la veille de Noel

my favorite moments so far are the ones i am alone. mouth shut tight, i act nonchalant, as if bored by the landscape and familiarized with the streets, as if i too am french. i wonder if the facial muscles i use to speak a language other than french will give me away, if that's the thing that makes the french look french, the brits look british. i want to be invisible, i want the world for the moment to be devoid of people so i can wander at will and look and stare and soak in.

i see a man get in his car and realize he has left the keys in the lock on the outside, and as he sees me see him do this we exchange grins. you do not need language for that. i leave my parents and wander, wide-eyed and dancing, through the super market, my boots clicking on the tile and french words in my ears. kilometers of yoghurts, cucumber dip, ten thousand cheeses, ever new and better haribo. i am in ecstasy and i am in fear because i'm on my parents' dollar and my mother asks me with concern if i need anything sweet, because all we have so far is breads and cheese and fruits. there is no avoiding any more. i do not understand how people eat so much all the time. i have switched tracks and begun hoarding suddenly, haribo and kinder and small bitty chocolates, which i will have at the bottom of my suitcase but will not eat. it's all right. whatever i can do to stop swallowing the world and trying to throw it back up. 

every time i run i end up with myself again, more concentrated and more destructive. it's hideously cliche but so true. i flee across continents and end up wrapped in a protective blanket of my own problems. i will remember this trip by its grocery stores, the hunts for chocolate, the apple that i nursed over two hours so i wouldn't eat haribo,the desperate attempts to throw up in secret, in silence, in public toilets and hosts' showers. despite this i cannot say i regret it.

i keep forgetting it's christmas eve, but now i hear the bells of Lisieux as i lie in bed and it's rather nice. christmas is such a strange time and i am kind of glad i am in a strange place because it dilutes the strangeness that comes with food and family. tomorrow is a dinner of quail and fish and christmas cake and it will be large and delicious and expensive. i am going to have to avoid large amounts of food during the day, but then again, maybe i should just try not to care. it's christmas, after all.