Reflecting on my Blue Devil days (my high school's mascot, that is)

I remember crying a lot during my senior year of high school. That was a new thing for me, since I navigated tough times through most of my high school career with dry eyes. It was initially a point of pride for me, that I could weather anything and still keep my head about me, but I eventually became worried that I was becoming desensitized to even the most tragic events. Nevertheless, the floodgates opened up shortly before the start of the school year when I saw Up with my mom (that montage is as big of a tearjerker as I’ve come across), and reopened during a handful of times throughout the year: saying goodbye to some of my youth group mentors and friends at our leadership meeting and not knowing if I’d see them again, leaving my last youth group convention, watching Toy Story 3 with my mom (there’s something about cartoon movies that always get to me). Those were perhaps melodramatic, but good cries—while I would feel bad in the moment, I felt good that there were things by which I was so touched that to lose them or to witness them brought an impossibly heavy lump to my throat and left me a teary-eyed, runny-nosed mess.

Yet when I think of myself crying that year, my memory always turns back to one night in March. I had applied to a scholarship program that winter that I’d really been gunning for—I’d gotten cleared for an interview by my high school, spent all of Winter Break writing and rewriting what I thought were two of the best essays I’d ever written, and asked my favorite professors to write recommendations for me. I had it in my mind that I’d be perfect for this program, and so despite the impossibly low odds of acceptance I submitted my application to it with an air of confidence and optimism. That night in March, I found out that I didn’t make even the first cut. I remember going straight from reading the E-mail into my mother’s arms, letting out sob after sob in an unrestrained display of shock and disappointment. I was devastated—I felt as if not only my work on the application was wasted, but also my entire high school experience was devalued. I’m sure it wasn’t the worst state I’ve been in, but for a fatalistic, self-doubting teenager, I was in as bad a state emotionally as I can remember.

I’ve struggled with this moment a lot; as a rather even-keeled person, a moment of pure defeat such as that isn’t easily overcome. Eventually I put it out of my mind—I got wrapped up in the wide world of college and grew far too busy to worry about my hopes and insecurities from high school. Yet my experience in Europe over the past few months has given me the time and the perspective to think a bit more critically about my experiences in high school and in college. I’d long ago reached acceptance of my unsuccessful applications, but it wasn’t until the past few weeks that I think I’ve really been able to come to an understanding about them.

When I take away these convenient titles I’ve accumulated at college over the past few years—co-director of this, chair of that, and just look at the world as a college student trying to learn more about himself, when I take away the comfortable milieu of my college town and stretch my comfort zones, I find that I’m not as adept or as exceptional as I often imagine. I’m very prone to making mistakes and sometimes not learning from them, I’m often unwilling to take necessary risks, I struggle with taking initiative from time to time, and I have yet to really make sacrifices for things in which I believe. I’m far from perfect, and I didn’t deserve any rewards from my high school career—I was smart, I did well in school, and I tried to do the right thing, but that was about it. There’s a lot I still have to learn, and I’m okay with that. I’m just lucky to have the opportunity to travel the world and find out these things about myself. See, amidst all of these reality checks and new understandings, I think I can improve myself along the way and leave Europe a happier, more capable Jonathan than the Jonathan who blogged about Crosby and Nash a couple months ago. That, by the way, really does excite me.

En faisant des pique-niques, on doit apporter des fraises.

The weekend before last, I spent the weekend in Aix-en-Provence and Marseille with my good friend, Isaac. Here are some excerpts from my journal on the plane ride back to London (I pick up on Saturday morning, our first day in Aix):

Saturday morning, we woke up around 9:30 and went to petit déjeuner at the hostel. It was a really good breakfast: cereal and baguette slices and European yogurt. The latter was really good—sweeter than I was used to in the States. We left the hostel around 10:00, and went into town. We stopped at an Aldi-Marché (a type of supermarket) on the way into town to pick up some water and snacks. I tried out this new type of cookie, “Choco Duo” for 1€ there. It was SO good, even better than the (dare I say it) jaffa cakes that I’ve come to love in London. We picked up another box that night.

Anyway, we went first to the Centre Ville and walked around. It was everything I could have wanted from a Provençal town. Everyone was walking around, but there were hardly any tourists. We must’ve walked through three different markets, each with the best-smelling bread, cheese, and fruit I can remember. Though we had walked down le Cours Mirabeau the night before, once we turned onto one of the side streets to head into Vieil Aix, the milieu got infinitely more French. There were narrow streets with tan buildings that must have been 350 years old surrounding us, and cobblestones under our feet. It was like something from a wonderful dream. After an hour or so of walking, we stopped at one of the markets and bought two baguettes, bananas, apples, a delicious olive dip, and a box of fresh strawberries. We packed our bags with our new-found food, and hiked 4km up to the “Terrain des Peintures.” It’s this beautiful garden outside of Aix that offers the highest viewpoint of the foreboding Mont Saint-Victoire in the Aix area. The mountain was hazy, but picturesque—Isaac kept ironically saying that it looked painted. Cezanne actually used this garden to paint the mountain dozens of times, which has since become iconic.

We parked on one of the green spaces and had a wonderful picnic lunch. We talked about everything; well mainly we talked about relationships [about which I probably shouldn’t write on a public forum]. After we’d talked ourselves out, we decided to just lie in the grass. Isaac passed out, and after a while I went up to look at other parts of the garden. I struck up a conversation with a French woman there, whom I quickly learned was meeting other members of a sort of homeowners associations trying to block an American company from building an ugly complex next to the garden. The conversation started in French, switched to English, and ended up in a sort-of Franglish. Mr. Mruz [my high school French teacher] would’ve been proud, though. Once Isaac woke up, we went down the hill to Cezanne’s studio, which had another lovely garden outside of it.

Finally, we came back into town and, after getting a bit lost, got our things from the hostel and took a bus to Marseille. We got into Marseille around 9 p.m. and walked to the hostel. We stopped in the Aldi-Marché before we left for Aix and picked up some eggs, chicken, and tomatoes, so we made them into one massive scramble (10 eggs all at once) at the hostel kitchen. We befriended a couple North Americans in the hostel kitchen, both of whom were spending the year teaching French in schools. One was from Toronto and one was from Michigan. They were both really great guys—I’d forgotten how nice it was to talk to Americans not just worried about partying and drinking. We took a walk with them around the Vieux Port, a beautiful rectangular harbor in the middle of Marseille. We got back rather late, so we went to sleep right away. The hostel was actually right next to a dance club, so we could hear the music in our room, but we were so tired that we zonked out anyway.

Today, we got up around 9 a.m. and went to petit déjeuner (no yogurt, though). We then went with our North American friends, walking around different parts of Marseille. We left our Canadian friend to explore by himself, and us three Americans hiked up to a church on the highest point of Marseille. From there, we could see the Mediterranean and all parts of the city. It was very Roman and very Mediterranean—lots of white houses with red roofs. We ate our lunch there and ventured up into the actual church, which was colorfully decorated like a Spanish mosque or Sephardic synagogue. After, we walked around a bit more and took in the sights of the city at a secluded spot on the Vieux Port.

It was getting to be late afternoon, so we picked up my stuff from the hostel and went up to the train/bus station. We stopped along the way in the Arab quarter to pick up some kebabs, and had an amazing experience in the store. The owner forced us all to order in French, but as he talked to us he revealed impeccable English skills. When found out that I studied philosophy, he went on a discourse about how to be happy in life (a job, a good wife, and a bit of vacation). He left us with a quote from William Blake (“he was an ass, by the way”) and some amazing kebab sandwiches.

So, we took our kebabs and walked up to the train station, which overlooks the rest of Marseille. As we sat there, finishing our kebabs and cheap rose wine that we’d bought earlier, watching the sun start to descend more and more rapidly towards the horizon, I realized that I am going to miss Provence. I may never see it again, but it had a certain feel to it. You seemed to know instinctively, among all the hazy mountains and old churches, that you were going to be okay here, that you were surrounded by warmth. I haven’t felt that in many places before. Anyway, I caught my bus and got to l’aéroport in plenty of time. There, I concluded my trip by striking up a great conversation with a Franco-British woman who was visiting Marseille for her brother’s wedding. As we land, I can say that I’ve had a great trip.

I think the trip taught me a number of things. I realized that my French wasn’t nearly that bad, and it got a hell of a lot better as I spent more time in Provence. I don’t have much desire to continue learning French, but I do have hope that I’ll be able to master Hebrew someday. Second, if my trip to Edinburgh was an exercise in what not to do on a trip, this was a perfect picture of how to make a trip great. I went by myself and spent much of the weekend in small groups, so we could easily blend into the rest of the environment. I went to two places that weren’t terribly touristy, so the tourists that were there knew how to travel without sticking out like a sore thumb. I traveled during the day so I could get sleep at night. I went to different cities, but everything was quick and accessible so I didn’t have to worry about transportation. And, I got out of my shell and met some locals, some of whom were able to challenge my worldview. That’s what traveling is about, right?

View from the Terrain des Peintures.

At the church in Marseille, complete with French flag.

View from the train station in Marseille. 

Isaac "resting his eyes."