A weirdly vivid memory

I was listening to Cat Power on my way to work, the perfect soundtrack to a gross rainy morning.

Her music is so beautiful, but always makes me think of being 18, a student, and very sad. I was homesick, I wasn’t sure I was doing the right course, I wasn’t sure I even particularly liked Paris, I hadn’t settled socially, I could barely cook, I was lonely.

‘(I can’t get no) Satisfaction‘ makes me think of a particular sunny spring afternoon. I’d been on a walk around Courbevoie, where I lived for a year, wandered in the opposite direction from everywhere familiar, came across a Carrefour supermarket, and bought some cereal. I’m not sure if it was on that walk, or a later one in a similar direction, that I bought a dragon plant, which my flatmate the following year killed. But anyway, I digress. On that day, I came back from my walk, I made a cup of tea, and I sat out on my balcony, and I ate cereal, and I listened to Cat Power, and for the first time in a long time, I felt content, and maybe just a little a bit hopeful.