17 December, 2009

Resumée



Since my last entry I have:

  • written a 4th french paper bringing my 2 week total to 21 pages of FRENCH
  • had 4 exams
  • had a wonderful, love-filled dinner with all the friends at Horace's house
  • visited the Musee Dobree
  • visited the crypts and treasury of the cathedral
  • had one failed attempt trying to play music for change on a street corner with Forrest
  • had food poisoning 2 times
  • GOTTEN MY HAIR CUT
  • walked around the exterior of the Jules Verne museum (which is supposed to be the best part, anyway)
  • had hot chocolate at La Cigale with Hanna and Elisa
  • gone to the IES farewell party and taken lots of pictures with people I'll miss
  • done lots and lots of Christmas shopping
I have been busy! And I'm not through!

Tomorrow I will:
  • buy 2 more presents, while attempting to spend 0 money
  • walk around
  • have one last dinner at a creprie in the Buffay
  • likely cry
Saturday I will be traveling all day non-stop.

One of my favorite teachers of the semester, M. Kersaudy, with Elisa:

Inside La Cigale:
Crypts of the Cathedral:

06 December, 2009

Winding down... !!!!!!!

Shortly after Thanksgiving, I grew panicked at the thought of leaving. As a result, I've been trying to go non-stop, which is inevitably just making me tired. I think I'm actually accomplishing and adventuring less as a result of trying to do more. Regardless, these are the things I've been up to:
1. I went to a French soccer game. Nantes v. Chateauroux. It ended in overtime and eventually a tie. I loved going; I typically love watching live sports - almost as much as I dislike watching televised sports - and found the energy at the soccer game to be a bit wilder than I'd anticipated. Approaching the stadium at night, you could hear the chants and the drums from miles away. Inside, people were waving banners that looked more befitting a middle ages jousting tournament than a 21st century "football" game. It felt every bit like I was attending the Quidditch World Cup.2. On the way home from said football game, Hanna, Horace and I had a 30 minute long conversation with four or five 10 year-old French boys. One in particular was absolutely brilliant; he already spoke English very well (and by that I mean had a very good English accent but knew very few phrases). I was very impressed with him and we talked non-stop all the way to our stop. He asked me in French: "How old are you? Do you live with your mom and dad? Do they miss you? Do you miss them? Do you have your own house? Are you in college yet? Are you an American? Do you have a brother? Bigger or smaller? Are you married? Do you have a love? Where does your love live? France? America? Spain!? Do you have a baby? Does she (Hanna) have a lover?" He also informed me he wanted to be a surgeon when he grew up; I have no doubt he'll be able to succeed. He was the cutest child I think I've ever met and kept calling me Madame. It was just too sweet. His dad was there with him and was decidedly beaming at how intelligent he was when he spoke English.

One of the other children was decidedly less bright and far less polite; he asked me if I liked Obama, if I voted for Obama (I said, Yes, very enthusiastically as a response to each) and then promptly informed me, "Well Sarkozy DOESN'T like Obama!"

3. I finally visited the museum inside the Nantes Chateau. I went by myself and really took my time. Nantes has a fascinating history; it used to be considered the Venice of France it had so many islands and and rivers and bridges. It was called the Mermaid City because it was said to belong to both man and fish. Around 1900 the rivers were channelized and filled in; I suppose in hind sight it might have been a smart move (Venice as we all know is in the process of sinking). All the same, I cannot imagine how much more magical Nantes would be now if it had remained the same. I kept thinking about all the transitions it had undergone: Roman city, chateau of the dukes, later captured by the crown, becoming one of the King's favorite vacation castles, a city of the Revolution, executions taking place in the Place du Bouffay, where all the trendy bars are now, and then WWII, when it was bombed to pieces, and the reconstruction with lots of shanties lining the streets until houses could be rebuilt (thanks to the Marshall Plan). And now the Isle of Machines and all the eccentrics, hobos and beautiful French families that live here now.

It is impossible for me to wrap my head around how the history of Nantes (or I suppose, of the world)is a progression. It is hard to envision that the town of bold and disobedient Brittany dukes would became the town of such unimaginable destitution at the end of the war, or that that destitute town became the expensive, chic, clean city of Nantes today. It seems rather that they're all separate cities, full of separate people. And yet its entirely possible that Nantes has had some of its same inhabitants for millenia. I cannot fathom how many people have paced the worn stones in the old cathedral, or walked the winding streets of the Bouffay. I can't even fathom how many families, how many dramas, how many secrets our old apartment, built circa 1800, has known. I certainly cannot fathom how small and insignificant that makes the day to day trials of my own life.

4. Christmas is here!!! The streets are decorated, and what's more, there are Christmas villages set up in Place Royal and Place du Commerce full of little artisan chops and street vendors. Vin Chaud (which is very much like mulled wine) is everywhere, very cheap and very delicious. I also tried some chi-chi, which is like Spanish chorro and very similar to American funnel cake. But better. I've been trying to attack Christmas shopping and so far accomplished very little.
Nantes is absolutely magical looking with all of its holiday decorations, still it is hard to connect it with the any nostalgic memories of Christmases past because it is just very different, very European. They have very few French Christmas songs, Christmas movies, and seem to have borrowed the majority of their Christmas decorations, which mostly read "Merry Christmas!" rather than "Joyeux Noel." Still it was one of my favorite days ever walking around the Christmas villages with Hayley, Elisa and Hanna.5. In keeping, last Thursday, the 3rd, Hanna and I went with her host parents, Stephane and Laure, to see a Concert de Noel at their church, Notre Dame de Bon Port. I cried all the way through it because it was so beautiful. The ensemble was called Stradivaria and is a baroque ensemble out of Nantes. Their visiting Tenor, though, was named Jeffry Thompson and comes from the Cincinatti conservatory. His voice was absolutely beautiful; on the high notes it seemed to rise up to heaven. I've never heard anything so beautiful before. And he seemed to be singing with his whole body, as if he became a breathing instrument. It was terribly moving, being in the old church; thinking of all the ways people have honored God - the construction of beautiful buildings (Bon Port has a dome ceiling with painted stars on a blue heaven) - and the composition of beautiful airs and concertos. My favorite was an extract from Back's BWV 19 cantata, or possibly the encore, which was "Minuit Chretiens," an old French Christmas hymn that was later translated into the English "Oh, Holy Night!" It was simply beautiful.

6. I've been going out a lot to celebrate various things, in particular the night that concluded the hell week of writing three papers in French (totaling around 17 or 18 total typed French pages=way too much for one weekend, especially considering that meant having to completely switch gears 3 times during the weekend. I could have handled easily writing one 17 page paper in French, but switching topics and having to research and plan in three different subjects was a nightmare). All that to say, going out is a great way to meet French people and practice speaking.

Most drunk French people have complimented me on how well I speak, probably because they're drunk. Still, all in all, I have been pleased with how easily I could converse with them more or less. Either that, or I thought I was doing better than I really was as a result of being a bit tipsy myself.

One such night I was with a group of six or seven IES students when three French guys came and started chatting with us. They were fairly amusing, but at some point we realized that one of them had been sneaking behind the bar and stealing beers and then hiding them under his shirt. The bar tender came once and patted down Seth, and IES student who is a bar tender back in the states and was most definitely not stealing. It was funny but a little unnerving.

One other such night an Algerian girl who was really high , on crack, became obsessed with us and kept saying she was going to come stay with us in America. She also tried to kiss Seth and kept talking about how sexy Americans are. She gave me her number so that I can call her when I get back to America and make plans for her to come visit. This will most decidedly not be happening.

One other such night a very sweet bar tender bought a round of shots for our entire table, which was very sweet of him.

And I finally went to Lieu Unique, which is inside the old Lu cookie factory. I had a ridiculously fun time there, the music was very bizarre techno but it was still super fun to dance to.

7. I love the friends I've made here. I'm very glad that two of the friends I've made here, namely Forrest and Hayley, are Sewanee students I just didn't know before, meaning that I get to keep them as friends in the Spring! But the others, like Maddie and Horace and Seth, to name a few, I know I'm going to miss badly...

8. Yesterday we baked cookies with Hanna's host sister Clemence, who is 8 years old, absolutely adorable and decidedly crazy. I loved it!



To conclude, before leaving (in less than 2 weeks) I have five exams, one paper, and one recitation to do. It is going to be ridiculous.

The next blog entry I write, most likely, will be entitled Le Cheminement, which will explain the title of my blog and sum up this experience a bit.

I am so excited about everything right now: excited about the next 13 days here, excited about my whole life ahead of me and how much I know this experience has impacted it. I'm excited to see my family and MY DOG who I have missed a ridiculous amount. I am also so excited to see Jonathan; we have now spent a grand total of around 6 months apart this year, and I'm ready to be in the same country with him for a change!

03 December, 2009

And in reality, Thanksgiving was....


  1. Very French. I've never had a more French meal in my life. The entree was a toasted half of a baguette, on top of which was an olive spread, two large broiled? belle peppers and a sun-dried tomato. It was very bizarre and had to eat but very delicious; all of the French people thought it was an American dish and all of the Americans assumed it was French. The turkey was covered in cranberries and mushrooms. The "stuffing" was actually some sort of meat pâtée. The desert was "pumpkin pie" WITH LOADS OF CURRY - which I was in no mood to eat having just recovered from curry food poisoning two days previously.
  2. A terribly comforting and wonderful experience. I had some revelations. Well, Hanna had some revelations that I ended up benefiting from. Despite the fact that the food at Thanksgiving was decidedly sub-par, it is absolutely the best thing in the world that I miss home and my own Thanksgiving so much. Having a French Thanksgiving made me so grateful for all of the wonderful holidays I've gotten to share with my own family. It is such a wonderful thing to miss you family, and I do and I am grateful that I love them so much because they are so wonderful.
  3. Additionally, I was so grateful on Thanksgiving because I got to share it with so many wonderful friends. I LOVE the people I've met here, and I love that I do feel like I'm part of a community here. I will miss everyone so much when it is over, but I am so grateful to have gotten to meet them and spend this time with them.
  4. Performing with Forrest was one of my highlights from being in France. We did two songs, "Don't Think Twice" by Bob Dylan followed by "La Vie en Rose" by Edith Piaf. I was terribly nervous, as usual, going up there in front of 200 people, half of whom were French, but it was just such a wonderful experience. We got encored after our first song and followed it with La Vie en Rose; all of the French couples started singing along, and I seriously teared up a bit because I felt such a part of a French community in that moment and it made me so glad. After we finished, we got encored again but didn't have anything else to perform. So. The experience just made me so happy. Additionally, I love that Forrest and I kept getting introduced as The Tennesseans, because we're both from Sewanee (although Forrest is actually from Texas, of course.)
  5. Having a beer at the Graslin afterward with Hanna, Forrest and Horace. I had a 3 euro Banana Beer, which was only pretend alcohol at around 3%but extremely delicious.

25 November, 2009

Thoughts on Thanksgiving...

There is something so strange to me about missing Thanksgiving tomorrow, my first major holiday spent apart from my parents and brother.

I have always loved Thanksgiving, perhaps even more than I love Christmas, because it is less commercial, because it is more genuine. It is a holiday created to give thanks, something I firmly believe in - it is a time when families cross our country to reunite, to break bread, to share their trials and triumphs of the year.

And perhaps I always loved it so much because I have always been such a loved, spoiled individual. Every year, Thanksgiving as a child meant being surrounded by people whom I loved and who I knew loved me. It was about my mother dressing me up in pretty clothes I loved and putting my hair back in huge barrettes and my father making me change out of my tights and into jeans before I ran out to play with all my male cousins.

It is strange to me that these are the things about Thanksgiving that I miss - I pretend that if I were in America this would be the reality of the Holiday. But I know that's not the case. That I am not seven years old anymore, not a little girl, that I would not be romping around in the backyard with my cousins, that my father would not demand I change clothes to do so, that fewer family members would likely make it this year, because as the years have passed our families have evolved. Priorities change. Nuclear families begin to form and grow and disperse. Grandparents grow older and traditions have to change accordingly.

And I cannot help but be saddened by the passage of time, even as I know I am young and it will only get worse as I grow older.

The thing that makes me saddest yet though is that families seem to be under attack in America, and no where is that made more obvious than in how our country treats Thanksgiving.

Take this article in the Times: Food, Kin and Tension. Two cousins have made Thanksgiving Insult BINGO cards, with negativesayings like "That outfit is interesting," that they fill out throughout the meal.

Or this movie, cited as being one of the best to watch on the topic of Thanksgiving: Home for the Holidays in which the characters seem to absolutely despise being together for the majority of the film.

I don't understand how families grow so far apart that Holidays become something that they have to suffer through.

And such attitudes are so completely at odds with the true spirit of Thanksgiving. Perhaps Americans have become too ready to reject blood ties in favor of forming friendships. To say, I don't need my sister's companionship, I can make my own friends and form my own family amongst them.

But as Mary Schmich wrote in her famed 1997 Chicago Tribune article (one of my favorites!):
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

And I believe that. Friends are wonderful and amazing and I plan on keeping them as long and as best I can. But they aren't family.

All that to say, this Thanksgiving I am grateful for the following:

  • That God is the same everywhere - that He followed me to France.
  • For my wonderful, wonderful family. For my amazing parents and my kick-ass brother. For Jonathan. For Nana and Grandma and Grandpa. For Baba. For Donnie. For Rodney and Tim. For Paul. For Bob. For Barb. For their spouses. For all my other crazy cousins and great-aunts and first-cousins-once removed. I feel so grateful.
  • For my lovely, beautiful life-long friends.
  • For the experience to get to be in France.
  • For Sewanee - the amazing University my parents let me go to that I get to return to soon.
  • For being 20 years old and having so much life behind but mostly ahead of me.
  • For so many other things that I cannot even begin to name all of them, among them woods, music, coffee, the air, gardening, Christmas decorations, hymns, my chickens that I get to meet in a month and how blissfully happy everything makes me on a fairly regular basis.

21 November, 2009

Rainy Night

Sometimes things don't work out the way you planned,

and so this weekend I am in Nantes, not Bilboa, and after getting over my original disappointment, I realized several things:
  1. I only have one month left; time will go by fast enough without passing 20+ hours on a train by myself.
  2. I have a ridiculous amount of work to do between now and leaving.
  3. I have a lot left to see and do in Nantes before leaving.
I bought a notebook and entitled it: Final Month in France = The Final Push.

It is divided up into three sections
-Vocabulary (where I'm writing down all the words I learn and look up)
-Grammar
-Plans and Goals

I've already been using it a lot. I also bought myself two grammar work books, intermediate and advanced, and have started working my way through the exercises. I think it will be really helpful.


Yesterday I somewhat crazily decided to venture out on my own for dinner, toute seule, because I had the hankering for a kabab.

It was raining but the streets seemed flooded by tourists; I heard lots of Arabic and German as I made my way down to the stand next to Place Royale. I bought my kabab, 4 euros, and walked around, trying to find a dry spot out of the Nantaise rain to enjoy it. I finally sat down on the steps of Saint Croix, just as it's deep bells rang the 8 o'clock.

And I felt alone, nearly, pedestrians walking by me, watching me watching them, and wondering if they're thinking I'm homeless. It is a homeless sort of hang out.

Then a few drunks stumbled into the court yard from the main road, and they looked at my stoop in what I perceived to be a territorial way, and so I skiddishly ceded them the stoop and began wandering the twisting streets of the Bouffay.

I found myself outside of the gelatto shop, and went inside and ordered an Inimitable - the best gelatto I've ever had - and found a table by a window and sat and pretended to preoccupy myself with whatever I could find in my purse. I love people watching, but doing so all alone and without any other sort of purpose seemed somehow pathetic to me, and so it was for pretense that I pulled out my journal and started rereading all the entries- all the while trying to take in as much of my surroundings as possible.

To my good fortune, five men walked in: four arabic, one french: one from New York, the others speaking rather hilariously sparse English and decidedly not from America.

They sat down at the table just next to me, and proceeded to talk in such a way that I KNEW they had no clue I could understand them. They were talking louder than anyone else in the shop.

Topics of conversation proceeded as follows:
  • their bowel movements
  • what internet chat sites they'd been on and whether or not they thought they were going to get lucky with a girl anytime soon
  • their bowel movements
  • whether or not the American was depressed about having to get married
  • whether or not people were happier making their own decisions or whether it was best if their decisions were made for them (at this point it becomes clear to me that they are all Engineers. This topic revolved primarily around a description of a TED lecture and was quite interesting)
  • their bowel movements
  • internet chat rooms
And then they left.

It was terribly interesting to listen to, if at times a bit vulgar and raunchy; I kept debating about whether or not I should, at some point, let them know I could understand everything they where saying, but it seemed too late in the conversation to do so, me feeling already quite guilty really for being able to eavesdrop so easily.

I wandered around a bit more. I passed one sad SDF who had nubs for legs and was rocking back and forth and clapping his hands wildly and mumbling some sort of tune for change, and I was too taken aback by his appearance and the whole grotesque display to do anything except increase my pace as I passed him. I passed one friendly bum chatting it up with his potential benefactors as they stood in line at the ATM. I passed an endless amount of cigarette butts, still smoking on the wet sidewalks. I passed a dozen drunks, some singing loudly and out of key, happy despite the rain, others angrily cursing one another as they passed. I passed a million cafes, the clientele looking cheery and warm and completely oblivious to all the madness going on outside.

And then at some point Horace called, so I made my way across town to L'Huberloo, had a quick drink (a pint of Jupiler, pas mal) and then we all headed back to the Bouffay. At some point Hanna called, and we met up with her and her father Tim! who is here for the weekend.

The three of us walked around a bit, we ended up seeing three people fall flat - one a twenty something man who drunkenly ran into a construction barricade, knocking it over and creating a lot of racket, before stumbling three or four feet and falling on his face. His friends came just short of kicking him as he lay there, cursing him and yelling at him to get up before grabbing him and flinging him to his feet. The second was a middle-aged lady wearing high heels on the cobblestoned rode in front of the Passage Pomeray. She seemed to slide a yard or two before coming to a rest; Tim helped her to her feet and she limped off with her two friends. The third was a SDF pandering for change inside a restaurant. He fell down just as he was exiting, and the crowd waited a while as he lay motionless on the ground before two men grabbed him roughly and stood him on his feet before shoving him out of the door. Additionally, a couple on a bicycle rode past us quickly, the boy at the handlebars all the while saying, "No breaks no breaks no breaks," and before he was quite beyond our hearing we heard him yell "NO BREAKS" and then the distinct sound of a crash.

It was, and this is an understatement, a bit of a crazy Nantaise night.

16 November, 2009

Biarritz: Things I loved....

  • The voyage: The train ride was beautiful. A river had over flowed its banks, putting whole orchards of sycamores and fruit trees in a blue, silvery mirror of water. Fields were lost beneath the six inches or so, and the whole landscape was beautiful as a result, seeming almost as though the stone walls and fences of the fields rose up not from the earth but instead out of a meters deep lake.
  • The city: On the edge of the ocean with dramatic bluffs and overlooks and even more dramatic waves. The town has established even more trails than San Sebastian, and Jonathan and I walked along them and ate our various picnic meals and watched the numerous surfers below.
  • The pastries: for breakfast we stopped into a market and ordered two tartlettes - mine was raspberry and Jonathan's was chocolate - and then ate them at another ocean overlook.
  • The chocolate: Biarritz is famous for its candies and so on our last day in town Jonathan and I went to one such chocolaterie, Miremont, and splurged on two chocolate domes - mine filled with mousse de café and his filled with dark chocolate mousee. It was the richest eating experience of my life. Additionally, Miremont was a very beautiful shop with its entire back wall given up to a view of the ocean and the entire interior looking as though it had likely not changed in a hundred years, with old mirrors and arm chairs and wall hangings. It was a very elegant experience to say the least.
  • The ocean. With waves more fierce and pounding than I have ever seen before.
  • Taco Mex: After trying to find an open restaurant for around an hour, Jonathan and I finally stumbled upon this little gem of a place, tucked back in an alley with its neon sign beaming like a beacon of hope. We went inside and were greeted by the nicest French couple I've met so far who spoke to us in a mix of French, Spanish and English. We ordered two fajitas, which arrived, looking desolate, small and all alone on our plates. They cost 9 euros (so roughly 13 dollars) and were so paltry looking it was laughable. Suddenly! Our waitress directed us to a buffet that contained the most appatizing display of Mexican food I have ever seen! Her husband, the chef, preceded to instruct us as to which beans were best with which sauces, what to eat with the the potatoes, which sauce to put on which fajita etc. He even would endearingly say, "Please, for me, put a little more of the green sauce on your corn." Which we did. And it was incredible. The next day it was all we could do to stay away until dinner time, but once 8 o'clock rolled around we found ourselves embarassingly coming back for more. The waitress greeted us with a, "Coming back for more!?" using the cutest French accent I've yet to hear. All together some of the best Mexican food I've ever had. And such a welcome treat.
  • Jonathan: One of my favorite traveling companions. On weekends like this, it almost feels like everything is a date - grocery shopping becomes romantic. I am simply crazy about him, and I'm so glad that at every turn in our lives where we could have suddenly found some way in which we're incompatible - like traveling - we instead figure out we're more compatible than we'd previously thought. So many couples have problems traveling with each other or simply have different ideas of what is important to do and see while traveling. Happily, Jonathan and I seem to have exactly the same concept of what traveling should consist of and divide our time between relaxing lethargically and then feverishly taking in the sights and tourist attractions. It's perfect. Each weekend like this has seemed so much longer than a weekend and I'm so glad to have gotten to see so many beautiful places with him!

12 November, 2009

Nantes Continued: The Yogurt Incident, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Le Petit Nicolas and more...


This past weekend I was quite ready for a break and so rather than going to Paris as I'd previously planned, I decided to stay in Nantes and relax and study for my midterms. And despite the fact that I know Paris would have been wonderful, I know I made the right decision. You can't do it all!

So Friday night I went out with Horance and Hanna for Sushi, which is another food I've just craved since being here. It was a pleasant enough evening; I tried Saki for the first time and found it very good. Coming outside after finishing dinnner, we found that it had started raining, and rather than going with Horace to meet up with other IES folks Hanna and I decided to go back to my apartment and watch a movie.

On the way home, we stopped by a super market and got some great caramel mousse yogurt. Arriving at the house, we said hello to Clotilde and then headed to my room. Which is when we realized we'd need spoons.

So.

This may not seem like any sort of issue at all, but I'm always so unsure of what's normal in such situations. For instance, I've never seen any of them eat anything outside of the kitchen. But we really just wanted to sit in bed and watch tv and eat yogurt. Additionally, I've never seen any of them snacking, and I didn't know how bizarre or not it would be for me at 10 o'clock to be eating yogurt in my room. So the original plan was for me to go sneak spoons out of the kitchen.

And I was scared about it.

Which is why when I ran into Clotilde in the hall I decided to just ask her if I could use two spoons to eat yogurt.

Which is when she started flipping out, in the sweetest way possible.

Saying (in French, of course):

Of course you can have spoons! of course! get some yogurt out of the fridge!

(I tell her me and Hanna bought yogurt)

What?!

You have the right to eat our yogurt! The right! you can eat yogurt anytime! you have the right! go sit in the kitchen and have some yogurt and drink some orange juice or something! are you two idiots? you don't need to buy yogurt!

She was laughing the whole time and so was I and I feel like it was a major turning point, after 2 months of being here, realizing that I can and really should chill out and just relax while I'm at home.

So anyway.

The next day Hanna and I went on a grand adventure to get moules-frites: mussles and fries. There's this little old building in the middle of the Bouffay that sells them that is ALWAYS either closed, full, or available by reservation only. This was our third or fourth attempt to get moules-frites, but it was incredibly worth it.

The building was terribly old and fabulous, very narrow but long, squeezed in between two buildings and obviously from about the 16th century. We sat on the second story and had the room all to ourselves for the first hour. I ordered mussles with cream, and Hanna ordered mussles with some sort of cheese sauce. A minute after ordering, a pound of mussles is placed in front of each of us dripping in delicious sauce. It is accompanied by a bottomless plate of the best fries I've had since being in France. We ate and ate and ate. It was the most satisfying meal of my life, and afterwards I was unbelievably tired. It was incredible.

Walking home, we passed by Clotilde's shop and stopped by. We told her we planned on making pumpkin cheesecake, and she told us that the girl who lived with them before me, Melissa, had left behind some canned pumkin, which is a good thing because you cannot buy canned pumpkin in France. So Clotilde told us how to use the oven and the stove and everything. She also gave us directions on how to get to the Park de Procé.

So going home we called Eliott Le Calvé. He is our new French friend that we met at the Conversation Club. He is very sweet and friendly and terribly in the know about what to do and where to go. He walked us to the park, which was very lovely and nice especially because unlike the Jardin, you're allowed to walk on the grass there.

We walked around there quite a while. The autmn colors are just barely existant, even at this late date, but they were pretty enough. We walked home on a greenway, and then Eliott escorted us to Monoprix to buy grociery supplies.

We had such a hard time finding everything to do with Pumpkin cheesecake. Cream cheese is practically non-existant here and very expensive. We got home and kept running into ingrediants we hadn't thought of that are less commonly used in France. Among them Vanilla and cinnamon. We also ran out of sugar. It turned into a massive undertaking, and the end product was somehow off. It might be the fact that we used a crust Clotilde already had that was not gramcracker. Or maybe it was the wierd consistancy of the cream cheese. Or maybe it was the brand of the pumpkin. Either way, the pie that we poured lots of time and money into ended up tasting kind of funky.

That night, after Clotilde insisted that Hanna and I eat some dinner before heading out for the evening and giving us coupons for the theater, Hanna and I went out again to meet Eliott to go see Le Petit Nicolas. I was a little anticipant as it was the first French movie I've ever watched without having French subtitles to read along with ( I can read French much better than I can understand it when spoken).

But! I am quite pleased to announce that I understood almost everything, other than a sentence or two now and then. I was so glad I went!

And then we took Eliott to meet some IES people at L'Huberloo. I got very animated during the evening talking to Seth about socialism and health care and America in general and was speaking very quickly and loudly. Eliott told me later that "It was great for him to hear because he'd never before heard an American talk in the back of their throat. Like in movies."

So there's that.

The next day all I did was study.

For lunch Clotilde served the Pumpkin cheese cake, which Erwan almost refused to eat, but it was just another one of those growing experiences. Rather than being mortified, as I might have been in the past, I thought the whole thing - them politely not liking the pie and trying their best to get out of eating it without letting me know thats what they were doing - really funny and endearing.

11 November, 2009

Wednesday Night Mexican Party, Jonathan in Nantes, and Avignon!

So Wednesday the 28th of October, Elisa Faison prepared a heavenly Mexican feast for a group of us at her house. It was seriously the best present ever, since I’ve been craving Mexican food since the day after arriving here. French cuisine is still superb, don’t get me wrong, but at times it lacks variety, and Mexican was EXACTLY what I needed. The evening was a lot of fun; Forest’s French brother Benoit and his girlfriend came to the party as well, making it a legitimate French party, and we all had a lot of fun dancing, drinking margaritas, and trying to teach Benoit how to make the “th” sound. To no avail.

Thursday, after helping Elisa clean up her house, Hanna and I headed to the bus station to wait for Jonathan, who ended up arriving around 2:30pm after traveling around 13 or 15 hours. We took him for a walk in le Jardin des Plantes, around the Chateau, into the Cathedral, all of our favorite Nantes haunts. He was obviously impressed.

He came back and got to see our apartments, and then after a while we headed to the Creperie Heb Ken where we continued to impress Jonathan with our knowledge of French cuisine, advising him as to which crepes were best to eat, what kind of cider to get, etc. We also took him to get the best gelato that exists in the world. Then we met up with Horace and headed to the L’Hurluberlu, our neighborhood bar, where we met up with Forest of Sewanee. Jonathan and Forest used to live across the hall from each other Freshman year. Anyway. Talked a bit. Shared a funny moment where Forest realized he’d stepped in dog crap (a frequent occurrence in France.) After an hour or so we parted ways, Jonathan going home with Horace who graciously offered him a place to stay.

The next morning, we got up around 10. Hanna and I bought the boys some pain au chocolate, which we shared before heading to the train station for our 9 hour train ride to Avignon. This ride was a bit stressful, us having no reserved seats. We at times ended up sitting on the floor. All in all though it was pleasantly passed. It is so much more enjoyable to take a train with friends than to take a train alone.

We got in Avignon a little late, checked in to our hotel, which was excellently located but a bit ridiculous (the walls were painted bright, bright bizarre colors and the beds were all CRAZY old and droopy and had cardboard underneath the mattresses in an attempt to add support. Also, Jonathan ended up getting bit by bed bugs, I’ve been informed.)

Then we walked around. Avignon was a little crazy, it being Holiday week, and there were lots of people wandering around drunk. So the first night we didn’t stay out too late.

Our first full day in Avignon, which was actually Halloween, we got up and headed to the Palais des Papes. It was very interesting, incredibly large. I loved best the rooms where they hadn’t added a history exhibit of any sort and it was easier to imagine what it would have looked like when lived in. I find it really amazing all of the different monuments humans have built over time. Then we headed to the Pont d’Avignon. I was so glad to be there – I’ve sung the song my whole life. I got to read all about St. Benezet and how half of the bridge was swept away centuries ago in a large flood. We, of course, all danced on the bridge, finishing with a lovely Charlie Brown style dance.

That night we went to get kabobs for dinner and loaded The Nightmare Before Christmas and It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, our only Halloween celebration consisted of watching those movies. I was a little homesick, it being the first year I’ve ever failed to dress up, carve a pumpkin, eat chili, and a number of other traditions.

The next day, we spent almost all day at the Jardin des Domes, a garden that sits atop a green hill next to the Pope Palace. It was very beautiful, full of happy French families and swans and a friendly cat. We walked around, and stopped in a church for All Saint’s Day. I bought a candle to light on behalf of the holiday. It’s strange because I was sort of kind of raised Catholic, in my early early years, and I still feel a very strong attachment at times to all of the rituals. Especially when in Europe.

We made sure to go back to the Jardin des Domes to watch the sunset. This is what it looked like:

That night, we had a more expensive meal at a nearby restaurant. It was more expensive but fairly mediocre. We also rode a carousel! Which was wonderful! And then we went to a nice bar called the Red Sky for drinks. Which was fun. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel room and stayed up for most of the night talking. About lots of serious things, like religion and relationships. It was very wonderful, and it felt so nice to have my two besties together.

Then came the long train ride home, this time Hanna and I alone. One of our trains had a weird spazatack climbing up a mountain which was slightly alarming; I would have been more scared if Hanna and I weren’t in such a goofy mood. Anyway, this made us ten minutes late, which caused us to miss our next train, which caused us to have an hour and a half lay over, but as a result we got to take a double decker train the rest of the way to Nantes. Which I enjoyed a lot.

And then.

We were back in Nantes!

29 October, 2009

My Parents in Europe: Paris, Nantes, and Salamanca!


So Friday I took the morning train to Paris. It was a beautiful dusk ride; we passed so many foggy blue rivers and sleeping villages. In Paris, I took a Metro to the West Train Station and walked to our fine 1 star hotel: Hotel du Brabant. I spoke to the manager and told him I was waiting for my parents, sat down in an easy chair next to a giant wolf-hound named Joker, and commenced to reading Madame Chrysantheme by Pierre Loti, which is excellent and very enjoyable.

I waited for around forty five minutes in the lobby, my heart skipping a beat every time I heard the sound of suitcase wheels rolling along the pavement outside (as there were many, many hotels on the street, which was named Rue des Petits-Hotels – Street of the Little Hotels.) Finally! the sound of the rolling suitcases belonged to my family – I jumped out of my chair and ran and jumped up into the arms of my brother, nearly knocking him over.

It immediately felt so wonderful to be with them again and to feel a part of my own real family. What's more - they brought me lots of my comfy winter clothes I'd left behind, various American products I'd requested - and most importantly they brought me Bowlin' - the most beloved doll in the world and the doll most near to being human. Bowlin's favorite part of Paris was the Eiffel Tower.

Paris was passed busily, with lots of Metros (a bit difficult for my father, who came with his foot in a boot as a result of an ankle spur) and lots of sights in only two days! My favorite part was probably visiting the Musee d’Orsay, which is considered to be the most beautiful museum in Europe, and was indeed extremely beautiful in its own right – it is a converted train station - and very, very full of beautiful paintings. I loved especially getting to see Monet’s Water Lilies and Van Gogh’s Starry Night.

Other high lights included: walking the Champs-Elysees, taking the street car ride up to the top of Monte Montre, Sacre Coeur, which is truly my favorite building I’ve been in the entire time, and other less epic but no less wonderful moments, like my father singing “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” while we all ate over-priced Chestnuts we bought off a bum, walking with my mother through the Jardin des Tuileries, and just getting to be with my wonderful brother, who looks and acts like such a man! It’s crazy.

Then we went through the ordeal of renting a car, which was actually wonderful in that we ended up with a super nice Fiat, and then drove to Nantes.

In Nantes, immediately after checking my parents into their hotel, we walked the two blocks to my apartment to have dinner with my host family. It was a very funny and wonderful evening! My host family tried very hard to speak English, with Arnaud working the hardest and speaking the best. I had to translate quite a bit, but it wasn’t too terribly awkward, and Clotilde went all out preparing an amazing meal. It started with Kir in the living room, then we moved into the dining room for our entre, which was fried egg, salmon and caviar with a homemade sour-cream based sauce. For our “plat principal” Clotilde prepared a traditional Moroccan meal, as she spent part of her childhood growing up in Morocco. It consisted of a lamb curry stew that was divine and served over couscous. For desert, she made a white chocolate ice cream cheese cake with a brownie crust. It was seriously one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. My parents were rightly very impressed, as was I, and kept telling Clotilde and Arnaud how badly they’re going to spoil me. It is true that I do have it very, very good here.

While in Nantes, we also went to a traditional Breton Creprie, went to a few bars with Hanna in tow, and while I was in class my parents visited the Cathedral and Chateau and Jules Verne museum and all that. In all, I think they discovered that Nantes is a truly wonderful town.

And then Tuesday night, in the middle of rush hour traffic and a rain storm, we headed out of Nantes for Salamanca.

It was an incredibly long and taxing drive, longer than I think we had all expected, but it felt very comforting in a way, to be on a road trip with my family – it is the time of the year for such drives – traditionally driving between Nashville and Knoxville or Nashville and Detroit – and it felt somehow suiting to me that we should have such a road trip now since there will be no such experience this Thanksgiving.

On the way down the coast, we stopped in Biarritz for lunch and San Sebastian just to see it, and both towns were very lovely. In San Sebastian, the tide was coming in and was crashing in full waves over the ramparts, completely drenching pedestrians and cars. The power of nature is so incredible – even in civilized, ancient Europe.

We arrived in Salamanca a bit later than anticipated as a result of rain, and so it was dark when we approached the city. It seemed to be surrounded by a vast empty space, devoid of lights, which we came to discover was in fact a desert. Gross. But.
Salamanca is beautiful. I would say that it is very much the Spanish equivalent to Nantes – not too large or too small, not too touristy. It does seem much cheaper than Nantes, which is certainly an advantage.

Additionally, as mentioned previously, Spanish culture seems much more flamboyant than French culture and this was evident in everything: people are friendlier, architecture more intricate and less reserved, bars louder and more raucous, etc. Even the color of the earth – the warm brownish orange of the sand and stone that comprise the buildings – is much more welcoming than the straight lines and cool colors of the while limestone buildings of Nantes and northern France. It is quite amazing actually how different the two countries are despite the fact that they share a border.

Jonathan was such an excellent host! He met us the first night in the town plaza, after which we checked into our hotel and then found a Kebab restaurant to eat at since we’d arrived so late most other restaurants were closed. The next morning we met him after his first class, had tortilla’s at a nearby bar, then visited the cathedral.

It was seriously the grandest most beautiful building I’ve ever seen. It is so immense and decorated so intricately and vibrantly, with lots of gold and bright colors and stone carvings. It was also incredibly tall and large and light.

Wonderful.

We visited an ancient Roman bridge, various beautiful university buildings, an Art Deco museum, roof top gardens. Joey and I also went with Jonathan to his apartment to meet his Senora Maria. She seemed very funny and boisterous, and Jonathan’s house mate Matt was very friendly and sweet. I did find though, that the standard of living between Nantes and Salamanca is very different: Jonathan’s apartment was much smaller than the de Kermadec’s, much more modern and less attractive. He also explained how much more cautious he has to be about using lights and taking long showers, etc, as in Spain such things are very expensive for the average individual like Maria.

In contrast, such things aren’t too terribly expensive in France, and the de Kermadec’s are decidedly wealthy. (I was cautious the first few days about using lights, etc, as in our Introduction material we were told that French people are very stingy with their electricity uses – however this only resulted in Arnaud coming in the room and asking me if I could see alright, acting like I might be a little crazy doing my homework in dim lighting, and then flipping on several lights for my benefit.)

I met several of Jonathan’s friends and they all seemed really wonderful. Spanish foreign exchange students might be, surprise surprise, slightly less pretentious than French foreign exchange students.

I hated leaving Jonathan. I cried, as usual. It was dumb.

And then came the ride back towards Paris. We ended up spending the night Bayonne, where we had coffee the next morning. Then we drove up to Tours, where we had dinner and walked around a bit before heading to the train station where I said goodbye to my parents.

It was incredibly hard on me, I love the three of them so much, and they have always, the three of them, been my closest and best friends. I feel so lucky to get to have such a great relationship with them, so blessed that my parents raised me to be close to them and also raised Joey to be someone who I truly feel will remain my best friend for the rest of my life, but all these factors contribute to making such separations truly, truly difficult. I cried so hard.

The following things are a consolation:
  • that when I see them next, it will be glorious, heavenly Christmas time.
  • that when I see them next, plans will be underway for them to give me my very own little kitten named Pantoufles.
  • that despite the fact that I was incredibly sad in Tours, shortly after arriving in Nantes I went out with some friends and had a great night
  • that I am enjoying myself so much and have a great situation: good host family, good town, good classes
  • that I have a Hanna that I get to see every day
  • that I have a Jonathan that I get to see two to three times a month

Mostly, I know that I wouldn't change anything about this experience. It has been such a blessing, such a challenge, but I feel that I have grown and continue to grow as a person because of it. I truly feel that it was neccessary for me to do this - it is something that I've talked of doing my whole academic career - and I am just sooo grateful that I have parents and friends and a university that all support me in such endeavors.

And now I am off to Avignon with Hanna and Jonathan. Huzzah!

15 October, 2009

Catching up: San Sebastian, Life as a Vrai Nantaise, etc...



Traveling is so exhausting, and frequently when I get home I'm too worn out to do much at all, and so I've been a bit remiss in updating my blog.

Zut!

Thursday, October 8, woke up incredibly early (5:30am - yuck!) with the help of three alarms and a phone call from my parents. Laughed to/at myself as I made my way to the tram station, for the following reason: It is abnormal for the French to be up so early, so whenever I passed someone walking, I eyed them suspiciously and thought, "They are so weird. What could they possibly be doing up this early?" and they in turn viewed me suspiciously, thinking, "What's this girl doing up so early? She must be a delinquent or crazy." It was very funny and very noticeable.

I love trams and wish Nashville had them. They are crazy convenient.

In the train station I continued to be overly cautious, as I always am, sitting sleepy and hunched over on a bench with my foot wrapped through the strap of my backpack to keep it from being stolen - despite the fact that Nantes does not really have a problem with such things. I'm sure I look stupid but I can't help being too careful: I'm my father's daughter.

It took me FIVE trains to get to San Sebastian. Or it would have, if things had gone well, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I adored all my trains this go around. I sat and watched people, business commuters, sleepy and unamused or sometimes talking with their customary traveling companions, teenagers, nervous traveling by themselves, their mother's waving goodbye to them from outside the train, children being adorable, couples snuggling. Everyone rides trains.

When I got to Hendaye, there was a 25 minute delay, which meant I missed my next train. I got my ticket refunded and attempted to buy another ticket while in France,where I spoke the language, but was informed at the desk that I should wait till getting in Irun.

Boarded the train to Irun, only to find that it didn't actually go to Irun, but stopped instead in the town just before Irun. Everyone exited the train, following directions given in Spanish. I talked to a conductor who pointed to a bus - I got on the bus, not too sure I was doing what was correct but trying to verify as best I could.

There had been a strike at some point, I believe in Bordeaux, and so we had to take a bus the rest of the way to Irun.

The minute I got on the bus - I noticed a difference in the passengers. They were talking to one another, loudly, friendly, jovially. They were speaking French, but with a strange accent. I was thinking how odd it was to see French people being so chatty, which is when on cue all the women switched to Spanish, which was obviously their native tongue. So from the instant I arrived in Spain, I noted a marked difference between the Spanish and the French and that difference can be summed up by a general friendliness towards others, especially strangers, that the French seem to lack.

In Irun, I still needed to buy a ticket to San Sebastian. No one in Irun, which is just over the French/Spanish boarder, spoke French. It was unbelievable. I finally sort of kind of got the feeling that I was supposed to buy a tram ticket that would take me to San Sebastian, confirmed this vague notion with an Australian family who said they were under the same impression, and bought the tram ticket to take me into San Sebastian.

So that was my all day, 10 hour train journey adventure, completed mostly peacefully, and entirely by myself. I am proud.

And then I was in San Sebastian! Which is currently my favorite city in the world!

Jonathan had had a similar misadventure getting there, and he was set to arrive via bus an hour or so after I arrived. So. I walked around the city a bit by myself. It was so beautiful! Just stepping out of the train station the city presented itself so romantically and beautifully: the river, lined with a promenade and rows of trees, just starting to turn their autumnal gold. I was in heaven.

When Jonathan got there, he called and I hurried my way back to the train station, just in time to catch him looking around for me, while an orchestral version of "A Whole New World" from Aladdin played and we greeted each other with a kiss while the music crescendoed. C'etait parfait.

The next three days were passed so wonderfully - walking around casually, not trying to do or see too much, just trying to relax and enjoy getting to be together in the most beautiful city on earth. We walked along the beach and the ramparts and along the river, went to get tapas and beers, walked up one of the mountains to a castle and chapel on the top with a fantastic view of the city, took an old tram ride up to the top of the other mountain and walked down both, ate lots of gelatto, pastries, etc, went shopping for some clothes for Jonathan at H&M, went swimming!!! (and the water wasn't even too cold) ate lots of picnic lunches on benches with good views, etc. It was one of the best weekends of my life, spent perfectly, seeing neither too much nor too little.

I love Spain. It feels very different from France - less reserved, a bit more like a party. The people all seem just a bit friendlier - even the architecture is more flamboyant than the reserved style of French buildings. So I'm excited to go back so soon!

Heading home again, I cried at the train station, just like last time, and even stupider than last time because I'm driving down to visit Jonathan with my family in a week.

Nantes is starting to feel more and more like home. Not as good as a real home, but I'm growing accustomed to everything. I walk around the city and feel like a true Nantaise, and that is a wonderful feeling. My French is improving, I believe - I now can understand almost everything my family or professors say, though of course sometimes I still get lost. I know where to get good coffee cheaply, good pain au chocolate, good gelatto, good pizza, and do so when I need a pick me up. I say things like, "Let's meet in the Place Royale," and then in the Place Royale, I wind up in lots of tourists' pictures, sitting on the fountain steps with Hanna eating a sandwich on a large baguette, our scarves thrown over our shoulders, and I'm sure those tourists think, "Oh! And we got these French girls in our picture. Look at how typically French!" But really its just two Americans getting really good at pretending.

I am still having a very difficult time with school work. I anticipated spending all of my 15 hours or so in trains this past weekend studying, but in reality spent closer to 15 minutes. It is a real problem, but I think it is one most of the students here are experiencing. So hopefully it will be fine.

It is difficult though because the French teachers here are trying to emulate the American University system but failing miserably. I feel it would be better for them to either just do things the French way, but trying to pretend that this is the way American schools work is stupid. For instance, Hanna has two mid-terms planned for one of her classes. So they obviously don't get what a midterm is. And we have a "Devoir" deadline, which is when our homework is due. But its just one assignment. They don't seem to grasp that homework is actually a recurring, three or four times a semester deal. Its mostly funny, but also confusing.


Mostly though, I have decided that this is the last Autumn and Winter I ever want to spend away from home. I love traveling, and I plan on doing it for the rest of my life, but in the future I plan on doing it between January and September. October-December seems so suited to being home, to being snuggly, walking around in long john pjs, or footy pajamas, sipping tea all hours of the day, etc. And it is just impossible to do these things living with a family you're not actually a part of, or living in hotels.

So. Caitlin Gilliam better appreciate that I chose (and Hanna and Jonathan chose) to study abroad in the Fall almost specifically so that we could be there for her graduation in the Spring.

In other news, my parents get here tomorrow! I'm taking an 8 o'clock train to meet them in Paris, where we will spend two nights. I am so excited! I have missed them so badly, and cannot wait to show off my European/French skills and hangouts.


05 October, 2009

And Jonathan too...


My first memory of Jonathan, straight up, is this:

I had to sit next to him in our 5th grade social studies class, where the seats were alphabetically arranged (Moody -> Mooradian), and I recall that I thought he smelled funny, a mix between apples and b.o.

I remember at some later point that first week of middle school that I gave a poem to my teacher for her to read, and she informed me that another student had also given her a poem and that we might should become friends, and that his name was Jonathan Moody.

I recall from these days that he wore huge shirts, used to pick a word out of the dictionary each day (or week?) and use it as his exclamation - as in "Oh pumperknickle!"

I remember he told me he wrote poetry and that he brought me an example one day - a very lengthy and illustrated poem about a dragon, and I think that was when I first got a crush on Jonathan Moody (although, truth be told, I was only ten and he was not the only boy I had a crush on, of course).

I started calling him - never by myself - it was always three way calls with Mary Tek or Sally Wilson - and basically tried every annoying and typical preteen girl tactic under the sun to try and get his attention. I remember at the end of sixth grade during one such phone call I told him I thought he should stop jelling his hair, and that the next day, the last day of school, he came without jell and I wondered if maybe he DID care about me.

But all of this was very silly.

He encouraged me to start attending youth group more regularly - I had only been a casual attender previously - and I cannot imagine how much said encouragements have shaped my life and what sort of adolescence I would have had if Belmont youth hadn't been a part of it.

Throughout seventh and eighth grade we became better friends as a result of this - talked more about things that actually mattered. I grew increasingly impressed with him: his straight A's, his sweet saxaphone skills and his jazz band, his musical taste. We realized we had a lot of the same values - values that maybe are a little outside of what is normal - that include a love of the land, and farming, and love for simplicity, a dislike of materialism, and an overall enthusiasm to know and see the world and better understand its beauty.

We both had these sorts of things figured out at a very young age.

And so the summer before my freshman year of high school, we went on a mission trip to Mexico, where we spent every day together, grew closer through sharing some intense experiences there, and on the last night in Mexico as the guys and girls were separating to go to bed, he hugged me very intensely and intimately - our first ever hug - and whispered softly in my ear, "I love you."

It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

And so today is his birthday, and he is twenty one, and he is not a little boy anymore, as he was when we met, but something more closely resembling a man.

And I have never known a better man.

He has striven for academic and moral perfection as long as I've known him, and has been able to achieve something close to it with relative ease. As he's grown older, he has grown more independent, and strives to determine solidly for himself what is right and what is wrong.

Jonthan is adventurous. He has been to Mexico five times on mission trips, one of which lasted over a month in the very isolated town of Juxtlahuaca. And now he is in Spain, and where as I have had Hanna with me this whole time, he went without knowing a soul and has already made so many friends!

His skills as a musician are and have always been amazing to me. He can decide to start playing an instrument and within a few months he's a master at it. I mean - he can play saxophone (although not lately), guitar, banjo, and recorders EXCELLENTLY. It is amazing to me how easy it comes to him, and he has -par none- my favorite singing voice.

Other skills/hobbies include: moccasin making, crocheting, recorder making, unicycling, bicycling, hiking.



Most importantly, Jonathan is one of the best and most tender people I've ever met - whenever one of our friends has a problem - large or small - he is sincerely concerned and always does his best to help the situation. Rare qualities in a lot of young men these days! He is far kinder than I am - honestly - and has always encouraged me to be better in all of my relationships. He is level headed, full of discernment, and always seeking God. He is a loyal, loyal friend and son and brother.


And Jonathan is an excellent boyfriend. The best I've ever heard tell of. He is always so attentive, so giving of his time, so complimentary. He has only ever made me happier, made my life less anxious and more rich, and this is the way all relationships should be. I feel so blessed to have gotten to have a relationship as good as this - it was nothing that we've had to work too hard at - and yet I can say that we've been passionately in love for six years. And that is rare and magical.

So when, as has happened, someone asks me if I've wearied of dating the same person for such a large portion of my life, the response is always an emphatic NO! because Jonathan is one of the most interesting people the world over. In the past six years, his personality has remained endearingly the same, while his spirituality, his morality, his social conscience have matured and grown and his interests have bounced all over the place.

I am so so happy and proud of the 21 year old he has become, love him so much, and cannot wait to see what the future holds for him!!!

04 October, 2009

The One Where I Write About My Mother...


As it is my mother's birthday today:

The earliest memories of my mother are only shadows now, barely visible through years of forgetting, but they start somewhere like, "Good morning, Mommy," and crawling in her bed, it still dark outside. She was always welcoming. Never once do I remember being turned away - mostly I remember crawling in beside her, and how warm she always seemed in the morning. I remember I would put my small hand on her cheeks just to feel how smooth they were, and run my hands along her arms; she was my first vision of what it was to be a woman, to be feminine and soft, my first vision of what I would one day miraculously grow to be. And she was(is) so beautiful and perfect.

I remember other things. That she used to, I haven't seen her do this in years, pour salt into the palm of her hand to dip her carrots in. My earliest earliest memory is of this: I remember being very young, with her on bed rest from being pregnant with Joey, and her asking me to go fetch the salt and carrots from the kitchen and me being delighted at the task and scampering through the house to complete it.

I remember creek walks at my aunt's farm: both her and my aunt, my two mothers, teaching me the wonder of the world - the small minnows hiding out in the deeper waters underneath tree roots, the small snails clinging feebly to slimy rocks, and the water crest, that my mother taught me to eat, and which we did eat, the taste somewhat like a radish but so much better because there it was - a free salad perched in the middle of the stream.

I remember water colors - silly drawings, sweet drawings, the millions of games that she created. Games that instructed and entertained. Some that merely terrified, like playing hide-and-seek in the house with all the lights out. (My favorite! Still!) I remember her playing guitar - my first real introduction to music - the beautiful song that she and my Uncle Donnie wrote "California" (or is it called "Gold Rush"?) being the first song I ever learned to play.

There is the way she mothered Joey and I both; the support she and my father always showed us in all of our endeavors - paying for whatever lessons we wanted to take - never pressuring us - always complimenting us probably more than was merited. There is Joey's painting that hangs above the mantle piece, my book of poetry on the coffee table, the musical instruments and equipment Joey and I are both allowed to leave everywhere, the practices, loud and inescapable in the living room. There is the fact that we were always allowed and encouraged to talk to our parents about anything and everything - and the fact that we were almost never reprimanded for our confidences. These are the privileges of having exceptional parents that Joey and I have enjoyed our entire lives without much taking the time to consider how lucky we are. But I will say it now: no one has parents better than mine. (As good as, perhaps, but it would be impossible to surpass them).

There is our perch, her perch, in the living room on the love seat, and the bird feeders visible from either window- the little stone bird that sits on the coffee table laden with books about birds, and the binoculars to better watch their little world. There is the coffee always sitting just beside her - half&half and sweet&low and frothed milk. And the whole of her perch covered with the Tennessean all scattered about in the morning - the Sports and Business section laying dejected in the corner and my mother pouring over the Classifieds - hunting for sail boats and house boats and tear drop campers.

There is cooking: tiramisu, baklava - my sixteenth birthday when we spent the whole afternoon preparing chocolates, divine chocolates, that caused in us a jubilant euphoria we later read was from breathing in too much chocolate, inducing a marijuana-like high. There is the way she dances - wild and emotional - a true child of the seventies. And there is the way music moves her, and makes her cry - the way she feels it until it is a part of her.

And then there is the wilderness that is my mother. There is Black Mountain and its views and hundreds of thousands of year old rocks. And Stillhouse Hollow Falls - the morning we met the photographer there at six in the morning, set up a sleeping bag and read and napped and passed one of the most peaceful mornings of my life. There is Devil Step Hollow, the holy place, where my mother crawled on her belly into the hollows of the earth. There is all the land that she has saved.

There is poetry: Wendell Berry and Annie Dillard and Sam Keen and so many others. The poetry that gets to the soul of her, that inspires her religion and mine. And there is her writing - the articles she writes for her annual reports are beautiful vignettes and she has written some very beautiful poems and songs.


There are my grandparents - Nana and Pa Don - that both live in her. She is every bit my grandmother, who understands and marvels at the beauty of the world and understands in an inspired way the goodness of God, and though I never met him, I know that she is my grandfather too - mischievous and stubborn and confident and powerful. There are her siblings- her best friends and some of mine too - who she respects, confides in, adores, admires - and for all of them I know the feeling is mutual, despite their differences. There is the way that all five of them seem absolutely determined that they will not grow up - and I do believe that thus far they are still winning this battle. Despite their 50+ years.

There is my father, and the way they are still in love, the way they are still at times too much in love too much in front of Joey and I or whoever else is around and kiss each other and make eyes and act like teenagers. My father, one of the sweetest men alive, one of the best father's alive, supports her in everything she does, and she in turn respects him for everything he is - for the excellent man he is. Their marriage is one to aspire to have.



And in short, I cannot say how much I love her. How much I am grateful that I was raised by her and my father, grateful too that I am so like them both. It has been difficult for me, going this long without my family, but in two short weeks! they will be visiting me and traveling down to Spain to visit Jonathan.

In short: I love you, Mama! No one's like you the whole world over, and I'm so glad its me who gets to be your very own favorite daughter!

Happy Birthday!