I am coming to you today from my bed, surrounded by piles of my clothes, paperwork, loan items to return. To my left, the open IKEA hanging and shelving unit is mostly bare. Everything is stuffed in my big bag by the door, for a practice weigh.
I am trying to set my mind at ease so I can book my next flight. A short one – less than three hours, but it feels monolithic. It’s the next big step.
My work contract is almost finished. The remaining days fit on one hand. I’m ready, and still it makes it hard to breathe. I have a whole week to spare after, to pack up and get things arranged. To do the last little things I still want to do, or want to do again.
There is a cable car here in town, up to the top of the mount, with several interweaving numbered paths. I have only done half, I hope still to traipse the others. I am thinking about hiking another path in a nearby forest, this one to a church at the top. I’ve already done it once, but I got lost and did the inland path. Now I am more confident that I can correctly do the coastal path. The little art gallery one more time. The ferry, just for fun.
And there are even smaller things – a biscuit I won’t be able to get anymore once I leave. A type of lettuce I haven’t found outside of France. The casualness of buying fresh cheap bread on the way home from a morning class. Tiny rock melons – I got one today. Did you know Europe doesn’t get full-size rock melons? They’re about half the size of what we get in Australia. (Belatedly realising these are all food related. Hmmm…)
Last week, privately, I wrote about the words “how many?” beating like a pulse. Sometimes it feels like that internal countdown is all I can think about – how many more classes, how many more days, how many more baguettes or little pastry delights from the bakery, how many more sunny days here, how many more times will I get to walk home the long way along the port?
These are questions I could probably answer, but I haven’t wanted to actually know.
And all these beats, all these thoughts of “how many more”, have brought me, somehow, to my (read: loan from Dad and Mum) suitcase being pulled from under the bed at last. It doesn’t feel real, but the logical part of me knows it must be done.
But that’s just my evening fare.
Though you can’t tell yet, I spent the whole day on a nearby island – Porquerolles (“pock-err-roll”). A must-do in this area, although I have been waiting months and months for the boat line to re-open. Like many things in France, they are closed over the cooler months, since mid-October I think. It was beautiful; the perfect day for traipsing the trails, and it truly was a stunning example of why this is the Azure Coast. Really, just how does the water get so blue? (This is another answer I don’t actually want. Sometimes the things in my head are better than reality.)
Surely, that should be what bubbles up, what I should write about. But my travel writing has felt stale and flat of late. I have a fully complete post written about my time in Bordeaux earlier this year. I’ve gotten so far as the text being formatted into the site, just waiting for a few photos inserted into the gaps. I’ve even already uploaded those, ready to insert… it’s really just the last two clicks. And still, you haven’t seen that post.
So that’s why I’m not really writing about Porquerolles today. I have been trying to crack the seal since March, when I realised a rift had formed between me and actually hitting “post”. Evidently, without success. But… I think today’s the day.
I’m trying to just go for it, relatively without filter, in the hopes of writing something that feels a bit more alive. It occurs to me that I am an echo of myself. That I had a break like this last year. That I promised myself I would write and focus on getting things actually out there because finishing things is a muscle that can grow or atrophy. It seems I have returned to atrophy. But I don’t want to.
It’s difficult, because writing can be so deeply personal. And sometimes when it’s not, I wonder if it’s worth reading, worth sharing. Of course, if it’s too personal, how can it ever see the light of day? There’s a reason why brains live in the dark cave of the skull and hearts are kept in cages.
I hope I can be braver than my own second-guessing. Find a way to muddle my way through. If there’s anything travel has taught me it’s that you really can just figure out one step at a time.
I think back to when I landed in Paris the first time. Accommodation booked weeks in advance but not nearly as many as I would have liked (I was waiting on visa confirmation), with an exact plan of how I was going to get there from the airport – full research done into the metro system to ascertain the (undeniably) best ticket for my trip, sure of the activities I wanted to do my first week, and the things I wanted to eat. I understood I had time to get to anything missed later, and still there was research and organisation and a plan. Now, half the time when I show up in a new country, I Google how to leave the airport once I arrive. I might have a short list of a few ‘top activities’ I want to hit – stuff I’ve heard about from other travellers, things from 16-year-old Jenn’s bucket list – but I sort of wander and decide on the way. I book my accommodation days before or sometimes the morning I arrive. And it still works, and I still have a good time.
In high school, when I thought the weight of being in high school would physically manifest into a crushed rib cage, I used to tell myself “Thousands have gone before you, and thousands will come after you.” It was my way of reminding myself that what I was trying to do wasn’t impossible. I use it now as reassurance whenever I land in a new city. It works better than it did in high school. I know there must be a way to get from the airport or the bus station, or wherever to the city centre because I was just on a plane with a hundred other people, and they don’t look ready to camp by baggage claim. There was a flight before ours, already moved on, and there’ll be a flight after – and we’ll all make it.
As I finish up my contract, it feels like there are a hundred things to do at every moment of every passing day. I trip over myself trying to get it all done, wishing I had already, and knowing that even if I had, I would probably come up with something new to fret over. After these steps, there will always be other steps. I’m so close to the end of being a language assistant. I am not renewing for next year, and I won’t ever do this particular job again. In a few short days, I’ll be one of the thousand who’ve gone before.
Do I know how to be the person who comes next? The next version of me? But, yes, even that is simple, even that isn’t something you need all the answers to. People are all change. We shift into new selves with a thousand tiny steps, moving through all the people we’ll be in our lives seamlessly. From red to blue, and while you know there was purple in the middle somewhere, you couldn’t say when it started or when it left.
So, okay, what am I saying?
In four days, I won’t be a language assistant anymore. In twelve days, I won’t live in France anymore, and that chapter of my life will close. Twelve is such a small number when there are a hundred things to do. But I am content in the belief that I’m going to be okay, that I’ll make it, one step at a time – and I’m trying to make the most of it, even managing to enjoy it, spending the impossibly bright sunlight hours on a beautiful island with seemingly literal jewel seas.
If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sticking with me. This is perhaps more journal entry than anything else, a little window into my brain, but hopefully it gives you a bit of an insight into where things are at right now. And hopefully I can get back into more formed posts around here.
The next bit is going to be faster paced, as I make something of a whirlwind tour of the places and things I most want to see in the UK and Europe before returning to Oz. It’s a big plan and I have tentatively ear-marked two months for it. I hope to blog along the way, but for now, I won’t make any promises. I need to see what the next steps hold first.
P.S. Got my next flight booked. One step closer.