Are You Listening?

Contrary to what Alec believes,
I do not return to my inviting,
comfort clad bed after he
leaves for school.

On Mondays, I still go
to Rachel's art class,
continuing my process of
placing charcoal marks
upon a white, canvas
sheet.

Staring at the pure white blank canvas with
charcoal in hand can be
a wee bit intimidating.
Where should I place my first mark?
To dig myself  out of my obsessive analyzing of my beginning mark,
I place the charcoal in my non-dominant left
hand, close my eyes and make a mark....
and another mark, and another, hoping that
eventually an image will emerge.

Often, several women in the class will stroll by,
wondering what I "see."   I simply hope the canvas
speaks to me so that I may follow the image.

The canvas never fails to speak;  the question is,
am I listening?

Are You Listening?

Are You Listening closeup

Voices In My Head

Voice 1  closeup

Voice 2  closeup

Voice 2 seems to be a lot louder than

Voice 1 these days!

What voices do you listen to?

First Snow!

Outside our blue, shuttered window
I am greeted by the first snow of winter.

Driving Ludo, Yaëlle and Alec to school this
morning their three voices joined in a chorus
of .....
 "It's too dangerous Jude."
"The road is too slippery."
"Oh no, don't take the short cut
(along the river), we will surely die."

Covering her head with her coat, Yaëlle
 voiced a prayer "thank you for my good
life which is about to end."

Meanwhile I couldn't help think how beautiful
everything  was with the LIGHT DUSTING
of snow!

"Sorry kids, I'm a Canadian.  This could be
an early spring day in Canada!"

We arrived safely at school;   three disappointed
kids wishing that this Monday's snow
would have given them a vacation.

Ever hopeful Ludo said, "maybe tonight
there will be more snow."   Sounds like
my former colleagues who teach in Virginia!

Thank you Gabriel and Irène

Where do you end up when you  when you walk down an alley \

then down another, walled alley,

meet a black door with a white chalked 

arrow pointing right,

follow the trail to the corner of 

and 

and finally arrive here, at Gaby and Irène's home?

Irène and Gaby's Home

You end up walking into the heart

of hospitality and adventure.

Gaby and Irène, who speak no English,

 opened their home to my friends 

Steve and Mary, visiting here from Morocco,

 who speak no French.

Mary, Steve,Jude,Gaby and
 Irène behind the camera

Each morning around 8 a.m. Irène or Gaby would

call me to say their guests were up and

ready for breakfast. (doesn't anyone sleep

in?)    Down I would

walk, through the alleyways to arrive

at their home for fresh, chocolate

croissants and baguettes from the local

boulangerie served with several homemade

jams of Irène's and coffee.  Oh, and of 

course, translation.  I never thought I would

become the one to translate.  When the 

right words couldn't be found, charades 

saved the day.  I  often felt  like a ping pong

ball going back and forth across the table,

translating English to French and back again

to English.  One time, looking at Mary and speaking

in French, Mary said, "Jude, I speak English!"

Not only did our new friends generously welcome

us into their home, they also took us on a personally

guided tour of Metz.

Here are Mary and Steve standing in an archway

of the oldest Church's in France," St Pierre-aux-Nonnains, 

built between  380 and 395 CE as a Roman gymnasium and

converted into a Christian church in the 7th century."

http://www.eupedia.com/france/metz.shtml 

 

We ventured into crypt of the cathedral

in Metz where we met the Graouilly,

the fearsome dragon vanquished by

the sacred powers of Metz's first bishop,

Saint Clement

  .

We continued our walking tour of Metz

with our wonderful guides and finally,

after a lovely lunch in a restaurant

on Taison Street, where another

Graoully greeted us,

we made our way back to Lessy.

Driving back home Mary turned

to me and said, "Jude, we're in France."

Neither of us could have predicted that

when we met each other in Vermont a few

years ago we would have been visiting each other

in France just a few years later.

You never know what will happen

when you reach out your hand and

say, "Hi, I'm......"

     

Up and Running Again

Our internet connection has been down
but Jerome and Tony arrived last night
and fixed it....all in French!  I will
post soon about our visit here this week with
Mary and Steve, our neighbours in
Vermont who are living in Morocco for
two years.

"It is so quiet here,"  Mary repeated throughout
their visit.  "Be prepared Jude, Morocco is loud."
We will be visiting Morocco during school vacation
in three weeks.....hmmm, maybe I need to bring ear
plugs.

My Life

11:30 p.m. here in France and listening to
Iris singing My Life.  So I need
some ENGLISH now and again!




Iris Dement 
not hollywood, simply pure lyrics, pure voice
one of the best song writers around

goodnight   bonne nuit

Lean on Me

Lean on Me, 1973, Bill Withers

If you dance to this it becomes a prayer...
enjoy your Monday.

When is Champagne not Champagne?

Champagne, that sparkling bubbly white
wine seems to be the drink of choice served
with appetizers here in France, or so
I thought.


Champagne is actually a region in the Northeast
of France, about an hour east of Paris.  It is
here that  the sparkling wine Champagne is
made.

When is champagne not champagne? ;  when the
sparkling white wine is not produced in the champagne
region.
"Since 1992, these bottlings (of sparkling wine) have
been barred from using "methode Champenoise" on their
labels." 
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/6720368/ns/today-food/t/its-french-its-sparkling-its-not-champagne/#.











 In America ,Champagne is often
 reserved for very special occasions,
especially New Year's Eve. Perhaps this is due
to the high price tag usually associated with
this bubbly.  Here is the good news.
There are other alternatives
to the prestigious Champagne, at 1/4 of the price;
crémant, a sparkling white wine from various
regions made in the same style as Champagne.







I, for one, have no problem tasting the
various poor cousins that are flooding the
market.

Next time you have friends over for

appetizers why not try a crémant?

Rumi

Don't turn away.
Keep looking at the bandaged place.
That's where the light enters you.
                               Rumi

This quote I discovered on the first page
of the novel, The Sorrows of an American,
by Siri Hustvedt.  I couldn't turn to the
second page.
.
First, I thought,  make sure the place is
 bandaged or you will bleed out.
Second, while you are waiting for
the light to enter you -and this may take awhile-
 bandage the wound with all that nurtures you---
good music, yoga, walks in the woods, nourishing
food and friends, art, poetry, play and those four
footed friends that love unconditionally---
a dog, for me, always a dog.




Life is good when you have all
 your toys surrounding you.
                           Piper 

She's too dark!

My friend Rachel needed to get
passports for her children, Ludo
and Yaëlle.  There is a small window
of opportunity during which one can apply;
  a couple of hours in the  morning
  never entre-midi, between noon and two
  a couple of hours in the afternoon,
all during school hours. The children
need to be taken out of school,
 no problem for the kids.

Ludo's application, with his photo, sailed
through the process seamlessly,
Yaëlle's, however was another
story.

"She's too dark," the woman said
to Rachel.

 "Excuse me?" Rachel
asked.

 "The photo is too dark, you
need to lighten up the photo."

Perplexed, Rachel responded "but
the same person took both Ludo
and  Yaëlle's photo."

"She's too dark," the woman repeated.

Exasperated, Rachel finally said,
"but she's black, of course she is dark!"

"You need to go to a professional photographer
and ask for a lighter photograph,
they can do that sort of thing."

There is an expression in French,
"Pourquoi faire simple quand on peut
faire compliqué," 
Why make it simple when you can make it
complicated?

Rachel took Yaëlle to another photographer.
"Oh, I only need to lighten her shade by one,
she is not too dark," the photographer said.
"Sometimes I need to lighten their
shade 5 times if they are too chocolate!"

"Wouldn't this been seen as discriminatory?"
Rachel asked me.  What do you think?

(apparently some o f you are having a difficulty
commenting on the blog...I will look into this) 

Back to School and Schedules

After Alec's month long vacation ,
 no this is not the French school system
 (they have two weeks off every six weeks),
Alec returned to school this Monday
morning with frost on the ground, a cold
bite in the air and Christmas lights still
shining on city streets.

We said goodbye to Jeff in a parking garage
 in Bruges, Belguim on Friday;   he has returned
home to Virginia after his 3 1/2 week visit
here and we have returned
to our schedule.

"Gee mum, just pretend that driving me
to school is a dream so when you return
home you can go back to bed, as usual,"
quipped Alec on our way to school today.
Alec thinks his day is much more grueling than
mine and I believe he is right, though I do not
return to bed....okay, once in awhile I have
fallen back into bed for a glorious early
morning siesta, but not today.

I like returning to the rhythm  of a schedule;
back to studying French, writing, walking Piper
in our woods, yoga and today,
going to Rachel's art class and then to my
pottery group.

Alec did ask me to go grocery shopping as
our wee fridge is empty and we are completely
out of Nutella. "It's customary to feed your
children three meals a day," Alec reminds me.
 I drove into town yesterday to shop for groceries,
forgetting that all stores are closed on Sunday.
Today I will have to go before entre midi when all
stores are closed between noon and two.

Schedules, you can detest them, be frustrated by them
or simply flow into the rhythm they offer;  I'm not so sure
about the "three meals a day" schedule.

Bloody Hell, no swearing allowed?

During dinner with friends last
night I met a delightfully precocious
and verbally endowed
11 year old from Australia;  German,
French and "Australian!" are her
three languages (so far).   The center
of our conversation revolved around
this pint-sized- super-hero-drawing
observation and analysis  of the French educational
system.

"There is no creativity at all, can you imagine?
I mean, my little brother brought home a Christmas
gift for my mum and he didn't even make it!  Nothing
messy allowed here, it all has to be perfect.  And the
teachers, they're not encouraging at all, are they?"

When I asked if she would like to live in France
permanently she yelped, "oh no, not all, the
country is  not creative at all, too narrow minded,
like everyone is living in a box."

Turning the conversation toward the Australian
educational system it seemed her biggest concern
 was a new law against swearing in public;
"bloody hell, can you imagine this?"  I suggested
she may want to visit Canada, eh;  no laws against
swearing there!  I did add that there is a
 law in Canada about lying during newscast; Fox News
has been shut out of Canada.
 http://sayitaintsoalready.com/2011/03/02/fox-shut-out-of-canada-because-of-a-law-against-lying-during-newscasts/

I wasn't sure what her take was on lying
so I thought  I would warn her.

All in all it was a bloody delightful evening, eh?

Arras, France and Vimy Ridge

Our first stop in our "say goodbye to Jeff"
trip was Arras, France; we came here to
see Vimy Ridge and the Canadian War
Memorial honouring those who died during
WWI.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arras

Vimy Ridge Canadian National Memorial

Saying goodbye has never easy
for me. When I was a pre-teen I spent
my summers hanging around my favourite
aunt and uncle, Dorothy and Bill.
Soon after school would
end they would drive into our
hometown of North Bay pulling a
shiny silver air stream trailer behind
their station wagon.


After two months of fishing and swimming and
Canasta and happy hours (for the adults)
it was time to say goodbye; I would hide
in the house trying to ignore the fact that
they were leaving or, when I grew a little older,
I would hide behind dark sunglasses,
hoping to shade the fact that I was crying.

Interesting that we chose Vimy ridge for our first
stop in saying goodbye to Jeff.

It was here, in the Northwest of France,
in the Nord-Pas-De-Calais
region that Canadians won a four day battle against
the Germans in 1917.
http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/vimy/index_e.shtml


It was here, at Vimy,
where thousands
of Canadian parents
said goodbye to the sons they lost.

The present day town of Arras contrasts
starkly with her history. This town was
almost completely destroyed during WWI and yet

today, we were greeted with spacious cobbled stone squares,
the impressive Hotel de Ville and
historic 17th and 18th century mansions, all
meticulously restored.

Alec's room....cider, anyone?

view outside our hotel room window

On the main square of Arras Alec discovered the Tunnel Museum;

Tunnel Museum, Arras, France

miles of tunnels were built, mostly by New Zealanders,
under the city of Arras to house supplies and soldiers.
(http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/arras-tunnels) Today the
museum houses artifacts and memorabilia from the Great War
http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1090337.









Canadian sculptor and architect
Walter Seymour Allward created this moving memorial.


"Carved on the walls of the monument are the names of 11,285
Canadian soldiers who were killed in France and whose final
resting placewas then unknown."
 http://www.warmuseum.ca/cwm/exhibitions/vimy/sculptures_e.shtml

the Beaton name (my mom's ancestors?)

     

Grieving Canada

I have given my son his Canadian heritage, 

an inheritance he can certainly be proud of.

two Canadians, eh?

 

A Slow Goodbye

We leave tomorrow to take Jeff to Brussels for a
Friday departure back to Va. Yes, we know it is
only a three hour drive or so but we are taking
the scenic route; first heading toward Somme and
some more WW1 history. I think we want to delay
this departure as long as we can.

Strasbourg, Germany and Home

We just returned from a trip to Strasbourg via
the train.  Jeff, Alec and I took the train down
to Strasbourg on Thursday.

waiting for the train in Metz

gee, thanks mom for the lunch

We arrived in Strasbourg, a city
"founded by the Romans in 12 BCE(the city of roads)

 has always occupied a strategic position in Europe."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=30&url_ret=rubrique.php?id_rubrique=23 

train station in Strasbourg
the front is completely enveloped
by a glass arch

Open is one word to describe Strasbourg;  wide open

cobbled streets where cars are not allowed;  only a tram

crosses the center area of Strasbourg.    

 Canals encircle Petite France where numerous restaurants

 and boutiques

dot the area.

petite france

         

amazing rooflines

bicycles are alive and well
in Strasbourg

 

water too high in the canal
for a boat tour

lunch anyone?

  

Alec and Jeff scoping out a place
to eat....again

this looks like a good
restaurant dad

Alec likes tarte flambée, closest thing to Pizza he can find.

Johannes Gutenburg
inventor of moveable type
 printing letterpress 

notre dame cathedral 

 Notre Dame cathedral   "is an absolute masterpiece of  Gothic art.  

The first stone was laid in 1015 and the spire was completed in 1439."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=32&url_ret=rubrique.php?id_rubrique=25 

There are hundreds of sculptures surrounding the exterior

of the cathedral.

 

.

I often think of the sculptors, working high

upon the Cathedral Walls, placing gargoyles that

only they could see clearly at close range.

Within the cathedral is the astronomical clock "from

the Renaissance period and the mechanism which 

dates from 1842."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=33

     

" The Astronomical Clock, a masterpiece of the Renaissance, 

is the product of a collaboration between artists, 

mathematicians and technicians, Swiss watchmakers,

sculptors, painters and designers of automata."

http://www.otstrasbourg.fr/article.php?id_article=33   

 

            

We also visited the Palais Rohan where we walked through

time within the walls of the archaeological museum, which 

include "several millennia of the history of Alsace, from

 600,000 BC to 800 AD;  a treasure trove of artifacts.

oil lamps, roman

dangling from my ears are
replicas of these horses

funerary urn
(Jeff now wants a casket,
he is afraid of what I would make for
an urn!)

no, South Carolina did not invent
face jugs.

Rachel and Ludo joined us Friday evening for

supper with friends.  On Saturday, Jeff and Alec

stayed in Strasbourg;  flea markets and more food!;

and of course, continued education.

Rachel, Ludo and I, along with Christian and Odele,

friends of Rachel, went to Baden  Baden, Germany

to see an exhibit by 

who "is one of the most important contemporary artists in 

Germany and worldwide."

http://www.museumspass.com/dn_expositions-temporaires-allemagne/exp-fr-anselm-kiefer-15-560.html?setLang=fr

His work is monumental and defies description.

Anslem Kiefer

It is amazing that, within an hour, I went from walking the

streets of Strasbourg, France to experiencing 

Kiefer's massive paintings in his homeland of Germany. 

Baden Baden, Germany

Joan Miro sculpture

women 

men

Back to Strasbourg  Saturday evening to catch the train home to Metz.

   

I think we will definitely return in warmer weather to 

tour the canals by boat, take the tram out to see

the European Parliament buildings and  the botanical garden

 and to walk the streets again.