Remembering things

Things happen every day that remind me of my life in Lure. The other day I fried an egg. I don't cook very often at home, but in Lure, I cooked (and by cook I mean... pasta and eggs and chicken and potatoes and broccoli) rather often. I got pretty used to using that same pan and that same spatula day after day after day. And when I went to flip my egg the other day, I reached for a spatula and felt awkward using something other than the one I was used to using in Lure. Weird, I know. But it brought me back.

At work today, I thought to myself, "I think I'll go for a walk after work." And in my head, I envisioned these houses and this field I would walk by. Then I realized those things were in France. I wouldn't walk by them. But I can see them in my head so vividly and associate them with end-of-the-day walks around Lure. And during my walk today, I thought about which route I should take. It made me sad that I wouldn't be able to ever again take my regular routes around Lure, which brings me to my next point...

If there's one thing I regret from my time in Lure, it's that I didn't take enough pictures of the city. Every time I walked past familiar things, I'd remind myself to take a picture of it before I left. And every time, I figured I'd do it on my last day. I intended to spend my entire last day walking around taking pictuures of everything I wanted to remember and everything I'd want to show people. Well, I didn't. I got too busy packing and didn't have time. And so I don't have hard copies of the city, but it's all engrained in my head. I honestly don't think I'll ever forget what things looked like. That walk all the way to McDonald's. The schools I'd walk by on my walks. The way the sidewalk changed shapes, sizes, and angles at different points of the city. Walking past the tourism office telling myself I'll probably never end up going inside (and I didn't). Just every part of the city. And even little things like the door handle to my building, the sound the door made when opening it and the ease of pushing it open from the inside, the force I had to use to slam the door shut every time I left and it didn't close on its own, the way the key turned in my mailbox, the sound and feeling of the front gate opening, the way it felt to turn the handle on my window to open it, the feeling of stamping a train ticket, and the way the buttons on the school's copy machine felt to press. So this got me wondering, if I remember all these things so well, what's the purpose of having pictures? And not just pictures of this, but everything in life. Shouldn't we just capture a few special things instead of EVERYTHING? I've been trying to experience the moment more now than capture the moment. Capturing it in a photo obviously makes it last longer, but what's to last when all you did was take pictures the whole time? And so, in a way, I don't regret not having taken many pictures of the town.

On that note, you know how you feel when you want something so bad it makes you sick to your stomach? Sometimes I feel that way about my apartment in Lure. Not because it was such a glorious apartment or anything. Just because I felt so free and accomplished while I was living there. I would kill to drink a two-euro Coke outside at Luthra (our favorite bar) right now. And to sit on that bed with my back against the wall and my computer in my lap with a glass of cranberry juice on my nightstand. Ah! And even when I did nothing but go on walk after walk, I felt like I was accomplishing a lot by becoming better friends with myself, reflecting on the important things in life, and living and breathing French culture, which is basically my entire future. I wish I could live in both places at once and just go back and forth every month between the two lives.

Oh, and I want a kebab for dinner. :(