a french epiphany

so i think i’ve had some sort of epiphany. but it’s three thirty am and i’m listening to déjà entendu. and the combination of those two things often bring on such feelings for me… but i’m just gonna go with it. you know that feeling you get? when you listen to music? and that particular artist, album, song, whatever… it just GETS you? it MAKES PERFECT SENSE? like totally captures a moment, a feeling, a fleeting glimpse of SOMETHING? well maybe not. you’re not all freaks like me. but i know SOMEONE has to know what i’m talking about. i think i’ve written maybe half of all my blog entries about this... if it’s getting old, stop reading already, for your own sake. but otherwise, i shall continue.

i was watching paris, je t’aime the other night and something hit me. there is one particular vignette with an american woman speaking very obviously poor french. it’s a story about how she went to france by herself, to just be a tourist and take in the city of paris after taking two years of the french language. now, i’ve been to paris and let me tell you… it’s not a place to tour alone. mad props to this woman for taking on such a task. throughout her rather elementary french monologue, we get the idea that she is a kind of frumpy older woman, without any close family, lovers or friends in her life. to put it bluntly, she’s kind of a nerd. she seems so lonely, but is okay with it. you really start to ache for her. she’s in paris, the city of love, completely alone and just taking in the sights and sounds. that takes guts. but there is one particular scene that just smacked me across the face and i haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. she’s sitting on a park bench eating lunch alone, looking around at all the people. and she begins to describe this feeling she has never felt before. she goes on to explain that it is the sense of feeling complete happiness and utter sadness at the same time.

now maybe it was because i could actually understand all of her french (i’ve had about four years of it) and that made it a little more magical, but HOLY SHIT does anyone else hear the angels singing praises? because i sure do. that just made SO MUCH FREAKING sense to me. that’s what ‘that feeling’ is. that feeling that music gives me; it’s complete happiness and utter sadness AT THE SAME TIME. does that make some sort of twisted masochist? i’m not sure, but i’m definitely excited to have put that feeling into at least some sort of words. ahh, closure.