Over and Out
When I started Exotic/Mundane, I had a few things in mind. I wanted to practice my writing which, unsupervised, tends to read like a grocery list with punctuation. I thought I could perhaps tell some people about a place other than America, and I wanted to express some things I couldn't say out loud where I was. The first two, I've done to the greatest extent of my abilities and the third soon became moot as we left that living hell in the Mediterranean and I realized that if I said what I wanted to, people would dismiss me and rightly so. You cannot know what you don't know.
Coming to France was a relief in a lot of ways. I had begun to fear that I was a person incapable of living outside the US, because with only 4 exceptions, every person I met or knew on Crete was either insane or a low down dirty dirtbag - some were both. I had started to believe that it was, indeed, me and that those people were 'normal.' Coming to France gave me much needed perspective. I'm not claiming that I'm normal - I'd never dare, but I can say definitively that Crete, at least the northwest corner, is as abnormal, dysfunctional, and inhumane as a 'civilized culture' can be. The refreshing thing, the salvation that was France, was the discovery not that I am normal, not that 'the French' are like me, but that France was a foreign culture that was not the antithesis of everything decent.
I think that a certain amount of angst is necessary for good stories. I am not a natural born storyteller. I wish I were, but I'm not. For a while, I made up for this lack of natural talent with an abundance of angst. But that passed - thankfully.
I find that I've run out of things to say. Not in general, but in a blog sense. No one who knows me would believe that I ran out of words. But the lovely thing about the written word is that you can re-read what you've 'said' and see if it has any substance. I've deleted a lot. Lately, when I've cleaned away the fluff, there's nothing left. Not even a grocery list. More than that, I've lost interest.
In her book Under The Tuscan Sun, Frances Mayes describes a moment as a tourist when she realizes she's annoyed at her 'tourist' persona and says that that's the moment when it's time to call it a day. I am annoyed by what I might write here - tales of the dog, the neighbor (who's bought a drum kit!), or grocery shopping. Perhaps an amusing incident of my crappy French or some bizarre driving experience. BORING. It's time to call it a day. There's nothing bad about going home, and there's nothing bad about shutting down Exotic/Mundane. The time has come.
So, happy 2009. I hope that the tragedies of the next year are quickly forgotten and that the triumphs bring joy with each recollection.
