I keep finding it important to emphasize the urban setting of my sit spot. It is very much a public park in the middle of a city, full of passersby and trash and noise. To my left, on the bench next to me, a woman is texting. I can hear the sounds of WhatsApp as she fires off messages and receives them just as quickly. Now a group of teenage boys have arrived with a picnic. My first thought is, “why aren’t they in school?” I can hear them discussing le lycée (high school) as they smoke and eat chips. There are voices everywhere, and sounds too, the wind blowing, bells tolling, footsteps on gravel, the cooing and fluttering of the ever-present pigeons. Here, I feel surrounded by community, both natural — the plane trees, made famous by Cézanne; the rose garden with its many insects buzzing about; the fountain, where fish swim — and human-made.

I’ve been reflecting a lot on my carbon footprint. If we just consider the travel to Aix-en-Provence, my footprint is approximately 1.85 metric tons of carbon dioxide; a lot, but not all that much compared to Meta’s 8.2 million metric tons in 2024 (and that’s considered an improvement). I’m staying the whole year here, but I’m traveling home for the winter holidays, so if we multiply that number by four voyages it’s more like 7.4 metric tons. As I’ve thought about this, about how I am contributing to the ever-more urgent climate crisis, I find myself wondering how I could ever do anything to combat not only my carbon footprint, but the carbon footprints of everyone who isn’t thinking about this. I’ve decided I can only do so much, so I’m bringing back my focus to Aix and to myself and focusing on the Mediterranean Sea in my project. I am hoping to partner with La Sauvage Méditerranée, a nonprofit organization that collects trash from the sea and its beaches and turns it into something new. Right now, they are working on an alternative economic model born from coins they’ve made out of sea trash. By working with them, I hope to host a workshop for my program that will tell us more about this organization and allow us to help them, as well as helping out on their beach cleanup days. I’m not exactly sure how this will work yet, but I am really excited about working with this incredible organization and combating my carbon emissions one step at a time.