Today I had an epiphany as I was running. You see, sometimes, well let’s be honest, all of the time, I have more feelings inside of me than the average mortal. I feel things on a higher emotional plane than probably about most anyone I’ve ever come across; a bad day is a tragedy, a good day is an ecstasy, the people I love are gods and losing love is like a death. I generally feel like I have so much inside of me that I just might explode, as if it were possible to feel everything at once. My symphonic range of emotions is enough to tire anyone out just listening to me spin...I think once I had a friend describe me as a tasmanian devil, exploding emotions everywhere, which she then tastefully finished off with a spectacular impersonation of me as said tasmanian devil, complete with sound effects. I used to spend a lot of time feeling everything on the inside, trying not to be so loud, trying not to seem so uncool to the other kids who just didn’t have any possible way of understanding me. But what I have come to understand, is rather that I should accept that this is part of what makes me, well me.

I’m an artist, I’m a singer, or was rather, to be exact. I really do think that I was made that way because it’s the only true way I can express everything that I’m feeling inside without seeming like a maniac to the general public. I can dance around on stage and scream, commit suicide when love doesn’t go the right way, stab myself or someone else, only to come back and sing about it for another 20 minutes before I die (I’m an opera singer by the way...in case you didn’t catch on). Now, I don’t really sing anymore so I’ve had to find another outlet...and running became it, it was the only way to do something physical at the same time as feeling the music I was listening to. Often, when I’m running, I listen to the same song on repeat, over and over and over again...I’ve had boyfriends that didn’t understand it, how I couldn’t be bored with the same song over and over again, but it wasn’t the song I was listening to over and over again; I was obsessed with re-living the feeling that came with it, the feeling that I could recreate only when sounds are put to words in unison. I’ve never felt more connected to anyone else, or even to myself rather, then when I’m putting my feelings into music, and drawing off of my real life experiences to emote something through song to an audience. It’s like therapy, the best kind; you use it, you sing it, and then it’s out of you. I’ve never been much of a religious person, I don’t really know what I believe as far as I’m concerned, but I do believe in a divine creator, because I was made this way, because it’s the only way I feel like I can communicate with whatever that is.

I feel like life is magical, it’s just a series of moments that continue to pass us by, and you get out of them what you take. I was listening to this song over and over again today when I was running by one of my favorite artists. It was a song about the way she felt when she was at a music festival, a song about the inner connectivity between people that were strangers with one another, but shared the highest level of emotion by their joint love of music at the same time. She sings, “I am bright as the sun, you are high as a kite, we are daughters, sons, brothers and sisters tonight, at Cochella.” (Cochella being the music festival) She goes on to sing, “I’m a warm bleeding heart, you’re a generous soul and I love you though I’ve never met you before, Cochella.” Anyway, that song just really spoke to me, because of how accurately it expresses the way I feel all of the time.

I believe in love the way some people believe in religion. I believe that I can make a best friend in someone that I just met. I believe in soulmates, I believe in sharing yourself with a partner for life. I believe in loving fully, unconditionally, because it’s only in the giving that you really receive. I know most of this may sound totally fruity and flowery to most of you, but that’s just who I am. I have so much to give and still so much to live...and that’s exactly what I intend on doing.

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I’m sitting in the dark living room of my house, my roommate is away somewhere, I’ve turned all the lights off. There’s nothing to hear but the tick tock of the clock and the rattling inside of our heater. The snow is falling outside. I like when the first snow that sticks is at night, it kind of gives the world a soft glow about it, almost like everything is painted in sepia because of the way the lights reflect off of all the perfect white. The flakes are big and fluffy, like giant balls of cotton falling from the sky, one after the other taking up all the sound so that you can’t hear a thing; the world is silent.

It’s moments like this that always seem to take my breath away, and moments like this that always seem to ache in a strange way that I’m not used to. Whenever I see something so breathtakingly magical like this I always want to have someone to share it with, or sometimes it takes me back to my favorite memories from a life in which I’ve been so blessed to be so showered with happiness.

There’s something so special about the first snow of the season, the way it seems to wipe everything new, and the perfect scene it creates before anyone has had a chance to walk on it. I on the other hand, always feel the need to go out and play and revel in it, because it’s been so long since the last chance I got to see it. I guess I always think it’s so special to, because it’s finally a marker of the beginning of the season when I know I’ll get to see the people I love most in my life. Living so far away from everyone now has put a completely different perspective on things, mostly on all of my relationships. Some of which I’m not surprised to have lasted, others with whom I never expected to be so close.

I've come to realize is just how lucky I am, and I wanted to take a moment to send out my thoughts of thanks to you and to the universe slash divine creator in general. Sometimes, even in Europe, it's easy to get down on ourselves, a lesson I’ve been painfully learning these last few months spent on my own. But when I get down, what’s really gotten me through it is remembering that I have been so blessed by such happy memories and happy people in my life.

When I saw a magnificent scene to revel in like tonight, and the ache came, it surprised when a flood of happy memories instead of a wave of sadness came with it. In fact right now I can't really do much accept sit here with a smile on my face as I reflect back through all I've done, everyone I've been and who I'm becoming.

I think I’ve gotten better at mastering the art of loneliness, because it is an art form. Sometimes when you're trying on new skin and a new place, you need look back on all that you've been; it always brings me back home. Laughter, love and friendship really are the best gifts; and this holiday season I am most thankful for those. I am thankful for my wonderful family, both genetic, old friends, and new found souls in Europe. I am thankful for all the love in my life, and I am thankful to each and every one of you for how you contribute, or have contributed to me in the past. So in the spirit of the season I send to all of you, the very best of what you have given to me, my love, my thoughts, my prayers; sometimes feeling at home has nothing to do with where we are, but who we're with. For all of you that I've ever been able to find a home in, thank you, I love you.

It’s coming down even harder now, so much so that I can barely see the outside but for the snow.

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So I was watching Forrest Gump tonight, missing home a lot, and I thought about the line, “you can tell a lot about people by their shoes...blah blah,” and I thought about this morning.

Last night, well yesterday afternoon really, I found myself with not a lot to do and a beautiful sunny afternoon stretched out before me. So my friend Andy and I were chatting on facebook and I was talking about how pathetic it was that I’d lived in France for over a year and a half and had hardly seen any of it. So we decided to seize the moment, buy ridiculously over priced train tickets and head up to the capital of gastronomy for the evening to have dinner in Lyon.

It was a great spontaneous trip, our train ended up being delayed on the way up, so we just decided to get a hotel and stay the night too. A fortuitous stroke of luck, or happy coincidence while wandering, found us in the oldest part of one of the oldest cities in France in a hotel next to a bar with 50 different kinds of beers (My kind of night man). It was an epic evening, complete with gastronomic delights...and some not so delightful, yummy beer, fun and sometimes interesting people and being mooned by a frenchman...that was definitely a first for me.

Anyhow, this morning as we were walking to the train we popped into a coffee shop for a morning fix and as we sat in silence (completely drained from the night before) I perused our French counterparts in the café and noted their comings and goings. What was a hustling and bustling cafe very quickly dissipated into just me, Andy, the table next to us and their poodle (yes, poodle in the coffee shop, I had to squash the urge to drop kick it...I dislike small dogs, especially small bitchy French ones who eat croissant out of their owners hands and disrupt my morning coffee by barking and hurting my hangover..ha).

I looked up as a group of old men came into the shop together...really old guys, with fantastic beards, canes and hats, dressed like something out of the 1950’s, they were French old-school. I watched as they sat down, exchanged pleasantries with the barmaid and went about their very obviously daily routine. It got me thinking about habits and daily routines and how different we are from country to country...strictly speaking the US and France anyway.

In America, we haul ass to stand in ridiculous lines at Starbucks all the while tolerating the abnormal chipperness of the baristas in anticipation of our much needed caffeine fix. Then we tuck the scone/muffin/fruit cup into our handbag/briefcase/purse/tote bag and hurry off to our train/car/taxi/walk to wherever it is we’re off to on the day. The only pleasantries exchanged are those maybe between us and another cranky customer or the barista.

The French, saunter into a café, sit down, wait their turn for when the barman/maid feels the spirit to look in their general direction, because of course, they have the control; they don’t work for tips, and they don’t care how cranky you get waiting for your fix. But the real French customer doesn’t mind this, they understand it’s about the experience just as much as it’s about the caffeine. They’ll take out their paper/book/iphone, nibble on their freshly bought croissant/pain au chocolat/baguette from the pâtisserie next door, light up their cigarette, blow it inconveniently in your direction and heave a weighty sigh releasing the morning’s clearly obvious tensions. Sometimes they’ll even just gaze off into the distance, pondering the quandaries of their 4 day work week no less, or chat to their friends; the important difference though, is their process.

They’re not in a hurry, they don’t care if they get to work on time, hell, they don’t really care if they get there a half hour late...it’s a nationally understood thing, that there’s always a good reason, and they’re never questioned.

Back to Forrest Gump though, thinking about his shoes got me thinking about my coffee experience and how you can tell just as much about a person by the way they do things. In France we have the saying, “Les américains vivent de travailler, les français travaillent pour vivre,” which means, Americans live to work, French work to live. I’d have to say, that nails it right on the head though. Watching the French go through their coffee routine, I remember one day when I was just trying to be French in the way I drank my coffee. But when I tried to take my time, I was confounded by the order in which to do my actions, cigarette first? Then sugar in the coffee? Then croissant???...damn, instead of lighting my cigarette with the hand stuffing my muffin into my bag while pressing my phone to my shoulder so I can talk while running down the street and trying not to spill my hot coffee in the other hand on myself all at once like usual, I had no idea which order to do things in when I was doing them one at a time.

France has been really good for me in that way, learning how to slow down and take my time. I’m sure I’ve written about it before in one of my earlier chapters.

Right now I find myself having a really hard time finding my balance, finding the right amount of actually “being” here and not already living back at home in the US in anticipation of my re-entry this summer. I’m trying to take my own advice and do things one at a time, but it’s not without difficulty. It’s been a real exercise in thought control, forcing myself to be here, in this moment, right now, instead of 6 months ahead of time in where I think I want my new life to be once I get back. It’s not without effort, this is something that’s always been a constant struggle in my life, and it’s an important battle to conquer I think, because looking back, I regret and see so much that I missed out on in the moment while I was waiting for the future. I don’t want to regret, and I don’t want to look back and wish I’d done things differently. All I really want to do is matter, I want to know that I used my powers for something good and that I made a difference somehow, somewhere, to someone. I guess what I’m trying to say, is I don’t want to die with all my thoughts still inside me, and if you ever need a lesson in trying to matter, the best thing I’ve learned so far is to just sit down and have a coffee:)

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