When I was little, I remember having a love/hate relationship with the last few streets leading up to my house. Ordinarily, I would wish and hope that we would move to a new house soon, because frankly I was sick of the same old route back to our boring, fake-tudor house. It was the only house I had ever known, and I wanted to move just because I was restless and wanted change. I felt like I had seen every house and inspected every detail of our neighborhood, and I wanted something new and different to contemplate. It bored me to see the same signs leading up to our subdivision, I grew tired of knowing exactly where the bumps were in the road.
But then, there were the times - usually after a long vacation - when we would head home on one of our usual routes and I would feel a strange sort of love for it. Always after a long absence, I would fill up with a quiet happiness once I began recognizing street names and stores. Once we would get to the point where I could have dictated the rest of the way to the house, I would know our home and all the things I knew were just around the corner.
It was a physical feeling, somewhere in the pit of my stomach. Recognizing something as "home" becomes something beyond cerebral at a certain point. It's not exactly explainable, but I'm sure everybody has felt this so I'm not going to bother trying.
Knowing how to point the garage door opener just right, stealing the key from the special rock, or pulling the mail out of the cranky old mailbox. These are daily things we learn to associate with a feeling of homeness. Added to these are the streets and people who make up our neighborhood, and the feeling of "home" extends outward from there.
It was strange coming home - back to Paris - today. I had the same feeling as when I was little. It was also the same feeling I used to have when going back to visit my parents - while they were still living in the house I spent my adolescence in. I still get this feeling when driving along the usual streets heading towards my grandparents' house. It is the recognition and comfort of a place I know as home.
I was not even gone 48 hours, but it has been a whirlwind. I went all over London, navigating much of the city with pounds and pounds of books and catalogues and information on my back. More importantly, my mind has been spinning with hundreds of questions, and even the occasional answer.
Where yesterday I was numb and strangely exhausted, today I woke up alive and incredibly happy. I feel as if a coin has been flipped, and after months of landing on heads, I am finally seeing tails. Or tales, of course. I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
I was ready to come home. I bumped up my train by a few hours, and spent the remainder of the day walking throughout London, from store to store with my backpack on. By 13.00, my back was breaking and I opted to stop the madness and sit in a Starbucks watching London walk by.
On the train I slept and read and ignored the nasty looks from the French woman across the aisle. I don't think she approved of my having taken off my shoes and putting my feet up on the seat next to me, but damnit I was comfortable.
And then we got in at the Gare du Nord and I felt warm - happy as I would while drinking hot cocoa in front of a fireplace: the recognition was settling in. Walking off the platform, I remembered the first time I came to pick up The Boy from Belgium, waiting to meet him at the same spot. How I waited nervously on the bench, how I saw him and his red scarf coming from far away, how happy he was to see me, how crazy we were about one another. We still are, but five months into a relationship has a different tone than five years in, and I smiled at how far we've come together.
I had thought meditatively thoroughout the trainride. I considered how long I have been in Paris, how strange that it is my home, how funny it is that my on-my-way home feeling is the same no matter where I am, but that it is undeniable when I feel it. I felt happy, content, quiet.
Taking the metro back from the train station, I let myself get absorbed in my book. After a few rides in London, checking the stops and making sure my route was correct, it felt nice to ride the metro knowing exactly where to get off. I could ride the line 4 blindfolded, if forced.
I was excited to be home. I'll admit to having sent a sort of cheesy love letter to The Boy while I was in London. I missed him. I like to go on adventures by myself, and I know it's good for me to remain independent and carefree. However, I like to go on adventures with him too. He is my partner in crime, and my best friend. I couldn't wait to climb up to the six flights of stairs up to our apartment to give him a big hug and kiss after a few days' seperation.
Coming into my building, I discovered police officers throughout the the inside hallway. Concerned, I asked what had happened and I learned of the death of a neighbor, the only neighbor whose name I know and with whom I had had any contact.
I had envisioned a happy and cheesy homecoming, but it was somber and unexpectedly sad. I came up and told The Boy about what had happened, and we were both quiet for awhile.
While I don't want to make too much of my neighbor's passing here on this site (it's amazing how upsetting it's been to me, really), I do feel that it falls into things somehow. I have been euphoric, almost heavenly in my thinking recently. Death has a way of making things more corporal, bringing them back to earth. I think only by balancing the two of these will I find any sort of even footing. While it's dreamy and wonderful to think of Paris as home, things still go wrong. Life still slaps you in the face sometimes. While expecting a flowery, beautiful homecoming, it was a strangely familiar feeling to have that calmly pulled out from under me. In a strange way, I appreciate it. I feel it makes me less naive.
The last two days have been full of thinking and contemplation. I feel as if I am healing in some way, without exactly knowing why or what from. It feels a little like candlelight: it can be happy and warm or sad and sort of lonely, but it is there. It is comforting, and it is my home, both good and bad.
A very nice/good post, in many ways.