Look for the Magic
By the time you’re reading this, I’ll be on an airplane. I might already be in Paris.
It’s my first trip abroad in almost eight years, and my first solo international trip since I lived in Spain, and traveled through the Iberian Peninsula and the UK, in my mid-twenties.
So you could say it’s been a while.
Back in December, my friend Diana, a former colleague and retired English department chair, proposed the idea of visiting her in Bordeaux. I was intrigued, but mostly hesitant.
You Don’t Have to Perform Wellness
My body started doing weird things in the fall of 2021.
When I lay down, I felt like I was floating on a raft in choppy water. If I turned my head in the opposite direction, it took me a moment to get my bearings again. I often woke up with a throbbing sensation in my skull, like my brain was expanding and contracting to the pulse of a metronome. I would surrender to the floor in the middle of the day, my body overcome with frightening fatigue. I struggled to read simple children’s books with my kids, doubting the accuracy of the words I saw on the page.
In the years leading up to this, I was riding the waves of my early 40s, new parenthood, quarantine life with a toddler and preschooler, devastating wildfires, house renovations, and continuous strife, both on TV and on the streets outside my home in Portland.