backdated a bit

I am slowly coming into appreciation of the term "education," slowly realizing the landscape of varieties of education to be explored. I think I have had many false-starts on this subject, and maybe this is one of them. I have more confidence in this realization than the preceeding for several reasons, however. Most relevantly, I've reached a point of relinquishment of ego in which I can fairly honestly acknowledge the scope of ego I still swathe myself in each day, from the moment I have my first thought of the morning just until the moment my mind submerges safely bellow consciousness. The acknolwedgemnt itself is not a solution, per se, but it does allow me a level of honesty within my system (if not with the outside world) that feels healthy. Somehow dynamic.

It's also only very recently, maybe only this weekend, that I've come to believe I made the right decision in coming to Europe for the year. It's not the art or architecture that did it, nor the long and infinitely interesting walks around this City of Love (and it is that--lovely and beloved). Rather, it's the distance. Like I thought it would be, but it's only just now caught up with me. These days I can hear all the voices, telling me true things out of love, and I can hear that love and truth without it tangling in layers and layers of murky nets--guilt and pride and egoegoego--things which are still just as much a part of me, but which lay dormant for the moment, giving me some desperately-needed space in which to change, try for change, seek it and see what happens.

With as many exceptions as the French language, I've been feeling very adult recently. Not inasmuch as I pay all my own bills and have birthed children, but I'm noticing the transformation now in the little things. This weekend I tried oysters and some small local variety of scallop while at Royan with Isabelle and family. The oysters were not as disgusting as I had imagined, but I had no desire to eat more. I did, however, enjoy the bitty scallops, and I ate many, and while that might not qualify as an accomplishment for most people, I have enough sense of my own pavlovian responses to call a victory when I see one.