Paris

Y'all. We are in Paris.

Not fly-to-Paris, bus-to-hotel, drop-off-luggage, get-to-train-station, train-up-to-Edinburgh Paris. But Paris.

As in, we're here for the next 19 nights.

As in, the very last city listed on that itinerary over there to the right of the screen.

Oh, Paris.

Transitions between cities are hard for me, I've found. There's the whole new layout-location-language hurdle to get over, plus one or two unexpected things thrown in. Given that this is how I speak French and that I have just been able to spend more than 5 weeks living where I can actually communicate, I have been bracing myself for Paris as foreign as well as bracing for what the unexpected would be. Location not quite where we expected, adding ten minutes of walking? Appliances not working? No internet? No grocery store nearby?...Keeping realistic expectations yet not becoming a pessimist can be a fine balance.

As it turns out, the internet is working, we are situated very near the students, and the kitchen is bigger than I thought it would be from pictures (more than one person can fit in it!!). The hiccup getting in last night was that our landlord mixed up which apartment we were coming to and was therefore waiting somewhere else. It was quite late by the time we got in and even later before Jesse got to a grocery store so that we could have some dinner (but the Monoprix is open until 11:00! Victoria!). The apartment is mostly as expected and just a little quirky.

Last night I was feeling pretty discouraged. We were exhausted, it was late, and we were hungry. I was feeding the kids Pringles and peanuts for dinner, and some of them took me up on my offer of leftover toast (Margaret's breakfast that she didn't get to from our London hotel: wrapped in a napkin, stuck in my backpack and forgotten all day).  And we were cold. One dear friend gave me a scarf for my birthday last year, saying it was something that would be very useful in Europe.  I bet neither of us expected that I would wear it to sleep in during our first night here.

But hope comes in the morning, and although I would fall asleep sitting here were I not typing, the radiators have started to keep up with the chill (there is a chance of snow Friday) and the sun is shining. Maddie has taken the kids to Luxembourg Gardens and all is quiet. I am putting together the order and powerpoint for my class tomorrow. I think I'll go and brew myself a cup of tea.

I confess that I have been dreading Paris. I can't dread it any longer, though, now that we are here. I have to choose how I'm going to live in this space and for this space of time. I have been teaching my students about pilgrimage and the wilderness and the mountaintops. I am hoping for an accurate view of my reality, Lord willing, the better to respond faithfully.

Just one more city transition to plan and look forward to--home.

Mile 20

It is almost midnight. Margaret just finally fell asleep a few minutes ago in our hotel room while I hid in the bathroom. After 10 weeks, I finally fried an electronic device...the white noise machine.

We are in Gibraltar. Tomorrow we plan to take a cable car to the rock and show our children the same monkeys (or children of monkeys) that harassed us on our backpacking trip over here 11.5 years ago. Mom and Dad are here. Dreams coming true.

24 hours ago we were sitting in a cave in the Sacromonte section of Granada, watching flamenco. Twenty-four  hours before that we were packing for our Southern Spain blitz after joining the students' Halloween masquerade off the Plaza del Sol. Twenty-fours days ago we were again packing clothes and belongings late into the night, preparing to leave Rome for Florence.

It sounds exciting. And it is. And I am deeply grateful for the work that we are doing and that I am doing. My work includes hanging out with some amazing college students, co-directing a project with my love, and reading N.T. Wright while listening to Lowland Hum and rolling though Spain. WHAT. Unlike Margaret, I never have to be bored and singsong "I'm Hongry" so that I'll have something to do. (Latest bored/hongry: the Alhambra).

I have seen so many amazing things: caves in the hills of Andalucia, Venice from the water, the Pantheon after the rain. A student take Margaret and play with her in an airport at 5:30am. An awareness of how to extend hospitality to one another grow and manifest itself in the group. Some truly amazing art, painted and sculpted and played and lived.

And so it seems a little ungrateful to wish to see just one more thing: but I am always doing it. And this week the new desire of my heart is to see the inside of my eyelids. We are all deeply tired. Jesse has likened it to the miles 20-23 of a marathon. Just kind of painful. I know it will be fine, and also that there is something to be gained from coming to the end of myself. I keep thinking I've come to the end, though, and then there's still more to lose.

In his chapter on the way of the wilderness, NT Wright emphasizes that while in the wilderness we must ask the right questions. What: What am I supposed to make of this? What can I do with this? and Who: Who am I? Who is God? Who does God say that I am , and say that he is? These are good things to ponder on extended bus rides.

We are in Gibraltar--a different kind of wilderness. Tomorrow afternoon we make the long journey together back to Madrid. And then a week until our pilgrimages! Amazing.

We are in mile 20. Past halfway, but still with a 10K left to go.



P.S. UPDATE: I hope you can join me in seeing the humor in this--after posting this entry I fell asleep sitting up with my computer on my lap. Wishes and dreams coming true, indeed! ;)