Bonjour tout le monde,
To all those who warmly welcomed me and cheerfully shared friendship and life with me while I was in their beautiful country this past year:
(Skipping the apologies about tardy blog posts on the blog post for which they are the most appropriate...)
This past school year in Paris has been an incredible time. As I sit at my computer, a half hour left between packing and leaving for the airport, I am bemused, almost stunned, at how quickly the time has gone by and how indelibly, I can tell, already, imprinted the memories, education, experiences, and, surtout the incredible friendships from these past many months are.
I cannot possibly hope to summarize this past semester in a single blog post, anymore than I will possibly be able to summarize a response to the question everyone will soon be asking me ("So...how was Paris?") in a single sentence ("It was cool/great/amazing/memorable...etc), so I will not even attempt to do so.
I will take a moment, though, to say that, while I cannot now but begin to understand how much I have learned from this past year in ways in which I never thought I was "learning," it is neither skills acquired nor education amassed that make me look back on this year and say, "that was worth it." No, it is, rather, inevitably, one might say, the sum of all those experiences that touched upon the essence of the human element : relationships, that elicit that sentiment.
It should seem strange that I cite Gary Paulson, a survival/wilderness juvenile fiction author (of "The Hatchet," among others) in this final blog post, but the way he describes the relationship between a man and his wilderness environment seem to be quite relevant here, with a minor alteration : "You may take the man out of Paris, but you can never get Paris out of the man."
This is truest, I suppose, when that, "Paris" is, in addition to indelible memories of a host of experiences, a group of people who have so permanently written and been written on my heart.
Au revoir, mes ami(e)s, et votre pays chaleureux et votre ville magnifique,
Joseph
Good luck with culture shock! Remember you'll never be the same again...but that's a good thing :)
ReplyDeleteTu as écrit les mêmes sentiments que j’ai. Je suis reconnaissante à Dieu parce qu’Il t’a donné une bonne expérience à Paris avec les peuples. Ces sentiments sera te servir bien n’importe où tu aller.
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