Once, soon after we moved here, James said to me that being in Strasbourg was like being in a bubble. When you're inside it, if feels safe and comfortable and normal. When you live there, you are convinced that it is what is known as a "happening place." Important political and cultural events are staged there. You can catch all the latest films in their original languages.
When we lived in Strasbourg, we would come out to places like the one where we now live for a day or two. We would take long hikes, go sledding, and then get back in the car and drive back to the city. "What a beautiful place. What a winter wonderland, " we would say. Then, we felt as though our day in the mountains had been spent in a sort of bubble.
But now when we spend a day in the city, as we did yesterday, we have the distinct impression that it is the city that is the bubble. There are so many images and signs, so much explicit advertising, so many people all in one place. I am afraid to look people in the eye, afraid to say bonjour, disoriented and uneasy. In the tram, I stare at my feet, and wonder why it feels so different now that I don't live there, how I could have failed to notice how surreal it all is.
We must have over a foot of snow up here, but there there wasn't even a hint of it in Strasbourg, although we did catch sight of a flake or two floating in the air in the middle of the afternoon. The people who are outside are almost all in a hurry, looking upset about the coldness of the air. Maybe it's the concentration of people, vehicles, buildings and events that make people in Strasbourg feel like they live in an important place. Seems to me that the normal things, like walking outside or chatting with your neighbor, get lost in the shuffle.
This morning, as I was typing an email, I caught sight of my neighbors the S.s walking slowly by with their snow shovels on their shoulders. They were just coming back from shoveling in front of some other neighbors' houses further up the road. Marie-Eve stopped in front of my window and waved for I-don't-know-how-long before I realized she was there and looked up from the computer. She said hello and we chatted. She talked about how they had had their morning's excercise shoveling snow... And she said that I had been so concentrated on the computer that it looked strange to her. "When I see you like that," she said, "with such a look of concentration on your face, I don't know, it's weird..." And she gave a little shudder.
And so I wonder, whose bubble is real?
Comments (2)
It seems to me it's a matter of your current reality. Wherever you are, it's most real. The ability to move back and forth between realities is a gift . . . though I suppose it makes one sort of a cultural chameleon . . . a good TCK trait. Miss you abundantly. (Hmmmm . . . that seems to be an oxymoron as I type it. Miss you tragically? Endlessly? Black hole-ishly?)
@sherylo - Maybe. But I'm definitely thinking I prefer country life for its relational value. Black-holishly??? When can we talk on the phone?
Hugs.
Soul