A l'avion

So I'm flying out today at 6:40. Right now I'm feeling sort of how anyone else might feel before taking a step they are unsure of. So that's normal. One thing I have to try to do for a couple weeks is control my caffeine intake. I drank maybe too much coffee last night and got pretty nervous about my trip. I think I'll be fine and if I do well I may even learn something. So bye for now. I'll write from Paris.

Le futur

Yesterday and today have been sort of exciting for me in a few ways. It is seldom that I get as hopeful for the future as I have been getting lately and so I felt like I ought to write it down. I have at least a dozen notebooks with one or two entries that begin much like this post which have since been discarded. I thought that I might be more likely to write on a blog because it appeals to my sense of organization and because I spend a fair amount of time on the computer. So hopefully this can be a way for me to provide a rough organization of my thoughts and asprations as well as the progress of any tasks I might have.

The first exciting thing is that I bought a plane ticket to Paris for next month. I suppose this was the impetus for many other pieces of news as well. I got my tax return money and found a cheapish ($550) flight leaving March 3rd-17th. I have been thinking about taking this trip for about 2 years now so it is pretty fulfilling to have finally made the first step in actualizing it. This is common for me in the sense that, as Margo puts it, I "have a high affective lens". So anytime I end up putting myself out there - to pass or fail - it begins with a commitment that I cannot run from. And why would I want to run from this? Until now I have had a real hard time taking risks and being bold. I say until now because this trip feels like something more than 2 weeks in a foreign country. It feels like a chance for me to prove myself. And not necessarily to prove that I can pass any test but that I can put myself to the tests in the first place. One reason I feel like this experience might be transformative is in all of the support and advice I seem to have access to. (Both through my work & personal connections as well as social networking and past relationships)

In anticipation for this trip and because of a longtime fear of foreign languages I have decided to try to learn French. Since high school, where I excelled in french class, I have run into French people and french speakers. Two of my best friends speak it fluently, Thomas being a French guy. So when Margo asked if I was interested in sharing a french speaking tutor I agreed. I had already promised myself I would take some for of french class after getting back from France.

Another thing Margo is going to do to help me on this trip will be to email a friend of hers, Mort Rosenblum, who is a writer. They became collegial when they shared a cruise ship, him writing and her cooking. One thing he wrote was an article which served as an obituary in Bon Appetit for Lionel Poilane. Poilane is maybe the most famous French baker. He worked at his father's bakery his whole life in Paris and the bakery now makes 7,000 loaves a day. Mr. Rosenblum knew Lionel Poilane and had a unique perspective to share. Needless to say he has some insight that would be more than helpful in my pursuit of the beauty of baking.

At this point I suppose I ought to note that all of these interests and most of these connections are because of the one passion I have developed in life: baking bread. In the short years since I began to find a place for myself, baking bread has been the only thing that made complete sense to me. Even things I am ostensibly good at, like design for example, are only ways to try to earn a living outside of manual labor. Even as I write about the way bread baking makes me feel I tend to become embarrassed. The consolation is in my knowledge that becoming a master baker is a pursuit and not an accomplishment. I feel right in calling it a passion because I know I want to spend the rest of my life defining everything around me within the context of baking. I want to be a baker and I want to meet bakers and I want to experience the world as bakers have for centuries.

That said - another exciting piece of information I got this morning was in the form of a facebook message from a vague high school acquaintance. The only real connection I can remember to her was when we were seated next to each other in 8th grade English class because our names were consecutive alphabetically. I sent Katie Baker a message yesterday tell her of my plans to visit Paris. I messaged her because I knew that she had become married to someone with a french sounding name and because, of course, she now lives in Paris. She returned my message with a very pleasant response that redoubled my excitement for the trip. Apparently he father-in-law had been a pastry baker in Paris for 40 years and had recently retired to Nantes. Also she shares a love for bread and even told me she was saddened that her local metro-stop bakery had been turned into a corporate bakery. I am looking forward to hearing back from her about places to go and things to do in Paris.

Another thing I need to consider is whether I can be bold enough to try couchsurfing.com. It would allow me free or cheap accommodation in the form of asking some stranger to take me in. Not any stranger, I suppose, but one who is willing and hopefully more comfortable with that type of arrangement than I am. Which is not much at all.

So those are some things. There are more but I think I'll save them for another post. I think this format is a good one. Now let's see if I let anyone else into my mind.