Final Farewell

Day 26
Friday June 10

Wake up, mope because its my last day, cook my last egg/toast/camembert/mustard breakfast (this time with added bonus of chorizo), and shower. Then I had to assemble my portfolio, all the final edits of poems I've written and drafts and free-writes--it turned into a 22 page document. That's a lot of work for four weeks.

Since we're leaving bright and early in the morning, we had to clean our apartment, pack, and get our affairs in order before the big reading at Shakespeare and Company tonight. But I couldn't let my last day in Paris be full of boring obligatory housekeeping. So I met I friend for lunch at a traditional brasserie. We feasted on escargot, steak tar tar, four incredible cheeses that I cannot pronounce, some sort of dessert with rum and chantilly, and of course, a bottle of wine. It was so fun to be out amongst the Parisians in their natural habitat. Then we strolled through the galleries, streets of shops covered by two story high glass awnings, popped in on the auction house (watched a pair of bowls be sold for 18,000euro), and then it started to rain...I took that as my cue to go home and get ready for my reading, so we parted ways.

That night, we all gathered at 6:30 at Shakespeare and Company for our reading. All of our guest professors/poets were in attendance, Cecilia's friends, all of the friends we had accumulated throughout our trip, Christelle our ISA coordinator, and others packed the house. Standing room only. Ha. Touche, Cecilia. She started out by reading a poem of her own, then she introduced each of us individually with facts from our anti-bios (greattt), and we each had 5 minutes to read some of our work. I read a poem I'd written about a homeless man, and that sestina that gave me so much trouble.

Afterwards, we mingled and chatted with our adoring fans (ha), and then jumped on the train to Cecilia's for the after-party. There was dinner and wine and some sort of chocolate torte that I probably could have eaten all of, but would have been killed by the other party-goers. The poets were there, and all of our closest Parisian friends. It was bittersweet--very sweet. We said goodbye, to eachother, to Paris, and to our lives here, and headed on home.

The Adieu, Rodin

Voila (crying inside) Day 26