Travelling has a way of making time become elastic,
of stretching and looping around on itself.
Days have lost their meaning,
as one runs into another, into another, into another
and suddenly we’ve left the month of May.
Far from home, from the familiar, from obligations,
immersed in a language whose words I understand,
but fly around inside my head and too often get stuck
on my tongue when I try to speak.
But still I try.
Still, I feel my way into imagining
what it would be like to live here,
to be born here, to be French.
As I walk through the streets of St. Rémy,
down the narrow, limestone streets,
past the windows of colourful cotton dresses
that beg to be tried on.
Beg to be bought to better clothe myself,
to costume myself,
to make myself French,
I look up at the gathering grey clouds,
purse my lips and scowl the way I saw the shop ladies do.
Ooh là là!
A thunderstorm is threatening,
is almost upon us!
We must walk quickly,
heads down,
Quick! Quick! Quick!
Before we’re caught in the downpour.
I talk to myself as I walk,
practicing French phrases,
Still somewhat incredulous that I’m here.
Still curling into the open-ended question of —
Why?
What will I learn?
How will I be changed?
Because one thing I know for sure —
Is that I’m swimming in the sea of change.
Of transformation.
And when I’m in the middle of that sea,
Soaking in the salt water of all that has come before,
And all that is yet to come –
I’m being undone.
Taken apart.
Dismantled,
Disassembled,
Unstructured.
Every cell and fibre of my Being is dancing in this energy.
This is why I travel.
Feeling the expansion of my heart
Slipping through the sliding doors of time
Come with me.
Optimystical 