I didn't have time to do the two long blogs I wanted to today due to a quick birthday thing, but I wanted to write something. Today was the first day of spring. I mean I know its not the twenty first and its still technically february, not to mention it is now drizzling outside, as it has been for the past 6 hours, but today was indeed the first day of spring. I know this because this morning up until the late afternoon there was a spring sky. Soft, pure, fresh clouds still untarnished, but also unripe new for the new year hung thick and numerous in a clear watery sky of blue, not the crisp determined blue of winter, but the hazy sleepy blue of spring. What really tipped me off however was the beam of sunlight pouring, bursting through the double glass doors at the end of the hallway out side my study hall this morning. It lasted for so long, and with such careful intensity that I knew, I simply knew that spring had come. It was warm today too, though I'm sure the temperature will waver and regress a bit; all the same, spring has come to my little adopted corner of France. Then later as I was standing on the corner of the street after getting off the bus home I was listening to my ipod and daydreaming when I saw a little hand. I realized that while I thought I has been staring off into space, I had really been staring at the back window of a car preparing to turn, and that in this back seat there was a little girl with a pacifier in her mouth and her face pressed solemnly to the glass. She was waving at me. She had a sound matter of fact face on like she was simply waving to me because I seemed like a nice person who needed a wave, and there fore she was going to perform that service, maybe even a duty. It warmed my heart and I waved back, breaking into a smile. I kept smiling like an idiot all the way down the street to our own car. I mean this little girl waving at me as she rounded the corner, as our eyes met and I smiled back, she made my day, perhaps even my week.
a bientot,
e
p.s. I have found a place that exhibits my obsessive coffee drinking, i.e. I would drink the stuff all day long if I could, but my wallet, my stomach lining, and my need to sleep prevent me, and that place is la nord, where apparently the real northern mining families that go back generations would keep a pot going hot on the fire 24/7, not as strong as the dreaded and mocked italian coffee*, but just strong enough to the workers warm.
*I find it endlessly entertaining this fear of really strong espresso that the french express quite frequently, with 'well no, oh no, not like the italians, of course not that strong, goodness, no...' etc. because of course americans tend not to classify, anything stronger than gas station coffee is strong, period, but the french it seems need to make the distinction between themselves and the italians in many areas I find.
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