For the last five days or so, I have not had access to a dependable internet source. My frustration at not being able to keep my blog has been rather telling. I want to be a dependable person, and my writing keeps me both sane and honest as it is one of the only avenues I have to the English language and to digesting my days as they conclude. More happens abroad in a single day than might transpire in an entire week while living at home. I feel like a man with a fork standing before a red-hot spit with a twin-tusked packyderm rotating before me slowly, popping as its gray skin begins to cool. Where to begin?
Marseille is a miserable city, the skinny sidewalks of which are crowded with idle humans, trash and dog-leavings. There seems to be a sensitive calm amongst the people there, the result of some unspoken understanding. A raw, raised, red bump under a hot, corded shoulder-strap keeps one walking slow and carefully. You do not want the bump to blister and pop, and you cannot lift the load at the end of the strap high enough to switch to the opposite shoulder.
Most interactions have the combined tension of not wanting to appear rude while at the same time not wanting to appear weak. I found it useful to appear to be walking from somewhere to somewhere, like a man with a purpose or a mission might. I made an effort not to linger long or to take unnecessary photographs. I can not hide what I am, nor do I like to hide under any circumstances.
I am an idealist and I chafe at participating in the brokenness of a place. In Marseille I got the sense that my safety and security were constantly in jeopardy, and I could not see a way to improve things. After an earthquake, some buildings can only be salvaged as scrap; the old beams made into framing lumber, the foundation used as structural fill, and the rest dumped into the sea.
albaniacalling 