The Script Ended

Quail Day

You gotta love this about France..........and being with the right French man.

We did Saturday morning grocery shopping and MFM spied some good looking quail. Great lunch idea, he said. Now I have prepared quail exactly once - in the kitchens of Le Cordon Bleu. Of all the complicated dishes we slaved through on our way to our hard earned diplomas, the Quail Day, was up near the top of complicated.

How, you ask, could a bitty bird containing about 6 bites if you're lucky, be so complicated?

This was thanks to the sadistic French recipe writers who called for those bitty birds to be boned and stuffed WITHOUT breaking their thin skins. This brought back memories of several hours wishing that my fingers were the size of toothpicks and that our kitchens were supplied with microscopes as I basically turned those damn birds inside out to extract their bones before sliding teaspoon sized bits of stuffing inside (stuffing that required an hour to prepare and included peeling grapes (of course) and mincing mushrooms to the size of housedust before plating the final dish.

Not my finest culinary hour.

So when MFM casually suggested quail (le caille) for our lunch I responded - great, as long as you're cooking.

Well as I said - you just have to be with the right guy.

In about 40 minutes he produced a dish as beautiful as it was tasty. We sat at our coffee table and polished it off with some left over, but still sublime, Sancerre.

Don't tell Le Cordon Bleu - he didn't peel the grapes!

 

World view mix

The train has become my philosophy lounge. Each morning we chew on a new topic or we tilt the angle of how we look at an older one. It has become a kind of continuous conversation truncated each morning when we all arrive on campus and restarted the following morning.

This morning it was happiness. Which morphed into meaning. Which evolved into how the search for meaning changes with age. I'm sort of sad to say that I am the granny of the group - hope its keeping me young hanging with all these 30 somethings.

Our's is not your usual vanilla morning chat. I wonder what the morning radio "personalities" back in San Diego would think of our subject matter? One thing is for sure, we never talk about Brad and Jen, or Brad and Angelina or Brangelina whoever.

People often ask me what it feels like to live in Paris. The best response I can give is that it feels like I live in the WORLD.

In the mix today were my Singaporean, French, Swede and Czech train buddies.

We hashed through happiness and were deeply into meaning when the ride was over.

To be continued.

 

 

 

 

Look forward to what?

From the time I was small I seemed to need something to look forward to. That little nirvana in the future kept me going in the present. I would count down the months, weeks, and days to THE DAY. Wedding day, baby due date day, moving day. I almost reveled in the agony of anticipation - it was sweet.

It struck me the other day that I don't really do this anymore. All those wise people out there, you know like the Buddha and other happiness gurus, tell us to live only in the now. That we have only the present.

I know I know I know. But that's not why I think that I stopped this habit. Though I wish I could say that I was so enlightened. No, I think that I may have just outgrown it. Do fifty-somethings count the days to anything anymore?

If I were to count the days to something what would that something be? I don't have a clue.

Oh of course there is stuff to look forward to in theory. My kids all getting good jobs, getting married, having babies. But all those kinds of things are in a different category.

I think that I need to come up with a goal to look forward to reaching. The ones I have are not getting me very revved up. They are too practical and grown up.

That's it - I need to stop being such a grown up.

Except my ex-husband already put dibbs on that one.

So what does that leave me? I know this all sounds very depressing but I don't mean it to be. I actually know what the answer is - make the present the goal. Do stuff everyday that make you want to jump out of bed and get down to it.

Any suggestions out there?

 

 

50 years (or so) later, I'm getting it

Sometimes, some things are just not okay.

I know that sounds obvious but the slow learner that I am, it has taken me about 50 years to get it. Like for most everything else, I can blame my childhood.

When I was a little girl, and then even not so little, my mom could talk whatever problem or hurt away. Poof - just like that -  her logic or her gentle dismissal of my sadness or failure or hurt told me that it didn't really matter and that made it all better.

I thought this was a great thing. Who wouldn't? The world was magically righted and the cloud was lifted. I could continue down my freshly straightened path.

The thought of a world without my mother there to vanquish evil was simply unthinkable.......... but I am quite sure that feeling is pretty universal. No, my emotional dependency on her wasn't the real problem at all. The REAL problem was a bit more subtle but lots more devastating.

I learned denial.

Now denial can take all sorts of forms but this particular kind rendered me fragile at my core. I was taught to believe that:

Nothing really bad can ever really happen so when something bad really happens it doesn't really happen so you never really learn how to deal with reality.

See how confusing that is.

The kicker is that bad stuff does really happen. Little bad things, medium bad things and giant bad things.

How awfully hard that has been to accept for me! And when denial is at work all sorts of other bad things seem to crop up inside.

Well the reason why I was thinking these things today is that I FINALLY am sort of getting this one. Daughter # 4 arrived back to Paris from the other side of the world last week spent to the core. She had just closed the door on a painful part of her young life and though it seems counter -intuitive, was really sad about it. This is logical because - No matter how much struggle is involved, we all cling to the familiar, and those struggles she had just left still gave her the security of the known thing.

As her tears flowed all my old training reared its helpful head - I wanted to make it all go away for her. Tell her, with my mother's supreme logic, how it didn't matter; point out all the shit she didn't have to deal with anymore, how the next step was so much better for her.

But I didn't.

Instead, I let her cry. I agreed with her that it all sucked big time. That I couldn't make it right.

Do you want to know what happened next? She faced it. I didn't deny her sadness so she didn't deny it either. We did not fix it. We couldn't. Neither could have my mother if she was still around. Just like she actually never did fix my problems but instead showed me how to throw a thick blanket over them and hide them in the corner.

A couple days later this same daughter walked into the room:

"Hey mommy, I feel so much better. And I am excited for my new plans too. I'm still sad about losing what I left behind but its for the better. For now at least."

Wow. It worked. She moved forward.

Someone just finally grew up a bit - and I'm not talking about the 20 year old.

 

From Antwerp with Love

At 23 years old I took one of the steps in the "how to have a happy life" script and shopped for THE diamond ring with my soon-to-be-but-now-x-husband. As was for so many of those long anticipated events fed by reading overly romantic novels and listening too closely to my mother, sitting in the diamond broker's office in the Los Angeles jewelry mart skyscraper had that strange detached "is this really it?" sense about it. I suppose in the original script I should have been in a romantic Tiffany style jewelry store, or maybe on a beach somewhere simply being presented with a little black box by the handsome prince on bended knee......

Instead the THIS IS IT day was in a spartan office equipped with a glass top desk and black velvet boxes filled with loose stones. But, even back then, my immature mind had enough maturity to tell myself to enjoy the moment. I searched for the romanticism in what was largely a business deal. With the broker we balanced the how big?, how perfect? (or rather, tolerably imperfect) and how much do you want to spend? questions posed to us. I remember deciding that since the brokers were a couple from Antwerp and Antwerp sounded sufficiently exotic and had that whiff of European quality about it, their providence was enough to impart the air of romanticism that I had expected. Honestly, I'm certain that back then I had no clear idea in which country Antwerp even was.

We settled on a beautiful brilliant cut solitaire and I wore the magic on my finger for the next 25 years.

That diamond was an important part of the script as it was supposed to promise everlasting love and happiness. I knew THAT story by heart. It sounds kind of crazy, but I never really got over the cozy feeling of security every time I glanced down at my left ring finger. There it was for all the world - and especially me - to see. I was loved and cherished and married and had the diamond ring to prove it.

Silly isn't it, that so much can be attributed to a hunk of mineral deposits.

Well lots has changed since that afternoon in LA, including the lesson that diamonds are forever.

But, when MFM told me that he wanted to take me to Anvers to "offer" me a ring (the French don't give presents, they offer them), at first the significance of this was a bit lost on me. That was, until I realized that Anvers is Antwerp (those silly French and all their own names for the places of others). I already knew that Antwerp meant diamonds and, in France as in the USA, when you give someone a diamond ring, it means something. By the way, I shouldn't accuse the French of name changing, Antwerp is Antwerpen so we are all guilty as charged.

I told myself that as nice as this all sounded, I already had one diamond sitting in a box in my desk drawer proven not to be forever, did I really want another? Besides, there wasn't a chapter in the script for more diamonds, unless of course we followed the urging of De Beers to "tell her you'd marry her all over again".

But then that only works if you stay with the same husband.

Well, we went anyway. So roughly 30 years after meeting the LA transplants from Antwerp, this weekend I really was in Antwerp with all those diamonds. Who would have ever guessed? I supposed this is what makes for a good story - you never really know what's coming next.

In spite of the assurances I told myself of what this next diamond was not, it, actually they, are something.

And what is this exactly?

If I had to put it all into words, I would say that the new ring I now wear, has in some ways, more meaning than the first one did at the time it was slipped on my finger. If for no other reason than I know what happened and what can happen to the best written scripts and the most ardent of dreams and yet I still slide it on and enjoy its symbolism of two shared lives.

My long trip from Los Angeles to Antwerp was definitely not anticipated, but as I already said, who likes a story where you already know what's going to happen?

Same place - two lives

2 weekends, 2 different lives, same place, same girl. Talk about contrasts. Somebody up there decided to make sure that I have a clear idea of where I was and where I am now.

So enough of the cryptic references..........

2 weekends ago I had the privilege of spending 3 days with two of my best friends on the Cote d'Azur in a jewel box apartment right over the harbor of Villefranche-sur-Mer. We drank champagne while gazing at the boats bobbing directly beneath our balcony and watched the cruise ships come and go from the bay.

I was in another world - the one I used to live in and the one my friends still do. They were vacationing from their big family houses with some kids still at home;  celebrating long marriages and contemplating futures that I used to share.

I'm not begrudging of this - just noticing really.

So fast forward to the next jaunt back to the same Cote d'Azur two days later. This time to Cannes, glitzy home of the film festival and full of bronze bodies parading the boardwalk. No subtle elegance at this end of the Med.

I know that I won't evoke much sympathy but these four days were not fun in the sun. This was work. "Team-building" with my French colleagues and for me - a study in cultural differences.

We arrived to a lunch poolside before our first session. We weren't told to bring our bathing suits to the meeting but before we adjourned to the conference one of my co workers could not resist the pool. No bathing suit? - tant pis -she proceeded to strip to her underwear (leopard print) while the rest of us fully-clothed-rule-followers, meekly dipping our feet in the water, watched her dive right in. Her bra quickly became a bother so off it went. Her late-fifty-something body frolicked before our eyes. She displayed not a bit of shame (and not much puritan modesty either).

We work for a top European business school - the Harvard of France - could you imagine this same scenario happening in Cambridge?

Neither can I.

Stripping and swimming naked, or close to it, in front of the people you pass in the hall every day, turns out to be a normal activity. Our dean decided that the lapping waters of the Mediterranean were too much to resist after our wrap-up dinner on the beach Saturday night. She stripped to the skin and swam out into the moonlit waters. She inspired several followers who also traded their party wear for skinny dipping.

Is this normal? Do the deans of the Harvards and the Whartons of the world all get naked in front of their staffs and I've simply been in the dark all these years?

Probably not.

In any case, I am now part of this group and though I am an etranger, I seem to be accepted, even if I kept my clothes on.

Voila - a bit of my past and present lives sur la Cote d'Azur.

French Party Anthem

You will never guess which American song compels the French to jump from their seats and rush to the dance floor of every party, wedding and celebration here in the land of love, romance, wine and cheese................

Y-M-C-A

Yes, you heard me right - YMCA, that anthem of disco and the gay culture by the Village People that we all danced to back in high school and college, exuberantly throwing our arms up to form the letters at each refrain as we swelled with inebriated enthusiasm.

Well the French are still swollen. I first observed the Gallic rapture for this song while standing on the sidelines of a summer Village Fête deep in the heart of the Rhone Valley. How quaint I thought as I watched the French winegrowers, their wives and children all waving their arms to each verse about the Young Men. How did these country folk even know about this song, let alone how to dance to it??

Well, the song is not only stuck in the back roads of the South of France. I have since danced to it with merry-makers at numerous weddings as well as at sophisticated Parisian parties - YMCA knows no bounds of social class or age. Not terribly significant to us Americans, the class thing, but here - Mon Dieu - people pay attention to such stuff. French society has all sorts of ways to indoctrinate each social level into its ways.

But certain music seems to transcend all that, not terribly surprising as a concept, but when you look at which songs actually do the trick, well, let's just say, the sociologists would have a field day.

Last night at a beautiful summer garden party in a gracious home on the outskirts of Paris, an eclectic and enthusiastic 3 person combo really got the party rolling with La Bamba (so close to my Southern California heart with its influence of Mexico and margaritas), followed closely with Let it Be, What a Wonderful Life, Fly Me To the Moon (can't help remembering my ex-husband's disdain for Frank Fucking Sinatra every time that I swooned to his music - now I am free to swoon in peace and can almost forget the middle name poor Frank had acquired ), a couple French favorites sandwiched in, and then the all time party favorite, yes, you got it -----

I said Young Man, are you listening to me?

I said Young Man, there's a place you can go.....

Its fun to stay at the y-m-c-a............................

Everyone was on their feet. Here I was in France surrounded by people from everywhere and we all knew the words, the hand motions, the tune - it was part of our shared experiences, our individual histories and our collective humanity.

You never know what will bring people together and capture their hearts or their imaginations. When I came to France I didn't expect to be singing La Bamba in Paris or dancing to YMCA with both French villagers and City of Light sophisticates but then again what had I known anyway?

Rules of the Road

I'm a big city commuter now - not the driving kind of commuter, no, I am part of the sea of train riders flowing in and out of Paris each day. Here is some of what I've learned.

Never stand on the left side of any moving sidewalk or escalator - never. The left is reserved for the speedy. I pardon, excusez-moi, my way down the left side, always trying to pass all those sauntering slow pokes jabbering away on their mobiles.

French people are incredibly oblivious of their surroundings when they walk. Drives me nuts. I don't know if it is their famed arrogance or just plain old lack of attention that results in the way that they navigate. They do not look where they are going and basically demand that YOU watch out for where THEY are going. Not the other way around. Whenever a French person is approaching me on the street, they are invariably texting or fiddling with their cigarette or basically not looking up and I always have to swerve and side step around them. Their personal progression unimpeded by anyone else must be part of their birthright or something.

When streaming through the metro tunnels and the train stations, one should never pause to do anything - your transport pass needs to be ready to slide seamlessly over the turnstiles - don't stop to dig it out of your purse. Best is to have it placed just so in your bag so you just swipe your bag over the reader and pass through.

If someone hands you a morning metro paper - grab it without slowing down as you whisk by. If you are really French, you can start to read it and allow everyone else to watch out for you.

NEVER stop at the top of an escalator - everyone behind you will pile up like a car wreck and domino back down. Don't stop at the bottom either - you'll be trampled like a weak first-day-of-the-sales shopper.

If you hear your train buzz - leap immediately into the nearest car. The buzz is followed 2 seconds later by the automatic doors slamming shut. There is no sicker feeling in the world then being just on the outside of those doors. Once they close - they are unforgivably closed and the train starts to move.

There are no such things as lines in France. At least not the orderly, polite kind that we are used to in the US. Here the mob rules. When it is time to get on the train, cutting in front of everyone else is totally acceptable. Not that others won't snarl or try to elbow you out of their way but its all fair play.

Make friends with at least one other regular commuter (preferable a co-worker). Gossiping or philosophical conversations go well with the morning commute almost as well as does a cup of coffee between trains.

Belonging and not

In the old days things were black and white for me. It was easy to tell what was right and what was wrong, good from bad, smart from stupid, happy from sad.

That was then and now is different. I don't even know how I feel anymore about so many things. It's really unsettling.

I lived in Southern California my entire life until the age of 48. I was completely of California. How could I have been any other way? I wasn't a militant Southern Californian - you may know the type - smugly thinking of all the poor stiffs shoveling snow while sipping iced tea on our patios in February. Feeling superior for only wearing long pants twice in the last year.....Since shorts and sun in February were completely normal, it was nothing much special.

In fact, the grittiness required to live other places was kind of intriguing to me.

I've been living in Paris now for almost 4 years. Not very long as a percentage of all my years, but long enough to make me not quite the same anymore.

I'm not only a Southern California girl anymore, but I'm certainly not a Parisian - or rather a French woman. Pas de tout.

I live a bit on the outside of both places. I'm not part of the tennis team, or dinner groups or the bunco girls anymore back home, but I also am not French, can't speak the language very well, don't have the ancestral family house and structure to go to on Sundays or lean on when you're feeling weak or out of sorts.

How did this happen? Well, I chose it in a way - and in a way I didn't. My husband decided to bag it all and be a Buddhist so I decided that life was too short not to see what it was like to pull up roots and make it in a foreign country like all those heroines in the books.

Well, now I know. There's no real mystery or magic. You just sort of dig in and make a life out of nothing. You learn that other language (though I am afraid that I am destined to speak like a 3rd grader for the rest of my life), you thankfully make more girlfriends (where would any of us be without them?), study, get a job, and even add to the family in a new way.

MFM's daughter is proud to have an American belle mere. My daughters come "home" to Paris for Christmas. I get to show my Californian friends what it is like to cook in a cramped Paris kitchen and survive with only one bathroom. Sunday lunches en famille are on my Paris schedule.

How do I feel about all this?

Changed. Happy and sad, lost and found. I'm of 2 places but belong in neither completely.

That's why what used to be so clear is now kind of foggy.

Waiting for my Breakthrough

Have I mentioned how frick-en hard it is to speak French lately? I have been here coming up to 4 years - FOUR YEARS - I can't hardly believe it. If you would have asked me back then how long it was going to take me to speak fluent French I would have told you "Certainly after 3 years or so".

Wrong.

I now know the correct answer to how long it will take to speak fluent French:

Never.

Or at least close to never.

Yes I sort of speak French now, yes I understand lots of what is being said, yes I have made beaucoup de progress -  but it is not enough.

I cannot tell you how beyond frustrating it is to be in the middle of a lively dinner conversation where you are the only one not laughing at the jokes - you are too busy spending your whole night getting the gist (but little meat) of what is being said. The funny thing is that most of my French friends think that I speak French - I really have them fooled. Its just because I kind of get what they are saying and am capable of responding like a 3 year old.

It is not the most satisfying way to communicate and it is downright boring  - for me and the polite person stuck next to me at the dinner table.

I don't know how much longer I can live just on the outside of the rest of the world. I used to think that this would be fun - what the hell was wrong with me?

They say that when your frustration gets to the breaking point that is when a breakthrough is juuuusssssssssst around the corner.

Okay, I'm ready.