One jar at a time, kiddo

"Profitez-bien" is one of those expressions I wish would transcend the barrier of language and import itself into the English language. It means, more or less, take advantage of. "Profitez-bien de ta journée," "Profitez-bien de ton voyage," "Profitez-bien de la France."

Wherever you're going, love the hell out of it and take it for what it's got.

But how do you "profite" from everything? 

I'm coming to the panicky phase of my study abroad experience, where the end is in sight and you can't believe it is. Where you start to think there wasn't enough time, you didn't do enough, you have so much more to see. You get bogged down a little. You start counting days. You start missing things you haven't even left yet. What about those places I never visited?   What about those people I never met?

Ironically, this is exactly how I felt when I left Michigan. I was worried about the things I was leaving behind. The things I wouldn't get to experience, the people I wouldn't get to be around. College is so short already—why was I leaving? Leaving these amazing people, this amazing town, my nooks that I have learned how to navigate, a place where I know how to "profite."

But the thing is, you'll never have enough time. You'll never get to do everything. Doing something inherently means sacrificing something else. 

My dad always gets angry at me for saying "yes" to everything, having my hands in too many jars of jam or whatever that expression is, and feeling a need to be a part of everything. 

I've recently discovered why I've always been like this. It's because I have a fear of missing out. I'm scared of not experiencing something. Of not experiencing everything. Chance and happenstance have so often lead me to Eden that I don't want to let go of any occassion or opportunity. But in doing that, in trying to "profite de tous," and in beginning to worry about if you are doing so or not, you profite less and less. You regret rather than dream. You forget that you're in the middle of France, on the edge of the world, and two months is 60x longer than any housefly ever had.

You can never have enough time to do everything. You can never be in two places at once, and even if you could each place would appreciate you less for not having you there wholly. You can't go to every country, you can't meet all the people in the world that could change your life and give you euphoria. You can't, babe.

And that's not awful. 

This realization makes me think of one of my favorite conversations I ever had. It was with Poonam. We were talking about death--I was in one of those funks I used to get in when thinking about "the big black blob." They started in middle school and would come every couple of months or so. I would start to think about my own death, what it would be like to not exist and try to put myself in that state. Then, an emotion that could have quickly tumbled into panic if I didn't immediately draw myself out.

"I just can't help thinking that when we die, we die. We're all specks. In a hundred years, we won't mean anything to anyone. Nothing around us will exist. Ants on a balloon. Floating. Nothing we do remains."

"Yeah," Poonam replies,                    "I s n ' t   i t   g r e a t?"

In that hot second, Poon turned my perspective upside-down, and it has remained that way. My biggest fear was her biggest relief. 

The realization that you can't do everything, it's not depressing. It's a fact. All it means is that there's just too much awesome stuff, too much worth seeing, too much worth doing, too many people worth meeting. 

And that thought, well it just makes me subliminally happy.

Profitez-bien, tout le monde, de tout ce que tu peux et de tout ce que tu veux.

Poonami—thanks for always making me walk on my head.




And it goes on... Things that have reminded me of this post and this feeling. I think it is important to collect them here in the spirit of revisiting our thoughts because realizing something once is sometimes not enough:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AH7YxbuZQs8

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2011/04/21/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything?sc=nl&cc=es-20110424

Mamaçita

First things first: when I refer to Mamaçita, I am speaking about my host mama. I didn't really know what to call this woman who is such an integral yet etheral part of my Strasbourg-ian life. Madame, Mère d'acceuil, host mother, "Mom"—None of these options caught my fancy.

Thus...Mamaçita. A little spicy, a little out of the ordinary, but you know it means Mom.

Mamaçita reminds me of those sourpatch candy commercials. Except with Mamaçita, first there's spunky. She's a feisty mushroom hunter and minority rights activist and, at the same time, someone who will greet you in the morning with a bag of fresh-made beignets in case you get hungry at school.

Over breakfast one morning, Mamaçita and I discuss our mutual liking for potted plants (They really do add a certain something.). That same night, I walk into my room to find...

Quelle plante!

...a gigantic plant, almost a midget tree, sitting happily on my desk. How she even got it up all those stairs, I shall never know. It made me happy. The kind where you just stare and smile and sort of chuckle to yourself.

Mamaçita also happens to be a mind reader.

Right when you're thinking "God damn, I hate space heaters" she hands you a big wooly sweater she found in the back of her closet and thinks you might like. Whenever you're about to get homesick, she makes lentil soup almost identical to your mom's daahl. When FoodPornDaily gives you the most serious of hankerings for a juicy hamburger topped with—your favorite—guacamole, she of course has already prepared a dinner of beef cutlets with fresh grain bread and avocado.

She's the sneakiest and most mysterious type of mind-reading Mamaçita.

As someone who can easily get irritated when around the same person for too long, I stand amazed at Mamaçita's ability to just...be. You don't get angry at Mamaçita. You don't get tired of Mamaçita. You don't tolerate Mamaçita. You love Mamaçita and you're pretty sure Mamaçita loves you.

Mamaçita often repeats one expression : « Chacun a sa propre façon. »—everyone has their own way. Mamaçita does not judge. She sees, she comments, and she accepts. Things that bother me about others do not bother her because she simply accepts difference. She comes into a relationship knowing that you are who you are for completely legitimate reasons and that you are bound to be different from who she is.

Beignets on French mornings

Yesterday morning, I woke up early to make beignets with Mamaçita, a plan we had made the previous night. As she cooks, she explains the tricks of beignet-making.

1. Use the zest of one complete lemon. Not the juice.
2. Make sure the dough is always near heat.
3. Thinner is better. Trust me.
4. Dip your thumbprint into the raw beignet just before laying it in the oil. It makes it fluffy.
5. Cover them for one minute after you put them in.
6. Make a lot.

We rolled the dough, cut and shaped, fried, and then sprinkled sugar and cinammon, eating as we went, moaning and nodding at the lightness of the dough and slight tang of lemon. My brain started whirring at the potential of these little fried heaven puffs. I told her about how we keep a pot of vanilla sugar at my house in Chicago—fresh vanilla beans left to steep in, and thus infuse, the white sugar.

« On peut utiliser le sucre à la vanille avec les beignets . . . »

« Mais, oui ! Tu voies? Chacun a ses propres secrets et il faut que nous les partagions. »

We agreed to try vanilla sugar and orange zest next time we do beignets.

Tarte Flambée. Courtesy isaveurs.com

Before that, however, we're making tarte flambée... —something different, but oh so familiar.

Oh hello there, person! How ist thou? I ist well. I ist in France. I ist finally starting a blog.

I always had an excuse to not start this thing:
I'm not in the right state of mind.
I don't have pictures.
Nothing has happened.
I'm hungry.

Originally created nine months ago, this blog was supposed to document the adventures of my summer abroad in India. But, after those plans fell through, I abandoned ship.

Though how silly it would be to say that nothing has happened in the last nine months. I've filled journals, found passions, been laid off on account of a serial killer, ridden a unicycle, lost someone loved, among so many other things.

Adventuring is a non-discriminatory activity. It's everywhere and is for everyone.

So, nine months later, here I am.

Guys, I hath given birth to my blog baby. Hope you'll stick around to see it grow.