SNOW!!!

So weather in Dijon is funny.

It's March.

In my mind, March = spring

Spring = the end of wearing winter coats

The end of wearing winter coats = the beginning of wearing sandals

Anyway, wearing actual shoes and a winter coat has been driving me crazy. If I wake up and the sun is out, I absolutely refuse to wear my big orange coat. Instead, I'll throw on a hoodie and shiver my way to class.

Last week, I walked to school on an absolutely BEAUTIFUL day. It was sunny and almost too warm for me to be wearing my trusty paisley hoodie. I was ecstatic.

However, midway through my first class of day, I looked outside and it was snowing. SNOWING. It took a while for this California girl to figure out what the weird weather outside was. But it was snow.

BUT, by the time my class was over, so was the snow :( Bummer.

It snowed again while I was in my second class, but finished before it was time for me to walk home.

I also missed the snow on Easter Sunday while I was in Paris. Boooooo...

But then, Monday morning, I woke up to a Dijon covered with snoooooooooow!!! I ran to wake up Liz and tried to talk her into building a snowman with me, or at least making a snow angel. (I have my winter coat in my closet for occasions like this.) But she refused and by the time we were both awake and ready to face the cold, most of the snow had melted.

In really pleasant news, I've gotten two full days of snow in Dijon, even though none of it is sticking.

"SNOOOOOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!" (It should be noted that this is what I scream whilst skipping down the street like an 8-year-old every time I exit a building.)

P.S. to Brad: My e-mail is katrujillo@hotmail.com

Things I'm Learning About Myself

Or maybe I'm just remembering things that I've always known.

- I absolutely cannot wear all black. I love to wear bright colors.
- I would rather sing than do anything else.
- The person I was at eight years old is the person I would love to grow up to be.
- I have no idea what I want to be when I grow up.
- However, I could be happy in just about any career. Nurse. Flight attendant. Actor. Teacher. Photographer. Writer. Folk singer. Barista. Translator. Anything.
- I love to be around people. I love to soak up their accents, their ideas, their stories.
- I love to make people smile.
- I do not like cold weather.
- "Home is where your mom lives." -Mariam el-Ashmawy
- Hearing and speaking Spanish always makes me feel at home.
- I hate eating fish.
- I have the best family and some of the best friends a girl could ever ask for.
- I love running around in the sunshine.
- I think that dandelions are pretty, even though I know that they are weeds.

A little more Lyon

Lyon

Photos

I stumbled across some old pictures today, pictures that I'd forgotten about.

You see, I have this belief that every once in a while, you can catch a millisecond of truth on film. I really believe that.

Those are the kind of pictures I found today.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry as I shuffled through pictures of old musicals, marching competitions, proms, holidays. I laughed a little bit about my hair and my clothes. I remembered people who had been long forgotten. I saw things that I'd never noticed before: sad eyes, strangers in the background. I understood things that you can only understand by looking into the past. I found pictures of people who have since died, people with whom I've lost contact.

There's this picture of me and Danny, my dog. He had cancer, and we knew it would probably get him in the end. I spent an afternoon crying, and then my mom took my brother and me outside. She took pictures of us and the dogs. We all knew that Danny was going to die, even though we hadn't accepted it yet. That's the kind of truth I'm talking about.

I really wish I hadn't left me film camera at home. We've been inseparable since I was fifteen or so, since I went to Mexico. I wish I hadn't left it at home.

My grandfather was a formidable man. He was larger than most, more intimidating, more powerful, and he did not accept nonsense in any form.

He was raised in Kansas and went off to war at seventeen. He was an x-ray technician in the Navy. I don't know much about his first wife, except that the had a son, the antithesis of my grandfather. Doug was a wrestler who then became a cruise ship director. It was his job to entertain, to play, to laugh. When I was a very little girl, I wanted to grow up to be Doug.

My grandfather's ranch was my favorite place to be when I was a child. My mother couldn't afford to take us on vacations, so she took us to the ranch; I never knew the difference. My brother and I would sit in that Jeep for three hours each way, during the hottest summer months. More often that not, the air conditioner was broken. Seeing the little green ranch house under massive trees, goats running around in the yard...that was the truest sense of home I've ever felt. I remember countless Christmases in my grandmother's tiny house; looking back now, I wonder how she was able to fit all of us. I slept in the back room, hiding my books under the bed and often forgetting them. I rode horses, chased chickens, threw hay to animals, fed the dogs. My grandfather was always present, watching for my slightest mistake. At eight years old, a goat pinned me to the fence, chewing on one of my pigtails. My grandfather yelled at me for crying, for not doing anything in response.

My grandfather always sat in the living room, in an old brown recliner. My grandfather always controlled the television, which only played two things: sports and westerns. I learned more about football than I ever cared to know. I watched more westerns than I could have ever imagined into existence. My grandfather barely spoke to me, chosing instead to watch Clint Eastwood films he'd seen dozens of times.

My grandfather had diabetes, which he never took care of, choosing to sneak candies from the kitchen and eat unhealthy foods.

My grandfather was a formidable man, and no one could dare doubt that.

I didn't begin to meet my grandfather, to understand him, until I had already left home. He had survived countless strokes and was in the process of withering away to half the man he had once been. He couldn't work the ranch like he once had, but still took pride in his dogs, showing them off to anyone who would watch. I sat on the couch in silence and watched his westerns. He asked me the same questions, and always in the same order: school, boyfriend, future.

For me, my grandfather became more alive as he neared death. He began to praise me, but always in his own way. He was always understated at expressing the pride he took in others. He became sweeter. He would surreptitiously give me money for school and for trips. I could tell that he became excited when I called, so I began to telephone more frequently.

Of course, he had his bad days. He was ill and developing Alzheimer's. His anger would flare up at the tiniest of things, usually toward my brother, who stopped coming around after a while. I understood that, to an extent, he couldn't help it. He was an old, frail man who was scared about what the future might bring him, and how quickly.

Toward the end, my grandfather started talking. About the war. About who he was when I was a young man. About my grandmother, whom he had largely ignored throughout my childhood. He was one of my biggest supports in my struggle with nursing school, although he was always gruff. "Maybe if you work hard, you can get in next time." My grandmother apologized for his harshness, but I understood that it was just his turn of phrase. He believed in me, but he also believed in hard work. He knew I could do it.

He broke my heart at Christmas. We were all in the living room, laughing at talking. In a very rare moment, he left his recliner chair and came to sit with the family. He asked me to sing, and I chose "O Come, O Come Emmanuel". Midway through the first verse, he started crying. My grandmother started to cry. Doug started to cry. My mom started to cry. I didn't know how to react, and stopped at the end of the next verse.

I felt far too old that day.

I made it a point to see my grandfather as often as possible before I left for France. I kissed him on the cheek before I left his house that day and told him that I would see him when I got back. I think I honestly believed that I would.

I am glad that I wasn't there for my grandfather's last days, because I have seen too many people I love on their last breaths. I want to remember him as strong, harsh, and in control, with a tender side that I was only very rarely allowed to see. My only regret is that I cannot be there with my family as they move on after his death. My heart longs to be back in Marysville, back on the ranch, watching the California sun set and paint my grandfather's land a warm, true shade of gold.

My grandfather was a formidable man, and I cannot find the words to explain how the loss of him tears at my heart.