(from yesterday evening)

just think. eight weeks ago today, i arrived in berlin. today i am in paris. a few days ago i was in amsterdam. in a day and a half, i'll be in london. i am buzzing.

i've done so much i don't know where to start. i've gathered so many little stories and experiences in my mind, i am not sure which to choose or share. i feel far away from home, from everyone, from my writing. i feel like i've wandered down so many narrow, cluttered streets that i am now buried somewhere in the middle, at the center of a maze, somewhere far away from anyone or anything i know.

i will start with what is present. i am sitting in my hotel room. we are on the 22nd floor. if you press your face to the window, you can see the eiffel tower. my cheek prints are all over the glass. i have just taken a bath in the enormous tub and am wearing my fluffy hotel robe and slippers. i used thomas' razor and my legs have never been so smooth. i feel new.

i am eating some of my favorite cookies, le petit ecolier. i remember these cookies from piano lessons with mrs. reisig. she would give us two at the end of each lesson and i would bite the shortbread systematically from the outside, then the ridge of chocolate within it, and then the rest. i savored those cookies. two cookies on the way home from montecito in a volvo station wagon. i was not good at piano. now i am in paris and the cookies are french and they taste different. they taste the same. i am always amazed at how different and the same things are everywhere. it is in the comparison that i learn things.

i can maybe not give my perspective on paris yet, as i am still here, and it seems to be in the train leaving each city that my vision of it becomes crystalline. 

amsterdam was unbelievable. i am convinced that each place i visit is my favorite place in the world. amsterdam was colorful and frenetic and wild. it is crowded streets, flooded with bikes-- people piled two and three to a bike, riding on handle bars and baskets, girls in tiny dresses and metallic leggings whipping by you, couples holding hands while they ride, kissing and laughing, oblivious to the world around them. it is tall narrow buildings that lean in toward the streets, making it feel like the city is perpetually collapsing, miles of windows seemingly devoid of curtains or shutters,  the steepest, most angular stairs i have ever climbed, endless cafes and bars and restaurants, webs of canals wearing boats of every kind at their skirts, cats lounging in stores and restaurant windows, prostitutes dancing sadly in bikinis behind glass doors, and weed. weed everywhere. 

it was rainy and cold while we were there and i spent most of the time in thomas' armpit, under his orange rain jacket, flitting through the feverish town. we walked, shopped, drank, ate, talked-- all to excess. the city seems to welcome excess, to encourage it.  we had massages, went to the movies, drank wine by the river, floated. i loved amsterdam. it was dreamy and surreal. it was so much in such a short time that i barely know what to say. it was overwhelming, i had no expectations of it, which made it even better. it just arrived, with all its color and fervor, and enveloped me.

now i am in paris and it is sprawling and antique and precious. we have gone climbed the eiffel tower, visited champs-elysees, had coffee on islands, eaten crepes and croque monsieur and baguettes and cheese. we have gone to centre pompidou and seen the modern art. we have sat on sloping cobblestone courtyards and listened to boys strum guitars and shake tambourines. we have gone shopping and read books in the sun.

in another day, i begin my solo sojourn. i start looking at the rest of my trip in blocks, the days i have in each city, and suddenly i realize how little time i have left in europe. how quickly it has gone by. how agonizing it's sometimes been. how perfect. how glad i am i chose this.

i'm having a hard time writing this. i think it's probably obvious. it is forced. i felt like i needed to say hello. say, i'm not gone. 

but i am gone. gone, beyond even just being physically absent. i am off somewhere, in some tiny dreamy world. it is made of me and my perpetually warm skin and my wonder and miles upon miles of narrow, interwoven streets. i am walking down them, quiet and in awe. i have never felt so quiet. so solitary. so self-contained.

today at the museum there was a painting of a naked woman. and she was outlined in green. i stared at that green line. followed it around the curves of her body. fascinated by how unlike skin it was, but how it seemed to fit. to frame her perfectly.

that is how i feel. like i have been traced in green. and the color is holding me in. i am circumscribed by something slightly foreign and unexpected and it is beautiful as it seals me in. i am outlined. i am alone. i am naked and amazed. i am beth.

everywhere i go,  i am just beth. it seems so obvious, but has taken time to learn. i am beth and i think i am pretty happy about that. about just beth.