Free Write The out of place couple

 The Out of Place Couple

It was a brisk October day, the coolest yet with the  Tramontane not quite at its strongest. It was too cool to write outside. Inside, we nodded to the couple owners of where we buy our pizzas and settled in at a small round table.

Chocolate chaud for Rick, Thé Vanille and a chocolate croissant for me. I hadn't eaten, Rick had. 

Sherlock was with us. Because we are leaving him with a sitter at our home for the next two weeks, we didn't want to leave him alone this morning. He had a couple of dog biscuits before settling in so we could write.

Prompt: We saw a well-dressed couple, a couple that would have been more at home in downtown Geneva's high priced shopping area than this old French village.

 Rick's Freewrite

They were clearly first-time tourists, at least the first time in Argeles-sur-mer. Too well dressed for this relatively poor village in the south of France.

And very late in the tourist "shoulder season" of late October, almost November.

He was dapper, shaved bald, aviator-sunglasses, with a cream colored summer-weight sport coat.

She could have been dressed for a party with friends or business associates, smart, forest-green sweater, straight-lined skirt, three-inch heel shoes. And blond hair that could not have been natural, as they were easily in their 60s maybe 70's.

They wandered with no apparent destination, looking all four ways at the intersection of Liberation and Republique, trying to decide which way next. 

They started toward the church up the hill, but then the  wine cave caught his eye, so he lingered a couple of minutes before drifting on. 

They may have come from Spanish Catalonia for the day, curious about the seaside town they had heard about periodically or they were heading to Spain from one of the larger cities in France -- Toulouse, Lyon, even Paris -- and had stopped in search of a croissant for petit dejeuner. 

Or perhaps they were searching for a house to buy, to enjoy in their new retirement.

D-L's Freewrite

 Marcus cultivated his inner Yul Brynner.

He'd been only 20 when he noticed his hair was thinning. He blamed his mother because he had read hair loss was passed on by the mother, boobs, via the father's DNA. More the luck for his big-breasted sister.

Baldness had not hampered his career as a lawyer in a big firm then later his own.

He made sure his wealth showed on his body. 

Walking through the vacation village, the first cold day of October, he still wore a sports coat, an Armani. His pants were creased and his trained trainers bore the name of the world's best tennis player.

Elodie walked beside him. She'd held up pretty well from their college days and raising two children.

Her blond hair looked natural, but he always pointed out if the tiniest dark root peeked out. 

He'd fired a secretary, a legal aide really and a good one, because she let her roots show.

"Coffee?" Eloise pointed to the café they were passing.

"Why not." He rubbed his hand over his pure Yul Brynner pate.

Too bad the village was deserted with no one to appreciate him at all.

Bells

  

The 7:05 a.m.church bells rang, having adjusted to going off Daylight Savings Time. They do that every day. They will ring again at 7:05 p.m. for about 35 times.  My husband Rick says it's 36. I won't argue, he's better at math and measurements.

The church, built in the 1300s, is at the end of our short street of our little French Village.

No longer is it someone's job to ring them, so it must be computerized. We wonder how they programmed them because they ring differently for marriages, mass and funerals.

We often use the 7:05 ringing as the message to get up.

"What would happen," I asked my husband after today's morning, if they mixed up the bells and set the funeral dirge to ring for a marriage.

"Right after the groom said, 'I do.'" 

"It could be sabotage by an ex-girl friend," I said.

"Or his mother," he said.

"They could be in cahoots," I said.

Maybe the next time we see the priest, we will ask him...or maybe Jean-Marc, the village historian or maybe we will just continue to imagine different possibilities.

Oct.Nov.Dec.

 MY THREE FAVORITE MONTHS

Not just in 2020 but every year.

OCTOBER

 

October is cooler. I no longer hibernate from the heat feeling lousy on super hot days. If I'm in Geneva, the leaves change color but not as spectacularly as in my native New England.

We can have a fire. Although I'll miss the long days: they are replaced by cozy nights in PJs, books, and movies on TV and cuddling with my husband and dog.

And best of all is the changing of the clocks. I wait until five in the afternoon on Sunday before changing. Suddenly it's four. Voilà! A gift! My extra hour of life.

As a kid I was never allowed to go trick or treating, but my grandmother made special cookies and we put them in special napkins. Precious memories with a wonderful, imaginative lady.

That was before people worried about razors in apples. Handing them out to the kids in costume was fun and trying to guess who they were. Of course, we deliberately guessed wrong the first couple of times. We knew who they were by the parents hovering under the pines near the stairs.

When I first lived in Europe Halloween was unknown. Today, our French village is awash in pumpkins, gourds, witches, and skulls as the truck puts up the Christmas lights that won't go on until 15 December. One company services the entire area so early decoration is the only way to get everything up.

NOVEMBER

The energy found in the cooler weather has paid off and I'm well into my writing projects.

Depending on where I am, the leaves are still beautiful even if the reds are scarce.

If Thanksgiving isn't a holiday in Europe each year there is some celebration. One year my assistant's mother made me an apple pie because she knew it was the only time I felt really homesick.

Every Thanksgiving I've found someplace to celebrate. Geneva restaurants have been known to do special dinners but more recently people have filled the gap. For a time my housemate and I would do it, buying the turkey already cooked. 

I've done the meal in France for expats or those who enjoyed Thanksgiving when they lived in the States. The butcher has asked me if I wanted a turkey this year, and I tell him, "Merci but we'll celebrate in Switzerland."

And I have two special friends who some years do a big feast. This is year three with one and I'm looking forward to it. 

I can't go to my high school football game Reading vs. Stoneham or send my daughter to the Boston Latin vs. Boston English game. The Boston Globe will have the scores on line.

DECEMBER

Our French village has gone from almost no decorations to becoming a fairly land. In Switzerland decorated trees abound outdoors. Christmas markets can be anything from a few chalets to hundreds. I've loved the Christmas markets in Strasbourg, Augsburg, Stuttgart, Geneva and Montreux, when Père Noël will fly high above the lake from shore to shore.

My plan last year to have an eternal Christmas tree was ended when the summer canicule killed it. I will try again this year. Maybe we can take the tree to Geneva where we can nurture it in the summer months.

Getting reacquainted with the ornaments my daughter and I painted when she was three, along with those given to us over the years, is a joy. She will be with me this year making Christmas even more special, although Rick and I have developed our own traditions. We now follow the Iceland gift giving of a book on Christmas Eve than go to bed and read it.

As for a tree, it must be real and brought in and decorated on the day of the winter solstice. If I'm where a real tree isn't part of someone's Christmas, I find an evergreen branch no matter how small to mark the day. 

We have the stockings my daughter made for each of us to open Christmas morning.

When we lived in Boston The Christmas Revels were a must--if we could get tickets. Now we can stream it. Maybe it is not quite the same as joining all the others as they wend their way around Sanders Hall to Lord of the Dance, but watching it from Europe creates new memories.

I hope for snow. I still haven't poured hot maple syrup on snow for Rick to make a candy. Maybe this year. 

Especially in Geneva, we often have to drive up the mountains a bit to find the snow, making the white blanket all the more precious when it lands on the city. I especially love the crunch of snow when I walk.

December is for soups and slow pot meals. Now we are allegedly retired it isn't coming in from work to a house with good cooking smells but enjoying them all day while we pound away on our laptops.

Note: D-L Nelson is a Swiss-Canadian writer who grew up in New England. Visit her website www.dlnelsonwriter.com

Meeting Mary

 "You have ten minutes," I was told. I was covering a credit union conference in Dublin for a trade journal.

I'd been granted a private interview with the keynote speaker, Mary Robinson, former Irish President, former High Commissioner for the UN High Commission for Human Rights (HCR), Chair of Bishop Tutu's Elders and member of many other organizations working for the betterment of humanity.

I'd seen her speak many times in Geneva where we both lived for a time. I worked across the street from the HCR, but I'd never run into her pushing a grocery cart at the Co-op in between our two office buildings when I shopped for food.

I held her in awe. Unlike most politicians her words never changed with the wind. Her actions always aligned with her words.

We met in a small room at the conference venue. The topic, credit unions which helped bring financial services to millions otherwise shut out of the financial marketplace, was one she was well versed on. She'd been a credit union member.

Ten minutes had long passed and we were still talking.

The topic changed to her role at HCR as she mentioned visiting Rwanda after the massacre and seeing the corpses of victims. "How do you stand it?" I asked.

She put her hand on my arm. "My Dear, my glass is always a quarter full."

Two days later she was in the elevator with her husband, when I got on. Unlike other keynote speakers at credit union conferences that I'd covered, she had not evaporated the moment their speech ended. She had attended several sessions to increase her behind the scenes knowledge of credit unions.

She introduced me by full name to her husband as the journalist that she'd told him about and mentioned what we had discussed.  

I've interviewed other world leaders and important people, but none made the impression on me that this woman did. She gave me hope that leaders could be good. And no matter what has happened to me personally, I find my glass is always at least a quarter full if not more.

Freewrite "The Senators"

 

Today's freewrite was from the café Mille et Une under new management. The croissant and chocolat chaud were great.

We chose the bench kitty corner from the café where the old men, "the senators" of the village gather. When we started writing there were only three. With this prompt and we wrote for ten minutes, non stop.

Rick's Freewrite:  Observations of a Village Street Corner

 

Two "senators" in animated conversation, solving the problems of the world -- with emphasis.

A pigeon perched on the arch alcove, The Amigo lottery poster, poised next to "bombs away" on the upside down moto helmet on the bottom ledge.

 

A 360°degree surveillance camera under the red-and-white tabac sign. Does any one monitor these images of villagers walking and cycling to-and-fro? Would it matter? (Maybe to arrest the cyclists, who are supposed to dismount on the pedestrian street.)

 

One of the "senators" resembles Dad in the face, the physique, the short jacket and cap. But not the cigarette -- Dad never smoked.

A mere meter from the "senators" bench, a decorative, cylinder trash bin, which collect detritus and dog merde sacs throughout the day.

Around the next corner from the bench are racks of tourist postcards and maps for hikers.

Families wander through the intersection -- it's school vacation week -- weaving in and around the village elderly and merchants. Though only mid-latish October, a Christmas star and strings of fairy lights, hang diagonally overhead, in defiance of the string of plastic flags the summer colors (which is annoyingly noisy in the wind).

One "senator" has departed the bench. Four more have joined. 

Will more minds solve the world's problems faster? Better?

D-L's Freewrite - The Missing Senator

Only three "senators" were sitting on "their bench" under the Vegas Millionaire Banco sign, Marc, Pierre, Jacques.

Once there had been six of them, all recent retirees at the time, kicked out of their homes each morning by wives wanting to cook and clean without them being underfoot.

At first they talked about their old jobs, which gave way to chatter about grandchildren and the dismal performance of the local rugby team.

Their wives had thought it disrespectful to Jean to wear their regular sweats. They thought it showed respect to him being dressed as the did for their morning meetings.

Marc put his hand on the cool spot next to him. Last week Jean was there warming the wood. 

A hearse drove by on its way to the church a block away. They saw the flower-covered coffin through its windows.

"We can wait for the bells," Marc said. No sooner had he spoken and the bells started their dirge.

The men stood, removed their caps and headed for the church wondering who was next but none wanted to be the last man on the bench.

 

The Vineyard and the St. Bernard

 My husband and I walked through the vineyard above lake Geneva. The water below matched the blue of the cloudless sky.

 

The Jura Mountains and France were on the other side of the lake, and I remembered how someone told me it took a drop of water 11 years to cross the lake.

The sun warmed our cheeks, but every so often the whisper of the wind reminded us it was October and winter was coming.

A week ago the vineyard had been full of workers for the vendage, their wicker baskets worn like backpacks. Those grapes were now in huge vats somewhere nearby for the first pressing.

The leaves of the vines, which were slightly taller than I was but not as tall as my husband, were beginning to yellow at the edges. A few bunches of grapes were left on the lower leaves.

"Because they are left, we can pick those," I said to my husband who was still new to Switzerland. I plucked two grapes from a bunch.

Although we thought we were alone, a St. Bernard, a stereotype of my country, bounded up, followed by this master.

We patted the dog who ambled over to the grape bunch we had just picked and lifted his leg.

Groupings and Teachers

 

In seventh grade all the elementary school kids from several schools in town were joined together at the Walter Parker Junior High for seventh and eighth grades .

It was a big change. Instead of having one classroom, one teacher, we changed classrooms with different teachers for English-Mrs. Tyack, Soc (social studies)-Mr. Butcher, Math-Mr. Ganley and Science-Mr. Copithorne.

First thing each morning we met with Mrs. Clementine Sudcak in homeroom. She was also the music teacher.

After homeroom, kids divided into their groups that moved together like a herd of cattle from classroom to classroom. We would be together for the entire year.

The groups were named after stars. When I looked up a list I couldn't find some of them including mine Castor if I remember the name correctly but I'm not sure I do.

We knew the smartest kids were in the As and then as the alphabet went down the kids were less and less intelligent. In high school two years later the A-D Kids would  take the college-bound courses. The lower letters would take the business courses.

What I didn't realize at the time, we were being taught class distinctions although I doubt that this was deliberate.

For eight grade the dumb kids ended up in the A star group and the smart kids were at the bottom of the alphabet. I wasn't fooled.

I remember most of my teachers.

Mrs. Tyack -- I never did care about the difference of intransitive and transitive verbs, although other parts of grammar were interesting. A little bit like building blocks only with words that could be moved around but with certain rules so the sentence would make sense.

Mr. Butcher was a big man with light colored hair. I remember he talked about interesting stuff like diseases in Africa and where different products and food came from. We would have contests between rows to review what we learned. I did the same thing when I taught business communication at Webster University in Geneva.

Mr. Copithorne was a great science teacher although my enjoyment depended on the subject. Geology, astronomy were fun. Weather not so much. He was the type of man that looked like he was in training to be a grandfather.

Mr. Ganley's class was the only time I enjoyed math, probably because I had a huge crush on him. He had beautiful eyes. I would think up excuses to talk to him after class. He handled it well but encouraged me to pay more attention.

It was 7th grade when my parents separated, a very rare thing then. The teachers gave the poor little girl from a broken home leeway and I milked it for all it was worth.

I don't know if the school still divides the kids the same way. I wonder if the teachers then arranged the material differently depending on the makeup of the group.

I'll never know.

 

The Skunk

 

I had returned to Reading to start my sophomore year at university after two years in Germany.

My husband had three more months to serve in the 82nd Army Band and had stayed in Stuttgart.

I was living with my in-laws, sleeping in my husband's childhood bedroom. With me, was Kimm, our adolescent German Shepherd.

Kimm and I had spent the evening with my mother and grandmother. An old boyfriend had dropped by to say hello and we were all reminiscing.

Kimm was thrilled to be outside and exploring. My family had 14 acres of land and I knew she wouldn't drift far. Because we'd lived in the city, running free was a novelty for her.

My mother had lit a fire and as we were chatting, we heard her yip and howl and then scratch desperately at the door. 

One quick inhale we knew she'd lost a battle with a skunk.

We bathed her in all the tomato juice and shampoo on hand and my old boyfriend drove me home. 

Despite the cold October air, the windows were down. Odor de Skunk had permeated our clothes.

Back at my in-laws, I changed into non-smelly pajamas and took my stinky clothes outside and left them on the front stairs.

The next morning, I met the cold eyes of my normally loving mother-in-law and my brother-in-law's somber expression.

Only when I explained that I hadn't come home drunk and undressed outside did they sympathize. They did suggest the next time I not leave my stinky clothes where the neighbors couldn't see them.

Silly Fears

  

"Will you come with me when I do my wash?" My housemate in the company apartment where we lived was fresh out of university, tri-lingual, intelligent, well-read, and a good nine inches taller than I was. I was in my 40s.

The apartment was in a tiny Swiss mountain village where cows out numbered people 10  to one.Voltaire had visited Jean-Jacques Rousseau there when Rousseau was hiding from the Geneva authorities. A priory from the 6th century had been converted into a champagne cave.

"It's spooky down there," she said.

She was right. The basement could have been a movie set for a horror or thriller film.

"Of course," I said.

She was equally kind to me.

The road from the village that we had to take to go to work when driven fast made my stomach drop. I hated it.

Each drop brought back memories of when at age six, I was staying with a neighbor while my mother was in the hospital. The woman made biscuits for her husband's lunch every day, cutting them into perfect round shapes with a drinking glass.

That day, her brother was visiting and suggested that after lunch we all go for a drive.

He started speeding down a long road. With each bump my stomach dropped.

I was terrified. I screamed non stop hitting him and had to be restrained, but the man would not stop the car as the husband held me back.

I was in my teens before I would get in a car with any male other than my father. Even today, I will not go on any roller coaster, Ferris wheel or carnival ride where I can't get off if my stomach drops.

My housemate, who loved to drive the road fast, when I explained my fear, would ask whenever she drove us to work if her speed was okay and adjust accordingly.

Were our fears silly?

I doubt any killer or ghost would have attacked us while doing the laundry, nor would I jump from a car that was going too fast. 

Were our fears real?

Compared to living in a war zone, thru a flood, hurricane, earthquake or volcano, fire, maybe not. 

Based on memories of scary movies and scary roads, yes. It didn't matter that we were now safe. And accommodating them was just kindness.

English major, a thing of the past?

 

    Burying the humanities. Not so fast.

The March 6, 2023 New Yorker has an article on the demise of English majors and the humanities in general being taught at universities. Where kids need to spend a fortune and maybe assume life-long debt, they want a degree that will bring them a good job/career. 

I was an English major, history minor. At the time tuition was about $400 a year, a stretch even then. I had a husband who did not want me to go to college and wanted me to contribute to the household income so we could buy a house. I worked part time at a dry cleaner and supplemented my educational costs with loans from my dad, all of which I paid back before starting the cycle the next semester.

I adored my courses. What would Hardy inflict on Tess next? The Eleanors, Roosevelt and Aquitaine, were role models. So many German-based words in Chaucer read in  Middle English. English language development thru the centuries made me understand even more the power of words uttered on newscasts and by politicians.

Okay, reading 12 Greek and/or Roman plays for "scanty background information" was a bit over the top for Early English Drama. I learned from Gammer Guertin's Needle, the important of an item when they are in short supply as well as the necessity to care for what we have. 

What would I do with my degree? I learned from student teaching, I had no desire to control a class room of adolescents. I had ignored how to teach classes because I would have had to give up literature and history classes.

I remember the note "See me!" on the paper I wrote from a psychologist's perspective about the duke killing his last duchess. The teacher told me it was definitely not academic writing and would never be allowed in graduate school. She gave me a smile and an A adding, "Don't do it again."

I couldn't find a journalism job although I had been a cub  reporter for a daily, but did find one writing business development news. Most of my jobs were with a writing component and if it wasn't in iambic pentameter or sonnet format, the importance of arranging words for easy comprehension had become part of my DNA.

I later did a creative writing masters degree in Wales. In answer to my friend, tired of hearing me say, "I want to write fiction," asked, "What's stopping you?" Of course, it was me.

Check out www.dlnelsonwriter.com to see the 17 books I have had published.

Fortunately, money was never a motivator for me. I don't care about brand names. A small color-co-ordinate house or flat makes me happy. By moving to Europe I was able to go 20 years carless. 

I earned enough.

There were so many companies who do harm to the world and despite great pay would leave me awake at night with guilt. I was lucky to work for non-profits or co-operatives. I even found my way back to journalism late in my career.

What I learned in my humanities courses gave me joy, brought a richness to my life by the viewpoints and knowledge gleaned from reading, research and listening to my profs.   

Do I regret my educational choices? Not in the least. The modern parts of living, I learned along the way and am still learning. Being an English major/history minor made me a more complete human being who could still earn a living.

Free Write The Dog

 

For the first time we did our Tuesday Freewrite at the café on the corner from our flat: Mille et Une.  Pain au chocolate, or chocolatine as it is known locally, hot chocolate for Rick, vanilla tea for me and we were ready to write. The prompt was a dog sitting outside the tabac waiting for his elderly owner.

Rick's Freewrite

He appeared to be a mixed breed. Maybe part terrier, part cocker. Though his leash was wrapped around a pole, he made no attempt of lie down on the cold stone tiles of the street.

He knew his master would emerge from the tabac in short order -- he always did -- so Rags stayed alert in anticipation. After no more than three minutes, just enough time to buy a pack of foul-smelling Gauloise, his vigilance was rewarded. The leash was released, and Rags took his place walking even a hip-hop spring in his step as they passed the ladies of the fruitier.

D-L's Freewrite

Bob's head was bowed. His leash was wrapped around the pole outside the tabac.

What was taking his master so long?. In the other stores, he was kept by Fritz's side. The green grocer sometimes had a biscuit for him, his favorite, beef flavored.

The owner of the tabac was a witch. Why Fritz didn't take buy his paper and cigarettes at the tabac down the street, and the woman told Bob how beau he was, he didn't understand.

Bob knew the woman was nasty to everyone. 

Several other dogs walked by: Falco, Sherlock, Kenzie. He would have loved to greet them, sniff their butts, but was afraid he would miss seeing Fritz leave. Not that Fritz would forget him, or at least Bob hoped he wouldn't.

Maybe Fritz saw a friend to talk to.

No wait...

There he was with his blue sweater, white hair and twitchy mustache. 

Ready to go home Bob?"

Bob wagged his tail and walked at Fritz's side, ready for his morning nap.

Meet Bethaney Veney

 

A friend sent me information about Bethany Veney for my book 501 Remarkable Unrecognized Women the research and writing of which has consumed me for the last year. 

 

The original idea was to do it as a one woman a day calendar but the unevenness of the number for each date, one-nine, made me change the focus to category. There were too many inspiring women to limit the number to 365.

 

The book will include sections for doctors, lawyers, spies, botanists, revolutionaries, soldiers, even witches and pirates and many more. The women broke through the boundaries of their times and places to accomplish what was impossible for the majority of their gender. Most have been totally ignored or ignored outside of a limited sphere.

 

I'd spent almost a year in research and am now condensing up to 3000 words of notes on each one to around 150 words more or less containing the essence of the woman's stories. I've done about 300.

 

Yesterday, before I got the email I'd wrestled for hours cutting down the story of the first woman fighter pilot who had the audacity to ask the then Turkish president to adopt her. He did. 

The story of Bethany was different. The words flew into my laptop almost writing themselves. The first paragraph says, "During one slave auction, Bethany Veney put baking soda in her mouth to appear sick. She would be sold and resold several times before being freed. 

She had dictated her story to a white woman, known only by her initials. Moving was how she described one of her owners as "kind" because he fed and clothed his slaves well. He was in contrast to the owner who beat her, leaving her lame for life.

Once freed, she earned a living selling blueing and was able to buy a house and reassemble her family in Massachusetts.

Her story has been issued in an audio book. I wish I had known about it when I was researching slavery for my mystery, Murder in Caleb's Landing.

Like the other women I've found, I would like to sit down and talk with these women, maybe hold a conference with them all. I imagine them exchanging their stories, asking questions about how they accomplished what they did against odds.

Making the Ordinary Special

 Rick pointed out my beloved rainbow basket is beginning to unravel. NO! NO! NO!

It is my second since 2003. Sherlock chewed the first and I'd hoped it would be my only or at best one of two baskets for the rest of my life be it a year or ten. 

I do have a picnic basket, a gift from a friend who knew we were gathering picnic dishes, tableware and containers from various vide greniers (flea markets). So much better than going to a store than just buying one basket.

The basket is for everything: bread from the baker, veggies from the green grocer, meat from the butcher. It is for carrying books and laundry to hang outside. It is to be treasured.

I want most things I own to be limited in number and special. My pens, my notebooks all give me pleasure because they are special and beautiful in their own right. 

When I lived in my Nest, a studio, it was easier. Nothing, and I mean nothing came into my home that didn't have meaning or a use. One or at the most two of anything. It is harder in a larger place where two people live. 

Still, I'm hoping we can repair my rainbow basket. And if I have to replace it (shudder) I can find one for a lifetime.

What's in a Name

 

When Rick and I registered to be married, we had to choose our name. We could each keep our own names, select mine or his, be Adams-Nelson or Nelson Adams.

Known professionally for decades with our own names and not wanting to go to the work to change them on passports and other documents, we said we'd continue as we were.

"And your children?" the clerk asked.

We looked at each other. The chance of having children in our 70s was remote. Still the box had to be ticked. Thus our dog is Sherlock Adams-Nelson on his adoption papers from the animal rescue center.

I'd been taught by my WASP mother to be ashamed of my foreign maiden name Boudreau. She was proud of the names in her family: Sargent, Stockbridge, Young and Lane. The family went back to 1636 and John Sargent had fought in the American Revolution. Any names with ethnic origins, French, Italian, Irish were not to be desired.

In the 1940s when she married she selected to use a double barrelled name Sargent-Boudreau, although there was no clerk insisting on the selection at the time.

When I divorced my first husband I kept my married name. It matched my daughter's and Donna-Lane Nelson was nicely alliterative.

I wish my mother had lived long enough to learn that Boudreau belonged to General Michel Boudreau, who settled in Nova Scotia in 1640 and was a respected part of local history. 

His  fertility helped populate the region and there's even a Boudreauville, 

Living in Geneva and the South of France, I could return to the French name Boudreau. Legally, in France a woman keeps her maiden name while using her husband's name which is why from time to time, finding a document requires me to give it. 

I could eliminate the Nelson entirely, because the Anglo connection sets me aside, a complete 360° in attitude from my childhood environment.

I won't change it. I still like the alliteration and I don't want to face the paperwork. 

My name does not change who I am. I will be no taller, no smarter, no younger. I will not write better and my house will be no cleaner.

 

Words

 

The article I was reading was filled with overly long, complicated sentences, multi-syllable words and references I swear were designed to obfuscate rather than simply puzzle or confuse. Probably to show the world how smart the writer was and not to communicate the subject of the article.

Why an editor allowed it, I will never understand.

I came from a family where words were important. For me it was a rite of passage when I could score 100% each month on the Reader's Digest vocabulary quiz like my mother.

During a thunderstorm, which always terrified my mother, we would huddle in the living room and play word games. One was the color game where we one of us would name a color and the rest would have to guess the object of which we were thinking.

Once I chose yellow, a vivid, vivid yellow. No one guessed it. I kept stressing vivid. They gave up and when I showed them the stripe in the curtain which was so light-colored that it was more white than yellow, I learned I had the wrong meaning for vivid. For a long time I thought light was a better meaning than strong for vivid, but gave into the rest of the world.

Words were there to create --  not just for games or quizzes but to increase understanding in speaking and in writing. The attitude helped shaped me as a writer of news, marketing, PR, short stories, books and a poem.

As a cub reporter on a daily paper there was only one woman reporter, a Goliath, assigned to city hall. It was said she made politicians quake not just in their boots but in their entire suits.

She would cackle whenever she told the story of one especially slimy politician caught trying to paint over a sign that should have been left in its original. She must have bribed the Linotype operator to make sure that her copy broke on page one in a way that would conjure up images of a man carrying a can of ??? only to be look stupid when the reader turned the page. It read. "Mr. Name carried a can (continued on page 2)" and then on page 2 "(continued from page one) a can of black paint." A can of black paint became a city room joke.

Her coverage of Mr. Slimy Politician was filled with such subtleties, but never an inaccuracy, another lesson. 

My family, my first and second also final husband, and everyone I've ever lived with were/are readers, savoring good writing and clever phrasing. Bathrooms can also be called "reading rooms" and someone knocking on the door, desperate for entry can be told "one more chapter." 

I used the "one more chapter" line in Bern waiting for my radiologist. When he called "Frau Nelson" there were big smiles on the other people in the waiting room who understood English and a guffaw from him. He spoke seven languages fluently and another four functionally. We talked books and language during the 45 minutes he was heating my skin before being zapped. 

A a writer the words I choose, the way I arrange them are beyond important to me. In speech, sadly, I cannot copy and paste.

My husband, a journalist, and I exchange examples of good writing and, polish each other's efforts. We will joke about my use of albeit and my love of plethora and the rare chance to use it. When we find a word we like we tell the other. It is an added dimension to our marriage just as the words in my childhood added to my development.