows:
I am sure I will attempt to greet people with a double cheek kiss.
I am sure I will introduce myself to people by saying "My name is Blair, like Tony Blair."
I am sure I will do stupid things and mutter "Zut!"
I am sure I will continue to refer to college as "University" and say "pardon?" instead of "what?"
I am sure I will injure myself and blurt "Aie!" instead of "Ow!"
I am sure I will make conversation with everyone I see, cashiers, hairstylists, strangers pumping gas next to me, the people in front and behind me in the grocery store line...
All of which are either things that are completely accepted here or else things that I just haven’t been able to do in the past nine months. But the thing is that all those habits I picked up here in a desperate effort to fit in are all things that are considered pretentious (spelling? That’s the French way...) in the US. The only people that do the double cheek kiss are Hollywood starlets.

There’s still so much I want to say about THIS life, so much I still want to do in Paris, and France, and Europe...
You know how they always say quit while you’re ahead? Leave ‘em wanting more? What they don’t tell you is that actually doing the leaving when you are still having a good time bites. So I’m leaving this country, just like I left the Mountain, and just like I left Emory before that, not ready to go yet. Always excited about the next chapter, but never wanting to leave the current one. And perhaps it’s worst of all with France, with Paris, because for as long as I can remember, Paris has been The Goal. I was working toward this in high school, in my art history classes after I got to college I constantly filed away the names of all the works I wanted to see that happened to be in Paris (here’s a hint: most of them), and when I had to double up on French grammar classes during the second semester of my sophomore year in order to BE ABLE to come to France, I endured it bravely everyday because it meant that I was one step closer to fulfilling what had been my dream all along... I don’t remember a time when I didn’t want to live in Paris; I think I was in elementary school when I learned about the concept of studying abroad, and even then I realized I wanted to do it in Paris. So this year has been a succession of awed moments (and odd moments) of me sitting on a Metro car, or walking to class, or sitting in a class in one of the oldest Universities in the world, and suddenly realizing, even in those mundane moments, that I am living a dream. Even those everyday kind of things– the boulangerie I always go to, the nighttime walks home from wherever I’ve been with my friends, market days– all those things will be surrounded in some kind of hazy golden glow whenever I think about this time in Paris. But the thing is that, because Paris was the End-All for me for so long, I have also had to readjust my goals during my time here... so if first semester here was me being awed, proud, and shocked to finally be living the dream I had for so long, then second semester was me learning to adjust my clock, my plans, etc. Living here, for me, was the transition I needed from being a college student to being a "real person;" or perhaps more applicable, from being still technically a teenager to being a (gasp) 20something. And I can’t explain the vacillation and confusion when one moment is filled with the realization that you are doing the EXACT thing you have wanted to do and worked to do for years and years... and the next moment is realizing that you have to have a next chapter– YES, I have lived this dream for the last year, but now there has to be new goals and plans and dreams and hopes put in its place. And where I was scared of that and scared of "growing up" when I go back to the US and have only one more year of school, I am excited about it now. No, that’s a lie. I am not excited about the return to American college culture... but I am excited about the summer.
It’s the next step in the adventure, the next bridge to jump off of, and I am excited to get started and see where I end up. Summers are made for awesomeness... and this one is going to be no exception, I can already tell. Paris was, for me, the fulfillment of so many dreams, the answer to so many questions, and the stepping stone for so many future decisions. I’ll always miss it; I’ll always have part of me here on these cobbled streets...

But the trick, as I taught myself long ago, is to remember that whenever there is a goodbye at one end of a plane flight, there is always a new hello at the other...

Always searching for the copious prize,
La têtarde