New Blog Alert!

Hi all, Just to let you know, since we are no longer in Aix-en-Provence, here is the first link to my new blog entry:

http://one-mom-in-to.blogspot.ca/2012/10/a-new-blog-for-me.html

Missing Provence

Last week, after all three boys and Ed had gone off to their respective schools, I had a moment to think.  And I realized that we have slipped back into our Canadian lives so easily that it is almost as if we had never gone off to France.  Never spent our days struggling to communicate, never spent our days surrounded by the sunny rich walls of the old city.  And that made me so sad.  And so nostalgic. 

What do I miss from our time away?  More than anything else the unhurried pace of our life.  But that was mainly due to the special circumstances of being on sabbatical, with the freedom of fewer classes, fewer must-do’s and a mind-set of taking advantage of all of the opportunities and the historically rich surroundings. 

                                   

I miss the buildings’ shadows cooling the narrow streets, the rich ochre color of the walls, the small storefronts with a little of everything in a few-block area.  I miss the whoosh of the breeze as I opened the gate into the courtyard, and the cool air rushing at me when I stepped into our entryway.  I miss the sight of every market vendor selling the ripest fruit as it arrived just off of the trees.  It was impossible not to know if it was fig season, or Jerusalem artichoke season, or walnut season. 

I miss the music wafting out of the dance studios both next to and across the street from us.  I picture the beautiful pianos in the studio next door where Julian took his lessons.  Our living-room upright piano pales in comparison to the dark Steinways there, and the passionate tones of the instruments fit right in with Julian’s classical, French training.  I miss the little theatre in the basement of our building.  The feeling of soaking in a performance, getting the majority of what passed, but still feeling on the outside.  Wandering the gallery, wanting desperately to fall in love with a painting.  Entering the theatre as a participant, through birthday parties or, more meaningfully, as part of the group of CircleSong singers.  Making music, without singing words, a place where we sang as a family, melding with others. 

But more than anything else, I miss the people with whom we spent the year.  I keep walking through my life here and catching glimpses of people whom I think I recognize.  And then realizing that the woman in question, or the gentleman across the way, was actually the parent representative at the neighbouring school, or the cashier at the corner store, or… It is very disconcerting to have been so involved and invested in a life that is no longer.  I miss my market vendors, I miss my fellow Canadian ex-patriots, I miss the Faillard family.  And I miss all of the friends and families from the boys’ schools.  All of their little buddies who took the time to share their lives with us for the short term, knowing that it would all end shortly. 

Our rentrée here has been sweet, because it is so lovely to be surrounded by the comfort of my own home, close to my family again, and all of our friends.  But it is bittersweet, because the magic of our year away feels like it is being swept away by a breeze, a Mistral even.  And I ache for a little more of our Provencal days to stay…

Less is More, More or Less...

Coming back from France I knew that there would things from my Canadian life that I would look at with new eyes.  I expected to miss the easy access to fresh foods, the intimacy that life in a less-populated area brings, even the privacy that being a family speaking a separate language can bring.  But the actual things that strike my fancy surprise me. 

One always reads about the North American culture of excess.  The bazillion food choices on the shelves, the three-car garage for a three-person family.  But I always felt removed and far away from that. Consider myself standing corrected. 

I did an enormous purge of our home before we left for France.  We made many trips to drop off donations of all sorts of items, put a number of things out for curbside treasuring, and even recycled and tossed out a number of toys and items that had made it long past their expiration dates.  I knew that we would still have some sorting and reprioritizing to do, but boy, I stunned even myself. 

As I unpacked a box labeled pantry items, I pulled out eight separate boxes of Ziploc bags.  I mean, how much storage can one family handle in the span of a week?  A month?  A year?  Luckily I also found my stash of Mason Jars.  Along with several boxes of used glass jars that I had saved for… hmmmm.  Yes, I have been labeled a pack rat before. 

I have to admit to a healthy dose of fear in attacking the boxes of children’s clothes that I left behind for my family.  There are numerous boxes for each age and size, and after a year of living with five outfits, I can’t even fathom what to do with all of the what-must-be extra clothes in those boxes.  At least I can pride myself on a year of good mending, and that I already know where my sewing kit is!  Extra clothes…  scary.

And then there is our toaster oven.  In France we were left a toaster (pop-up type) in the kitchen, but two out of three times that we used it over a period of many attempts it blew a fuse.  We eventually switched to having less toast and to actually having pain grillé. So now, upon our return to Toronto, I rediscover our toaster oven, capable of toasting nuts, melting quesadillas and yes, even making toast.  But, it turns out that only the bottom grill coils actually work.  Dilemma: make it work as is?  Switch to the skillet method again?  Buy a new one?  The jury is still out. 

Skads of overused Tupperware, junky toys that the kids refused to give up on.  Books upon books upon books.  It is so hard to know when to start over, what to pull out of circulation, what to donate to a new home.  The only easy and obvious things are the true trash: the baby toy that only works if you hold it just so, the board books that are now ripped in three, the shredded wooden spoons. 

The one piece that surprises me is how easy it is to use someone else’s food remains. Our tenants were not quite as thorough as I was at using up ingredients to the last drop.  Why I spent so much time and energy trying to use flour, peas and walnuts in a single dish I cannot tell you, but we left very little after our year abroad for the next tenants. However, I am now the recipient of about five different types of lentils, none of which I recognize either by sight or by name.  There are a number of Indian spices as well, on which my neighbour will give me a primer in the coming week.  And then a bunch of basic baking ingredients which, if you know me at all, you know are just about gone already.  I consider myself very lucky… you can envision the victory dance in my kitchen, arms rolling… But on day one in Canada, I was pretty sure that I would be tossing out most of it.  Let’s just say that a few five o’clock looks into the fridge made me running for the lentils, the various grains, and my empty spice cabinet led me to the unnamed mystery curry powders!

I am sure that my perspective on all of our STUFF will change even more over the coming weeks and months, but I hope that I can persist in this spirit of paring down, for no other reason than I can’t imagine where we ever fit all of this stuff in a usable way.  Actually, I think the key lies right there… we could not easily access much of what we had before.  Too much other junk in the way to get to what was really fun and rewarding.  Does that sound like a lesson for life or what?!

Vehicles, the New Hampshire Version

For the last week and a half I have been up in Moultonboro, New Hampshire, where my parents have a summer house.  It has been a really nice respite from the craze of packing in France, and from the dreaded cleaning up after a year of tenants in the house.  No one else in the world will ever love your stuff half as much as you do…

But that is all an aside.  After the lake activities, and just general relaxing that happens at this house, one of the things that we love is the outings.  Whereas in Aix-en-Provence there was hardly any issue with having no car, here you would be hard-pressed not to have some sort of regular ride.  The distances are so great and there is no such thing as a sidewalk around here. 

So what do you see on the roads?  Well, it is at the same time totally different from what we saw in Aix-en-Provence and not that dissimilar. 

The only place where you will see pedestrians is in the several-block stretch that counts as Main Street.  There are bright cones in the intersections reminding vehicles that pedestrians have the right of way.  And the crosswalks come at literally every corner. 

Next up, bikes.  Not so many, and only in the mountainous backroads where you need to swerve widely to avoid hitting them. 

Then, the REAL BIKES.  You got it, the motorcycles.  These are no small scooters, as in France.  These are big Harley’s, with large, American-sized riders on them.  And definitely no helmets.  This is New Hampshire after all, where they “live free or die.” (Really, live free and die.)

In terms of cars, there are some smaller vehicles, some vans, but more of the larger types like SUV’s.  Many of them will be covered in backroads dirt, many of them will be towing something behind them: a boat or boat trailer, a camping trailer, even farm equipment.  A surprising number of jeeps as well.

The trucks are pick-up, also pulling loads, many from earlier eras.  And there are cabs for sale on many a front lawn, as well as other various and sundry items looking for new homes. 

And finally there is lots of farm equipment.  Mowers, tractors and lots of other John Deere-type things that I might once have been able to name in a DK book read with Julian. 

So lots of motorcycles and lots of priority placed on farmed foods.  But also lots of immensity and lots of aged vehicles.  Again I am struck by how it is possible to feel comfortable in both environments, yet in neither feel a full part of the whole. 

Home Turf

Our first day back in North America. After some, but many fewer, travel adventures (including a taxi stand with no taxis, a teddy bear flying around the waiting area, and a boy unzipping the bags of other passengers while the baggage attendants complain about how the bags NEVER take this long) we arrived safely chez Dominguez. Ed travelled with the older boys through Iceland while I travelled with Noah through Toronto. Yes, you read it right… through Toronto. It was all I could do to not pick up the phone to make a collect call to any and all of you! But, sadly, I had no mobile phone, no Canadian money and no phone numbers that I remembered. So Noah and I longed for Lora Hill Park and the company of all our Norseman friends.
     Arriving back has been very comfortable. My parents’ house in Belmont is as familiar as when I grew up, and the New Hampshire house, where we will spend the next two weeks, is just a joy to live in. The lake, the loons, the little-or-no-pressure to do anything. All good reasons take a brief respite as we adjust to the time change and, more importantly, the culture shock.     
     I already miss France. Even on the airplane the only movie choices I wanted were the French ones. While Noah watched the same tv episode again and again and again, I watched Amelie, a French movie from the early 1990’s that struck me as bizarre when I originally watched it. I was thrilled. While the subtitles still helped, I could tune them out at will and still enjoy the movie. And I GOT the humour! I really treasured the movie and all of its quirks. The other movie I watched was a documentary on the Maitre d’Oeuvres de France, a prestigious award given only to the true artisans of patisserie each year after three days of competition. I was transfixed, not the least because I had eaten and observed many similar works of art/deliciousness.
      But the differences have hit us all in different ways. Last night, in a sleep-deprived delirium, Julian was noting the high levels of water in the toilets. (“Why do the Americans have to use SO much water?) Both he and Noah noted the shallow sinks, Julian because the water kept splashing up on him, Noah because he could not lean under the running faucet to drink, as they did at school. And we all have noted the increased humidity, and the chance for rain!
     This morning, when we awoke at four a.m., Ed noted after his run that those random dark blobs that he was so accustomed to seeing out of the corner of his eyes were no longer there. After we all regarded him with puzzled looks he continued. “You know, the poo on the sidewalks.” And then I went for my run. Two things struck me more than anything else. The first was the homes. If the shingled homes were instead covered with ochre-colored stucco, they could be called chateaux. The homes are much larger, each with a nicely manicured lawn. And everything around is just so much greener than arid Provence. It is a marked difference.
     The other thing that struck me was the street-cleaning. (I know, it seems silly and disconnected, but stick with me!) In Aix-en-Provence the streets were cleaned every day. This keeps the city tidy after the litter and, yup, dog poo. On my run I noted a city sign forbidding parking on that side of the street. Street cleaning happens once a month, on the fourth Thursday of the month.
      All of this got me to thinking. Whereas the French treasure things within their own spheres, such as fine foods, wines, good company and even high culture, the North Americans place a high value on their external environments. American like their space, and try to preserve some of the nature around them. Picking up after themselves, creating large areas of green space. Whereas in France, and Europe, the citizens are so far removed from the initial domestication of the land, that maybe there is less of a desire and less of an ability due to limited space issues to create an environmental movement. And even the environmental movement in France seemed to be more on a personal level than a village-wide level. Individuals could conserve water, electricity and gas, individuals could recycle.
      I guess what it comes down to is I would love to have a French home with French culture based in a North American society. All of the appreciation of the local living, in a greener, less crowded city.

Le fin de l'annee spectacle

Friday night Julian and Micah had their end-of-the-year spectacle at school. I am always a sucker for closure, and this event did not disappoint. The party started at 6:30, with a buffet that kept replenishing as more families arrived with their offerings. There were hot dogs, drinks, crepes, savoury tarts, and oodles of desserts. Enough to keep my boys asking for more and more tickets to fill up their excited tummies. As you might expect at a full-school event there were lots of crews of kids buddying around, but relatively calm for the number of people fitting into the small courtyard. After an hour or so, the kids were organized into their classroom groups and calmed down enough to present. Micah’s teacher, Patricia, in addition to being a real star teacher, is also the director of chorale for the whole school. First up were the CP and CE1 classes. They had about 8 or 9 songs to present, and then one with the older groups included as well. It is beautiful to see so many little ones, singing so sweetly and taking it all very seriously. We have been to many concerts now, over the kids school careers, but this one was especially well put together. After a joint song en rond the CE2 (Micah’s class) and the CM1 and CM2 (Julian’s class) presented their 8 or 9 songs. Micah was his true show-man self, in the front row next to his buddies, singing with his large round eyes as sincere as can be. And Julian, after a dance presentation in which he actually was smiling and enjoying himself (hip-hop is not his usual genre), just dropped my jaw. He was singing in the second row, and I am sure that not many other families paid much attention. But his body was so relaxed, his face was so uplifted, and he was just in his element. Just in case you were wondering what Noah was up to during the show... Singing in French was one of the first ways that my two older boys could REALLY enter into their school community. Music resonates so deeply for the both of them and memorization comes naturally. So they could quickly learn the lyrics, puzzle out their meanings together and practice at home so that, when their epreuve came around, they were both confidently prepared. It also helps that Patricia picked really wonderful songs to practice, from fast-paced lists of foods to slower reflective pieces (prends le temps…). AND, above all else, all of the students want to work for her. She is a tall woman, with large features, and a large personality to accompany them. At the beginning of the year parent meeting, unlike the other two that I had attended where the teacher talked and the parents listened for the entire hour or more, Patricia had all of her material on the board, covered it in ten minutes flat and spent the rest of the time speaking to what the parents really wanted to discuss. She took Micah’s class on a week-long trip into the mountains to explore old-fashioned times and to get in touch with nature. They hiked several times, witnessed first-hand their studies of marmots, went to an old-fashioned school-house and visited a goat farm, tasting the milk, cheeses in varying ages, etc. The kids have so bought into everything that she presents that it looks like a constant love-fest. And the amount of material they have covered… let’s just say that Micah has had a very good year. When the show was over, Micah had been asked by the directrice to be the student to present flowers to Patricia. I had suspected that Micah and Patricia had a special understanding with each other, but this confirmed it. And after the show, when I thanked Patricia for all of her incredible work with the chorale and with Micah in general the two of us were both teary. She told me if she could teach Micah for ten years straight she would do that. (Sniff, sniff…) The other moment that really made me tear up, and it doesn’t take much, was at the beginning of the show, when the directrice was introducing all of the grades to the audience. Because this is the only event during the year where parents are invited to the school, it also serves as the graduation party for the CM2. Hence their chance to dance as well as sing for the school. Lots of whistles and cheers and proud children and parents. But after the classroom introductions, the directrice also introduced the five Canadian children to the audience and talked about how integrated they were. And the hoots and hollers made me just well up again. I am so proud of my children for the year that they have had here in France. Each one, in his own way, has come along so far in their personal development. Julian has applied his fine-tuned learning skills to learning French (and don’t I get corrected on a daily basis). But he has also become more secure in what he is and is not willing to do. He had a great quote for Ed about not needing to be the “cool” kid in the group. Micah struggled the most in the beginning, because he could not just jump in as the social being that he is. But, with his level of French and accent to boot, he is now enjoying the fruits of his hard work and going to birthday parties left and right, going on sleepovers, and really enjoying his newfound friends. And Noah has finally come out of his shell. His class is a challenging one, but he has finally sorted out for himself the kids who play nicely with him, and who he prefers to avoid. But the children with whom he now plays benefit from his imagination and his secret French (don’t let his parents know that he speaks) along with his coquin ways! Noah’s end-of-the-year fete will be next Friday and his class is, along with singing in the chorale, presenting a yoga demonstration. Lots of chien-tete-en-bas, bebe heureux and gorille, with all the kids dressed in white. Can you say pizza stains are hard to wash out? I am looking forward to seeing Noah in his environs as well, and wiping away a few more of those mommy-tears.

Too Much Pretty?

Last weekend we took a drive out into the countryside and I was struck. By how beautiful everyday living can be in Southern France. On the other hand, last night I went out for a drink with several other Canadians and we were discussing the end of our respective year here in Aix-en-Provence. The other two women live closer to downtown Toronto and were saying that they had enough of Pretty. They were ready for a little more urban grit, a little less bourgeoisie. And I sat there quietly. Maybe I am just that much more suburban. Maybe I am just a bit more content with a smaller lot in life. It doesn’t much matter. Call me Pollyanna, and not Sid Vicious! I still find myself caught by surprise at the way the light hits the side of a building as I walk by. I still am filled with wonder at the ruined architecture that dots the roadsides on a trip through the country-side. I was just stunned at the simple beauty and strong color of a field filled with poppies. And I was inwardly ecstatic to notice that the lavender bushes near the hospital are just about to come into bloom. We missed seeing the fields of blooming lavender last year, although we saw them with full foliage, and full scents. On most car rides, and train rides as well, I make the sounds of the animals that we pass by. Because they charm me. Another non-urban thing that has benefitted my family has been the lack of structure to our weekly existence. Whereas in Toronto my family has lots of activities and people that pull us into lots of different directions, here in Aix-en-Provence our lives have been much simpler. The boys have activities on Tuesday, and for awhile we had a second activity on Thursday. This was due partly to the later release time from school, partly to the fact that we wanted to decompress from all of the busy-ness of our city life. And it also helps that we know fewer people, so we can structure our time in a way that goes a bit more with the flow, with fewer social obligations. Between the beauty and the time to enjoy it, I feel like my soul has been filled. My mind feels less cluttered, my motivation to explore our environs is higher, and I think my overall happiness level with my family can be labeled as quite contented. When I shared this with Ed he pointed out that there always seems to be a new way to see something here. The shadows are always changing, the turns in the road are always leading to new views, and the juxtaposition of old and new leads to ever-novel opportunities for reflection. I am very much looking forward to many aspects of my life back in Toronto, not the least of which are all my friends and the comfort of my own home surrounded by all of the choices that Ed and I have made over the years. But one thing that I will miss, above all else, is the charm and beauty of my daily surroundings. The wonder of the unexpected, stemming from the quaintness of antiquity.