We share a room on the top floor of her aunt’s crazy old house where her cousin’s kids usually stay. Two mattresses on the floor on either side of the room where the ceiling slants with the roofline. We are both tired from travelling, but stay up late talking in the dark. Like college. It’s been fifteen years since we shared a dorm room, but it’s always just as easy. I keep thinking of more to say and ask, but finally will myself to sleep. We have the next four days together. Perfect late breakfast of baguette and cheese and honey and pear. Make a loose plan for the day: take a train into the city, get off at Notre Dame and see how far we wander. Unsure of how to dress--colder than I anticipated and threats of rain, but at least in November there is no line to enter the cathedral. We walk north to place des vosges, buy a macaroon and a meringue tart to eat in the park, then over along the canal. On the sidewalk above there are booths of antiques, and Leslie is pulled in to look. All the old stuff stresses me out to sift through, like helping mom clean out my grandma’s house. I don’t want to accumulate stuff. My attention drifts below to houseboats, decks garnished with plants and bikes and furniture. A playground on the other side. I’m missing Jen & Oscar a bit. I imagine sitting together in a pretty spot and watching him play. We cross the river and walk toward the latin district. Find a cute bar. Order wine. Contemplate the French words on the chalkboard menu and then find out they aren’t serving food anyway, just charcuterie. The waiter brings a huge plate of deli meat and bread. I wish I could bring this all home with me--Leslie, the wine and bread, new places to explore. Import it into my life once a week. I’m glad we have these days to catch up, but miss when we were able to have a weekly scheduled lunch date. I remember her sad face during our last college lunch together. Me saying, we’ll always be friends, we’ll visit each other. Her saying, but it won’t be like this. Each morning we sleep in, visit with Aunt Sally and eat a little something, take the train into Paris to wander together, take the train home for dinner in the dusk of city, of the supermoon behind thick clouds. We find our way below the Louvre to buy perfume. Eat crepes and ceasar salad with students talking American politics at the table next to us. Visit D’orsay in the rain. Marble sculptures. Famous paintings. Wander into a gold-gilded room on our way out. Drink rose'. Admire the stylish older woman at the table next to us in a feather coat. Sally makes us paupiette de dinde with wild mushrooms for dinner. Then MontMarte and buying art. Onion soup. Shallots in basil oil. On the last day, Beaujolais Nouveau Day, Sally takes us on a walking tour: “Leave the Austerlitz station and walk through the botanical gardens and around to the Roman Arena. After leaving the arena, cross the street and walk up the stairs to reach rue Mouffetard. When you walk back up this street, wind your way to the Paris Pantheon. After that go down the rue de la Montagne de Sainte Genviève. When you get to the bottom of the hill, along the Seine River, stop at the Shakespeare and Company book shop. You can then continue with Notre Dame across the river.” So glad to have this walk documented. Look forward to sharing it with Oscar someday. How many people have walked down this same street? How many that I knew? We eat lunch at a more “touristy” restaurant, but it still tastes good and is only ten euro for three courses: soup, paprika chicken and fries, apple tart. Share a bottle of wine with Laura and Kelvin, Sally’s other house guests this week, friends of her daughter. Walk along the river to the Eiffel tower. See it sparkle. Our legs are tired from walking. Make a detour to the grocery store on the way back to buy wine and gifts for home. Share a bottle of champagne at home with Sally in the kitchen. Talk about our families and children's books. Laura and Kelvin arrive home and we eat raclette (shaved cheese) at the large table for dinner. On the plane now to Minneapolis. Chasing the sun. A slowly widening orange horizon. Watched Ghostbusters on the flight to KEF with Les. Never really been a fan of action movies, but this one so good for so many reasons: smart, funny, women (and that wink), can’t wait to share it with O in a few years. So glad a movie like this exists now. That Leslie feels the same. Our overlapping feminism. Talk about grandmas, boston marriages, the Bechdel test, Kate McKinnon and all the rest of the funny smart girls that are ruling right now. She suggested we say goodbye as we got off the plane, but I didn’t because I knew we would then be in line together, which was true, but then we were through and rushing away to stand in line at our busy gates. I tried to find her and give a better hug, but there was a sea of people between us and they would board my flight any minute. I watch another movie on my flight to MSP. Infinitely Polar Bear. Reminds me we all just do our best, don’t really know the answers. It lets me cry a bit. Feeling emotional today. Didn’t sleep great last night. My period. Transition. Looked forward to this trip all fall and now it’s done. But I’m ready to be home. With my family. In our little house. To plan our bigger house. To talk about Trump with my parents. To wait for snow. Don’t have to wait long as there is snow on the ground and specks in the air as I train and walk in the dark and cold to Lila’s lit second story apartment. Refreshing to be outside when others aren’t, after a day of airports and planes. And then welcomed into Lila’s cozy space to lay and chat. Share uncertain feelings about Trump and what’s to come, shock of his victory, sorting through the surrounding fears. What is useless panic? Are there ways to challenge? To prepare? The pull of Standing Rock. Debate ideas of going back to another way of living, closer to the land, my views on how the affordable care act is not as affordable for rural people, somehow jump to memories of college rugby days, a time of my life that was so formative and now feels so far away. Glad though to know Lila then. And now. Sleep. Shower. Wake up to a text from Jen of her birthday buck. Make tea. Lila wakes. Recommends the book Ash, a queer cinderella story. Maybe her favorite book. Listens to the audio version often. And it talks about a time that thinking was beginning to split between the old witchy medicine, fairy tales, etc. and male doctors and their methods. Why did that ever come about we wonder together? Patriarchy? Men wanting to be the ones in the know, even when they were just pretending, playing out their experiments on our bodies, murdering, “doctor knows best.” Help her bring her car to the mechanic, then start home. Took 35w out of the city, but then exited onto 8 towards Wisconsin—fewer miles, driven at a slower pace, should get home about the same time. I’m sitting now at a quiet clean McDonalds in small Chisago City. “Gateway to the Lakes” written on the water tower. Pop music. Shy teenagers filling my order. Two breakfast burritos, a hashbrown patty, and milk for five dollars. Even fill my thermos two-thirds full with hot water, and give me a packet of real honey for my tea.
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AuthorsMagdalen Dale and Kaite Sweval grew up a layer apart, overlapping and paralleling. Belonging to the shores of Lake Superior and yet not quite belonging. Laughing and dreaming on the bench outside the ferry booth as Mag passed the time and Kaite chose her time. Left to explore as soon as they could. And then as adults returned home, perhaps to their surprise. But glad to have each other... ‘cause we know there is strength in the differences between us and comfort where we overlap. Archives
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