I ask it as a question because how "real" can my life be right now? If you stop and think about it, I live in the SOUTH OF FRANCE next to a Roman ruin that was a tomb and that is over 2,000 years old. I walk by it every single day. There I am, walking my dog in the morning, the air is crisp, the local homeless man bids my good morning (I think), the butcher shop opens for the delivery of half a cow, the joggers jostle past me and sea gulls laugh over my head...and I pass a 2,000 year old Roman tomb. Not even close to my reality.
Or is the unreal becoming my real? The abnormal my normal? The impossible becoming...you get the idea.
Driving into Nice last night over a road Napoleon built, I got to thinking about how adaptive humans can be if they allow themselves. I add that because I often feel myself hanging on with both hands to the past, refusing to adapt to the present. Shame, Shame, Shame. Life can change on you so fast. It feels like minutes ago I was living with Anna in a loft apartment along the Blackstone River, in my next breath I was in a room off my parents' kitchen sleeping on a futon with Anna making mouth noises in the dark of night, curled up on her ratty corduroy pillow next to me. And then I blinked my eyes and I was living in Florida with Dennis listening to the calls of Sand Hill Cranes and alligators barking across the swamp behind our condo. And here I am, living in a flat with my mother-in-law with views of the sea. The Mediterranean Sea.
My reality used to be wearing scrubs everyday, eating lunch in 15 minutes so I could nap in my car under the shady trees of an industrial complex off highway 1. I make a full meal now for lunch and we often sip wine and finish with dessert. I work at my laptop sitting in front of a window that opens to the mountain peak above Monaco. I wash my clothes in something the size of a dishwasher and I have to turn the water heater on hours before I plan on taking a shower because washing the lunch dishes used up all the hot water. I walk my dog along an olive tree garden that holds hundreds of years of memories and I understand nothing that the passing people say.
What will my next breath bring?
Or is the unreal becoming my real? The abnormal my normal? The impossible becoming...you get the idea.
Driving into Nice last night over a road Napoleon built, I got to thinking about how adaptive humans can be if they allow themselves. I add that because I often feel myself hanging on with both hands to the past, refusing to adapt to the present. Shame, Shame, Shame. Life can change on you so fast. It feels like minutes ago I was living with Anna in a loft apartment along the Blackstone River, in my next breath I was in a room off my parents' kitchen sleeping on a futon with Anna making mouth noises in the dark of night, curled up on her ratty corduroy pillow next to me. And then I blinked my eyes and I was living in Florida with Dennis listening to the calls of Sand Hill Cranes and alligators barking across the swamp behind our condo. And here I am, living in a flat with my mother-in-law with views of the sea. The Mediterranean Sea.
My reality used to be wearing scrubs everyday, eating lunch in 15 minutes so I could nap in my car under the shady trees of an industrial complex off highway 1. I make a full meal now for lunch and we often sip wine and finish with dessert. I work at my laptop sitting in front of a window that opens to the mountain peak above Monaco. I wash my clothes in something the size of a dishwasher and I have to turn the water heater on hours before I plan on taking a shower because washing the lunch dishes used up all the hot water. I walk my dog along an olive tree garden that holds hundreds of years of memories and I understand nothing that the passing people say.
What will my next breath bring?
Perhaps learning to speak or understand French? :)
ReplyDeleteThat's at the top of my list! :)
ReplyDelete