Taking Root

There is something about eating and drinking from proper ceramic or porcelain crockery that makes you feel settled and grounded. And doing it in a country far away from home made me realise that I have finally settled into life here in Nice.

I meant to post something here sooner. At least a simple post if only just to mark on the totem of time that at some point in my life I was living in France. But for some reason, probably my non-habit of blogging more than anything, I never got round to doing it. Up till now.

As I stood at the sink drinking milk from my newly bought mug this morning, I felt grounded and at home. It was a different experience from the pre-mug days when I drank from plastic cups and ate from paper plates. Today, I could take a deep breath, look around my little apartment, see familiarity and feel belonging. Of course, it doesn't really compare to being back home in Singapore but relative to the two months before it certainly is a leap forward in a certain sense.

I guess what differs is that eating and drinking from disposable containers conveyed a sense of dislocation and mobility to me. Like being at a party where the feeling of being lasts only as long as the event before it is time to move on to the next.

The past two months have been long. Difficult in the first few days for various reasons one of which was the distance apart from S but I'm digressing. It got better progressively as I fell into a weekly routine yet I never really felt like I was here. In the back of my mind, I knew this arrangement is only temporary. That I will be leaving this place in shorter than a year's time. In fact, the thought continues to linger. It is a truth after all. Even if the duration of my stay might turn out longer, at some point I will leave this place and that makes everything right now only temporary.

Still, it is only today that I feel like I can say I have really settled down in Nice and it is a good feeling. Much thanks to a little mug.