French Lessons Part Quatre: La Stratégie de Sortie

May 25, 2021

Bye Bye Bordeaux

Just as things are opening up, it’s time for my exit, to visit Mom, family and friends, work on paying work, get a new visa (clandestine since Feb), and it’s time to get vaccinated. After almost a year and a half, three confinements and a whole lot of immersion French, I decided to head home. Summer is coming. I hate summer in France

There are PCR tests to take, papers to fill out to leave France, to enter the US, to enter LA, and to travel during the curfew. The French love paperwork. My flight leaves at 6 am. It’s 15 + hours to get to LA. I can only imagine what hoops I’ll have to go through once I get there. Not worth thinking about. Since everyone has their survival story, I’m not going to bore you with all the byzantine workings of French bureaucracy nor their medieval approach to controlling a plague, I’m just glad that here, hair salons were considered essential.

Here’s a visual diary of where I’ve been, seen and done these past six months.

Marseille, Pertuis, Avignon, Lourmarin, La Sauve, Cadenet

My illustrated story is making progress. The story written in French is all finished, the paintings are coming along

Bordeaux, St Emillion, Cambes, Fôret Domaniale de Carcans, Brantôme, Le Parc Floral, Baurech

Even though I love solitude, this third confinement and curfew have been tough

I didn’t feel much like painting and zoom classes got on my nerves, particularly some of the students. But we’ve all got sob stories.

Thank God for my friends, the marchés and Sons of Anarchy, they kept me sane

French leçon learned: L’imparfait for this imperfect world and where to find the fuse box and disjoncteur (circuit breaker), in case the electricity goes out

useful vocabulaire: fusibles (fuses), piles (batteries), fuite de l’eau (water leak), tuyaux bloqués (blocked drains), détecteur de fumée, and Mr. Bricolage, for all your domestic needs and emergencies

French Lessons Part Trois: Fenêtre Sur Cour, Rear Window

November 17, 2020

Avignon and environs through the rear window, and the joy of going far afield

Now that I’m re-confined here in Bordeaux, I thought taking a little trip, with or without drugs, your choice, might be in order. Considering how screwed up the world is now, revisiting these places is a welcome breath of unconfined air. Hell I’m even jealous of myself for having done this. Escapism, a recipe for today

I visited these mostly medieval towns with my friend/guide Marlene, an absolute whiz at history and in possession of a remarkable memory. I chose the spots to visit based on their history and tried to avoid the most popular Provençal destinations. If possible we went on a market day, which meant getting an early start. Honestly the route less taken has always been my preference, and all in all I think I chose well, each place a new adventure. Here’s the list: with some notes

Brantes, tiny medieval hilltop village, neither here nor there and in the middle of nowhere, nice view and a good lunch

Vaison-la-Romaine, all things Roman YES….An entire roman town laid out before your eyes FORMIDABLE! the market a must, but got very packed mid morning

Séguret, medieval town with the biggest platane trees ever, good wine and good climbing exercise

Sommières, cool, rundown, medieval, great cathedral, Tiberius Roman Bridge, in use for over 2000 years

Val des Nymphes, mysterious pagan holy place

Garde-Adhémar, perched medieval village with an amazing view, lots of wind and an extensive botanic garden

Tarascon, seedy, a bit menacing, empty, home to Soleiado Museum, my kind of place but not for everyone

Le-Grau-du-Roi, the Coney Island of the Camargue, 1970’s kitsch, imagine every tacky souvenir possible, but with bulls

Les Baux de Provence, too many tourists flocking to see Les Carrières de Lumières, the works of Dalí and Gaudí projected on the walls of a cave, cute souvenir-y town with great views, but really not my thing,

Saint Rémy de Provence, too crowded, too chic, too expensive, everyone seems to love it, not me

Saint Restitut, tiny and absolutely empty, just go

Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux, the archeological museum was closed so I couldn’t see the largest European mosaic nor the 15th century Ark of the Covenant, however I did go to the Truffle Museum

Grignan, absolutely fabulous, even though again I missed Madame de Sévigné’s Château, packed with turistas, however while they were all busy in there oohing and aahing, we had the village to ourselves

Vézénobres, medieval chic, go for the view and a verre

Sauve, home of the pitchfork museum, like an old western ghost town movie set, probably my favorite spot

btw all the churches and marchés were super

It was all icing on the cake, although Avignon and all of Provence was hot as hell

Waved goodbye on August 18th and took the 6 hour train to Bordeaux (masked, of course) where I took up where I left off, school, heat, mosquitos, painting and now masks

August, September, October, passed, tourists were everywhere. The streets, restaurants and cafés were packed, no one seemed to care about the virus, happy to be out and about, with pals and the weather cooperating. Masks obligatory but only downtown, and no curfew. Then:

BOOM

October 31

Confinement part deux

Nothing left to do but zoom school, homework, one hour walks, and my own painting

From my rear window I basically see the sky and the apartment buildings across from mine. No street views, no trees, just rooftops, chimneys, orange tiles, clouds, rain, too many pigeons, and the twice daily group flights of some kind of bird. So, confined just like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window, I began speculating about the neighbors

Who are these people, not on some computer screen, but living in living color across the way from me? What do they do and like, are they bored, what are they making for dinner, where do they come from, are they happy, what do their apartments look like, what are they watching on tv……what do they think about?

There’s the weird guy with his man bun who works all night… the happy couple… the party boys…the welcomer with a steady stream of visitors….the loud mouths, who actually live in the apartment below me but I can certainly hear them….all the time….the new neighbor…the loner…the cleaner (lots of laundry hanging and the vacuum going)….the noisy family with kid….and the roommates.

What do they look like up close, (NO I do not have binoculars!) would I recognize them on the street? And are they in turn wondering who I am and what am I doing up on the top floor?

so far, unlike chez Jimmy, no signs of anything nefarious

Whoa….

is this another pandemic symptom

French Lesson learned: probabilities, doubts, suppositions, speculations….. in the subjonctif… or certitude in the infinitive

French Lessons Part Deux: Deuxième Acte: Un Panier de Crabes

July 13, 2020

May 11, 2020 Phase 1 of Déconfinement

Hallelujah !

FREE !

Goodbye permission slip, so long time limits, and free to roam 100 km from home! The outdoor marchés opened up, Les Halles too, the hair salons (I waited another month+ before going) and some stores, but really slim pickings. What a relief…with a mask

or so I thought

Day 1 of déconfinement I climbed the 189 steps to Le Rocher des Doms for the grand view and bought flowers. About a week later, I met a floral masked friend and we walked across the bridge to Île Barthelasse and saw hairy pigs, some cherries and Avignon at a distance.

Not much changed for me with déconfinement. I walked and worked. I went to the outdoor marché at Place des Carmes on Saturdays and Les Halles too. Sometimes I’d take a second walk, just for the hell of it. However, I found all this freedom nerve-racking. It was

“un panier de crabes”

a can of worms

All of a sudden it was hard to concentrate. What? Confinement was du gâteau compared to this! Even with so few choices, there were too many. Lockdown had it’s advantages, the only decisions to make were what to watch or read, what to eat, and what exercises to do, or not.

C’était le bordel

Using my weekly French lesson via Skype as motivation and deadline I concentrated on writing chapter 2 of my story in French. And when the images cemented themselves in my head I painted them.

I wrote about Claire and her special gâteau du chocolat. One bite and you can’t keep from spilling all your secrets, unprompted

and about Violette and her magical bouillabaisse

and Balthazar, his gang and his bar La Souricière

The stories kept coming, getting more and more elaborate

Unlike chapter one of the bande dessinée, chapter 2 is a fever dream of Templars, myths and legends of the Vaucluse, gypsies and bad guys, parties, the white horses of La Camargue, food, cooking, marchés and desserts, truffles, power and control, medieval gardens, Le Mistral, dogs, potions, scams and plotting

it all fit my mood and was the perfect, slightly seedy world to escape into

My characters; Bob, Claire, Violette, Balthazar, Legros, Harry, Shorty, Ganache, Vivienne and Zoltan, the villains, crooks and good guys got parts of their story told. I wrote the final piece for this chapter just in time for my last lesson on July 1 whew!

June 2, Phase 2 of déconfinement

Even more free

Travel restrictions gone within France, cafés and restos opened up for distanced eating and drinking. No more menus, just blackboards and apps. Hand sanitizer everywhere. Public transportation opened for everyone. And most monuments and museums!

Suddenly, people were everywhere

zero to sixty in a second

Unable to stop myself I religiously checked Worldometers COVID-19 numbers everyday

it wasn’t so reassuring

But determined to see stuff, I met a guide, Marlene, a friend of my French teacher, Fanny, who took me on two repérages (scouting trips). On June 3 we visited two tiny barely inhabited hill towns, Roque les Pernes, and Beaucet and then went to La Fontaine du Vaucluse. A few days later we went to the Camargue and Saintes Marie-de-la-Mer

so happy to be on the road again

La Camargue

FLAMINGOS, HORSES and BULLS

Ideal!

Speaking French all day, eating lunch in restaurants, seeing lots of cool and different places was super

I was definitely making up for lost time

Now on a roll my pal Connie and I walked to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, across the river to see the gardens of Saint-André and that night my friends Catou and Caro from Marseille came for an overnight visit. The first people in my apartment since March 16th.

June 15 Phase 3 déconfinement

Some EU countries, including France open their borders to each other.

That day Marlene took four of us back to the Camargue, for a picnic on a deserted beach where the Rhône meets the Mediterranean Sea and a visit to a manade (bull ranch) to see the gardiens work with their white horses and the wild black bulls with their lyre-shaped horns. À la vache! my kind of place!

On the 25th I took my first public transportation since February, and went to Aix-en-Provence for the day with a friend. Even masked it was a breath of fresh air! Being in a larger town with wide boulevards, different museums, villas, fountains, architecture, history, food and markets was perfect. And the bus wasn’t so bad either + it had ac

On June 30th off again with Marlene for a day in the Luberon to see the market in Gordes, the ochre museum and cliffs of Roussillon, and the towns of Bonnieux and Lourmarin. I saw enough lavender to last a lifetime. It was a very colorful day. Hot but fun. And this was the day before the European borders opened, so it was still pretty empty

YIPPEE

Confinement had it’s perks

July 1 borders opened to foreigners, not on the excluded list. The US is on the excluded list. On Wednesday the 8th a few of us drove to Uzès for the day. The marché in La Place aux Herbes is big and beautiful. You want to buy everything. However it seemed like everyone in the world had the same idea. YIKES what a mob scene! I hadn’t seen that many people since the last time I was on a subway during rush hour.

just about everyone wore a mask

The heat is on and tourists are flocking to Provence now, everyday it seems there are more and more. Avignon is crowded, especially on the weekend. It’s good for business but, honestly, where the hell are their masks??

oh boy

So where am I? I cancelled my flight home for the summer. I have a few more paintings I want to do, and a few more places I want to see. Chapter three of my story is percolating in my head trying to get through the fog of all the new distractions around. I’m taking the train to Bordeaux mid August. The idea of getting on a plane makes me chamboulée (wiggy) and seeing what a nightmare the US is right now, have no plans on returning, just yet

I still check Worldometers daily

Yup

French leçon learned: Il faut battre le fer quand il est chaud

strike while the iron….

French Lessons Part Deux: Première Acte: Un Truc d'Ouf

April 12, 2020

Avignon

Saturday February 8th 2020

The flight was long

the 4 hour wait at Charles DeGaulle for the train south, endless

the train ride itself 3 1/2 + hours +

finally a taxi ride to my new address

It was still daylight

I had been traveling for more than 15 hours

Ignorance is bliss

museums ~ parks ~ Marseille ~ palaces ~ wandering for hours ~ PEOPLE ~ cafés ~ birthday parties ~ stars ~ marchés indoors and out ~ train rides ~ other towns ~ language meet-ups ~ Utrillo ~ restaurants ~ the other side of the river ~ Carpentras ~ flea markets ~ Ernest Pignon-Ernest ~ fresh flowers ~ churches ~ Dufy ~ exhibitions ~ shopping ~ FRIENDS ~ more than 1 kilometer from home ~ Palais des Papes ~ vistas ~ music ~ sketching outside ~ possibilities ~ Botticelli ~ Le Pont d’Avignon ~ time to put it off til tomorrow ~ cinemas ~ theatre

LIBERTÉ

the world was my oyster

March 17th 2020

Noon

confinement

the rules

attestation for leaving home with your name, address, date, hour, reason, signature, or risk a 135 euro fine

at most one hour a day outside of home within 1 km

to exercise or go grocery shopping or to the pharmacy

some one hour views

I take a walk alone every morning watching spring spring. Once in a while I see the occasional dog walker or jogger. Otherwise it’s a ghost town. The weather is starting to get nice. It doesn’t pay to think about how great it would be to paint outside, or visit Aix or Arles or sit in a café in the sunshine.

The isolation doesn’t bother me. I’m spending a lot of time with my imaginary friends Bob, Claire, Violette, Balthazar and Ganache who have their own troubles but are virus free…..and chapter two of Bob’s story is swimming along

les carottes sont cuites

les chiens aboient, la caravane passe

la boule de cristal

a murder of crows/ un meurtre de corneilles

Right now it’s all good. I’ll keep you posted

French lesson: Can’t take anything for granted and always have a baguette in the freezer

French Lessons Quatrième Acte: J'ai Bouclé la Boucle

December 31, 2019

Monday June 24, 2019

Vannes was cold and rainy with temps hovering around 60 F when I got on the bus for a six hour ride back to Bordeaux. It was 90 when I arrived and climbing. The tram line was out because of an electrical fire so I had to walk to my apartment on Rue Ste Catherine, dragging all my stuff. The heat had begun. School was about to start again, my cheese paintings and Bob’s bande dessinée were ready to frame and hang for my show at AF Bordeaux and I was ready to once again be visible.

Summer in Bordeaux was a shocker. I wasn’t prepared for the boatloads of tourists, nor for my French classes being so crowded with people spending their summer vacations studying and improving their already advanced French. And I certainly wasn’t prepared for the CANICULE, the heat wave that gripped all of Europe. Living under the roof on the top floor of my building with no AC, no window screens and crazy mosquitos was challenging. At least for 4 hours every morning I was cool enough in the air conditioned splendor of the Alliance. Though truth be told, the discussions we had in class were hot enough to nullify any cool air, usually culminating with a relentless dumping on…WE the…Americans

Our subjects this time: Literature, The Art of Resistance, Artificial Intelligence, War, and The Five Senses. We translated and memorized poetry, read French philosophy, wrote slam, discussed military drones, street art, and the French baguette. I wrote essays about my mother and her iPhone, Star Wars, the pros and cons of school uniforms, the best way to meet someone, the commercial war between China and the US, and the Fountain of Youth. In class, during discussions, the war of words was fierce, everyone was totally capable of expressing themselves in French and no one held back…..even when we studied La Mode things were heated

With 15-18 students: several Spanish teachers, too many Italian adolescents, a Brazilian, a Venezuelan and a Colombian journalist, a Russian girl not wanting to be Russian, a governmental Kazak woman and a smattering of Asians, Canadians and Americans, the profs were alternately amused, confused or annoyed with the proliferation of opinions….politics most certainly included. Our class was hard to control. Our homework was hard to control and the heat was out of control.

Sparks were flying

Bordeaux is busy in the summer. There was a city-wide theme of La Liberté, with art openings performances, music and dance all over almost every day. There were spontaneous fireworks displays over the river and free salsa and tango lessons on the quai. Everything was packed

And there was my exhibit at Alliance Française Bordeaux. I gave a short speech in French at the opening and an interview, also in French, with La Grande Radio Bordeaux ( click to listen). “C’est la Fin des Haricots” Bob’s story, and my cheeses graced the walls of school. People said they liked it….but did they understand it?? My friend Catou came for the vernissage and we celebrated with dinner at Le Petit Commerce, a bordelaise fish restaurant and my bande dessinée’s scene of the crime. Chapter one was done, and chapter two starting to shape up, with the glimmer of Claire Voyante calling me from marshes of the Camargue…

This time around I was determined to do more things. The elevator was working again, the gilet jaunes were on vacation, it was too hot to cook or to be cooked in the apartment and it stayed light until 11 pm. It was safe to go out at night

There were new people, new haunts, and no cooking

with weekend excursions to beaches, vineyards, Cap Ferret, St. Macaire, and Malromé

Except for the mosquitos and the heat, it was peachy

At the end of August, for my birthday, I went to hang out with my pals Jeff and Catou in

Paris

and then to visit family in

Amsterdam and on Ameland Island

My Different Kind of Year ended on September 24

I flew out of Bordeaux on my way to NYC, via London.

Already plotting my return

For the past three months I’ve been working on commissions in CA and hanging out with my Mom

The work is almost done and can see the light at the end of the tunnel….

my new year long French visa is in the works

my character, gypsy fortune teller Claire Voyante’s part of the story is ready to start, a continuation of my bande dessinée

after a 4 month break my French is now officially rusty

J’ai bouclé la boucle ……. come full circle

In a month I’m heading to another French town where once again I know no one and vice versa to explore, and paint

Salut Avignon!

French lesson learned: Avoid Bordeaux in the summer…..actually avoid all of France and Europe! And buy mosquito netting…..

French Lessons Troisième Acte: La Cape d'Invisibilité

July 01, 2019

Friday April 26, 2019

I left Bordeaux for Vannes, a medieval town on the Golfe of Morbihan in Bretagne, where I lived for two months. While there, I visited islands, saw mégalithes, towns, museums and marchés, took a lot of boats, dodged rain storms, and painted. A lot of walking was involved.

It took me a while to realize that I had mistakenly forgotten to take off my invisibility cloak. No one knew my name, where I lived or what I do, only rarely acknowledging my presence when the cloak slipped off to open my wallet. Being a ghost, vastly improved my eavesdropping and observational skills! Considering the circumstances the images below will do the talking.

The biggest tourist attraction “Vannes et sa Femme”, on my corner…..

The sky has a limitless quality, the clouds marching across it in stunning fashion. I took a 1/2 boat ride to Île d’Arz, at least once a week, when the weather cooperated, and spent the day painting.

It wasn’t all sunshine and strawberries, obviously my images only show one side of the story. I have bunches of complaints, topping the list, the rain, the rain, the rain, and the cold, and so it goes. However, I won’t bore anyone further

The places:

Île Er Lannic, Île aux Moines, Île d’Arz (to paint), Belle Île en Mer, Carnac (mother lode of standing stones), Quimper, Benodet, Fousnant, Pont Aven, Sainte Marine, Nantes, and Concarneau

I really loved being in this area of France, and as it turns out Vannes is quite an active town, packed with events and tourists all the time. There was the town wide Photography Show, The Plant Show, The Book Show, The Week of the Golfe, involving everything boat, sailor, striped shirts and fish, The Fête de Bretagne, and so on. I was never bored, and never tired of wandering around.

I would have liked to interact with more people, and not feel so invisible, but all that anonymity and eavesdropping had it’s advantages, my french vastly improved! Who would have thought

French lessons learned: The true difference between une galette et une crêpe

and

next time I have to rent a car

French Lessons Deuxième Acte

May 01, 2019

I arrived back in Bordeaux on the morning of March 14th, 2019, it was smooth sailing. The flights were early, my suitcase with me, the sun shining, the cab ride to town, the fastest and cheapest yet, the keys to the apartment at the coiffeur’s up the street, the elevator was working. A nice welcome back

Before returning, I spent about six weeks in California, book-ended by stopovers in NYC. It was frigid in Brooklyn, and rainy in CA. I was a slug except for my daily 4 miles on the beach and a month of barre class. I didn’t paint, just hung out with family, and took care of stuff, primarily taxes and home repairs

Everything was green, a happy change from the normal drought brown of the last 5 years. Everyone was glad for the rain, no fires or mudslides, but they complained about the lack of sun.

In Bordeaux I went back to work on my “Bob” paintings, getting ready for an exhibition this summer. I had 8 hours a week of french at the Alliance in the afternoons and evenings. I like the familiarity and review but it wasn’t enough, and a bit too easy

And I had way too much time on my hands, admittedly didn’t get out enough and procrastinated a lot. Je pense que j’avais un peu le cafard….

Ce fut un coup de foudre!

À la Vache!

Je pense picorer un peu….

Ces deux gourmands sont devenus potes

Nous avons du pain sur la planche! Dépêchez-vous! VITE!

Jetons un coup d'œil à la carte Junior! J’ai la pêche!

I finished my paintings but realized I could have managed a lot more on my plate. I would have been complaining more, but more satisfied….welcome…. back….. homework?

I did get out, started running again, saw exhibits, went to the marchés every weekend and continued trying new cheeses and found new favorite spots. I watched the whole series of “Meurtres à Sandhamn” in french without subtitles and bunches of junk on Netflix.

Saturday evenings were always a toss up, the gilets jaunes situation a constant unknown, sometimes calm, sometimes not. I arrived in time for Acte XVIII. Eventually every Saturday the Centre Ville was blocked off with barricades and police and prohibited to vehicles, trams and protestors. Eerily sometimes Bordeaux was like a ghost town, restaurants, cafés and shops closed.

The next two months I’ll be in Bretagne for my troisième acte, first stop Nantes, because why not and then to Vannes. Once again this is somewhere I’ve never been and know no one….

The plan is to take boats to some of the 40 islands in the Golfe de Morbihan and paint outside, to explore as many sites mégalitiques, with their menhirs, dolmens and tumulus as possible, be by the sea and ancient forests, write Bob’s histoire in french, stock up on sel de Guérande, and eat a lot of crêpes

I’ll keep you posted

French Lessons 1 Le Premier Acte

February 01, 2019

I arrived in Bordeaux after a seven hour delay, one missing suitcase, and 92 steps to climb to my apartment, the elevator was out. It was Friday September 28. School started Monday October 1.

Right off the bat I was preoccupied with school: grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, accents, élisions, speaking and writing more formally, and homework

there were also my personal preoccupations of daily life in Bordeaux

mosquitos, rain, the 92 steps, carrying my groceries up those stairs, taking the garbage bins down those stairs and back up again, pronouncing the word yogurt properly in french so the cheese ladies at the Marché des Capucins would stop snickering, cheese exploration, wine exploration, food exploration, street exploration, explorations in general, and after November 17: the Gilet Jaunes

School was hard, four hours a day, five days a week. There were lots of subjects, 3 different teachers, multi-national students with multi-functioning/non-functioning accents, too much grammar, a lot of tests, written, listening and oral comprehension, official level testing for the standardized Delf/Dalf exams

and, we had to write formal letters, defend arguments, elevate our vocabulary, use connectors and the subjunctive, know the differences between colloquial, familiar and formal language, work alone, work in pairs, work in groups on projects ranging from Utopias, the Media, the Senses, Politics, Literature, Art, and Street Art. We gave book reports, discussed art, chose utopian spaces, talked politics, presidents and the Gilet Jaunes and wrote essays in a Proustian fashion. Our course capitulated with a 30 minute oral report complete with power point on a bande dessinée. I read “ “Au Revoir Là-Haut”, “Tintin et Le Lotus Bleu” and “Le Tour de Gaule d'Astérix”, I chose Tintin

AND

À LA VACHE!

there were expressions

all of a sudden our French teachers were willing, no eager, to share that elusive part of their language, the vulgar, un-pc, standard, colloquial, bizarre, incomprehensible, and laughable

well

Je suis presque tombée dans les pommes!

These slang expressions perked me up and with images arriving helter skelter, the artistic side of me came off life support

A story started to unfold and I dreamed up Bob, well I borrowed the name Bob from “Bob le Flambeur” the 1956 French noir movie and the American 2002 remake called “The Good Thief” with Nick Nolte as Bob. However my mec looks nothing like those two but is rather reminiscent of Serge Gainsbourg and that kind of stereotypical french dude. Here’s what I got so far

Les cartes ne marchent plus, je suis fauché, et je suis mort de faim

the bare bones

Bob is a gambler, he’s broke, has been working for nothing and is down on his luck with the cards. He lives in a flop house hotel, he’s perpetually starving, perpetually out of cigarettes and wine, the “rat-de-ville”, his co-locataire, stole the last bite of camembert, the dog next door won’t shut up and being Bordeaux, it is raining. Bob is at the end of his rope

One day he hears via the grapevine, (le téléphone arabe) that there is going to be a big party April 1 (Poisson d’Avril) at Le Petit Commerce, a restaurant down the street, to celebrate their first Michelin star. Also mentioned; the Mona Lisa is going to be on display for the fête that evening. The dim lightbulb in Bob’s head goes off, and not being too bright, and knowing nothing about art, he thinks, bien sur, La Joconde is the real painting. Bob le Flambeur becomes Bob le Voleur. Or tries to anyway

Dreaming of riches, he makes his plan, and does some recon

Je joue ma dernière carte

Then he calls his fence Jean-Luc WHO

Il raconte des salades, et il ment comme il respire, BUT gets the job done

There are about fifteen more paintings to do for my bande dessinée, the story to write in french and a proposed exhibition at L’Alliance Française for June -September 2019 in Bordeaux

on verra

Everyday there was a leçon but some were out of the classroom

My final lesson for part 1, was that you can always change your plans. So I’m returning to Bordeaux in March to commence French Lessons 2. Hoping to finish my paintings, write my story, explore more places, cheese, wine and other stuff, and to learn a few more things.

Details of my Execution

September 23, 2018

Details of my Execution

January- August 2018

After many many hours of tortuous calculations and useless lists

I figured out where I wanted to go, what I wanted to do, and for how long

Bordeaux 3 1/2 months Marseille 7 months

visiting my Mom before, middle and after

Rented my house

cleaned up, threw out, gave away, cleared out house and garden

After 3 months of compiling 15 different documents 3 copies each and tearing my hair out I finally got the interview appointment at the French Consulate

then was photographed, interviewed and fingerprinted 3 times

no more acting badly….or speeding, I’m now on everyone’s radar

Got global entry, a certificate of good conduct and a clean bill of health

and finally received a French multiple entry Visa for one year

Bought a whole lot of airline tickets, re-rented my old apartment in Bordeaux and found an apartment in Marseille

Painted mural part 2 at Hartford Hospital with Catou, while ruining my stomach on too many to count cups of Au Bon Pain’s hideous coffee

Watched all six seasons of Game of Thrones, again, the antidote to the boring process of photocopying endless docs, painting 13 large identical Washington bowls, and tossing out all the crap in my life and house

Ended my illustrious fishmonger career at the farmer’s market

Farewell Blue Moon!

August 5-12 Jefferson and Wilson NY

Took a last spin in my 96 Camry and drove 828 miles (love route 20) round trip upstate and back to visit Ellen, Mark, and their post op pooch Eubie in Jefferson then John and Kathleen and the pesky woodchuck living under their shed in Wilson NY, on Lake Ontario

When I got back I gave my car to my neighbors

August 14- September 25 California

Co-shopped, cooked, baked, and threw my Mom an almost 90th birthday party for 50+ people with Peter, Hui-shu, and nieces Leanne and Olivia

Obsessively watched MSNBC and CNN with my Mom after obsessively walking 5 miles daily on the beach while obsessively listening to NPR’s morning edition on KCLU and looking for seals, dolphins and white sharks

Painted more rocks

Played chauffeur, food shopper, medical advisor, bridge cheerleader, and regular thorn in my mother’s side, as co-companion and nag

Registered for three more months of immersion French classes at L’Alliance Française, Bordeaux

Bought enough watercolor paper for my trip, to guilt myself into painting a lot, it’s cheaper to buy french paper in the US than in France, go figure

Got new glasses and a big suitcase

Voted absentee

Suspended my phone #

Wrote a will

and

drank adequate amounts of Tito’s, de-stressing…

and happily my stomach is no longer in knots

See ya!

A Different Kind of Year

September 06, 2018

How it started Part 1

It began with this thought:
What if I move to France for a year?

In January 2017 I rented my house for six months, first going to California where I spent my time visiting my mom, brother and sister in law for about six weeks, and painting rocks on the beach.

While there I planned the second part of my time away, deciding to live, paint and study in Bordeaux a place I had never been to and where I didn’t know anyone. I enrolled in french immersion classes at L’Alliance Francaise, paid, took their placement test and found a great apartment.

I arrived in Bordeaux in the beginning of March and immediately started classes, five days a week, four hours a day. Each class level has up to 20 foreign students and concentrates on varying subjects which change every two weeks. It was an amazing opportunity to speak freely with each other about the topics we were studying; immigration, art, health or identity, all in french of course. It was particularly interesting discussing the French and American elections while studying justice, our election had just finished (NOT MY PRESIDENT prefacing every statement I made) and their election ongoing. My days consisted of class, food shopping, homework, dinner, more homework, wine, maybe one or two episodes of Un Village Francais before finally bed. Lots of studying was required, and there were tests! This place was no joke….

My mother came to visit for about two weeks. We drove throughout the Dordogne and Aveyron regions, visiting prehistoric sites and ancient villages, eating lots of duck and foie gras, drinking wine, watching the Crown on my iPad in the hotel rooms and amazingly not arguing that much.

During my last month of classes, I had incessant insomnia, a strange skin thing and a ferocious cough. I chalked it up to allergies, every tree was blooming in the city, the pollen out of control and once it warmed up, Bordeaux became a really humid and moldy kind of town. That spring the temperature alternated between 50-60 degrees for a few days and 85-95 for the next few. It was unpleasant, everyone was suffering. Thank God AF had “climatisation” air conditioning….

With all this occurring I had a hard time concentrating on my studies and most mornings would approach my teacher before class saying, don’t expect much from me today je suis crevée et ma tête ne marche pas, basically I’m brain dead

Truth is, my French is good, but I didn’t do as well as I wanted to. I have high standards and french grammar is tough even with a working brain….especially for Americans….do we ever really learn it in school? This nagged at me, even after my last class when my teacher told me all I needed was more conversation and not to ever change my gringo accent because it is cute…..

Then I headed off to visit friends, spending my last two weeks in the Basque Country before heading back to the US.

I lived in Bordeaux for exactly 90 days, the maximum stay without a visa. These days one is only allowed to be in France for 90 days out of every 180. Gone are the times when one could cross a border for a week or so and come back in for another 3 months.
Three months seems to be the pivotal point, when you are living in a foreign country. It is when everything is finally familiar, you know the lay of the land, maybe have some friends, certainly have a routine, and start to feel comfortable. Leaving was a frustration, it felt like I was just beginning.

So maybe it was then that the idea to stay a year subconsciously began.
Or when leaving the country and the French customs officer took forever to stamp my passport…was he silently calculating the exact number of days from my entry to my departure?

Or maybe it was on the plane home,
or when my tenant handed me seven envelopes from the French government, saying …..so sorry Sally, unfortunately I recognize these envelopes, (he lived in France for 10 years….) I think these are speeding tickets, were you driving over there?
And I paid them thinking…. what if I ever wanted to go back, and drive…..would they turn me away at the border….for speeding tickets? Things being so much more official these days.

Or maybe it was when I got back in my house, after a month of couch surfing.
All I know is one day the thought was there, and not going away.

It took a long while to figure out, the how when and where to go. I had obligations. I had to work. The process began when I was finally back in my house in July and could start my art projects. I had a mural to paint for Hartford Hospital that fall, pottery and painting commissions to do and my job at the farmer’s market.

The mural was my friend Mary’s idea. In autumn 2016 her mother was diagnosed and treated for ovarian cancer, then she too was diagnosed with the same cancer, and was undergoing treatment into the winter of 2017. While getting chemo she described staring at depressing grey cement walls surrounding the dead garden outside the treatment rooms, and said, I’m going to get Sally to paint a mural here.

And she did. I came up with a concept, did sketches, wrote proposals and a budget and researched materials. We face-timed while I was in Bordeaux, she sent me pictures and measurements of the walls and the dormant winter garden. I asked my French friend Catherine (Catou) Guillaud if she would collaborate with me on the project, and she said yes. So we began planning, spending about six months refining the design, drawing more, painting mock ups, comparing notes and working out the details. When I returned to Brooklyn in June Mary and I drove up to Hartford and presented our project to the hospital. A week or so later our mural was approved, with a start date of early September 2017 for the first garden and the possibility of painting the connecting garden in Spring 2018.

It was an immense and intense project, but probably one of the most exciting things I’ve ever done. Catou came to New York for six weeks. Every Sunday night or Monday (5:30 am) we drove up to Hartford from Brooklyn, and back again late Thursday or early afternoon on Friday.
The traffic was brutal. We stayed at Mary’s mother’s house. We did this for a month, painting 6-8 hours a day. It was exhausting but we finished! Catou and I were very happy with the whimsical garden mural we created, so was Mary and everyone else, especially the other cancer patients who watched us work and saw the mural transform the space outside their windows.

And since we were on track to paint the second garden in spring 2018 my timetable was determined…. the earliest I could leave would be mid-late August 2018.

By late fall 2017, “what if I live in France for a year” was no longer just a thought, it was the objective.