As I boarded Air France the airline hostess said, "Bonjour Madame!" After thirty years of doing this back and forth, from one country to another, one family to the other, one heart string to another, one would think I had this figured out. But no, it still stings, it still catches me in the middle of it all. Poof just like that I started to tucked my time in Willows neatly in my heart. Tears gushed as I said, "Bonjour" in return. It is often like that for me when going and coming, to and fro to California to France, one home to the other.
From the airplane I watched San Francisco fade away down below, we flew into the rolling fog which obscured the view. Into the fog my thoughts and feelings went as my feet lifted from my roots into the surreal world of flying from one side of the world to the other.
The little boy behind me kicked my seat steadily, no matter how many times I asked him and his parents to please be mindful; to no avail.
I did not sleep which is odd since I can sleep anywhere, instead I binged watched movies, had my back roughly massaged as fog rolled into the darkness of evening.
Water, land, cityscape.
My English is far better than my French, the French person who sat next to me started a conversation… I could see a funnel in my mind's eye above it my English vocabulary trickled through reducing my French vocabulary to a fourth. Not that I translate while I speak, but the limitation is daunting after gibbering record speed in English for a month. The French person complimented my French, I smiled knowing inside if she knew I had lived in France for thirty years she would have responded differently.
C'est la vie.
One horizon to the next.
French Husband was there to greet me, his embrace was everything: Loving, familiar, comfortable, mine. Coming home was all of that too. Plus the reality that those I also love live in another place and time.
All is good, with a tinge of sadness that will resolve itself along with the nine hour time change.
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xoxo
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