Aix

The difference between France and Poland, just as between England and France, is that I have never missed my life in Poland and I miss my life in France dearly - all aware that I am that I'm much better off in England, I can't help but miss my little appartment at the foot of a pinaide, the terrasse with a rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and so many good times, and so many other big and little things that I left behind.
So every time the plane starts to descend above the Marseille Provence airport, a big ball of nostalgia climbs into my throat and it feels like coming home (ah, difficult notion that of home, when you're me... but on that another time).
Then I spot Mount Sainte Victoire as the plane turns, then the first shock of the heat, the first gush of the Mistral, the ball in my throat keeps growing.
Then we get on the coach to Aix and I see all those place names, Pinchinades, Vitrolles, la Duranne, les Milles, names that were once new and full of promises now greet me like old friends making the ball in my throat grow even more. I does not matter that I have never been in many of them, I have read them, seen them, heard them, savoured the way their sounds rolled out of my mouth so many times...

Aix is still Aix.
The colours, the little streets, the blue shutters spotting the ochre facades of the bastides, the baguettes, the cheese, the wine, Pastis, the marketplace, Mamie's ratatouille, everything stopping for lunch, the cycadas driving you mad with their monotonous screeching, the oppressing heat, people stopping in the middle of a roundabout to get a newspaper, the bourgeoises riding their shopping trollies across your feet and failing to apologise... and Mount Sainte Victoire reigning overlooking all this madness and beauty, impassible and majestic.

Some friends are gone, some are still there. Some have drifted away a force de distances, the important ones greet me as if I had never left.
I still have my seat at the bar in Cafe le Verdun (although you can't smoke in there anymore) and Pat still accepts a glass of wine I pay him and then knocks a round off my bill.
Mamie and Papy are still Mamie and Papy, growing older without changing at all but each time I see them, I feel the painfully aware that they are not eternal.

And the house at the Roc Fleuri is still there too, with the pinaide behind it and the terrasse in front, the rusty table that has seen so many bottles of rose and good times...

Indeed, places where you were once happy should not be allowed to go on without you.

On being told to shut up

The kind of child to tell you to 'shut up' (or 'f-off' as a matter of fact) is usually a distraught individual struggling to become human and thinking that being rude and fearless of consequences is what being an adult is all about. As far as they're concerned life is seriously shit and they will fight anything they can by all means possible, just in case.
And most of the time, you can see how distraught they get once they realise what they'd just said. Or, at the very least, how upset and worked up they got before saying it.
You still get angry, you shout at them, you give them detentions, but you don't hold grudges and deep inside you just wish you could use a magic wand make them less miserable and less angry at the entire world.
And then there is Kenisha (not a real name). Kenisha thinks you're dirt. Kenisha thinks that all is due to her and if she wants to talk, she will talk, whether you are trying to teach or not has no importance what so ever. And when you say 'Kenisha, could you please stop talking?', Kenisha looks at you as if you were a fly on her sandwich and says 'Shut up'.
Somehow I think Kenisha will follow into her sister's footsteps and get excluded before finishing year 10.
And I know that next time Kenisha sends a door into my face, I am not going to be willing to talk about it and make it go away in hope of establishing a positive relationship with her.
Screw that.