Not enough

When the Iraq war started my daughter was on airplane flying to Geneva. The next Saturday we were at an anti-war rally in Bern not the first time we had attended a protest together. Since then I have protested, e-mailed, signed petitions, forwarded messages to others of like mind, made donations, phoned congressmen on a regular basis on the war, on civil rights issues, on economic issues. I have done much of what Solnit (see article below) did, but it has not been enough.

Yes I know, I have chosen citizenship in another country, and yes I know it offers me a better quality of life, a social contract, safety, and real democracy, but I will never forget that my strength comes from my roots and I remain angry that those roots are being poisoned.

In the news I see photos of the demonstration in Washington. If I’d been in the US, I would have been among the crowd.

I will probably never have grandchildren, but I do think of the question asked of the Greatest Generation, “What did you do in the war Grampy?”

Like Vietnam, once again, my answer would be, “not enough.” I will not have to admit to future grandchildren I have failed as a citizen of a country that gave me so much.

Was I a good American in the time of George Bush?

Too many of us have done too little to stop the crimes of this White House. We are waking up but what took us so long?

Rebecca Solnit
Wednesday March 14, 2007
The Guardian

Was I a good American? How good an American was I? Did I do what I could to resist the takeover of my country and the brutalisation of my fellow human beings? How much further could I have gone? Were the crimes of the Bush administration those that demand you give up your life and everyday commitments to throw yourself into maximum resistance? If not, then what were we waiting for? The questions have troubled me regularly these last five years, because I was one of the millions of American citizens who did not shut down Guantánamo Bay and stop the other atrocities of the administration.

I wrote. I gave money, sometimes in large chunks. I went to anti-war marches. I demonstrated. I also planted a garden, cooked dinners, played with children, wandered around aimlessly, and did lots of other things you do when the world is not crashing down around you. And maybe when it is. Was it? It was for the men in our gulag. And the boys there. And the rule of law in my native land.

Before the current administration, it had always been easy to condemn the "good Germans" who did nothing while Jews, Gypsies and others were rounded up for extermination. One likes to believe that one will be different, will harbour Anne Frank in one's secret annex, smuggle people across the border, defy the authorities who do evil. Those we scornfully call good Germans merely did little while the mouth of hell opened up.

I now know the way that everyday life can be so absorbing, survival so demanding, that it seems impossible to do more on top of it or to drop the routine altogether and begin a totally different life. There is the garden to be watered, the aged parent in crisis, the deadline looming; but there are also the crimes against humanity waiting to be stopped. Ordinary obligations tug one way even when extraordinary ones tug the other way. The Bush administration is by no means the Third Reich, but it produced an extraordinary time that made extraordinary demands on US citizens, demands that some of us rose to - and too many did not.

Periodically, I would speculate on what was the most extreme and radical thing I could do to stop the illegal prison camp at Guantánamo; picture chaining myself to the gates of the Senate, becoming one of those activists who takes up residence outside the White House or takes over a TV station to get a message out. I wanted to do something so epic that it would turn the tide, stop the crime. Then I would consider that the best approaches were probably already being taken, by the heroic lawyers at the Centre for Constitutional Rights and other human rights organisations, and I would write another cheque and some more letters and feel a little futile and a little corrupt.

These days Americans seem to be waking up one at a time, groggy and embittered, from the hypnotic nightmare that was the Bush administration's one great success - spreading a miasma of fear and patriotic submissiveness that made it possible to mount an illegal and immoral war, piss on the bill of rights, burn the constitution and violate international charters on human rights and prisoners of war with widespread torture. None of the sleepers seems to remember that they were part of the legions who obeyed the orders to fear and hate - but we welcome the latecomers into our ranks anyway.

What took them so long? How could people believe that a fairly defanged country, one we had been bombing since the first Gulf war, was an apocalyptic menace in a world where most nations were well-equipped for mass civilian murder? A year ago, the turning point was marked by the comedian Stephen Colbert's volley of (accurate) insults delivered to Bush's face, in the guise of giving the keynote address at the Washington press corps' annual dinner. He was just aggressively ignored by the mainstream media. Perhaps Katrina turned the tide: the indifference, incompetence, and obliviousness of the federal government was so gross that its pedestal melted.

And there were others who were in resistance all along. I remember with admiration the Japanese-Americans who came out in the months after 9/11 to testify that they had been incarcerated en masse during the second world war, not for what they did but for who they were, and they were not going to remain silent as the same treatment was meted out to Arabs and Muslims. I remember the way that 20,000 of us in San Francisco came out to shut down the business district the day the war broke out, and the huge marches before and after. I remember the few congresspeople - mostly African-American - who dared to stand in opposition early on. I went to Camp Casey outside Bush's vacation home in Texas and spent a day with Cindy Sheehan, who gave her life over to stopping the war after it took her soldier son. Others did as she did. Some of them are my friends.

There is resistance. But if it were enough, the crimes would have stopped, the war would have ended. When it does and they do, some will have been heroes. Some will have been honourable but moderate, in times that did not call for moderation. And some will have consented, through inaction, to crimes against humanity.

· Rebecca Solnit is the author of Hope in the Dark: The Untold History of People Power, and Wanderlust: A history of walking

The new bud vase

When I broke my much loved vase bought at George’s Folley in Brookline MA well over 25 years ago, I never expected Coca-Cola to help in its replacement.

Like teapots that have to be selected with expectations of a long relationship endowed with memory after memory, a vase is not a casual selection. Price does not enter into it. In fact the one that broke has cost under $5, but it had held the first spring yellow tulips on my hand painted chest in my much-loved Riverway Apartment, done justice to the bird of paradise spotted in the window of the Brookline Flower shop, and had been the holder of flowers brought by guests in anticipation of uncountable meals or bought from the marchés just because the apartment would be cheerier with flowers.

Thus when my friend, her daughter (the mom) and her son on visit from the US and I celebrated his birthday, the process began. Like me, they love Coke. Unlike me they no longer limit their intake. I used to drink it morning, noon and night and loved every mouthful. People talk about various diets, but I went on the Coca-Cola diet. By severely restricting the beverage I dropped eight pounds.

The mom had found almost miniature Coke cans as the birthday beverage, shaped like the bottles in the normal red, but decorated with pink stars, yellow hearts and a mythical golden city all very subtle. I got to keep my can which is more graceful than most bud vases I’ve seen.

Yesterday at the marché I found a red flower (I have no idea what it is) but it now stands in the center of my table in the Coke bud vase.

So if I tote up the pleasures beyond it looking pretty, I can add in my love of Coca-cola, the memory of the birthday party, standing with the son and mom watching the floats of carnival, getting lost looking for a hotel in Barcelona, walking through a château and some great conversations.

That’s a lot of memory emblazoned in the metal already and more to come.

Pac Man eats Palestine

Each morning I set my alarm for 5:30 to watch BBC’s Hardtalk, which features guests from all over the world all over the political spectrum, not just the same old same old that American talk shows use. Then I do my review of AlJazerra, BBC, CNN and France 24 so I start the day with a knowledge that the world continues to exist and how much trouble it is from a variety of perspectives.

Not that I can do anything about it, although letters to congressmen, newspapers and world leaders flow freely from my email. And I certainly like the hard hitting questions that shame that wuss Tim Russert. On Hardtalk you get the host contradicting false statements with proof and demanding “Why won’t you answer my question,” etc. especially when the guest wobbles and waffles all over the place.

This morning instead of the BBC interview with a Palestinian that was promised... Pacman ate his way across my screen.

It was BBC’s Click. The next half hour was a trip down computer game memory lane from the first Space Invaders discovered at my housemate’s boss’s house sometime to yesterday’s half hour break with Bubble Burst and Crickler which have replaced myriad games through the last three decades. Games don’t get in the way of what I need to do, but they have brought me hours of pleasure over the years. We won’t discuss the night I played Cubis until the early morning and froze my shoulder in the process.

Most of the show can be seen at www.bbc.com/click plus there’s an interview with my hero, the founder of Craigslist who isn’t trying to just earn money but to do a service while earning enough to satisfy his needs, sort of a techie Ben and Jerry’s. Now that’s a novel concept in today’s money grubbing world.

I will try and catch Hardtalk at a later showing.

The hostress gift

The hostess gift for my friend in Toulouse whom I was spending the weekend with was a puzzle. My first thought was a specialty coffee bean because I knew she had an old-fashioned, hand-cranked coffee grinder, but I opted for a geometric necklace made of nacre.

“How do you know she will like it?” my girl friend who owns the shop where I bought it asked. I felt it.

My friend picked me up at the train station. I was wearing my beige skirt with the multi level hem, black sweater and black boots. As if we planned it, she was wearing beige pants that grazed the top of her black calf-high boots and a black sweater.

When she opened her gift she laughed and disappeared upstairs. She came back down wearing the necklace AND the matching earrings her daughter, the person I think of as my French daughter, had given her for Christmas. The jewellery matched our unplanned uniform.

Memory meals and communication

I have known my French Toulouse hostess for 29 years. We met through her then husband. My two housemates and I were in Paris where the couple lived at the time. One housemate was giving a paper at the Palais De Congress. People had told us the French never invite you into their home. We were invited to their home for dinner. We arrived nervous and afraid of making one or many faux pas. We spoke no French. She spoke no English. The husband was fluent in both.

The first thing she served was moules. I am allergic to shelfish, and the husband understood. The second course was rabbit. I exchanged glances with my friends and opted for politeness over reservations about consuming Peter or maybe Flopsy, Mopsy or Cottontail. It was fantastic.

Over the years and many visits, I’ve eaten her couscous, carrots with a seasoning that made me want to lick the pate, chicken with olives and bacon, and one meal she whipped up from an empty fridge when we arrived shortly before midnight. It was eggs, spinach in a cream sauce that was so good I could have cried when I finished it. Picnics would have put articles about picnics in Gourmet to shame.

For many visits our communications were limited by lack of a shared language, although I had a great deal of respect for her creativity, her mothering, her work with the deaf, and Lord knows, her cooking. We tried and it worked, but it never reached the level I had hoped for.

Now many years later when my French comprehension is fluent, my speech is understandable despite grammatical errors and strange pronunciations, and she has begun to learn to English we can go deep into subjects. Combined with many memories and not just of food, time with her is delight.

How to Feel Old

When I first met him he was still a bump in his mother’s stomach. Today I sat at the table with him and his mother reminiscing over the many things we have shared for almost three decades, if not often then in many concentrated periods.

“One Two Three, May I have some Coca-Cola please.”

“Reseau.” I am still not sure of the spelling, but he thinks my pronunciation is better and I now know what it means. I was complimented on my French U, my French R still needs work but since I am from Boston my R needs work in English too. He now speaks excellent English but we went back and forth between the two languages also helping his mother with her English, which is far better then she gives herself credit for.

In my photo album I have many photos of him, one as a baby standing naked at the foot of a bed, riding bikes along the Canal du Midi, a range of others through his growing up.

I had lived with him, his sister and his father when I was in Toulouse, a difficult time for I had sold everything in the US, was trying to find work, learn French and write. I adored both he and his sister and when I had to return to the US convinced my dreams of living and working permanently in Europe were dead but knowing I had to help my mother through her death, I felt the meaning of the words “heartbroken” Leaving both him and his sister was just plain awful. I had a chance to tell him in a way I couldn’t the night I said good-bye to him as he lay in bed, a very bright nine year old, how badly I had felt.

None of these memories made me feel old. When I looked at him he has grown into an adult as handsome as I knew he would (Think John Kennedy Jr. with shoulder length curls). He is as bright as I always knew he was. His sense of humour is even sharper as a mature man.

Nor did I feel old because he is about the same age as his father was when our housemate showed up with the father the night after we moved into a catastrophe of a house we were planning to renovate and announced we had a guest for dinner. Dinner? We couldn’t even find the stove.

What made me feel old was the boy I met as a bump has grey in his hair.

Petit Dejeuner

Sun poured into the dining area. The terra cotta teapot gave off the peppery smell of Earl Grey tea. A warmed multi-grain bread was wrapped in a napkin and a samovar of coffee was heated by a candle. On a tray were sweet butter, honey and an assortment of home-made jams. I was still in my Snoopy PJs and my hostess was still in her night clothes. From the kitchen radio we heard a soprano singing in Italian. And we talked. And we talked. And we talked. And we agreed that we never felt richer.

Pre-read books

At university I preferred used books because they were marked up and I could see what the previous owner thought important. I only wish I could have known the owner to ask what grades they received.

When I lived on Wigglesworth Street in Boston, Hyram Manning, an eccentric but fascinating artist, used to write notes in his books that he loaned out. I loved his comments and still remember his, “not another French twist” remark. Books and food were the main topics of discussion over our frequent afternoon tea breaks where I learned Earl Grey mixed with gunpowder was wonderful. He gave cucumber sandwiches new meaning.

Thus I was pleased when I chose a book at my local English used book shop with light pencil notes and underlined words. The first reader was obviously French because the notes were in French. I could also see that the words the writer didn’t understand were more slang. She didn’t understand stand your ground, cave in, slimeball in the same way when I read a French book, I sometimes get stopped by the jargon.

I’ve reached a point in French books (maybe because I choose the least difficult) where I can go pages without missing a word) that I mark it and then go back all at once to increase my vocabulary, which is good if you don’t take pronunciation into account. I can mispronnounce several hundred French words.

The book itself wasn’t worth finishing. I didn’t care whether Penny ended up with Daniel or Christian, but I should have spotted it as a stupid romance (versus a clever romance). What I did enjoy was the pleasure of being in touch with the previous reader, although she will never know she connected with me.

I suppose I could go to the tearoom around the corner and regularly ask “Who learned what Slime Ball meant from reading (title)? Or not.

Lost in Barcelona AGAIN

Barcelona has some wonderful sights. What it does not have is decent signage. My friend and I were driving her daughter and grandson to the airport after a wonderful visit. I have always liked and respected her daughter and her commitment to making the world better. Her son at 11 is just one great kid.

To make sure they didn’t miss their Monday flight we took them down on Sunday. I have never been in Barcelona without getting lost. This goes back to when my mom and daughter were roaming around. Had my daughter with her unerring sense of direction taken over the path finding chore we might still be circling even if it were 24 years ago. This trip was no exception.

I will admit I am spoiled by the excellent directional signs in Switzerland and France.

Their hotel was less than a kilometre from the airport which we found with little trouble. We spent almost as much time looking for the hotel as we did on the two hour drive.

The reason?

Signage.

We would see 11 Septembre and an arrow straight ahead. Then we would come to a round about with four exits but absolutely no other signs on which exit would be. Or we would see Ronda Litteral with an arrow. We would drive and the road would fork into two equal roads with no signs.

The TGV is going direct to Barcelona in the future and I can see myself going down to explore the city, BUT I can’t see myself ever willingly driving there again with the exception of the airport. That is marked and if all else fails it is easy to spot planes landing and taking off.

teenage years redo and hi teched

I am so far out of the teens that I can barely remember when the number 1 was the first number in my age. But I remember talking on the phone and sharing music.

This was updated last night when I was Skyping with a friend in the states. We looked up stuff on youtube.com and I gave her some of my French favourites. We would bring them up, listen and she was able to translate some of them.

Then we started on finding songs that we used to sing when my daughter was little such as Tennessee Bird Walk. Mornings before work we would often dance around the house to Candy Man. My friend played many of the Kris Kristofferson songs. We saw him in concert in Asbury Park after a hurricane and the roof kept flaking down.

We went to the Sonny&Cher Comedy hour videos and recalled how we watched Sunday nights after Llara was in bed, the last breath of freedom before work on Monday.

Two hours+ on Skype and a walk through a shared past. Although the worries about money, work and raising my daughter, the tiredness from doing too much were always there, they were hidden under the laughter of all the silly things we did like making giant pillows and losing control of the filling which filled our living room as if we were in an I Love Lucy episode.

Somewhere over the Rainbow led us to the memory of a party for my friend’s father where we turned the dining room into the Emerald Café and had yellow bricks leading into the house.

Even then I think we knew they were the good old days and even if we are living the good new days, they are built on too many happy memories to count.

Interconnectedness or coincidence

Perhaps the thing that attracts me most to paganism is the interconnectedness of everything in nature. There needs to be no interpretation.

However, sometimes interconnectedness is another form of coincidence and extends to who we meet, where and how.

My Geneva neighbour left a pile of books for me to donate to the library. Not having time before i left, I did grab one Marquis by George Millar, a memoir of his advantages as a Brit fighting with the French resistance during WWII. I took it to Argelès to share with my friend Barbara (and yes I plan to take it back to Geneva to give to the library when I go home next month.)

Today I was working in her store while she was in Barcelonawith her visiting daughter and grandson. An elderly man came in. “You aren’t Barbara.” I already knew this and had much the same feeling when I used to answer the phone and the caller who wanted another member of the household would say, “No one is home?” Then I wanted to say "You are talking to a recording," and this time I resisted saying "I'm not, I thought I was." I am glad I resisted.

“I have something to show her,” he said. Then he looked at me. “Are you the friend who read Marquis?”

I nodded.

He brought out a black scrapbook larger than any coffee table book that was about two inches thick out of the reusable blue bag that grocery stores sell so we won't waste so many plastic bags when we pack our purchases. Inside he had pasted stories about WWII heroes, mostly obituaries that he confessed was one of nine such books. He turned the page to the obituary of George Millar. Next to it was a first day cover, stamp and all, signed by Millar. I don’t want to go into the possible connections between Geneva, England, Besancon during the war, a small French village and a person who met the author of the book and a person who came across the book by chance. I just assume it makes sense if you take interconnectedness and coincidence into consideration.

He entrusted the book to me while he went to have his hair cut. I found myself crying. Each page told a story of incredible bravery, risk taking and belief in something beyond the person. There were men, women, Poles, Czechs, Brits, Canadians, Americans. There were stories of the resistance, prisoners of war, hospitals and pilots. I knew had these men and women not existed and did what they did while I was still in diapers, I could not have lived the comfortable life I am living today.

Manufacturing Desires

In my daily perusal of international papers I came across this in the Guardian by Timothy Garton Ash: “Our planet cannot long sustain the momentous worldwide embrace of the manufacture of desires.”

When I and my friends bought the house on Wiggleworth Street, my daughter’s closet was miniscule and not deep enough to put a hangar crosswise as in other closets, but certainly large enough to hold all the clothes the original occupant had.

If we look around our homes we see riches that weren’t even imaginable until the middle of the last century.

Meanwhile we run around and fill our homes with junk that is eating up the planet. I remember an advertising campaign long ago for pantyhose that solved the horrible problem of a panty line when women wore regular pants under slacks. Was that really a problem?

How much "stuff" in our homes is based on desire created by outside forces rather than our own minds? How much "stuff" do we have that we never use and don't even remember we have?

Today on the news on France24 models strutted down the catwalk in Japan with designer phones. Now you don’t only need(?) just one, you need one for each outfit.

No wonder the planet is in trouble.

Note: interesting website www.allconsuming.org.uk/blog

I am writing again

Several of my friends mumbled about my new www.cunewswire.com interfering with my creative writing and it was true to a certain degree.

I was writing news articles, I was writing my blog, I was writing monthly articles for the English Magazine Writers Forum. I was teaching creative writing and editing novels. But I wasn’t doing my creative work.

In April I had “finished” Triple Deckers, what my agent wants to be my breakthrough novel propelling me from Chick Lit to a more substantial writer. My two published novels Chickpea Lover and The Card although published were still learner novels. Arthur Fiedler who for years conducted the Boston Pops and was adored by Bostonians always felt he had failed because he didn’t conduct a major symphony. As hard as it is to get one novel published never mind two in more than one country I want to write on a deeper level.

The book is about a typical Irish-American Catholic family living in Mission Hill in Boston and how the death of their son/grandson changes their perceptions of their relationships, their loyalties and their country.

I did not disagree with my agent who said TD still wasn’t there. I just didn’t know what to do next, although I can easily diagnose other writers’ weaknesses. I tried the old put-it-in-a- drawer trick hoping the words would rearrange themselves. Each word stubbornly stayed where I put it originally.

Then last Saturday I went to the Geneva Writer’s Group meet the agents session. Another agent looked it over and made suggestions that made sense. The sun came out on a rainy day, the orchestra started playing, I was handed a triple scoops of chocolate chip, chocolate and pistachio ice creams.

I have begun the revisions, changed the emphasis of my prologue, rearranged chapters, eliminated a character, know how to rewrite the grief scene. I still have a lot of work to do but I know where I am going again.

So to my friends who were not letting me not write but were humouring me when I said I was writing in other mediums until the end of some timetable that only they knew, I say thank you.

A little more distance

Instead of staying in my home I’ve been spending a few days with my Indian friends. This family, my Syrian girl friend and I all used to live on the same floor in the building next door where there was a lot of meal sharing (sometimes Sunday breakfasts still in pjs), cookie making, a belly dance lesson or two, raclettes and events too numerous to mention. No one missed anything big that the others participated in. There was sharing of frustrations but between us all the joys big and small prevailed.

Now we are spread out. I live across the lake and spend a lot of time in France. My Syrian friend is in Paris so time together with any of these good people is precious.

During my visit this time, we have been running our own Indian film festival with new DVDs he brought back from a recent trip to India, a greater treat because my host and hostess are quick to explain the subtleties of the culture that I would otherwise miss.

Thursday I am going to Paris to catch up with my Syrian friend.

As my hostess was standing at the stove preparing one of her vegetable dishes, the smell of cumin scenting the air, we were discussing my plans. “It is like the old days,” she said, “but instead of walking across the hall when you see us all you have to take a train.” Or two buses and a tram.

Misconceptions

His voice carried throughout the car on the Geneva-bound train and was broken only by his father’s hmm and un-huns. The father, dressed in a grey business suit, turned the pages of the paper he was reading.

Tired of sitting, the little boy popped up to greet the woman sitting behind and within a short time they were deeply engaged in conversation about the sun, cars and trucks visible out the window. He was bearing the weight of being two, a condition that would be relieved in April when he would be three. The point was emphasised with a third finger being added to the other two.

The woman gave him a paper and pen and he disappeared only to reappear and explain about the whale, boat, fish, castle he had drawn. He instructed her to draw a whale and a discussion about what whales do followed.

Every one nearby was watching and smiling, but the father just continued reading.

The little boy produced a small car and the woman had him play which-hand-is-the-car-hidden-in. He tried guessing both hands, but she insisted one or the other. He won. Then it was his turn to hide the car, and although the car was visible, she picked the wrong one which led to gales of laughter.

The woman then started folding paper into hats and boats that the child moved through the air and talked of storms.

I thought the father a bit uncaring but as we pulled into Geneva and were standing in the aisle with our coats and cases, he started talking.

“He never stops,” he said. “He barely sleeps.”

Hearing my accent the little boy switched to English. "Hello, Madam."

“We were in the states until six months ago,” the father explained. “I was a student.”

I learned they were African and on their way to visit the man’s brother in Gex a French town near Geneva.

As we started to leave, the little boy with the biggest brown eyes said au revoir or good bye madam to everyone who had been watching him getting the language right for their conversations that he must have overheard. He looked up at his father and hid his little hand in the big one. The father stroked the child’s closely cut curls and beamed at him.

I cancelled my thoughts of indifference and substituted the word “weary” and added “pride” and “love” as the child beamed back.

Grève at the Post

I am late sending my daughter her birthday present because I didn’t think I would find what I wanted to give her in France so I was waiting until I got home to Geneva. To my surprise I located it, waited for the latest cross stitch magazine to come out, bought the box with the coding and packed it up.

On my last day in France I hurried to the post to get it off to her.

No line…One man behind the counter. Then I saw the sign…

Grève.

Strike.

I love the French. They strike over everything. If it is Monday it’s the nurses, if it’s Thursday it’s the post, etc. I really respect their standing up for their rights.

I wish America did it more.

They seem to say:

“We have no health insurance, okay.”

“Offshore our jobs okay.”

“Non reliable voting machines, okay.”

“Medical costs out of sight, okay.”

Bleat, bleat, bleat.

The French if they even think some one might consider thinking about considering reducing one their rights they are out on the street.

Sure it is a pain at times, but leaders back down on bad ideas (and sometimes good ones, but in democracy nothing is perfect)

The man behind the counter and told me in French to come back tomorrow.

“I am leaving and don’t know when I’ll be back,” I said.

“I am sorry, it’s the grève. I don’t have any money,” he said.

“It’s prepaid and I have the declaration.”

He shook his head.

“It’s for my daughter’s birthday.” I was saving the story of why it was late but it wasn’t necessary.

“D’accord. But it won’t go out until tomorrow.”

“Merci mille fois (1000x)” I told him one day was better than weeks or maybe months. Then I gave him my blessing. “I hope someone does something really nice for you today like you did for me.

I admit it I am a...

I admit I’m a neat/clean freak slightly less compulsive than Martha Stewart and it is one reason I am a minimalist. Today was my monthly cleaning, the one where I wash under the fridge, behind the toilet, under the sink, etc.

That leaves the rest of the month to do cleaning chores as needed, such as wipe off a spice bottle that is sticky because my fingers were sticky when I picked it up, make sure there are no fingerprints on light switches or appliances etc. Again because the place is small it is easy to keep,

I do mind that the maker of my oven put on a decorative ridge where junk gets stored and it is necessary to go after it with a toothpick, but overall my oven despite two years of use is still new looking as is my food processor after five years of grinding, shredding and cutting.

And I give my dustpan a thorough soaking rather than a rinse. Before you call the white coats, let me say because I never liked dustpans I had an artist paint me a special one-of-a kind at a price that made it too cheap not to use but too expensive to not take care and mostly it gives me a smile when I use it rather than a groan.

Overall, because I have such little space I can do a thorough cleaning in about 1.5 hours including rearranging all my closets and making sure the floors are dust free.

Saying that, I know as I arrange things in perfect order, hang clothes in rainbow order, stack my lingerie in perfect piles, the first time I need anything, I will do a dig that would make archaeologists hire me on the spot – well maybe not because they go slowly. Professional diggers would hire me.

Although my surfaces will always be clean, although everything will be in its place, my closets and drawers become danger zones.

Now I sit getting ready to work in my spotless and well-ordered apartment and feel good and don’t worry about the closets tomorrow.

Opening night

Pascal and Marcel opened their new crêperie around the corner and although there are only 14 places in art deco theme, and despite the no grand opening announcement, people from the neighbourhood came in for their test evening. The place has been over a year in preparation as the couple redid their living quarters upstairs then built the restaurant looking for unique furnishings like the copper stamped table where I sat.

Complimentary champagne always is a winner.

Of course for any French eating place to succeed the food has to be good. My meal was a crêpe with white chicken meat, gorgonzola and pureed leeks with a salad on the side arranged with artistry on frosted glass square plates. Wonderful. Breton cider went well with it.

The desert was another crêpe with locally-made mint chocolate ice cream and house-made black chocolate source. I didn't lick the plate to get every drop of the sauce, a no-no in Franco table manners (darn it)

The ambience was more like a party as neighbours chatted. Pascal practised his waiting skills and Marcel was in and out of the kitchen to double check the tastes were to the customers satisfactions.

One wall is a blackboard with the choices listed in calligraphy-quality writing. I plan to work my way through the menu. Neither Pascal nor Marcel did anything to discourage the idea.

I went to Spain yesterday

Okay…when I lived in Grand Sacconex, Switzerland going to France was a four-bus stop hop or a stroll through the countryside, so I often went to France for coffee, lunch or dinner, to leave my dry cleaning, to shop the marché or to meet up with friends living there. Where I live now in Corsier, it is a ten minute drive, and we might go to shop on a Sunday morning or enjoy the Japanese Restaurant across the border.

Going to Spain from my French nest to buy a T-shirt for my friend’s grandson takes a little longer, about 20 minutes by the back roads, nore if you stop along the way.

Still the feeling of smugness is there of being able to hop across a border in what used to take months of savings and planning. Of course if I were living in the middle of France or even the middle of Switzerland that wouldn’t be as easy, although in Switzerland reaching Italy, France, Austria or Germany for a day trip is feasible.

When I am back in Geneva next month, my first Sunday I will hop into France to catch up with a friend from my old apartment complex where I will stay with other friends to catch up with their activities before going to my home on the other side of the lake.

It isn’t the going to France or Spain or even Italy for pizza as I did with RB2 one spur of the moment Saturday that makes me feel smug. It is the activities that I do there are routine to mundance that what once was abnormal is normal that creates not just smugness but happiness.

Moins 25%

Moins 25% the sign read. The same sign migrated from the English bookstore, then the jewellers, then the potters. They weren’t having a 20% off sale, but it was part of a neighbourhood joke started by the French couple Eric and Julie who put it on one display window. That vendor moved it to the next store who in turn moved it on.

Unlike shopping malls the village stores represent a community where people chat on the street when sales are slow, help each other when needed, care… Jokes cement the caring not reduce it by 25%

Time management -- not my strong point

This was one of those days when I stopped work and went to the bank and byto the station to buy train tickets for Paris and Geneva, simple chores all within walking distance. The time should have been 15 to 20 minutes. It took a couple of hours, although my bank card problem was quickly solved.

The problem was based at La Noisette. The first time I ran into the ladies I lunched with a week ago. Then another man came in. He had to tease me about a website I refused to be commandeered into doing for another local. A cup of tea was necessary.

Then coming back from my errands a group sat there including a woman I hadn’t seen since November. Naturally it involved another café sit and it would have been rude not to have a glass of wine.

She had hoped over from the UK on a £1 pound fare, and admitted some guilt over increasing her carbon footprint, but compared to the train fare of several hundred, the chance to come outweighed the environmental considerations.

More and more I hear people say they try to drive less, use less harmful products, etc. but all admit convenience and cost add to their decisions sometimes to the detriment of the environment.

My carbon footprint might have been clean because as usual I accomplish 90% of my missions without using resources, but my time management skills might need a bit of fine tuning – or not…

hmm hmm good

My new ATM card must be delicious because two different machines ate it. The young man at the counter, who asked his counterpart if he could guess my nationality (he didn’t), offered to order a new one at no cost, saying hopefully it would be there before I went back to Geneva.

There were several people behind me in line as we worked through my problem. From no where a grey-haired woman, shopping bag over her arm, burst ahead of me, took the teller’s head in her hands and kissed him on both cheeks. “A vendredi,” she said and vanished.

The teller, who was now bright red looked at me. "Ma grandmére."

"C'est mignon," I said, making him blush deeper, but I did think it was cute. I didn't want to make him redder by saying, it was good to be adored as he obviously was. He is probably safe from more embarrassment until Friday.

You Tube I love you.

Although Garou wasn’t listed, I still turned on France2 to watch a song fest of French popular music last night snug in my sweats and with my knitting needles good working fast enough for me to attend an execution in A Tale of Two Cities.

But glory, glory he did appear and in several songs. He must have just arrived from Canada because the squeaky-voiced hostess kept asking him how his jet lag was.

Long ago, when I wanted music I had to wait for it to appear on TV or the radio or by the CD. Now I can see my favorites on You Tube so here are some of favourites www.youtube.com videos

Istill haven’t recovered from my Notre Dame de Paris addiction. Of course “Belle” where Quasimod, Frollo and Phoebus sing of their lust for Esmeralda is at the top of the list. The first is Garou alone because there is a verse in English
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXXXJrlsnwI

The second are the three cast originals who performed the song on the stage at Garou’s Bercy concert
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23EIjQ4Nxnw

Then there’s Bruno Pelletier signing the opening song of the NDdP musical.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L24vaxNH91w

Or Lavoie agonizing over his love for Esmeralda. I loved the staging. (Note: I personally think Esmeralda got a raw deal from the men who claimed to love her, but then again she was stupid to believe in them. But if she had gotten the hell out of Paris, the story wouldn't have worked.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5St9zF849o

Enough of NDdP and back to Pelletier – this was filmed on the eve of new Millennium in Canada and is from Star Mania where a businessman regrets not his success but wants to be an artist http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-x9q_oqiU4
I saw Pelletier in concert and he is mulit talented going from rock, blues, jazz on several instruments.

I can’t resist adding one more Garou song where he sings that if you think he has given up, he hasn’t he has given a vacation to his heart. But when he takes to the sea and lets out the sail he slides on the wind, when he quits the earth to find his star he will follow her in an instance. It will never be finished.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8krz8Q1KeE

Then there is Lara Fabian who recreates the Piaf song http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGnqaCplF3w with Patrick, who was her lover at the time.

For pure sexual power you can’t top the great of French Rock and Roll Johnny Halliday with Lara Fabian http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Srndu31jf0

And to prove that Claude Francois not Anka wrote My Way
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPyKtsiGzJU
This megamix showcases the man almost 30 years after he died including the song my daughter calls “the butt in your face song.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlytNxJWZbo&mode=related&search=

To the other side of the pond…

“Willow Weep for Me” is my all time favourite song so when I found this guitar version I kept listening and listening. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcgRZrdvJKM and this one too http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk2sHWlQU10 and this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WV99z3Dapc

I was glad finally there was a version of “And the Angels Sing” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhYnpWjZyuU although this is probably by least favourite version, but I take what I can get. Hopefully others will be added.

And anything by Phil Ochs, whom I discovered 25 years ago when I listened to Emerson College’s folk radio show, and only later did I learn he was bipolar and committed suicide.
Sadly his anti war songs are too relevant today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTjRPugJ8CA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5pgrKSwFJE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd8sirz99zo

This interview with Helen Reddy hit me for its memories. I used to tell people I made my daughter sing "I am Woman" before getting up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uF5ZfdTq7Gsto make sure she was an independent woman. Although it isn't totally true, we did the song when we sang other songs like "Tennesse Bird Walk", and "The Candy Man" as we were getting dressed in the morning or sitting around in the evening.

This blog has been keeping from writing what I should be writing, so enough excuses and to work.

Three Bells

The bells at the church tolled as I turned the corner. A group of men stood on the steps next to the statue of the angel. To the side the flower-filled hearse hid. As is usual during a funeral, the chairs at the café were empty, the patrons inside out of respect. The doors inside the church was open. The organ played and I could see the casket being rolled down the aisle.

I thought of the song Trois Cloche sung by Edith Piaf http://youtube.com/watch?v=eOL61uC5Ww4 .

Bells toll when people are born, marry and die. The song was a hit a couple of years ago re-recorded by Tina Arena, http://youtube.com/watch?v=b0xzNRSlgeM which a good friend fell in love with and used as her wake-up music for a long time. The English lyrics have changed the name of the person to Jimmy Brown from Jean-François Nicot but the ideas are the same, the church bells mark the significant parts of our lives.*

I don’t know the name of the deceased and I didn’t recognize anyone outside as I walked by huddled in my coat with my hood pulled tight against the wind John Donne, read long ago in Dr. Burto’s English lit class popped into my mind.

“No man is an island, entire of itself, every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

We are coming up on February 2^nd to Imbolc, the pagan celebration for the banishment of winter and the welcoming of the coming spring. Today’s temperature bore no resemblance to spring. In fact all over the world the temperatures have done strange things, reaffirming the fear of global warming, except for a few nay sayers.

Many pagans tied their lives into the wheel of the year, thinking of life as a circle marked by seasons instead of linear.

In today’s society we tend to not think of our interconnectedness, but on some level I am aware that each of my actions, what I buy, what resources I use, what I say, affect others and will until the final bell tolls for me like the man in the casket being carried from the church.

The hearse took its burden, drove slowly to the cemetery and the mourners walked behind.

The bells tolled.

Old habits die hard but this is just stupid

As I left the bakery with my pave de Henri, the misshapened loaf of yeasty, crusty, fresh-baked bread made by Henri, the bakery owner, I tried to push the door open. It opens inward.

Raised in the US where public doors are required to open outward ever since the Coconut Grove Fire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoanut_Grove_fire left 300 dead when panicked people piled up behind the doors that opened inward thus trapping them.

There are no such requirements in either France or Switzerland. It hit me. Next year it will be 20 years or 31% of my life since I first moved to Europe. I won’t even begin to estimate how many doors I have opened inward including the same bakery, yet the behaviour pattern of my childhood still automatically had me pushing the door instead of pulling it.

Old habits die hard, but this is just stupid.

Birthday presents and addresses

When I go back to Geneva, I had planned to scour the stores for a certain birthday present for my daughter, albeit it late. But it was something she said she would like to have in a passing conversation and I had little hope in finding it Argelès, or so I thought.

Running mundane errands (kitty food for Ptah II) with my friend we passed a store that has antiques and junk. I saw exactly what I wanted. Needless to say I grabbed it.

Now all I have to do is call for her address which is written down in my address book … IN GENEVA.

I could plead that she has moved so many times there is no point in memorizing an address. My father used to claim he put mine in pencil because of my many moves.

For a long time I kept all this information on computer but I never had the computer with me when I needed an address, so I went back to the old fashioned paper list in my paper agenda.

However, I didn’t bother to transfer it to the new 2007 agenda because she told me she was planning to change apartments.

Ah well, VOIPcheap means I call the states free, and it will be good to talk to her.

I suppose I could keep computer lists, computer agenda and a printed copy of both with me, but that would only lead to things being in one and not another. Or maybe I can just accept I will never have all the information I want when I need it.

The red white and blue

The American, French and English flags are all red, white and blue as are some other countries, but EDF has given the colours new meaning. EDF is Electricité de France.

I learned about the colouration when on a cold night, I was eating with a good friend. The goat was roasted to perfection, the risotto was just right and the salad was made of a veggie that looked as if a cauliflower mated with broccoli and then bleached its flowers. It worked.

A beep went off.

“Damn, that means tomorrow is a red day,” she said. She didn’t wait for me to ask. “Electricity will cost more.”

I knew she had changed her meter to a night/day one which charges less at night then during the day, good for working families, and those who want to do the washing at night. Not as good for people who are home all day and heat with electricity. Her old meter had probably been put in before Thomas Edison was born.

In the program EDF has 22 red days during the winter when electricity costs the most during the day. Blue days and white days are figured at lower rates. All colours are higherlower at night.

Another beep.

“It will beep for an hour, so I won’t miss knowing what colour I am living with,” she said. She then showed me a table that explained it including charts.

"Interesting." I hope it lowers her bill. Anyone that can make as good a dinner as she does, deserves the best she can get.

The Tramantane

I won’t compare last night’s Tramantane to the winds in the north, for trees stayed in the ground and tiles on the roofs, but it woke me several times, once because it forced open a window. More than once it seemed as if it were swirling around my studio, although I was snug under my penguin-flannel covered duvet.

The marché today, which usually has upwards of 60 commercants selling their olives, cheeses, sausages and other meats, veggies and clothing, was reduced to one brave meat wagon huddled under the protective wings of the 700 year-old church, which has survived decades of this winds and not a few wars.

This is more normal for winter. The ski stations in the mountains now have snow.

Compared to sticky heat, or even the temperatures in Florida last month at Christman, I am content in my slippers and thick sweater with a pot of tea at my side.

Meanwhile the wind continues to blow.

Points of view

A majority of my Arab friends believe as surely as they believe that the sun is in the sky that the TV station Al Jazerra is somehow backed by the CIA.

Listening to the Americans like Rumsfeld, they treat the station as the work of some devilish force.

When I had an Arabic speaker around, I could get translations but it was never often enough and normally when these friends are around we prefer eating, talking, listening to music and even belly dancing a couple of time to watching TV, but now my TV service offers the station in English.

Last night’s debate featured an American, Palestinian and Robert Fisk, two opposing views and a moderating one. It was fair and balanced. However between the Palestinian and the American I worry, because their opinions were so opposite, I wondered if they were talking about the same planet.

One thing that surprised me was when the American said Arabs didn’t know enough about America, that they didn’t study it.

My experience, when I have met my Arab friends, is how many majored in American studies. Those with degrees from other disciplines had read most of the American authors both classical and popular, could discuss the Civil War with more knowledge than most American high school students, and understood how the American government worked that would make a civics teacher weep with joy.

Granted, my friends from the Middle East are highly educated and well-travelled. My trips to the Middle East are limited, but I feel in-depth having stayed with real families and developing networks of friends, rather than just playing tourist, although I have done that too. I can drink matei and crack watermelon seeds for hours while sharing gossip and stories about myriad subjects.

However, if Al Jazeera is Arab or CIA controlled, doesn’t matter. The fact that both sides distrust makes me think they are probably doing something right.

For me it is another point of view to add to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, France24 and the other news-devoted station to try and get the whole picture. This does not mean that I will give up checking with newspapers from the countries where the stories happen to add another point of view. Thank-goodness I am a fast reader.

When a bowl of tea is more than a bowl of tea

Years ago Steve Allen on his late night show blindfolded people in his audience and made them guess sounds. What triggered the memory this morning was the sound of my tea being poured from the pot (properly made with tea leaves, and the pot warmed before pouring in the water) into my tea bowl. Yes bowl. In the morning I’ve adopted the French habit of a big bowl of tea. I use the bowl with a raised cow that a friend gave me to celebrate my Swiss nationality.

The tea itself had been purchased from the tea shop down the street with its cans and cans of different teas with their different aromas and names conjuring up images of places only seen in exotic foreign movies. Two days ago I had bought some Darjeeling, which the owner had measured into a narrow red bag after writing the name of the tea in the small beige square left for the purpose. She sealed the bag with a gold wire strip using it to fold the top of the bag over and over until she reached the tea.

Today will be a work day, concentrating on stories from Canada. As I write at my computer, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, my bowl of tea resting on my breakfast tray, I am overwhelmed by the pleasure something as simple as drinking tea can bring.

Couscous and cinemas

The 10^th Cinema festival of Maghreb opened in Argelés, last night, although they had a pre-festival film the night before, a film version of Mohamed Choukuri, Le pain nu, based on the story of his life as a starving and ill-treated child in Tanger who as an illiterate adult had the lucky chance to be sent to prison where he learned to read. He finished his life as a teacher and writer. The film was painful to watch, bringing home the horrendous poverty that envelops too much of this planet.

A couscous dinner and the film Barakat in which a young doctor searches for her kidnapped journalist husband was the program for the opening along with a photo exhibition. The hall had been reserved, the food prepared, the film loaded in the projector.

The price forthe evening was 7Euros ($9).

Almost double the expected crowd arrived, many from surrounding villages, a second hall was opened. Friends greeted each other. Those who didn’t know each other introduced themselves and sometimes found they knew people in common.

Extra couscous had been prepared, but not enough. One of the organizers, a man who taken a year off ostensibly to make a film, but in reality to fulfill and live his passion, shown the week before, made an announcements. Pizzas were arriving so everyone could be fed.

Although fed well there were too many people to fit into the theatre. Only those with pre-paid tickets could see the film, which they took with good humour.

Today there are many films, but I will go to only one adding another to my international wedding repertoire, this one, Noces d’été, by a Tunisian director, about a young journalist who doesn’t like his parents attempts to push him into marriage.

It’s so nice to have so much happening steps from my living space, but then it was no accident that I set up life so I can walk to whatever I need.

Dangerous Doors

According to a New Zealand news paper the US is testing a new communication tool that will beam into all defence communications in case of emergency. The only problem when they tested it they discovered it was on the same frequency that opened garage doors.

Twilight zone openings and shuttings happened, which caused one American to comment, “I never knew my garage was a threat to national security.”

France24

France24 is a new 24-hour news channel broadcast on two channels, one in English, one in French and quick channel switching show that the news is as close to identical as possible although French-speaking experts will show up on one, English-speaking experts on the other.

However as the case of the bi-lingual American ambassador to France, he was interviewed in both languages, but the questions were almost identical. English came first, because when asked about how good his French was, he said he would see in a few minutes.

World news seems to be covered as well or better than either CNN or BBC, but French news obviously gets more attention. One presenter is from CNN.

Two more clicks of the remote in my quest to know…

Why I am afraid

We read about the Greatest Generation, we read the history of WWII but Gladys Arnold in her book One Woman’s War gives a first person account of the Germans entering France, the Vichy, escaping to London then home to Canada where she worked with the Free French.

Her history brought home facts little known. When the Free French took over two small Islands near Canada occupied by the Vichy, held and election and 98% of the citizens recognized the new French government, the U.S. Secretary Cordell Hull was besides himself because the US recognized the Vichy as the legitimate government of France.

Likewise when the Vichy ship Richelieu docked at New York, a majority of the crew disembarked to join the Free French almost causing an international incident. The men were hustled to Canada before their intentions could be known.

Although I had read a lot of WWII history, I had never realised that we did not give full support to the Free French rather than the illegitimate puppet government of France.

Arnold also gives a fascinating description of fascism.

"Everyone could understand communism, we thought. Hundreds of books have been written and its exponents were only too glad to talk about it. But fascism was more subtle, more difficult to pin down. It came in ways the majority of people did not recognize until too late. It was not the ism of the poor. It was the worm that could enter the heart of the wealthy, industrialized nations where bread, shelter and overcoats for everyone was take for granted. It led to dictatorship, and the dictator was usually the tool of a small, power group, representing the top economic and military echelons of society.”

When I say America has moved closer and closer to fascism since the turn of the century, people look at me as if I have two heads, but combing Arnold with the 14 definitions of a fascist society I see that the US meets 13 of the criteria.

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections

And I am afraid.

Disney blues

The Dorchester Eagles, a Boston-based Pop Warner football team for kids 8 to 15, won a chance to compete in the national finals. Great…

Wait a minute…they have to raise the money to go, and they can’t save on cheap accommodations or camp. The sponsor Disney says they MUST stay in Disney hotels and buy passes to their parks and others in the region.

“Like more than a million amateur athletes before them, the Pop Warner kids -- ages 8 to 15 -- were bound for Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, which takes in tens of millions of dollars a year from participants who solicit charitable donations from friends, strangers, businesses, and nonprofits to compete in events at the park,” according to The Boston Globe.

Another team, the “St. Philip Saints, faced a $22,000 debt after its $50,000 trip last month to the sports complex,” The Globe reported.

I have not been a Disney fan for years. It seemed stupid to pay $93 million to an exec that didn’t work out. I didn’t like that they sued a small Florida nursery school for drawing their own Disney like characters and putting them in the window without paying Disney for a license. There corporate behaviour in opening Eurodisney had the warmth of Attila the Hun, driving companies out of business by their slow payment among other things. At an IABC conference the Disney spokesman told how they get publicity by co-op Olympic winners. The US is badly in need of real news, not Nancy Kerrigan in a Disney parade. We won’t even discuss the mega ego of long-time Disney head Eisner, who will be history shortly. You can create a fantasy world, which in itself is wonderful, without destruction of others.

Meanwhile the kids from Dorchester are frantically trying to raise more money for the trip than most of their parents earn in a year to help Disney’s profit stay at or beat last year’s $3.4 billion profit.

I often complain that American culture has become corporate culture not human culture, that Americans aren't citizens but consumers. This story only adds to this belief.

An apple rethink

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but I have never been a big apple fan, (apologies to my former assistant who is living his life-long dream with an apple farm in Pennsylvania), but for some reason as I stood at Patricia’s vegetable stand, the stack of apples caught my attention. They were natural of course, no wax no polish, but the way the sun hit the red and yellow of the skins, I felt adding it to my fresh coriander, clementines, onion, and Swiss chard was the only option. Then I forgot about it as I chatted with Caroline about her new baby as she rang up her order. And I paid no attention when I added my fresh produce to the green African bowl on my sideboard.

Because I had a late breakfast and a late lunch that could be called linner or dunch, I didn’t want to eat another meal before going to bed. I looked at the apple. I had also bought cheese from the cheese shop. Which one? Why not both?

I cannot think when I enjoyed a mealette so much. The crunch of the apple was like music, the sweetness ran over my tongue and lingered. The cheese, a tomme, was a mild contrast.

Maybe an apple a day isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Cold nights, warm bed

Florida’s heat had left me drained. Nights in a bedroom where there was no access to outside air had left me tossing and turning with only a sheet for cover. Thus being back where winter is more like winter, I was thrilled with the cool air, the need for my flannel pjs, the puff covered in its blue flannel and penguin pattern.

I rediscovered another pleasure. After doing a toilet-run, my feet tingling from the cold tile floor, jumping back under the covers to discover the bed still toasty from my own heat.

Playing with words.

Reading Natural Curiosity by Margaret Dabble in bed this morning, (reading like this is a luxury still appreciated every day of the week, after years of jumping out of bed to go to work) her heroine mentioned she had recovered love.

Recovered, recovered. The word bounced around my head and I kept going back to the sentence rather than reading on.

Recovered meant to find again as Dabble had used it. You get something back. If you recover from an illness you find your health again. I recover my keys from wherever I have tossed them. I have often thought finding keys should be an Olympic sport.

But if you recover a couch with new fabric you hide it where you can’t see it. If you open a box to reveal its contents, but when you recover it, the contents are hidden an opposite meaning.

I went to www.etymonline.com to find the history of the word.

C.1300, "to regain consciousness," from Anglo-Fr. rekeverer (1292), O.Fr. recovrer, from L. recuperare "to recover" (see recuperate). Meaning "to regain health or strength" is from c.1330; sense of "to get (anything) back" is first attested 1366. Recovery is c.1302, in Anglo-Fr., both of health and of legal possession.

Nothing about the second meaning. I looked at my click-clack (French for convertible couch because when you change it from a couch to a bed it first goes click than clack as you lift the seat up and down). The blue cover is in perfect condition so there is no need to recover it. When I do maybe I should use the word reupholster and when I put the lid on a box for a second time, I can close it rather than recover it.

As for my constantly missing keys, I hope to recover those as regularly as I lose them.

Galette-rois

The boulangerie case had was filled with frangipane http://www.recette-dessert.com/galette-rois-frangipane-r262.htm of all sizes. Since it was just going to be just Barbara and me eating the round, flat slightly almondy pastry, I chose the smallest one.

After our chicken from the man down the street, I cut it in half. Since there were no small children to say who got one which piece, she selected her own.

The fava bean was in hers. Mine had the little ceramic figure, two mice, with the French words for “the lovers” in tiny French letters.

We each wore the crown for a few minutes. She confessed that she still had her ceramic figure from when she got the figure last year. In Geneva, I had the King. I told her I kept mine. As a person who throws out everything, I feel the need to slip them into my change bank. I have no idea why. It is all part of the celebration of the Three Kings Day.

Jacques me contactez s.v.p

Je pense que j’ai un couple des locataires pour 29 juin à 15 juillet, mais je suis perdue votre email. Ou téléphoner à Barbara.

Merci.

French love

The couple at the next table at L’Express Bleu Brasserie held hands. His gaze radiated love for the woman. His clothing was that of the successful French businessman including the black raincoat. His black hair was speckled with grey and his skin was weathered from what could have been much time on the ski slopes.

Her style was jeans with high black boots. Her white sweater that came to the top of her thighs was belted. She stroked his hand but the look in her eyes showed which one in the couple loved the other more. Besotted would apply only to the male. She was the besottee.

Had they not been touching and that her skin was too dark to be the result of a mixed marriage, one might assume they could be father and daughter.

His eyes never left her face as he hung on her every word.

And oh yes, he wore a wedding ring. She did not.

Monsieur Kamel I miss you

I held the tea cup in my hand in L’Express Bleu, the barasserie at the Gare du Lyon, my petit dejeneur in front of me. The murals of people in 19^th century dress are behind me, photos of trains in front of me. Suitcases outnumbered people eating. My hands were still shaking. On the taxi ride from Puteaux to the train station we had two near accidents. Another coat of paint and we would have crashed first into a taxi then into a bus.

My usual taxi driver, Monsieur Kamel, took the vacances scholaire. He told me that when he drove me to Charles De Gaulle when I went to Florida before the holidays. Now I was back and heading to the South of France riding with another cab driver. My friend teases me that I am the only person she knows that befriends taxi drivers, but after numerous trips to airports and train stations in his taxi with him we have shared much information.

He is of Algerian descent although raised in France. He wears a full beard and talks at a speed that keeps me concentraing. We have exchanged so many ideas. He has asked me to come home to sample his wife’s couscous and sometime when I am in Paris long enough I will take him up on it. The last two times I have been in his taxi he has called people he knows to “meet” me. Thus I feel I know his sister, a school teacher, and his friend another cab driver.

Since taking my daughter to the airport last year, he always asks about her and shakes his head that neither she or my hostess are married. Given a bit of encouragement, I am sure he would start seeking husbands for these women.

Monsieur Kamel has another wonderful quality. He is a sane driver.

The Syrian Bride,

If I were getting a Ph.D in international communications, films or women’s studies, I would want to do my thesis on marriage in movies. There are many, not just the American like Father of the Bride, but ethnic ones like My Big Fat Greek Wedding. And each culture has them such as Monsoon Marriage, which I saw with my Indian neighbours who pointed out cultural things, that I would have missed.

I have added a new one, The Syrian Bride and like the Indian film, my Syrian friend pointed out things I would have seen but not fully understood. The film was made by Israelis and was the story of a woman in the Golan Heights marrying a distance cousin and moving with him to Damascus. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0423310/ to read about it or to see the trailer

My friend said that she knew many Damascian women who did the reverse. What made the movie so painful, was that as soon as the woman crossed the border to her new husband’s country, she could never return to her own people. They might wave across the border from barbed wire to barbed wire, but that was it.

She also told me that in the Golan Heights people loved Assad not like in Syria where he was feared and hated, something I would have missed as much as I would have missed why the mother snuck her cigarettes in Monsoon Marriage.

The family dynamics of living in an occupied land, parents saying goodbye forever to a much-loved daughter combined with difficulties of getting the bride’s passport cleared on both sides was a contrast to the normal happy marriage movies. In one scene, a border guard brings the bride, dressed in a white gown, veil and gloves, a chair to sit on. The day is hot and she accepts it. She is alone staring through a gate and across a stretch of land looking at her new husband to be. She can not go home. Her passport, which reads nationality unidentified, as do all her families’ has been released to the Syrians. She cannot get it back. She can not go forward. I won’t tell you how it ends. Find the film.

“Do many people have a passport stamped, nationality unidentified?” I asked my friend. Until that moment, I had never heard of such a thing. In my quest for nationality, I had never thought of what happened to people when their nations cease to exist or they are trapped by occupiers.

“Yes,” she said.

We talked long into the night instead of going to bed early as planned because I was jet lagged and because she had to go to the hospital where she is a resident the next morning. She has educated me to the results of governmental policies of centuries not in broad terms that would be taught in economic or military history courses, but on the results of those policies, that could leave a woman in a wedding gown, sitting in a chair caught between two countries.

Shaking off bad feelings

Usually when I get off the plane at Charles de Gaulle, there is a tremendous relief at being on my home continent, a chance to heal, but this time, I carried the heaviness with me despite the warm greeting of my friend and former neighbour where I was staying for a couple of days before finally heading home.

The evening was especially nice as we ate freshly prepared Syrian food and shared a conversation with two of her friends, one whom I had met before and whose family I have come to like from my Damascus visits. The conversation, as always with them, touched on politics, religion, medicine (I was the only non medical student), families, literature, history nourishing me a little.

When I collapsed into bed, the same feeling of having come back from a pummelling stayed with me, although I wouldn’t have traded the time with loved ones for anything.

Walking to the ATM and La Defense did nothing to lighten my mood. The same streets I usually strut with pleasure because I am in Paris and it is ordinary not a once in a lifetime experience to be there looked dreary.

I was the only one at the SNCF office and the clerk who waited on me was in a joking mood practising his English with a word or two among his French. He asked my nationality. I told him to guess. He didn’t. Only when I pulled out my Swiss identity card did he believe me. I did admit that I had grown up in the States and had started to learn French very late.

With my ticket for my nest safely in my hand, I walked back through the concourse and back to the flat. Even though it was raining, everything seemed alive again, I had left the depression back at the SNCF office. It has stayed there.

The three-seat theory

It is no secret that when height was being handed out, I was in the liver line. I am exactly three airline economy seats tall. This is one of the reasons I chose to fly back to Europe from Christmas in the States on New Years Eve. I usually can find three seats and can sleep the flight away.

This year I even had my choice of three-seat beds. It made the trip seem like a short haul instead of 7+ hours.