Baggages, of all shapes and sizes

Today, I started to pack my bags, faire mes baggages.

I don't want to leave Lyon. I will miss France so much it hurts already. I don't want it to be sunday, because it will hurt more. There will be people to see me off at the train station, and I will cry. There will be no-one to pick me up from the airport (all my friends are going away for the long weekend in the USA) and I think that will make me cry too.

My friends will help me with my luggage here in France, to get them down the stone steps of my apartment and onto the train at Gare Part-Dieu. I will drag my luggage all over New York, onto the bus to Grand Central, onto the metro with one change and up the stairs at my hostel on the upper west side alone.

The thought of being alone, lost and detatched in such a huge city is a strangely seducing thought, and the gypsy half of my brain finds this life of arriving into the unknown very attractive. The housewife part of my brain does not. It wants to curl up on the couch with a book and a bottle of wine and a shoulder to cry on. The housewife part of my brain wants to be held and kissed while I sob. The gypsy part of my brain wants to talk to no-one, and just wander, and have no connections, no distractions - it wants to be completely free. Completely.

I think the two will never compromise.