the strangest dream

There's this movie I really want to see called "Paris Je T'aime." The film is made up of 18 unrelated vignettes by different directors, all shot in Paris. I've heard both good and bad things about it, but I need to see it. I watched the trailer nearly half a dozen times early this morning - it was the strangest thing, I couldn't stop.

I think I'm somehow homesick for Paris already.

Yesterday, for only like the fourth time ever, I was homesick for Washington, DC. I'm blaming Ned and Trinity Sunday; the hymns at AmCath were very Nat'l Cathedral/NCS hymns (Love Divine, O God Our Help in Ages Past, etc), and we did some Britten (I wasn't a huge fan of it, but I couldn't stop thinking of that time Chorale did "Rejoice in the Lamb"). Following the service, because AmCath is technically the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, we had a Name Day picnic outside. It was so twilight zoney; most of the adults were speaking English, most of the children French, and I was standing in a group of other singers who were mostly British. After that, I saw the new Pirates movie with Rob - but it was dubbed in French. This morning, Harry left to go back to England for a week, and tonight Alex Evans comes to visit for the end of her Grand European Tour.

You know that scene in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" where what's-his-face and Kate Winslet are running through Grand Central and all around them people are disappearing? I kind of feel like that - except it's not people, it's homes.

Even though I pride myself on being a New Yorker, I don't really miss New York at all. For some reason, here in Paris, I miss my high school experiences. I have no idea why (especially since I hated French in high school), but when I long for somewhere else, it's always DC, I'm always 17, and it's always a sunny fall morning when the air is crisp but only the maples on Brookeville Road have started burning. And yet, when I think of "home," I see my new apartment in my mind's eye. I've only lived here for a week and a half... how is this home already? And my old apartment - five months, and enough poo went down to fill a memoire, but it was never really home. What the hell is going on here?

I think part of the reason I'm in such a hurry to finish school is because I want to settle down. I don't mean settle DOWN settle down, I just mean that I want a home that is mine, all mine, not a dorm room, not a sublet, not even 365 West End Ave. I want somewhere that is mine and that will be mine for a very long time, somewhere where I know exactly why that Ikea bookshelf is tilted and why the green in the Pottery Barn sofa is faded only on the right side. Somewhere I can have vanilla beans just chilling in the pantry because I know I'll use them eventually. Somewhere I can put frozen chicken stock in the freezer, somewhere I don't have to worry about an un-housebroken dog peeing, somewhere I can want to vedge when I'm home sick.

Uprooted. That's the word I'm looking for. I love Paris, I love New York, and I love Washington, and I'm uprooted. Present tense.