fête de la musique

 I have a music hangover.

Yesterday was the national (now international) music festival, Fête de la Musique. When I was in Chambéry during the summer of 2008, we attended the fête in Lyon. (I posted about it on my Frenchie Summer blog.) We danced & drank all day. I was eager to share the holiday with Joe.

One of my good friends/ex-students invited us to her roommate's show, & we spent the rest of the evening out–as did at least 9,000 other Nancy residents. The. streets. were. packed. Musicians were everywhere. Cheap beer was for sale everywhere: bars opened their large front windows & set up booths for beer; boutiques were taking advantage of the crowds & selling goods from coolers; plastic cups were everywhere.

The lights, kegs & general conviviality reminded me so much of home–summer days spent walking around the fair & community festivals. Families were out, all ages mixing & dancing to African music, Salsa, electro-mixed rave sounds... or nothing. There was a silent corner on one street, filled with mimes–white-gloved hands moving through synchronized hand motions.

With each day, I become more attached to my friends remaining in Nancy. Having eight hours to run through the streets, sweating & shaking our hair & arms & torsos to bass so loud it shook our muscle fibers, was a night that seemed to seal the untouchable bond I have with these girls. (Here's a quick photo from early in the night–the sun's even still up. Not pictured: Aurora, a lovely Texan girl who has spent several years making Nancy her home.)

The night brought out so many emotions I've been bouncing between. I've lost the sense of any concrete "home" & know that I'll forever feel torn between the United States & France. Lately, I've been worrying that the relationship was one-sided. Last night, I felt so much affection coming my way.

While walking through the main square to get to the next concert, I saw students' waving hands; I had several students that have become friends pop up to say hi; I saw friends I've been missing for weeks. We even ran into the married couple who had shared our sleeper cabin on the train to Montpellier. We were at home, part of a community, moving through a town that we'd fully become a part of.

The night was perfect in a way no night has been perfect. Dancing in the street, we were flanked by lightening. Occasional thunder roared about the clusters of club music. We stopped for kebab on the way home, & I sat on the patio watching tiny raindrops fall. We walked into the apartment. The storm let loose, & I collapsed on the bed–as if we were equally exhausted from holding it all in.

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one hundred twenty-one

Look in my heart and let love keep us together.

Over the weekend, I was lucky enough to spend three hours in the car with my dad. It was without doubt the highlight of having a massive oil leak in my car and getting picked up and taken home for Easter.

We listened to oldie the whole way back, and Dad was a bit said to realize that they were the songs he grew up with. I resisted making jokes about his pending 50th birthday. We rocked out, waited to long for coffee in the McDonald's drive-through, talked about beer, talked about the coming year and got a bit teary-eyed talking about the wedding. (Ok, I did. He will. You just wait.)

When Captain and Tennille came on, I imagined my family dancing at the wedding reception. I'm living for those moments now, when all of the build up turns into a day of happiness, a day where we can forget everything else– the money, the stress over invitations, the mess over inviting people.

There are days when the thought of leaving and not having my dad to drive me home or fix my car get overwhelming. I stop wanting to leave, start feeling like I can't. More frequently, I've been needing to remind myself that the drive back home with Dad felt so perfect because it doesn't happen very often, because it almost felt new and in that way reminded us how much we love each other.

So as the distance grows and shrinks and changes over the next year, just like C & T said, love will keep us together. I forget sometimes how lucky we are to live in this age, when being across the ocean is not only possible, but does not limit the ways that we can communicate.

The idea of distance have been playing with my mind a lot lately. France may be no different than living in Washington state, really... except for the cost of a ticket. But the e-mails will sound the same and the voice on the Skype line will sound the same and the coming home will feel the same.

Joe is attending AWP, a writing conference, in Denver this week. I had originally planned to join his carpool of University of Missouri students, then realized missing a week of school when I'm not even an creative writing student (yet?) was not my best decision.

Having him leave on Friday evening, pack and head even further West was strange. I know that it shouldn't be, that we'll talk on the phone just the same. I know that he's safe in a hotel with a thousand other writers. I know that we'll go together in other years, but they're something a bit uncomfortable about having him outside of my world. I can't picture Denver. I can't understand the mass of people at AWP. I don't know the people he's traveling with. I don't know if he's eating balance meals. He could be on the moon.

My family has been living with distance, a small one (1.5 hours), for four years. My new family, with Joe, has been living with a solid distance for two years. We're getting good at this. So if absence can make the heart grow fonder, then absence and nicely scheduled visits and good communication can make some really amazing memories and a new kind of family dependence.

Ballroom Blitz also played and we both about went crazy. Despite the dancing, we stayed on the road... but now this song keeps finding its way into my foot and making it bounce through class. I'd never heard it, and I worry that you haven't either.

one hundred thirty-nine

I received a manila envelope in the mail yesterday. The label was nondescript. The package was thin. I opened the envelope and found a white USPS envelope inside, a bit flimsier that the outer covering.

I opened the white envelope and found the sheet music I'd waited so long to order. The book was thinner, simpler than I was expecting–especially for the cost. I'd managed to order Amazon's last copy, the only one I could find in the U.S. I think it's worth it. (That's not to say it isn't worth reselling after the wedding, though...)

Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain was the first French film that Joe and I watched together. He knew that I would love it. I did because Audrey Tautou is perfect, Jean-Pierre Jeunet is a film-making genius and Yann Tiersen is my favorite French musician of all time. I watched it and began to fall in love with Joe–admittedly, I didn't really know what that meant at the time.

The music has come to mean so many things to us. It was what we were both listening to when I was in the air on my way to France and he was returning to Muncie. It is what I still listen to when I miss him so much that I can't get out of bed.

The music sounds like me falling into his arms, which for the past to years has always been a kind of sadness for me, whether it's a hug of anticipation when he arrives at my door for a weekend visit or it the desperate goodbye when we drive away for another month.

I wanted this music to play when the ceremony begins, and I walk toward him, and our lives officially start together. When, for the first time, we hug without thinking about any sort of goodbye.

So here it is. Joe doesn't know (I don't think), and he never reads my blogs. So, if I'm right in thinking that I haven't told him and if he doesn't check this blog, it could be a lovely sort of surprise. That's my bit of a hint to say, "Maybe watch this video and don't mention it to Joe."

The song is actually only about 2.5 minutes, so when you get to the silence and the characters kiss, you've heard it all. It just sort of begins again for a bit. I picked this video because it has some great shots from the movie that show things I love about Amélie.