Five Things that Happened this Week

Crucial updates from our corner of France

No news is no news, but we’re getting some good complaining done

There’s nothing new to report about our plumbing fiasco, other than this: if you are a complainer by nature, especially if you find kvetching entertaining, the French are your people. If you lucky, as we are, you will also find yourself with dear French friends who are more than happy sit with you for hours and listen to your woes. They’ll grill you up some fish and serve you the first strawberries of the season, all the while listening and shrugging and saying oh la la, reassuring you that whatever fucked up thing you’re bitching about is unfair and unjust and should never have happened. What they won’t do: display their empathy by relating stories about their own calamities. Americans tend to relate to others by sharing similar experiences. For example, someone gripes about getting laid off, and the moment they pause to take a breath, you step in with a story about that time you were laid off. The French don’t do this. It’s not about them, it’s about you and your complaint and they are there for it. They also don’t start giving a positive spin on it when they’re bored with your negativity. They’ll wait until you wind down like a flipping monkey toy, clap you on the shoulder, say bon and be on their way. The next day, if you have the need to revisit your difficulties, they’ll happily do it all over again.

May: jackpot holiday month

May in France is always a jolly time, because May is the month of the most public holidays (read: most days off.) Some years are less joyous than others because the public holidays fall on the weekend, or even a Friday or Monday, which only allows for a humble three-day weekend. French spirits are a bit brighter when the public holidays fall on a Tuesday or a Thursday, because then they can faire le pont, make the bridge, and take either Monday or Friday off, to have a nice four-day weekend. This year is an unprecedented bonanza year, because May 8, Victory Day, landed on Wednesday this year, and Ascension, which moves around, landed on May 9. If you’re vacation day-aware you’re ahead of me here – the whole country has pretty much taken a five-day weekend. At our local beach, it felt like mid-August.

Fava beans, not just for cannibals!

Fava bean season is upon us. (I’ll wait until you get that Hannibal Lector scene from Silence of the Lambs out of your head). Known as fèves in France, I’d been indifferent to their charm until Madame C, my friend and informal advisor in all things French shared her breathtakingly straightforward recipe. This is a perfect example how simple and delicious French food preparation can be, especially as we move into summer. Fresh beans, straight from the market, sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, salt. A squeeze of lemon if you can’t resist, although Madame C  insists it’s not necessary.  

However, and furthermore, French is kicking my ass

I have a wonderful online tutor who is helping me prepare to take the language test required for French citizenship. My biggest struggle is not mastering verb tenses or grammar, but making peace with all the little connective words that I’ve spent my entire writing career editing out of my manuscripts and well as the manuscripts of my students. The same words that are seen to be sentence-weakening in English –  “so, “then,” “in fact,” “actually” “in point of fact” – are seen as beautiful, nuanced connectors in French. Proving once again that French is a burbling brook, while English is a To Do List. Furthermore (as the French would say), my own writing style is more Hemingway than Tolstoy. In other words, writing sentences that begin with ‘in other words’ is against my nature and my training.

Anyway, en tout cas, my prof and I had a twenty-minute discussion about a writing prompt, une production écrite, I composed about baking a strawberry tart.

“Yesterday, I made a strawberry tart for the first time. I used strawberries from my garden, and my grandmother’s recipe” I wrote. My prof said that to be correct, I would write “Yesterday, I made a strawberry tart for the first time. So, I used strawberries from my garden, and my grandmother’s recipe.”

Do you see the difference? If you’re a native English speaker I know you do. In the first sentence I’m laying out the details. They’re not related to baking a strawberry tart for the first time, but rather just a description. That little ‘so’ gives it an entirely different meaning, suggesting that if it hadn’t been the first time I made a strawberry tart, I might have purchased strawberries at the market, or used another recipe.

A swim, a glass of wine, and laboring over this kind of thing makes my day.

Flame-mania

As you know Paris is hosting the Olympics this year, but with everything else going on in the world, you’re forgiven for being unaware of the route of the Olympic flame. In France, at this moment, we’re all completely obsessed with it; la flamme is the Taylor Swift of classical elements. After la flamme was lit in Olympia by a hundred vestal virgins (or whoever), it spent twelve days at sea aboard a 19^th century three-master called the Belem. When it finally arrived in Marseilles, la flamme witnessed the kind of crazed enthusiasm the French usually reserve for footbal.

After Marseilles, without a second to catch her breath, la flamme began her grand tour of France, from the Lascaux caves to the Palace of Versailles, from the chateaux of the Loire to the famous vineyards of Bordeaux. La flamme will attend concerts, pay her respects at the Verdun Memorial, climb Mont Canigou, and ascend the steps at the Palais des Festivals in Cannes, where I assume she will be red carpet ready. At night, la flamme will repose in a “special cauldron.” I’m already exhausted on her behalf.

The biggest, most exciting news for me, and by extension YOU, is that on May 15, the fifth anniversary of our arrival in France, la flamme is passing through Collioure, and not only that, past our house.

Unfortunately I’ll be in Paris all week teaching at the Todos Santos Writers Workshop Paris, but perhaps that’s all for the best. Like so many things in life, I suspect imagining la flamme passing our house is far better than the reality.

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