Stuck Inside Imagined Beauty

Curled in a thinly lined sleeping bag in a not so quite stairwell at the Gare de Lyon train station, I'm too exhausted to care about patrolling paramilitary with assault rifles. Even with every piece of clothing I brought layered on the cold still seeps into my bones. My feet are swollen, covered in rash, and crammed into boots soaked through with sweat. About an hour ago I was kicked out of a Hotel lobby where I'd been sleeping on a couch. I have to imagine the management was more offended by my smell than my snores. Still its not so bad. The weather is warmer here than in London. At least I won't be waking up to frost on my sleeping bag.

Since I came to Europe, I've had time to truly sober up; time to reevaluate my life and what is important in it, time to realize what has become harmful and needs to be left behind. Much of this time has been spent on the streets, sleeping in parks, writing in coffee shops, endlessly wandering up and down the boulevards. It has by no means been a dream vacation, but as I was preparing to leave I knew it wouldn't be. All I was really expecting to do over here was to write and thats what I've been doing. I'm almost up to a hundred pages in my journal since I left Seattle. None of it is even close to being good, but it is a start.