Overweight Suitcases

Chubby men in paint-splattered uniforms, scratched plastic goggles, and thick black ear muffs have been drilling the same piece of brick since I returned to work on Tuesday. On Thursday, a coworker likened their electric screwdrivers to the dental instrument that sucks out saliva and gum-flavored toothpaste. On Friday, the loan counselor resorted to popping pills for her headache and, yesterday, called in sick. Over the weekend, our new financial consultant lost her mother to kidney failure, and then the Financial Aid Coordinator decorated her office with pink and purple orchids. Today, our computer technician very likely burst a vein when glass chips pierced through her office window, while, a few steps away, my boss stares intensely at twenty-two colourful manouevering dots on a verdant expanse - otherwise known as the World Cup. This monotonous drill could be soothing if it were more rhythmically regular like the beeping of a reversing truck. But it is not. And now, it is drowning out the wavering voices of anxious parents who have resorted to selling the family cow to pay for an obligatory meal plan. In a twisted ironic sort of way, I've missed Student Financial Services, office of complaints and petitions, sore backs and flabby buttocks, frightened students and pissed-off parents. It's good to be back.

Leaving France is now a semi-opaque blur, summed up in two words: overweight suitcases. I was neither sad to bid farewell nor reluctant to do so. My last few weeks were spent drooling as I napped among roses and peonies at the Pavillon Vendome, and competing with naked old ladies in a 7-euro turquoise bikini, blue as the Mediterranean Sea. I suppose I added new meaning to the term "skinny-dipping" after devouring mile-long baguettes and herb-embellished goat cheese, baked salmon and grilled beef, and ancient wine and bubbly champagne for a glorious six months. I found redemption for awkward conversations with a question whose answer lay on the other side of the Atlantic: what are you going to miss most about France? It was a question that I myself struggled to answer, not because there was too much to miss but because there was too much I would not miss: the cigarettes between every forefinger and middle finger; the pizza delivery guy on his roaring motorcyle; the "ni hao!"s and blatant racial ignorance ("don't they still smoke opium in China?"); the literature class of pederasty, cursed cities, blasphemous depictions of Christ, suicidal writers, and film directors run over fifty times by a vehicle; the wannabe-popstar neighbours singing to Lady Gaga at 2AM before heading to the Wohoo for a drink or two, and the spiritual Sahara of religious cynicism, political secularism and a severely misunderstood Catholic church, weathered by decades of worldly politics and tainted by human sin.

As I settle into a full-time job on this side of the Atlantic, the things I miss about France are becoming painfully apparent. Instead of pain-aux-chocolats and croissants for breakfast, I'm living on Kellogg's and soggy carrots. Instead of the daily market buzz under my apartment, I wake up to the groan of a bright orange lawnmower driven by yet another chubby man with plastic goggles and ear muffs; the patterns he weaves across the field are, at best, pretty. Instead of fish and shrimp stalls under quaint ferries at the old port of Marseille and the Algerian in his long African gown selling wooden rabbits and African masks, I find myself pushing a metal trolley around Roche Bros, bumping into angry old men with tubes in their noses, refraining from spitting out the cubes of free American cheese, and avoiding pale minced beef.

At social gatherings, the first thing intellectuals often ask me after noticing a discord between my epicanthic folds, accent and residency status is: where's home? After six months of early retirement and an uncouth awakening to the "real world," this question doesn't get any easier to answer. No, France is not home, at least not for me. England isn't either. Boston could come close. Some even say that home is simply where the heart is. Well, I say that life is a jaunt. I am a nomad, and my home is in Heaven.

Would you care to join me?

 

The Man

A wrinkly old homeless man sits on the edge of my street. He sits in the same place, in the same position, with the same little paper-cup torn around the edges and the same smile. Unlike the other homeless people, he doesn't beg, doesn't stretch out his hands and cry, "please, mademoiselle, please!" as he sees you approaching from afar. He simply nods and replies, "Eh, bonjour" when I greet him with, "Bonjour, Monsieur!"

And yet, what irony it is, that he might be the only homeless person that I have seen and have neglected to give food or money to. How easy it is to respond to outright humiliation than to humility, to begging than to patience, to loud cries and gesture than to a peaceful nod.

Today, on my way to the local market to stock up on the week's groceries, we exchanged greetings ("Bonjour, Monsieur!" "Eh, bonjour"); I walked on, and he stayed in the same place. But on my way back, I accidentally ignored him as I was hauling 2 kilos of fresh strawberries and a multicoloured array of plastic bags past his eyes.

For lunch, I made a chicken-and-sweetcorn sandwich and a tossed salad. As I was crunching on my salad and staring at the sandwich, God challenged me: "Go out and give that man your sandwich." I knew that my sense of hunger was only a tip-of-the-tongue taste of what the homeless man feels daily. I was filled with the desire to ask the man what he wanted to eat, to invite him to dinner with me at a cosy restaurant, and love on him. I wanted to ask him what brought him here, where he was before, how he feels to be sitting on his behind all day. I wanted to tell him that I admired him for crouching on the ground for so long, waiting patiently. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for not helping him sooner. I wanted to help him find a job. I wanted to tell him to order anything on the menu and as much as he wanted, even though I have overdrafted this month.

But, I didn't. I finished my salad and ate the sandwich; I am writing about what I was thinking of doing but never did.

On Mondays, I don't have class. It's a day where I have all the time in the world to talk to homeless people, homeless people who don't exist in the serenity of Wellesley. But, I'm not doing that today. Why? Frankly, because I'm afraid. My French isn't good enough either. I know that I'll just forget everything I want to say and just tell him to follow Jesus. I want to be a good witness. I want to be an instrument of peace. But, why this fear? Why this discouragement, all of a sudden?

I am so used to passing homeless people, greeting them at most with a smile and a look in the eyes. But, rarely have I stopped to talk to them. And yet, of all the times that God has said "I AM WITH YOU" in the Bible, hasn't it been most of all at times like these, when we struggle with fear, when we are stepping into the unknown, when we are grasping for his hand in the dark, when natural disasters like a volcanic eruption on an island we rarely think about causes the entire world to stop?

God, let me be an instrument of your peace. Grant me your courage and your wisdom as I step out as the bearer of your image and try to love just a little bit like the way you love me.

Enough

...complaining, sadness, despondency of heavy heart, desire for what is not mine, greed, laziness, méchanceté, deceit.

I will rejoice. I will be glad. I am content. Today's a sunny day even if it rains.

Par Hasard

You don't need to learn about human trafficking to know the depravity of human nature.

***

In my solitude, I have lost the ability to make friends. They have forgotten me.

But self-pity devours the soul.

So I will sit still and wait. I will watch the same birds diving up and down the same piece of azure, in and out of the same cotton ball of gray, until the cage door opens and I believe that I can fly.

***

What do you do during your last seven weeks in a city to which you'll never return, a country in which you'll never reside, a culture you never understood, people who were never close enough to be called friends?

***

Are you afraid of loneliness? 

***

Childhood friends are dating. Current friends are marrying. Honeymoon at sunset. Happy Anniversary. Congratulations.

I still don't know what he looks like or smells like, if he snores when he sleeps, slurps when he eats, and taps the steering wheel to every beat on the radio. 

Is my hair not yet long enough for him to rescue me from the tower? Have I not yet slept long enough for him to gallop to my side and kiss me awake? Must I eat the poisonous apple and die before he can give me life? 

Indeed, I am neither Rapunzel nor Sleeping Beauty nor Snow White. But will mine be a fairy tale or a tragedy, a dream or reality?

***

My sense of entitlement must be revolting. 

Living Cemetery

The day after the roof top experience, I joined the group for a hike. We ended up in a dainty uninhabited village with a tiny graveyard. I meandered past the few tombstones and discovered that this was the burial place of some of the persecuted French protestants during Louis XIV's anti-protestantism purge. I found a mother and her son buried next to each other, the mother's tombstone embellished with "Dieu est amour" (God is love) while her son's "l'Eternel est mon berger" (the Lord is my shepherd). I passed two other tombstones and found buried side-by-side Monsieur and Madame de Cazenove (most likely related to the still-living Monsieur de Cazenove) also with their favorite verses neatly engrained in the marble. 

I've always been afraid of cemeteries, where dead bodies decay under fertile soil. Yet, as I wandered past the tombstones of these children of God, the peace I felt literally transcended understanding. I was reacting so contrary to nature that I was confused. 

Later on, though, I realized the tangible verity of eternal life. I had felt such comforting peace because I had, in fact, been walking among the living.

Rooftop at Night

During the first night at the castle, one of the Youth Interns took me up to the highest point of the castle: the attic library. We climbed up the "Blistery Tower," stumbled across the roof in the rain, and mounted another flight of wooden stairs. I heard his voice but could not see him, for the room was darker than night. I heard him walk on before me with his hands stretched out in front of him like a zombie, mumbling, "If I remember correctly, the light switch is...here." 

As if at the snap of a finger, light flooded the room, evaded the darkness, and brought sight. There, in front of us, sat five enormous wooden chests of age-old letters batched together with crispy ropes, tattered Bibles and dusty New Testament books, and stained newspapers with headlines about the economy during the Great Depression. He couldn't contain himself, opening up one chest after another, grabbing one book after another from the faithful old shelf, and calling me over to see a Bible from the 1400s or a geology textbook from the 1600s or a wrinkled black-and-white photo from the war. I had no words to say; I tried to capture the room with my camera. But neither words nor pictures could justify the verity of history.

We came down from the attic and stopped to crawl on top of the roof. There, we stood in wonder, staring at the dimly-lit towns situated on top of precarious cliffs in the distance. Nothing disturbed the silence except the light breeze in our hair, the gentle rain pitter-pattering on our jackets, and my occasional snifffle. If I had found a sleeping bag, I would have slept on the roof in the rain that night. I just did not want to come down.

***

Some say that the hardest part of a hike is the ascension but at the top you'll find that the view was worth all the pain, sweat and blood. 


No, I disagree. 


The hardest part, in fact, is leaving the solitude, peace, and beauty of the peak and returning to endless deadlines, superficial coffee dates and unproductive meetings, to our broken friendships of jealousy, selfish ambition and betrayals, to the attractive model who vomits herself skinny and cries herself to sleep, to the wealthy businessman who drinks himself to sleep, to the drug-dealers who wake up screaming from a nightmare, to beggars whose helpless eyes we avoid. The hardest part is having to leave somewhere seemingly perfect for a descent towards what often feels like Hell. 

And yet, wasn't that what Jesus did for us? Jesus, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who has no need for the selfish love, meager help, and superficial praise of human beings, chose to give up His heavenly crown for a crown of thorns, give up His throne of glory to die naked on the cross, give up His power to save himself for man's powerlessness in the face of death. 

Why, Jesus, why? Why did you die for people like me, who profess to always remember you and yet forget you, who promise to obey you and yet disobey you, who are willing to listen to your voice and yet ignore you, who tells others to trust in you and yet doubt you ourselves, who condemn Peter for denying you three times and yet deny you daily? Why do you love people like me, who hide your glory, who steal your fame, who take the credit for what you've done, simply for our own fifteen minutes?  

And yet I hear you say, "so that by my crown of thorns, you worship a God not of gold or silver but of humility and sacrificial love. So that by my shameful death on the cross, you are no longer held hostage by guilt, shame and self-condemnation. So that by giving up the power to save my own life, I save you and give you eternal life."

If you find another King like Jesus, another God like my God, I will give you my soul. For now, my entirety belongs to Him.

Octogenarian Bachelor

To mark the beginning of my third month in France, I spent the weekend on a church retreat in Cevennes, a mountainous region about two hours outside of Aix-en-Provence. We stayed in Monsieur de Cazenove's fifteenth century stone castle, ate cereal and drank English tea in a fifteenth century dining hall with gold-framed portraits of fifteenth-century ancestors, played Apples to Apples with the kids in front a crackling temperamental fifteenth-century fireplace, fell asleep to the muffled piano melody of "Humoresque" seeping through the walls, and floated off to Lala-land on fifteenth-century pillows. 

Still a bachelor in his late seventies (or eighties), Monsieur de Cazenove lives alone, spending most of his time in his petite study room, decorated with Persian rugs and Chinese tapestry, the walls lined with hardback novels, dusty science textbooks from the Enlightenment period ("Lumières"), and Bibles dating all the way back to the 1400s. On his desk rest a glass of red wine and a plate of stale bread and melting cheese. 

After dinner on the first evening, I went on a search for this humble figure and finally found him at the castle entrance digging through another stash of books. I slowly approached him from behind, whispering, "Monsieur de Cazenove?" but he didn't seem to hear me. I cleared my throat and tried again, but to no avail. Finally, I forked up enough courage to shout at the old man: "MONSIEUR DE CAZENOVE." He immediately spun around, and I felt presumptuous. 

I tip-toed forward awkwardly, my fingers laced together, like those of a nervous bride walking down the aisle. His gentle grey eyes looked down at me, waiting patiently for my question. I attempted to smile but my dry lips stuck to my teeth. I smiled again, this time asking: "Est-ce que vous connaissez Wellesley College?" I wanted to know if his family had anything to do with the Cazenove dorm that I had been living in for the past three years. His eyes shifted to the side as he tried to make sense of what I had said. I had most likely butchered every word, even "Wellesley College," which I had tried to pronounce in a French accent. 

"Ah! Wellesley!" I could almost hear the snap of the light switch in his brain, as our language barrier crumbled and fell onto the cold stone steps. "Venez, venez." He beckoned me to follow him. I almost curtsied, but then I remembered that we were in 2010.

Monsieur de Cazenove muttered to himself as he dug through his pile of magazines and newspapers. Finally, out of the sporadic mutterings came an epiphanic "Ah ha!" He handed me a 2006 issue of the Wellesley magazine and told me to flip to page 5.  A black-and-white photo of a smiling Monsieur de Cazenove flanked by two Wellesley women on each side reflected the dim candle light. The girls had studied abroad in France on the Wellesley-in-Aix program and, on their return, had written an article entitled "The Cazenove Connection." 

I've never wondered why I was assigned to the Cazenove dorm my first year, never wondered why I stubbornly wanted to stay in the same dorm. Sometimes, some things in life just remind me of how short-sighted I am as a human being and how far God sees into the future. Sometimes, some things in life remind me of how witty God is. His sense of humour has no comparison.