Small town USA

Oxford, North Carolina was a little gem of a road trip stop, in the end. Fortunately, Stephanie had to stop by a post office, so we went to Main Street Oxford and didn't limit our visiting to the motel. Very cute little town, with pretty stores and people who all knew each other. We were propelled in small town USA!

Noticing a cute café, we went in and were served by a young high school girl who seemed to come straight out of the latest cheerleading movie, except that she was actually smart and friendly, with a singing southern accent and dreams of becoming a model, going to Paris and Rome. Then comes in this young high school guy, with a computer under his arm and a tee shirt that has some computer joke along the lines of "who reboots your hard drive?". He was just coming into the café to hang out and chat up the pretty girl at the counter. So, we ended up talking to him too. He didn't seem too happy about the new Wal Mart being built in the outskirts of town, fearing for local business and community. I was quite impressed to hear a teenager talk like that, since most of the american kids I had spoken to before, when I was a teenager myself, were all very excited about wal marts, rather than worried. After nice conversation and copious amounts of coffee, as well as a nice bagel with cream cheese, we were on the road again, direction Atlanta.

Here are a few photos of Oxford:

Road trip

Welcome to Oxford, North Carolina!

Despite the jet lag, my sister, mother and I are making our way by car into the deep south. We left Washington D.C this morning, stopped by Richmond, Virginia to see the grandparents, and are now in a motel in good old Oxford. Tomorrow, we hope to get to Atlanta in a timely fashion to visit with our cousin. So, I guess we could call this a family road trip! I haven't yet taken vast amounts of pictures, but I hope to catch a few roadside oddities along the way.

Unfortunately, the american landscape has gotten more and more uniform, with fast food restaurants and strip malls colonizing the road side. It's therefore less obvious to find small and shabby stores coming straight out of Thelma and Louise or Easy Rider. The film Broken Flowers might be a more accurate depiction of the contemporary road trip experience, since Bill Murray travels from state to state passing by the same chain restaurants and hotels.

But the South of the US remains specific to itself, especially with the singing accents and the affectionate politeness. "You take care, now, sweetheart" or " You're welcome, darling" are just a few examples of the southern manner.

And, although there is a sense of uniformisation, some quirky intitutions still remain. In Richmond, we had lunch in a diner called "Debbie's kitchen", where the owner was this trim lady with a patched eye, and the waitress a smooth blonde woman with a lovely smile. Seeing those two opposite characters, I was reminded of Carson McCuller's short story The Ballad of the Sad Café. And opposite the restaurant stood this general store, elegant and shabby at the same time.




I'll end this post with the anecdote of the day...: When checking into a motel for the night, my mother mentions that she lives in France, to explain something about her credit card ( the adress, probably). And, lo and behold, where else could the receptionist have lived from 4 to 9 years old but... Maison Laffite?

It was

A time of celebration, he said. And it was.
A time of beauty and sharing. And passion. And sadness, a little, too.
Although uncertainty shows its squishy nose, we resist.
We don't know, do we? No.
We'll see. We'll live and see.
Not always so easy, but we try
Nonetheless.

Speech therapy

I should be writing about a play I went to see on friday. I should be writing in french. I will eventually write the paper and submit it to Les Trois Coups. I will. But I just want to write here for a while. No particular topic, except maybe, the idea of speech. Sometimes I feel like I need speech therapy.

I have been talking too much these last few days. And, in many social circumstances, I don't talk as much as I babble. I don't babble as much as I laugh and breathe in the middle of my sentence and... never finish it. I annoy myself with my lack of oral clarity. I wish I could be less fucking awkward! Excuse my language, but really. I do.

The thing is, when I talk, I have to take many things in consideration:

- First off, I have to think about what I'm saying. That's not as easy as it seems. If someone asks me something, I have to think about it. But, when you're talking, you don't have that much time to think. You just have to say. Produce words, construct sentences, build arguments... all while you're thinking about how you're going to keep on talking about something you often don't even give a shit about.

- I also have to pay attention to the person who's listening. Maybe I worry too much about meaningless stuff, but I have this fear of boring people to tears. So, if I get the impression that the person is really not interested in what I'm saying, I'm going to continue talking but while doing so, I will try to find ways to gracefully end the conversation, or ask a pertinent question so that I can shut up and let other people do the talking.

- There are many times when I talk and people stop listening. I don't actually get offended, because sometimes I myself don't actually know if I'm still talking or just uttering syllables that don't make much sense.

- It's not always that bad. When I've prepped myself, when I've coached myself to speak correctly and not to stop in the middle of a thought, or digress, or just stop because I'm tired of the sound of my voice, then, I can sustain decent conversation.

- Of course, sometimes, I'm actually interested in the topic , and have relatively instructive things to add to the conversation pot. Unfortunately, such moments are rare. But they are cherished.

- In my mind, conversations really should be between two people. Maybe three, sometimes. But no more. I don't like talking to impress. It's too much pressure. I like to talk to communicate. And you can only communicate with one person at a time, right?

- I'm just starting to use jokes as ways to avoid talking too much. When you crack a joke, it makes people laugh, it places you on the "conversation map", but you don't actually have to say much. I like it.

- In one of my theatre classes this year, the professor invented this conversation machine. Basically, everyone has a different role - the conversation starter, the one who always agrees, or disagrees, or tells anecdotes, etc - , and if each person keeps that role, then the conversation can be sustained indefinitely. It shows how much talking is as much about role playing as it is about expressing thoughts or emotions.

- Writing really is the way to go.

Connections

D'abord, un petit merci pour les commentaires, qui me font très plaisir. Voilà. Maintenant, poème un peu dispersé en ce beau dimanche de juin.
-----------------------------------

Aspirations swirl around and around
Vacuming the inside of my skull

Who knew life would bring these things today
Certainly not I, should think to say

Apparently, that's how it goes
After a bit of a lull
A sudden shock reveals
Horizons unknown.

We're finding ourselves led
By a "wind of change",
Perhaps a breeze of vacillations

Why am I thinking now
Of the staircase leading to the beach
In Brittany?

Oscillations of the brain,
Between two things,
Two states of mind.
Two? Ney, many. Many more

It has been said by Deleuze and his pal Guattari

Leaving the sunny appartment

That thoughts

And perceptions

Amélie is still sleeping

Connect on a plain surface

I'm walking

No more verticals!

Towards the next point.

Ouf! Fini!

Finished with dissertation writing! Back to fun blogging and creative thinking! Hurray!

But I must admit I'm actually exhausted, since I only slept a few hours last night and didn't take a nap, and now it's midnight and a half, and I'm still not sleeping! So, I'm not going to attempt to write something tonight. However, here are some photos I took with my phone recently. These last few days, the weather has been strange and quite to my liking : rain, sun and textured clouds.

Au revoir, bibliothèque!

Photos du sol mouillé directement inspirées par William Eggleston

Perspectives

Et bien, ça fait un petit moment que je n'ai pas écrit ici, peut-être parce que je passe mon temps à écrire sur un autre support virtuel, qui est la page word de mon mémoire.... pas encore tout à fait fini, mais en voie de l'être. Et je sature assez incroyablement en cette fin d'après-midi, donc je me suis dit que - plutôt que de traîner sur facebook - j'écrirais un petit mot ici.

Le commentaire de Ju me conduit à parler du apprenticeship que j'ai obtenu (yey!). Je suis très très heureuse, mais sans me rendre encore bien compte de toutes les implications de ce déménagement. C'est sans doute aussi dû au fait que je dois encore rendre mon travail de M2 pour en avoir vraiment fini avec mes études. Donc, je ne me donne pas trop le loisir de penser à ce qui vient après. Mais à partir de vendredi prochain, les perspectives sont ouvertes et les rêves possibles!

Dans tous les cas, je suis contente parce que je suis enfin en paix avec Paris, et je n'ai pas le sentiment de partir pour échapper à la ville. Je pars parce qu'il y a un théâtre génial qui veut bien de moi, c'est tout. Si j'étais partie il y a trois mois, les choses seraient bien différentes. Peut-être que si je partais dans six mois aussi. Mais là en ce moment, partir n'est pas une fuite. C'est plutôt une aventure. Une perspective... c'est ça qui me manquait je crois. Des perspectives d'avenir. Parce que finir ses études, mine de rien, c'est un peu brutal surtout quand il n'y aucun autre débouché après à part faire une thèse! Et Dieu - et pas que lui, d'ailleurs - sait que je ne suis pas faite pour écrire une thèse!

Avoir participé à la pièce du club théâtre de Télécom Paris m'a comforté dans l'idée que je suis une inconditionnelle du théâtre incarné. L'analyse m'intéresse aussi, mais ne m'apporte pas cette joie que j'éprouve en travaillant au sein d'une équipe pour monter un projet. Donc, il est temps que je m'attèle à ce que j'aime vraiment faire! Ma mère disait souvent ça quand j'étais petite et inconsolable: "you can't have everything you want in life"... but what if, sometimes, you actually can?

Pour la route, une photo de la grille du jardin du Luxembourg, la nuit, toute en perspective...