The Last Days

After I left my haven of peace and rest and weaving, I visited my friend Flo at his mother's country estate.  We went out and saw an electric ukulele rock band.  It was epic.

The next day I headed to Paris, planning on meeting a friend.  I sat at the metro station for two hours, waiting for her.  No phone, so I couldn't call, and no wifi until I hiked a quarter mile to the nearest Mc Donald's with all my stuff.  She hadn't said anything online, didn't answer the phone when I called with Skype...  I trucked it back to the station, just in case she was super late and now wondering where I was.
No such luck.

Well, that's fine.  It was about time I graduated to solo homeless sleeping.  I started running through all of the nooks and crannies of Paris in my memory, wondering where would be a good place to hunker down for the night.  The Montmartre Cemetery was my most appealing option, but far away.  I contemplated climbing onto the roof of the metro station before I decided to just stay where I was on my bench.  As I started reading, lounging on my new bed with all my stuff tucked under me, an old man put a sandwich on my lap.  He didn't say anything when I thanked him in wonderment, just walked away with his grocery bags, slowly up the hill.  I was left with a warm and fuzzy feeling that I would be just fine sleeping in the great outdoors.  God was watching.

Picture 1:  my bench.  Picture 2:  my telephone booth.  I moved into it in the middle of the night, when the air was picking up a chill.  It was quite cozy.  I woke up to the sound of a little voice asking "Momma, why did she sleep in there?  Why?"

the view from my bench (that's the eiffel
tower, if you can't tell.  it's sparkling,
like it does every night at 11)

Roused bright and early by the sun and that little voice, I fixed my hair and perched on the banks of the Seine to watch the sun come up next to the Eiffel Tower.  I sang and sang because I felt so lucky to be a witness of such a marvel.  Also because no one else was around.

I spent the day lounging, reading, window shopping in Paris and headed to Amsterdam the next day.  Again, warm sun, tasty snacks on the canals.  I needed a day or two just to myself.  And then I came home.

The strangest thing about all this moving around is that I didn't feel the shock of it.  I've said before on this blog that I often take a long time to process adventures, but this time was different.  It was like my soul didn't experience any lag.  When I got home, both my mind and body got there at the same time.  Seamless.  Fascinating.  Teleportation is the next step.