The last update from Cambrai

Hallo, all.

As Dad and I are leaving on a train at 1.15, this is probably the last update from Cambrai. It's been a good seven months. A fantastic seven months, really, no major tragedies or disappointments, and lots and lots of joys to balance out any tedium.

The colza is in bloom (so Amélie tells me), and the fields that aren't green or dun or cream are preternaturally yellow, so bright that it almost hurts to look at them. It hurts to look at them anyway, given that I won't be seeing them for much longer. No more bus rides. No more waiting in the growing light and watching the buses uncurl like caterpillars. "J'aime me laisser conduire sur les chemins du cambrésis", they say on the sides: I love to let myself be driven along the roads of the Cambrésis. And it's true. But not any longer. I never did get off the bus on a random afternoon to play with the two dancing chocolate labs behind somebody's gate. Never got a photo of the chicken statue. Never ended up going to the lace museum after all.

But I did take my two favorite students to a café for their last class, and we had a very nice conversation, and then when I was going to pay, Virgil insisted on paying, like a gentleman. He'll do well in the U.S., and Astrid will do well wherever she goes. My wistful girl, hoping for so many good things. I gave her my Jane Austen seven-novels-in-one, because that was the best I could do to reassure her. And the teachers threw me a lovely little party on Thursday afternoon, soda and presents and the cookies I'd made and all the naughtiest kids, mostly on their best behavior. I nearly cried. They got me a book about the architecture and geography of the North, a little journal, and a comic about teaching and teachers, and I looked at everyone and thought how dull my weeks at home will seem at first, without these people to occupy me. I'll miss riding home with Christine or Amélie, and chatting with Virginie and Romain and Nathalie and Adrien and Marie Claude and Marie André and Stéphane and Stéphan and all the others.

The American-hating philosophy teacher never did say a word to me, though.

Sometimes I think I'll be lost without the spire of St. Géry to pull me home. It's visible from so far out of town, rising over the roofs, over the rolling fields. It's my landmark. It's home. Dad and I walked out along the canal today and ended up in a part of Cambrai I'd never been in, but I found St. Géry and then it was easy to get back. It's so beautiful, this town, and even though I've lived here for a while, it still startles me sometimes. There are big fancy beautiful things like the cathedral and the belfry and the chateau, and then there are the gardens with their elaborate planning. And simple things, even, like walking through the place with a cone full of sorbet, pear and blackcurrant. There was a wedding going on on the steps of the town hall, and everyone else was out at the tables of the cafés, stretching their legs into the sunshine and calling out to friends who walked past. There are a lot of delights in a small town. We went to the posh bakery for one last round of pastries and carefully avoided making coffee with Cata's filter that seems to be made from a sock.

Here are some photos of Cambrai, and the colza, and my students. I may continue to update this blog later, when the reverse culture shock hits, and I feel it's probably going to hit really hard. How will I go to the grocery store in English? What a strange thought. How will I find anything? How will I order in restaurants? When we were in England for a few days, I kept wanting to order in French.

No more lemon yellow kitchen. No more blue room (though my room at home is just as blue). No more cranky stove that wants to kill us and crazy washer that takes two and a half hours to do a load if you don't put it on the fast cycle. No more leaving clothes to dry on the rack. No more bags and bags of stale baguettes so that we have to invent recipes to use them all up. And it will be all right, but it's hard to know that now, even though I know it. On the plus side, no more French bureaucracy.

I've made a lot of friends here and had a wonderful time. I'm sure that if I could stay longer, it would only get better. But my students and a lot of the teachers have my email address.

I'll be glad to have a dryer again, and Mexican food and vegetarian food, and I'll be glad to see family and friends and the dog, but life in France is easy and sweet and I will miss it a lot. And for all the things I didn't do, there were plenty of things I did do. I went to Belgium, Sweden, and England (and will have gone to Italy). I picked up a bit of German and some Spanish. I learned how to cross the street (pretend you don't care if the cars hit you) and how to give guys in bars the brush off (grab someone else). I can navigate the Paris metro and the aboveground Paris, or really any Metro you throw at me.

And who can be sad when there is Italy, and sunshine? Not me. Or at least, I'll try.