XXXIV. Normandie

Pauline, Roger, Clémence, Praline---le chien---and I pile into the car and off we go on a road trip to see the Mont Saint-Michel, one of the most-recognized and most-visited tourist spots in all of France.

The Mont is an abbey on an island just half a mile or so off of the coastline. When the tides come in, the walkway to the Mont is covered, and the island is inaccessible by foot; the tides go out, and it’s an easy walk across. Approaching the Mont St. Michel is one of the more intimidating experiences I’ve had in my seventeen years of life. After all, I grew up in Ohio. It’s rare to see something so old.

After a tour of the abbey and a lunch of omelets and mussels at one of the overpriced restaurants inside the Mont’s walls, we escape from the crowded, narrow paths out onto a platform that offers a view over the Channel.

As the four of us are huddled together and buffeted by the sea salt winds, Roger starts to explain the tides to me---or at least I think he does. Originally from the north, Roger has an accent that is difficult to understand even for native French speakers, much less me. In addition, he is the proud grower of one of the largest moustaches I have ever seen in person, grey and bushy and curled up at the corners. It’s a thing to behold, but it muffles his speech. After a solid 15 minutes of me nodding and pretending like I know what he’s saying, all I’ve gotten is something about sheep and salty grass. I even have to look up the word tides when we get back to the car.

Roger, however, is satisfied that he has imparted some knowledge onto me. And I am more certain than ever that people are very hard to understand.

An Adopted Dad

By Cindy WaiteRead the first piece in Cindy's series here. 

I never planned out my wedding. I didn’t imagine the decorations, or the finger foods, or even my dress. I told my family, defiantly, that I’d wear jeans and a sweatshirt on my wedding day because, “Ew, dresses.” I made the sour milk face you’re envisioning. Then I did back flips on my mom’s bed, made mud cakes in the backyard, and fell asleep reading, a flashlight hidden under my covers. I was maybe a strange child.

I always said I wanted a chocolate cake on my wedding day.

“No, honey, that’s what the groom has. The bride’s cake is white,” My mom impatiently told me, again. I made my sour milk face so contorted I might have passed out from disgust.

I can see her now, my Mom, at our scratched wooden kitchen table, the plastic covering pulling over the edge, the kitchen garbage pail at her feet, a Russet potato in one hand and a peeler in the other. She would have looked up at me without missing a beat with the potato.

“Why can’t I have a chocolate cake, too? Who said only boys can have them? I’m going to have a chocolate cake.”

It made all the women around me laugh whenever I said things about my chocolate cake and jeans wedding, so untraditional was I, so my cake grew in brown, sugary divinity each time the conversation arose.

“It’ll be a BIG chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, covered in M&Ms, with chocolate sprinkles on top of that.”

Then I bested myself, “It’ll be a three layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, covered in M&Ms and sprinkles on top.”

I didn’t spend my young years daydreaming about my nuptials, but I did spend a lot of time wondering who would walk me down the aisle.

I call Rob, my mom’s best friend, “Adopted Dad.” He spoils me. He got me my first perfume, “Romance” by Ralph Lauren, for my birthday because I smelled it in a magazine and liked it. I liked the name as much as the scent.

I’m moderately more graceful than a baby giraffe, only slightly lighter on my feet than Shrek. I smelled Ralph Lauren’s newest scent when I peeled back the bulky page in Seventeen, and I saw myself transform from my not-quite-or-at-all-grown-into-myself body to a romantic heroine starring in my own meet-cute love story. I’d be sophisticated. I’d be urbane, a word so sophisticated, saying it put me in a new class.

Adopted Dad is divorced. He’ll be happily remarried in a few years, when I’m 17 or 18. He’ll stop being Adopted Dad then, but I’ll hold on to the title for keepsakes. Divorced Dad can be a Dad to me; he has room and time in his life to adopt me into it.

Adopted Dad lets me drive. He’s okay with me behind the wheel, guiding me from the passenger seat. He doesn’t grip the door handle and dashboard until his knuckles turn white---that’s Mom’s job, and she should get a pay raise she’s so excellent at it.

I’m driving out to Six Flags with Adopted Dad and his 10-year-old son, my babysitting charge. Adopted Dad took the day off, and he handed me the keys. I didn’t know my palms could produce sweat so fast, but those keys felt like they were dipped in oil they were so slippery. I drove through Newnan straight on to 85 North, headed for Atlanta.

I’m on the interstate, driving through Spaghetti Junction---six, eight, fifteen lanes twisted like noodles, my heart racing with nerves in the snaking, speeding traffic. This is my opportunity to prove my maturity.

I’m 16, but I swear it’s more like 20-something because that’s what everyone says. I’ve grown up in single parent years---that’s 1.5 for every 1 normal kid year. I sort of get how dogs feel, passing everyone by.

Rob tells me, “It’s okay to speed,” as matter-of-factly as though he’d said, “There are cars on the road right now.” I stare at him out of the corner of my eye, my peripheral vision stretched as I also try to keep both eyes straight ahead, my hands at 10:00 and 2:00 and my heart from fluttering straight out of my chest onto the console.

“If you have the money to pay for a ticket, then you can take your chances exceeding the speed limit,” he continues. “You can choose to break the rules if you know the consequences and accept them.”

I feel immensely loved in this moment.

This is real dad advice. This is a life lesson that seems absurd on the surface---one a Mom would yell about, eyes bulging out of her head, demanding to know what on earth he was thinking telling a 16-year-old something so irresponsible. But Dad would know that he has a smart daughter, one with a head on her shoulders that got it, that gets him, that will be a more responsible driver and person because now she’s empowered with choice and the weight of responsibility.

I’m choking up because he said this and I’m imagining that scene, and a car cuts in front of me, and my reflexes jerk the wheel enough for us all to notice, but Adopted Dad doesn’t critique. And I’m calming down now because I can do this.

Men bonded with Chris mostly, growing up. What’s a boy without a dad? They went fishing and hunting, and he learned to tie knots and change a car tire, all while I played beneath the towering oak tree in the front yard. Men lent me a lap to crawl on when I was little and reassuring, big hugs as I aged. Men taught Chris and comforted me.

But Rob took me on busy Atlanta interstates and taught me to trust my gut. He taught me the tools of the Dad trade---lecturing me on too much time spent online talking to boys and wondering if I’d like to learn how to change a tire, after all.

I still wear Ralph Lauren’s Romance. I still think of Adopted Dad when I spritz it, pushing my shoulders back and my head high and entering the mist as any urbane woman might do.

I put Adopted Dad in the “maybe” column to walk me down the aisle.

A Fatherless Girl

By Cyndi Waite

My mom runs her hand softly along my cheek, like moms do with their babies. Maybe I asked the question, "Who is my dad?" or "Where is my dad?" or maybe she preempts it. She strokes my cheek again and smiles at me.

“My beautiful girl," I imagine her saying it in the wonder-filled way she still says it today. "My beautiful girl, your daddy was a good man, but he is very sick."

This refrain is so palpable and entwined in my childhood, I know the words like a nursery rhyme whose repetition tattooed it on my memory. But there’s not a nursery rhyme for my story.

I was born in Hollywood, a fact that fills me with undue glee. I was a kid who had "a lot of personality," a euphemism for having been histrionic. I wanted to be an actress, a screenwriter, but always, I dreamed of being a Los Angeles Resident.

Because what I leave out is the "Florida" part. I'm from Hollywood, Florida, home of the Cuban and land of the retirees. It’s a far cry from the iconic “Hollywood” sign and yet, it’s true, I’m from Hollywood.

We lived in an apartment building. I can see the outline of it, and I wonder if that's my earliest memory shining through or if I've re-created a memory from pictures. It had a giant, humongous, can't-see-the-end-of-it-can't-touch-the-bottom-of-it pool. We lived there until I was three.

Mom has always been a fish, happiest near the water and stressed, searching for air away from it. Mom's angry? Let's run her a bath. Mom has to get away from work? Let's pack a bag of towels and ham sandwiches and find the nearest lake. Water is Mom's Valium.

Mom's love of the water seeped into Chris and me in the womb; pregnancy didn't keep her from floating weekends away. We came out with our arms failing in freestyle. Outside her belly, we split our time the way she had done while we were in it: between the pool and the beach. I learned to walk in the sand.

***

Mom and Chris hold my hand as we walk to the water, waves lapping my feet and calves and thighs and stomach. I’m pink and round---a perfect Gerber baby, squealing with delight at the touch of the cool south Atlantic waters (that are somehow, someway perfect, while northern Atlantic beaches are drab, the water the color of the gray sand. It’s a mystery I’ve never solved).

Chris, four years older than me, maybe six or seven, swims his way away from Mom and me. He probably travels three feet, but I swear it’s 10 feet---half a football field, even. Mom holds me over her head, and teases me, “I’m going to do it! I’m going to throw you!” and her threats aren’t threats at all but promises. And she tosses me through the air, and I’m soaring what feels like stories above the water shimmering below, and I land, laughing, in my brother’s open arms. They throw me like a football, calling plays, “Go left!” I was a precursor to my brother’s glory days on the football field, a human ball. I wonder if that’s where he learned a perfect spiral.

***

We move from Hollywood that same year, when I’m three. I still suck on a pacifier, a fact that embarrasses and endears me now---a childhood in tact, still so innocent it maybe seemed stalled, in slow motion, behind. Precocious and clever, my brother knows my sun rises and shines with him. Where he goes, I go. What he does, I try to do. Sometimes he uses his powers for good, and sometimes he uses them for evil. The line is always blurry.

We pack up the family Chevy S-10 and move to Georgia.

We say goodbye to our family and friends, and Mom says it’s time for an adventure. She drives stick shift in the small three-seater pickup truck. My legs swing around it; it's hard for her to switch gears sometimes, and I talk nonstop, except when I'm sucking on my pacifier.

She got lost, often, on that long drive. I asked a dozen times if we were lost, and she always said, “We’re not lost, we’re finding a new way," just like she says today. Sometimes I ask her when we're standing still to hear those guiding words.

Hours into the drive, Chris pipes up. “I dare you to throw your pacifier out the window.”

I eye him cautiously; at three, going on four, I’m already stubborn and incapable of turning down a challenge.

“I double-dog dare you. I bet you won’t do it.” The taunts keep coming.

I pull my pacifier out of my mouth, and he rolls down the window, and Mom intervenes.

“If you throw it out the window, I won’t get you another one,” she warns.

Chris smirks. “I triple-dog dare you.”

I can’t take it anymore, and I throw it out, watch the wind whip it, bounce it off the side of the truck and fall onto the hot asphalt. It’s gone. It’s really gone.

I start to cry.

“I love you, but I told you if you threw it out, I wouldn’t get you another one,” Mom reminds me.

Chris looks at me, pride in his eyes. “You’re a big kid now.”

I cry all night, furious and unable to sleep. Mom doesn’t buy me a new pacifier.

The next morning, I’m calm and grown up when we pull into Carl’s driveway.

Burmese Children

Before leaving to Myanmar, I had read so much online about it. Mostly, I was concerned about traveling safely in a country where traditions are so different and the political situation quite unstable. We all have heard a lot about Myanmar lately, and not all of it is good news. It seems that Myanmar is heading toward a more democratic government, but still in the outer provinces, those areas that are out of reach for tourists and seem so forgotten, ethnic fighting is happening. While gathering handful information, I learned that Myanmar is quite a bit more conservative than other countries in Southeast Asia, which means I packed t-shirts with leaves and long pants for those days. Knowing that the medical system and the pharmacies are still underdeveloped, I stocked up all the medicines I thought I may need. I learned that banks don’t exist, not to mention ATMs, and that dollars should not be folded or crumpled, or they will not get accepted anywhere. Last but not least, a friend of mine told me that during a trip over there a few years ago he tried to discuss about politics with his Myanmar guide, but there was no way the guy would even start to express his opinion about anything, and he mainly remained silent and looked embarrassed. Therefore, I decided it was wiser not to get involved in a political discussion in public. These tips being absorbed, I considered myself quite prepared to live a nice trip in a mostly mysterious country.

But nobody, no blog, no article, no friend, had prepared me to the real experience and the feelings I would feel once there.

Some journeys leave you the same way you were before, they give you memories of fun things, wild landscapes, or even new recipes. You take tons of pictures, and maybe sometimes you know you will never look at them again. They are stored in your computer, and that’s enough.

But other journeys change you, for they are really meaningful–they touch your heart so deeply you instantly feel will never fully recover. It’s a weird and precious feeling, and this was the first time it happened to me. I started to think: Was this place waiting for me? Will I be the same person again when I go home? How can I tell my family all the details? Can I leave Myanmar and go back to my country like this was a regular fun vacation? Is there anything I can do to give back to these people what they are giving me?

Before leaving, I had also gathered information about orphanages and schools, and learned that Burmese kids are not even eligible for adoption. Myanmar isn’t the only country in the world with such rules, but still my heart skipped a beat when I read this. The only thought that adoption is not a possibility made me feel powerless, impotent. In Myanmar there are some orphanages, and sometimes international foundations are taking care of collecting donations or organizing volunteering experiences (for instance http://www.burmachildrensfund.org.uk/). They support the future of these children in various parts of Burma, and provide kids with shelters and education.

One day Husband and I visited a school at Inle Lake. These students were from two to six years of age, and they had families to go back to at the end of the day. They looked happy, they screamed and laughed all together while the teachers were quietly watching over them. We were strangers at first, but it took them a few minutes to show us how they would push each other on the swing.

And that’s when I started to wonder–those poor children who don’t have parents or don’t know who they come from, can they be this happy? Coming from a Western country, where human and natural rules are quite different, I realized I shouldn’t judge the situation with my old eyes. Instead, I should keep my eyes open while I was there, learn as much as possible about these people and maybe change my way to consider things. It didn’t take long to learn the most important and shocking lesson–Burmese are so welcoming to foreigners, and they are even more welcoming to their own people. There might be severe ethnic fighting going on in some areas, but to me that’s an unfortunate, huge mistake. I saw something inside them, something special I had never seen in others before. I saw families, made of mothers, fathers and children who may be quite unaware of what’s outside their country, but who are still happy, they KNOW how to be happy and enjoy the simple things in life, some authentic way of living that we think we have but in fact we have lost. I had never, ever seen and felt this peace inside myself. So, putting aside my initial reaction towards the adoption issue, I wondered. Would adoption be the best choice? Growing in a natural and beautiful and uncontaminated environment, where relationship bounds are tight and pure, growing in your own country and having the chance to know it and make it better in the very near future… isn’t this the better option? After all, there are so many other ways to help, if we really want to.

I’m not sure what the answer to my questions might be, but I’m sure of one thing–Myanmar is a country that can change you deeply. I changed over there. Like a snake, I left my skin behind, and soon was ready to get warmer under new sun rays, free from the past, eager for a new future and willing to learn how to make a day out of a single smile.

These are more links of interest, to support children in Burma, or just gather information.

The Burma Orphanage Project: http://burmaorphanageproject.org.uk/about/

Myanmar Orphanage: http://www.myanmarorphanage.com/

Stichting Care for Children: http://www.careforchildren.nu/en/

"For millennia women have dedicated themselves almost exclusively to the task of nurturing, protecting and caring for the young and the old, striving for the conditions of peace that favour life as a whole. To this can be added the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict. Now that we are gaining control of the primary historical role imposed on us of sustaining life in the context of the home and family, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wisdom and experience thus gained in activities of peace over so many thousands of years. The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all."

Aung San Suu Kyi - Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1991)

Upon Seeing Emily Dickinson’s House, My First Day in Amherst.

I imagine Emily in the window, her white dress fading a little.  She is protected by the walls of her familiar room. She is dwelling in the possible, as she put it.  The floors are washed with a sunlight that doesn’t let on to the deceiving cold of spring’s first days or the searing heat of summer. There is comfort in this unknowing place, there in hope in hesitation.

And, then I image her descending the stairs, and walking out onto the lawn. I see her steps shaking dew from the morning grass, and the goose bumps rising-up on her ankles.  In that moment, we are both staring back at the house, where she imagined this place so differently.

Emily Dickinson is survived by more than one-thousand poems and a collection of pressed flowers in a vault at Harvard. It felt important for me to see her home, as I was now alone in Amherst too. I, like her, know the feathered thing- the gentle joy of a chosen uncertainty.  The real magic of this fickle world is in the nearly-real, the perhaps, the "could be".

XXXII. Provence

A mere two months after I return from Chambéry, back to France I go. Still somewhat emotionally scarred from my self-imposed exile, I’m initially nervous to go back when I feel like I just escaped. But, as I already knew, each region of France proves to be drastically different from the others. Savoie was cold and gloomy in the late winter; July in Provence is as close to ideal as I’ve found.

My parents rent a house through a university faculty exchange website. Nestled in the hills surrounding Aix, we spend a couple weeks drinking coffee on the porch in the shade of a fig tree and later wandering into town to drink pressions pêches and eat pizzas with capers the size of my fist in the evenings at La Calèche, a restaurant that I return to many times when I spend my junior semester in the city three years later. I go for long runs out into the countryside, and the blue skies and sunflower-yellow farmhouses soon restore my faith in this country. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, after all.

Feeling like seeing more of the region, we sign up for a cheesy bus tour and take a day trip to the Luberon valley. It really is as beautiful as Peter Mayle made it out to be---rows of lavender fields, stark limestone, vineyards and villages clinging to hilltops. Each photo I take looks like it could be in a calendar, days checked off underneath in neat, square boxes.

I quickly develop a crush on our tour guide, a young, charming Frenchman named Thibaut, whose shiny hair and scarf are just feminine enough to be incredibly attractive. And oh, that accent. As we pass by yet another pristine cherry orchard, Thibaut makes the effort to describe to the English-speaking group the sheer sensual pleasure that is eating une cerise provençale. I am enraptured.

"Zey are so sweet," he sighs, pursing his lips and gesturing vaguely in that uniquely French way. "Zey are so good.”

Nobody Puts Baby Under a Cover

Dear Sibyl,

I'm the proud mama of a 2-month-old little boy, and I'm happy to be exclusively breastfeeding him.  I'm often in public places when it's time for him to eat, and I'm generally happy to feed him (without a cover, as I find them annoying and difficult) wherever we find ourselves---be it a park, cafe, or friend's home.

However, my husband feels uncomfortable that I do this, and it has sparked tension between us.  I don't much care what random observers think about my practice, but I do respect my husband's opinion.  On the other hand, I feel as though he's being prudish and controlling...

Signed,

Baby Mama

Dear Baby Mama,

Honey, you gotta let those girls fly.  Take the puppies out of the basket.  Give your boobs some breathing room.  Breastfeeding is hard enough---what with the pumping and the cracking and the soreness and the wardrobe restrictions---you can’t also be worrying about what your husband thinks about Rando Calrissian seeing a nip slip while the baby is getting his lunch.

I can see your husband’s perspective---up until 2 months ago, your breasts were highly sexualized body parts, and, even if you are currently not thinking of them that way, what with the bleeding and leaking and all, he might still be.  He is certainly worrying that other men are.

But just to put it in perspective for him, here is an incomplete list of all the men I breastfed in front of, in my 15 month stint: my priest, my father-in-law, all my male friends, my dance instructor, the guy who cleans the laundromat, everyone at every park and restaurant in my neighborhood, the dude sitting horrifyingly close to me on an airplane, my boss, and my city’s entire baseball team.  They could all sing to me that snarky little song Seth McFarlane thought was so clever at the Oscars, “We saw your boobs!”  And how many shits would I give?  Zero.  I would give none of the shits.

I found breastfeeding to be alternately the greatest thing ever and shockingly isolating and difficult.  So, I began brazenly breastfeeding everywhere I went---I mean, how many dicks have you seen in public, when men whip them out to pee in a corner/on a bush/by the side of the road?  WAY too many.  Why should they be allowed to relieve themselves wherever, whenever, when I was just trying to give my child some nurturance and get her to stop wailing, for everyone’s sake?

I have no idea how my husband felt about this.  It was actually not something he was allowed comment on.  It was my body, and I was working so hard to give our baby food from it that my husband would never dream of saying, “Honey?  Could you cover up a little?  Homeboy behind the counter is giving you a stare.”

But that is my relationship, and this is yours.  It is fine for your husband to state his opinion, and sweet of you to care.  However, what I’m not game for is him inflicting any kind of shame on you about your choice.  Body shame is serious problem, and the oversexualization of women’s lady bits has led to a society rampant with the kind of prudish, controlling behavior you suspect your husband of on the one hand, and a violent underbelly of objectification and rape culture on the other.

Your body is your own.  Your breasts are only yours, and what you choose to do with them, especially when you are quite innocently feeding your baby, is your business.  I hate to say it, but welcome to the contradictory experience of being a mother, where you’re damned if you stay at home for being too smothering, and damned if you work full-time for being abandoning.  You’re damned if you breastfeed in public without covering up, but you’re damned if you pull out a bottle of formula as well.

Like Bob Dylan said, everybody must get stoned.  You might as well embrace it now, and get used to mothering this child however you want, making peace with yourself despite those (in this case, including your husband) who may not always understand or agree.

In Mammorial Solidarity,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here.

Lessons from a circus baron...

Dearest Clara,

They say that the circus is the greatest show on earth.  I remember several from when I was growing up---at the last one I attended, my parents let my brother and I ride the elephants on a loop around the tent.  I don’t know when that was though, it seems far away.  Part of the reason is that I’ve gotten older of course, and part of the reason is that I think there seem to be less and less opportunities to see a circus.

But legends associated with the circus and the traveling families that work in them always seem to be so strong; I always find the stories fascinating.  So when we traveled to Florida a few weeks back, I made sure that we made a stop to see the Ringling mansion and museum in Sarasota.  There is a circus museum there, full of the beautiful train cars from the railway days, and more information about how that particular “greatest show on earth” came to be.  But the estate is so much more than the museum---there is a beautiful Venetian palace that was the winter home of the owners, as well as a magnificent art collection housed in a villa.  While walking around, I couldn’t help but take away a few things from the rich history:

• If there’s a boom, there’s a bust: The Ringling family ended up owning every traveling circus in the United States.  And the youngest brother bought a tremendous amount of land in Florida.  But eventually economic happenings outside of their control caught up with them in the form of the Great Depression.  If things are going well, by all means enjoy them, but you have to always be mindful of the fact that the good days can always end.  Always make sure you have a reserve and never over-extend.
• Where you start doesn’t define where you end: The Ringling brothers came from very humble beginnings yet ended up being one of the most powerful families in the business.  The brothers had modest educational beginnings, but the youngest still taught himself about the greatest European art masters.  He started his life in the Midwest but divided his time between New York City and the Sarasota Bay.  All of those show that where you start in life doesn’t necessarily have to define where you end---changes in life are your prerogative to make.
• Know what to fight for: When economic difficulties caught up with the youngest Ringling, he had to make some very tough decisions.  But in the end, he considered it one of his greatest accomplishments that he was able to hold on to his artwork masterpieces and his home to house them, not for himself, but because he had wanted to will them to the state of Florida.  Those pieces are open to the public today to enjoy, admire and learn from.  He died with only $311.00 in his bank account, but still held on to these pieces, even though he could have sold them for more personal funds.  Sometimes, you have to know what to fight for, even when it makes things harder for you.
• It’s hard to compete with a lifetime love: John Ringling was married to his wife Mabel for a quarter of a century, and frequently referred to her as the love of her life.  After her death he remarried for a brief time, probably too soon, and the relationship was seemingly doomed from the start.  Perhaps it was his fault, perhaps it was hers, an outsider to any relationship will never fully know.  But you will meet people, who, in their heart are still in love with someone else, regardless of whether that person loves them back or not, and there’s no competing with that.

All my love,

Mom

But then things took a turn

If you know me, or have been reading this column, you know that I spent a year living in Bangladesh.  It was wonderful and fantastic and a hundred other adjectives.  Bangladesh is close to my heart not just because of my time spent there, but it’s also the place where my husband grew up and where his family lives today. Bangladesh has not had a peaceful spring.  In early February, masses of people gathered in central Dhaka to protest what they felt were light sentences given to war criminals. The protest grew and became a hub of music and thought and peaceful demonstration.  Parent’s brought their children and it seemed the country was really banding together.

But then things took a turn. Political parties started shouting about favoritism and unfair practices, and the strikes began.  Countrywide strikes, or Hartels, have been used for decades in Bangladesh as political bargaining tools.  In their early days, they were a way of making those in power take notice and negotiate with other parties. By virtually shutting down the capital city, the organizers gained a chip to bargain with: Meet with us, hear our demands, or nothing gets done.  It’s not pretty or particularly practical, but it worked.

As time moved on, the hartels became more and more symbolic; a way to be seen as doing something and being present, flexing political muscles.  When we were in Dhaka, strikes were called about once a month, sometimes more often if there was a particular issue at debate. But they were relatively tame and never reached our corner of the city, home to all the embassies.  In recent months hartels have been called on an almost weekly basis and with increasing violence.

What was originally a political debate about justice has been taken by some and made to be a fight over religion.  A ‘with us or against us’ mentality has spread as more and more people feel slighted. As the original protest is drowned by shouting, fear, and a mob mentality, the future is unclear. Many of us who hold Bangladesh in our hearts are anxiously watching and hoping for level heads and peace to prevail.

I’m not an expert, just a writer with an opinion---for further reading and other opinions see here and here, or check out the Guardian, The Daily Star, or The BBC 

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New trip, new you? Travel and the opportunity for change

A paradox:  the thing that frightens me most in the world is flying.  The rumbling engines, buried somewhere in the gut of a monster whose insides I cannot see; the finality of the cabin door closing; the complete and total trust in two strangers in the pilot’s seat, not to mention the myriad more on the ground, making sure two planes don’t meet nose to nose at 500 miles per hour, making sure the runway is clear but not slick, the wings free of ice and the fuel tank full. The deceptively fluffy clouds and their turbulence filled interiors.  The 36,000 feet that separate me from the ground. And yet, my favorite place in the world is an airport.  Any airport will do, although some, of course, are better than others.  London’s Heathrow is a marvel.  San Francisco’s new terminal has free Google Chromebooks, an organic juice bar and a yoga room.  But it is not these things that make me love airports.  I’ve never known, in fact, what it is, knowing merely the likes that, while exemplary, fall short of explaining the love:  the antiseptic smell; the ten issues of Cosmo, all trumpeting sex tips in different languages; the permission to eat crappy food (because everyone, in an airport, gives themselves that permission).  I didn’t know where the love came from, though, until I was on a bus from Lisbon, in Portugal, to Seville, in Spain’s Andalucia.

“Zack,” I said to my boyfriend, who was nodding off in the seat next to me.  I poked him.  “Zack, I had an epiphany.”

He opened one eye.  “Yeah?”

I’d been thinking of the time we’d just spent in Lisbon, and the last time I’d been on a bus several days earlier, to Lisbon from Porto in the north.  As much as I enjoyed walking around the glowing white streets of Lisbon, sampling the tart cherry liquor and chocolate salami, the part where my head tingled, where my palms sweat slightly and I tapped my toes---that was earlier.  That was on the bus, and it was happening again.  To Zack, I said, “I don’t like traveling because of the places I go.  I like traveling because of the opportunity for change, because of the hope of transferring locales, of the possibility the unknown offers.   I like the places themselves, of course, but it’s more about the change---the possibility for it, and then, hopefully, the reality of it---that’s the part I love.”

I settled back into my seat, satisfied.  Airports, then, were the ultimate place of opportunity: hundreds and thousands of possibilities for changes, branching upward and outward into the endless sky from the terminal filled hub, in which I sat, and waited, and savored.

Happiness expert Gretchen Rubin (if there can be such a thing), writes that, “To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.”

While many people think of vacations as fulfilling the first element---what feels better, really, than laying on a beach with a cocktail in hand, or sampling gelatos on a stroll through Rome---I’ve always, without realizing, thought of it as accomplishing the last element: the atmosphere of growth.  Each place, with its different things to do, see, eat, smell, taste, hate, and love, offers the possibility of making me different, ever so slightly.  Each place offers me the opportunity to change---hopefully, to grow---as a person.

“Do you think that’s universally true?” Zack asked, having now awoken enough to engage.  “Does a trip to remote Africa offer the same potential for change as a cruise in the Bahamas?”

I pondered the question.  Do, as he asked, the trips of the “feeling good” variety provide the same atmosphere of growth that I so desired?  Did travel inherently offer opportunity for change, or is that potential limited to a certain kind of trip?

My best trips, the ones that I savor in memory for months and years after, are the ones that have been the hardest.  There were the two months I spent in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt, where I burst into tears at least three chaotic, crowded border crossings, felt dirty constantly, and was 100% positive I was going to die at least five times (you may not want to trust my odds predictions).  I felt more changed at the end of it, but also simply more satisfied.  When I look back on it, the colors are brighter, the smells richer, the interactions more readily accessible in the banks of my mind (there is, of course, something else to be said for knowing, as with a place like Syria, that you went at a specific point in history; that it will be fundamentally changed should ever you return).

Does this mean that the trips that I primarily simply indulge in simple pleasures are less worthwhile?  I don’t think so.  There is something to be said for the change inspired by allowing yourself to just be, of acknowledging the value of pleasure, of saying, I have no where to go other than here, no one to indulge other than myself.  This kind of environment offers its own opportunity for change, for reflection, for growth---although sometimes, I think there is merit in not seeking growth at all.

And sometimes, it’s better to be in an airport: the great joy in being safe on the ground, and knowing that, soon enough, you’ll take flight.

xxxi. normandie

My regular spot in Bernay is Brin d’Zinc, a bar that Clémence and her friends seem to have been going to since they were in collège, the French version of middle school. Smoking indoors is still legal, and the yellow interior is full of French teenagers lighting up over their beers. I am immediately a part of the crowd; with Clémence as my host sister, I came to Normandie with a ready-made group of friends waiting for me.

My drink of choice is one that Fréd introduced me to: pression pêche, a draft beer with peach syrup. Stereotypically girly, sure, but it’s delicious and fresh and I get one every time we go in, Clémence ordering one for me along with hers. On our third or fourth visit, I work up the courage to stride up to the bar and order my own. Une pression pêche, s’il vous plaît!

But I am nervous and tripping over my words. The “r” in pression turns flat, hard. American. The smiling barman laughs and makes me repeat the phrase until I get it right — not in a mean way, but still. It takes me two more tries before he slides the beer across the bar.

Face burning, I carry my drink back to the table and take a sip while Clémence pats my shoulder encouragingly. The beer still tastes good, only slightly tainted with humiliation.

Desperately Seeking Susan (and Ramon, and Seymour, and Chloe)

Dear Sibyl,

Throughout my life, I have been blessed with some beautiful friendships. They are the kinds of relationships in which I get to be more of who I am, make life feel more like a funny fun weird road trip, help me see, laugh, grow and play.  

However, with the exception of two arenas, I haven't felt truly at home and at ease in a group of friends. I have watched solid groups of friends, so I feel like I know what they look like, but I have a hard time speaking the language.

The two exceptions: one was an arts summer camp I went to as a teenager; there were only 25 of us, we did arts stuff all day and the same semi-weirdos came back year after year. The other was in a school environment where it was also a fixed group. I feel like neither are the way life is -- full of busy schedules, Facebook-like stuff (which I feel completely awkward with), and tons of different communities.

My friends are scattered from being around the corner, to the other side of the world. I have dipped my toes into groups but feel like I generally have to pretend a little bit. Can you help? I want my team to eat with, to shake things up with, to dance with, to cry with, to feel at ease with.

Love,

Lone Wolf in Search of a Pack

Dear Lone Wolf,

Let me take a moment to commend you for being intentional about your friendships.  In a culture obsessed with coupling off, with achieving the “goal” of marriage and kids, the fact that you are willing to develop these other, vitally important relationships in your life is a sign of depth.  Brava.  As C.S. Lewis wrote, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. . . It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”

On to your question.  I struggled between telling you that what you seek is a myth, a cultural creation à la Friends and Sex and the City, and simply telling you exactly how to create a meaningful group of friends.  Here is why: it is attainable---you can make yourself your very own Seinfeld, but---the more you set it up and carefully curate it, the less it will thrive.  The center will not hold.  I'm going to tell you why that is, but I'm also going to tell you how to do it anyway, and let you make your own decision about whether or not to dive in to the jungle of having a circle of friends.

There are so many amazing humans on this earth, but what fuses us together and creates a real bond between a few of them is a precarious balance of common interests, personality traits, and proximity.  Then there's that extra "oomph", that jolt of electricity when you get together, what we might call the "x factor".  Here are a few suggestions for how to gather a group of friends around you, to see if that “x factor” is there between you.

DIT: Dig In Together:  I'm sure you know several people that would vibe each other a lot, who all care about horseback riding or street art or environmentalism.  (Or perhaps all three---sounds like a fascinating group already!)  Start with a dinner party---get all these folks together at your house, bring up the latest news in the common interest they all share, and watch the magic happen.  Then, you'll need to do that very thing, consistently, for months on end, to see if it will stick.  Have the gathering rotate houses, and, hopefully, it will take on a life of its own.  People will start hanging out spontaneously, outside of the sanctioned dinners, and you will have to do less of the planning.  For your next birthday party, all you’ll have to do is show up.

Become a Regular:  Let's say you don't already have people pegged to be your very own Bloomsbury Group.  What you need to do is show up, with an incredible amount of regularity, at a place that you enjoy, and has the kind of people you want to get to know better.  This could be a Zumba class, a dive bar, a Karaokae night, a Mommy-and-Me playgroup, or even a church.  Listen, this is going to take AWHILE.  You need to be willing to stay, and to commit.  But it is the slightly less micro-managed version, since everyone has a reason to see each other every week.

Enlist:  Have you considered sneaking in to something already created?  Granted, this would work better with a loosely-formed group of friends, one that is just coming together and needs a bit of "glue" in the form of your awesome community-building skills, rather than people who have known each other since elementary, but it can work well.  Have a picnic with all those guys, ask one of them out for a drink and then suggest inviting the rest, tell them all about the pop-up store you are checking out after work---anything fun, spontaneous, and not insanely obvious.  Next thing you know, if this is the right group for you, they'll be inviting you along to Game Night or into their poetry-writing club.

Here’s the part that will be harder to hear.  These kinds of groups are ephemeral---even the Beatles broke up, even Golden Girls went off the air.  Your tight-knit, hard-won circle of buds will change over time, and probably will not last your entire life.  The most important thing to remember will be to let it go when the time is right, and appreciate the blessing of it while it lasts.

The most beautiful thing about friendship is that it is chosen.  Many times people try to subvert this, call their friends "family", and seek to guilt their friends into staying in their lives long after the time has come for them to go their separate ways.  That's the wonderful and terrible thing about friendships---as they are not family, we have no bond further than what the heart lends.  And the heart is a wily creature, rarely accepting bribes or following expected paths.

Friendship is about free choice, mutual attraction without even the bonding agent of sex to keep the intimacy level high.  It’s a bit like gardening---we can plant the seeds, water them, and prune their leaves, but we can’t make the sun shine on them, and we can’t stop them from one day drooping their little heads down, to return to the soil, fertilizing new plants in their stead.

So, Lone Wolf, I want to encourage you to cultivate this fledgling group of friends for yourself.  Watch it grow, and tend it carefully.  But also, be prepared for some hard rain, and write back to me when it’s time to till the soil.  We’ll discuss letting changes in friend groups happen with grace and grief.  I happen to know a lot about that.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

Ten Years Ago

By Madeleine Forbes Ten years ago I said goodbye to my parents at Heathrow Airport. I remember they bought me breakfast, a dry croissant that stuck to the roof of my mouth. Later, I wrote in my diary that I felt “removed, relaxed, a slight sick feeling in my stomach”. I did not cry, I noted proudly, until I was walking through the tunnel from the gate.

I was eighteen years old and it was the first time I had ever been on a plane.

I feel sad when I think about that time. Sad for all the things I thought might happen that never did. The possibilities that once seemed to stretch over the horizon have gradually dissolved. That’s not a complaint, it’s just the way life is. With every year that passes, opportunities pass too. I will not, in all probability, have published my first novel before I’m thirty. I’m too old to be a prodigy, and unlikely to be a millionaire at any point: I’ve made too many choices in other directions. Ten years ago these were still things that had yet to be decided.

I thought I was an adult. I had stayed out all night at grimy raves in East London. I had been assistant director of a play which we took to the Edinburgh Fringe festival, sleeping in bunks in a hostel in the depths of the city. I’d spent three days in Paris with a boy I loved, who had subsequently broken my heart. I thought that one of the things that the trip would achieve would be finally moving on from him.

I had been waitressing and working front of house at a children’s theatre, so I was financially independent. Kind of. I had saved for the trip myself but as I was still living with my parents and paying no rent or bills, I now see this for the delusion it was. I knew how to roll a joint, flirt, write essays, and drive a car. I had secured a place at Oxford University to read English Literature, and now I was off on my requisite gap year travels. I was going to become a Well Rounded Person and Find Myself, and write some kind of Great Work in the process.

So when the volunteer program in Northern India, which I’d written about lovingly on my university applications, fell through, I was unfazed. I’d read a lot of Lonely Planets by then and Southeast Asia sounded easy. A piece of cake. I don’t remember feeling any fear as I found the cheapest flight, which happened to feature a change of planes in Kuwait. In 2003 the second gulf war was just starting and I remember that I was worried a US invasion of Iraq might disrupt my plans. I felt kind of glamorous as I speculated about it, as though I had already gained something of what I wanted from traveling, without actually having gone anywhere.

I had nothing booked and no contacts. I read and read, my way of making sense of the world back then when I still trusted words above all else. I had memorized almost every aspect of my potential route, train connections and visa requirements and areas to avoid. I had a tiny first aid kit and a travel towel and a money belt and a mosquito net. I had reduced my possessions, as advised by the Lonely Planet, to the bare minimum. I had I think one pair of shorts, one pair of trousers, a couple of t shirts. I planned to be away for at least six months.

As things turned out, the boy I was getting over is the same one I’m planning our wedding with now. I thought I was starting my career as a writer, filling notebook after notebook with smudges and stains from the cheap blotchy biros I bought on the road. This year, finally writing again, I finished the stack of blank books I brought home with me, like little neon tiles, adorned with kitschy asian cartoons. It was like picking up a baton from eighteen year old me.

There was that long patch in between. A decade, in fact. When I tried out wanting other things. I tried so hard I went full circle and had to go away again. That’s another story, involving bicycles, wild boar and a Uruguyan nomad, and that’s how I find myself here.

All those miles later, back where I started. Eighteen and stupid. I didn’t understand anything then, and yet I knew more than I thought I did. In a funny way, I already knew everything.

Grand Cayman: A Home Away From Home

By Eloise Blondiau Grand Cayman looks exactly like the postcards: white sand, a calm ocean and a diamond sun set in an azure sky. The hot, salty air hits you as soon as you step out of the plane and onto the steps leading down to the runway. I think if I had only been here once, it would be easy to dismiss the island as just that: a pretty picture on a postcard. But having spent almost every summer there---though I've lived in big, grey London all my life---Cayman looks a lot like home.

Before I could walk I used to climb up my Godfather’s globular belly as he reclined on the balcony overlooking the ocean. Not long after, I chipped my front tooth on edge the bath in his apartment and had to have it removed, leaving me with a comical smile until it grew in eight years later. I accidentally spilled most of my first beer in the jacuzzi with my older sister and her cool friends. In Cayman, I had my first kiss; first date---coincidentally still the only date where I've been picked up on a waverunner. I had my first holiday with a boyfriend here, too.

I learned how to snorkel in Cayman. My twin brother and I used to race into the ocean clumsily in our fins and headgear, smashing through the soft, glassy turquoise. We would splash gracelessly to the nearby reef to explore, searching for great whites. Although we did once come face to face with a barracuda, and the odd lobster, we never did find those sharks. If we were lucky, our parents took us to Stingray City, where schools of stingrays glide over sandbanks in open water. You can wade in the shallow water, their silky white underbellies tickling as they brush past. You can even feed the rays from an outstretched fist and watch them suck out the squid with an abrupt slurp. Although these stingrays are generally harmless unless threatened (read: trodden on), doing this still makes me feel like the fearless adventurer I longed to be as a child.

Last summer may have been one of my last in Cayman. My Godfather passed away a few years ago, leaving his huge, worn armchair empty beside the seaside view. I like to fill this vacancy by sitting there myself; thinking about him watching the news in his flip-flops and his swimming shorts. We miss him and remember him always, recalling the many stories he told us and all the wisdom learned from him as often as we can. My poor Godmother misses him the most. Now she lives alone in that beautiful apartment in the sunshine, with no one else to care for, to chatter to, to scold, to cook dinner for. She won't want to live alone there forever, and soon we will all have to leave Cayman behind.

On a rare sunny day in England, I can close my eyes and, concentrating very hard on the sun above me, transport myself to Seven Mile Beach. What is beyond simulation in London, however, is my Cayman sunset.

There is no better way to end the day than by sitting before the great ocean and all the life within it. The sun smoulders orange, until it disappears over the horizon and is swallowed by the cool sea.

Cursing in the Var

By Kayla Allen The day started auspiciously enough, with a visit to the Villa Noailles, a modernist structure designed in 1923 by Robert Mallet Stevens.  My three children romped in the triangular cubist garden.  I wallowed in the view from the hillside, a span that stretched above the ancient city of Hyeres and out to sea, beyond the Iles d’Or, the three islands punctuating the coastline.  Our annual summer trip to France had rolled around and in this Eden-like setting I felt smugly serene.  I vowed to the wind, water and sky: this vacation, I would get along with the Var-ois.

I had previously lived in the region that runs along the Riviera and stretches to the vineyards of Bandol, with a hefty Provencal overlap into the Luberon.  But my two year stay in Hyeres was marred by grumpy bigots and xenophobes who would wag their fingers at this lanky blonde American and her dingo-like dog any chance they got.  I revealed my nationality simply by saying a warm Louisiana “bonjour” to whomever I passed on the street.  People wouldn’t respond, they’d stare back, mortified.  The residents of this region of France are notorious, even among their countrymen, for an acute grouch factor, totally incongruous with the calm waters of the Mediterranean and the perpetual sun.

In the late 1800s Hyeres drew crowds as a hopping winter escape for British and Russian aristocrats.  Robert Louis Stevenson made an extended pit stop and later remarked, “I was only happy once, that was in Hyeres.” But his stay came nearly a century before Jean-Marie LePen set up camp in the region with his extreme right Front National Party.  Jean-Marie LePen has managed to hold various elected offices while spewing vitriolic messages of hate, with poisonous arrows sometimes aimed at American foreign policy and culture.  When I am in town, it seems I always bump into his staunchest supporters.

I was happy to leave Shreveport, pleased to be back in Europe and determined not to let my husband’s cranky compatriots interfere with my trip.  After my blissful morning at the Villa Noailles, I made a trip to Geant Casino, France’s version of Wal-Mart. Mia, my three-year-old toddler, six months out of diapers, tagged along.

We strolled through the produce section, Mia contentedly following along, pushing a cart tailor-made for her height.  She reveled in her independence and her alone-time with me.  As we entered the bread department she stopped in her tracks and announced,  “I need to pee-pee, Mommy.”  Her timing could not have been worse.  I instinctively knew French grocery stores did not have toilets.  If they did, they would be like all public restrooms in France, covered in mulch of an undetermined nature.  No toilet paper to be found, possibly a tiny sink that might offer a sluggish stream of cold water, and certainly no soap.

“Honey, can you wait?”  I calculated how much time it would take us to return to our rental.  But just as I asked, a small yellow rivulet zigzagged down her legs, creating a puddle at her feet.

“Accident, mommy.”

No problem.  I searched for an employee and magically found an amiable enough Produce Guy within seconds. I explained in my acceptable French that my daughter had had a mishap.  I even offered to clean it, if he had a few extra paper towels handy.

As he nipped off to find suitable products, I asked Mia not to move in order to keep the mess contained.  Meantime, another shopper treaded dangerously close and I warned her in my most cordial voice.  Here’s how it translated:  “Excuse me – please be careful, my daughter had an accident.  It is better maybe don’t promenade upon it.  I’m waiting for some wiping material now.”

This woman, a traditional Var-oise whose skin had been baked to a leathery crisp, looked at me as if I’d just sucked down a Big Gulp and followed it with a whopping Yankee belch.  Her mouth turned down at the corners and her nostrils flared like she was the main attraction in a bullring.  She pushed her dyed black hair out of her eyes, leaned over to grab a loaf of bread and whispered “petite salope.”  Huh?  Had she called my daughter or me a little bitch?

My hackles shot straight up.

The nice Produce Guy came with the towels and I started cleaning Mia while he mopped the innocent mess. I turned to the woman.  “Vous avez une problem, madame?”  I asked.

She emitted an evil glow and smirked. “Put a diaper on her, alors!”

Defending oneself against rude inhabitants in foreign countries only amounts to extreme tedium. But when unjustifiable insolence is directed at the most perfect three year-old girl in the world, rage follows.  I was dazed by my indignation.  In stunned silence I checked Mia and told her everything was okay (she sported quick drying nylon pants).  Next, I approached this monster before she left our section and in my best negative-adrenaline-rush French spouted, “Why would you speak something like this?  Why would you insult my child in such a way?  She made an accident, which is normal for a person of this age!”

She responded with an irritated shrug, “She had an accident but someone else must clean it up.”

I said, “That’s not your problem.  You are mean.  You are very very mean.”  I grew frustrated at my tragically impotent communication skills.

I should have left it at this, and God knows I tried. I looked at precious Mia standing behind her toddler cart.  If I’d had the capability to actually think, I could have mused on whether or not allowing her to see my increasing anger was a good idea.

But instead, every Gallic affront I’d ever suffered accumulated in that instant at Geant Casino.  And while I’ve enjoyed many wonderful moments during my Francophile years, my mind reeled back to insults hurled, starting in the 80s.  Then I first journeyed to France as a neophyte model and magazine editors balked at my size 4, saying I was “porcine.” I thought about the malicious queue-breakers at museums who laughed with disdain when I protested.  All the catty shop-girls and condescending waiters I’d ever encountered morphed into a clichéd montage of scornful pointy-noses and mono-brows. I rifled mentally through the piles of hurt and feelings of inferiority from years past.

“O! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; keep me in temper; I would not be mad!” I called on Shakespeare for calm, but I could not reason with myself.  My earlier vow to avoid getting riled disappeared and my ire switched to high beam.

I took a moment for inward reflection and breathed deep.  I tapped into my inner stash of French curse words, honed from years of stoned, drunken nights with my favorite Eurobuddies in bars and hostels across the continent.   And I told myself Mia couldn’t yet understand the language, at least not in the way I intended to abuse it.

I strode two aisles over and found Bullwoman examining cheese. “Oh you again?” she said casually.

Yes, me again.  I would make it so that she never forgot me.  She’d never nonchalantly slur others.  Besides debasing my daughter, she’d offended my mothering skills.

I addressed her using the informal “tu-tois”, already an insult. “Toi, tu est une grosse conne.”  You are a large idiot.  With the right tone it could’ve sounded worse, but I was just getting warmed up.  I checked Mia’s whereabouts.  She lagged behind me, not in earshot.

Bullwoman responded, “You should learn to speak French, alors.”  She followed that with an aside: “Etranger.  C’a ma fait chier.”  The Var-ois have an irritating habit of hissing “foreigner” whenever a foreigner is around.  But to tell me I was annoying her?

The time had come to throw down.  My passionate response:  “nique ta-mere.” Not only a vulgar way of implying she should have intercourse with her mother, but also the name of a popular rap group from the Paris suburbs.  I followed that with a quick “va te faire enculer” implying she should have sex with herself, but via a non-traditional route.

“Casse-toi,” she replied.  A simple “bugger off” to which I could not muster a rebuttal.

I returned to Mia, totally dry by now, barely smelling of sweet baby pee.  I tried to focus on my shopping, as I stocked up on gruyere, creamy yogurt, and cornichons.  I fumed my way through saucisson and jambon.   The gall, the Gaul!

People are so polite where I come from that if a little girl accidentally peed in public a stranger would rip off a shirtsleeve to help clean it up.   They’d sponsor a bake sale at their church to buy billboard space stating to the world what a great job I was doing as a mother, and as a human being on Planet Earth.

But I languished in the Var.

As I paid for my goods and headed for the exit, I couldn’t help but turn and scan the check out lines for my Var-oise nemesis.  It was easy to spot her pernicious aura.  Instinctively, I wheeled my cart back inside, resolute in my desire to have the last word.  Plus, I was having fun.  In the words of Montaigne, “No one is exempt from speaking nonsense, the only misfortune is to do it solemnly.”

When she saw me coming she rolled her eyes.   Good, I thought, I’m getting to her.  I smiled.  “Madame, je comprends tres bien ton problem,” in a low voice and with deliberate calm, I continued in French.  “Tu a besoin d’etre bien baiser, mais il ne personne qui veux.   Bonne chance.”  Translation:  “Ma’am, I know what your problem is.  You need to get laid but no one will have you.  I wish you the best of luck.”  Her response: a simple jaw-drop to the scuzzy linoleum-tiled floor.

And with that, I marched triumphant to my car. Without the likes of Bullwoman I would have never have broken past years of suppressed anger.  Now when a Var-ois behaves offensively, I smile, shrug my shoulders, and head to the nearest beach.

XXX. Provence

Bridget is a neuroscience major at a college in Maine. She hasn’t taken a French class since high school before coming to spend these four months in Aix---naturally, her French is a bit rusty at first. But she is open and friendly, and communicates with a completely adorable mixture of lots of hand gestures, anglicized turns of phrase, and ums. It’s easy to understand her if you are willing to listen. Bridget comes over to my apartment one afternoon. When I introduce her to Agnès, Bridget tries to say how nice it is to meet her, that her home is so sunny and light and she would love to live here. Agnès, not even hearing what she is saying, cuts Bridget off in the middle of her sentence.

Agnès turns to me and says, She doesn't speak very good French, does she? And of course Bridget understands her. Understanding is the easy part. It’s speaking up where things get difficult.

Slow Browsing

Window shopping was a fact of life when I lived in Boston. Since I walked everywhere or took public transportation, it was impossible not to peek at the window displays or stop in for a browse at one of the many curious shops on my way to and from work and school. The bookshops of Harvard Square—Raven Books, Harvard Book Store, Grolier Poetry, Globe, Schoenhof’s—were particularly irresistible, but anything from the watch shop on Church Street to the Anthropologie store (set mercilessly behind a three-story wall of glass) could lure me in just as easily.

There were a couple of things, though, that kept me from whiling away my whole life in those perfectly curated shops and breaking the bank on the whole lot of it. First, I was broke, so there’s only a certain amount of time you can stand to spend among small, brightly colored objects that cost more than your grocery bill for the month. Second, I had rule: love it and leave it.

If I found something I really truly absolutely loved and “needed,” I made a special point of admiring it and then promptly leaving the store without it. It was pure anguish, but it was a perfect test. I told myself that if it was still on my mind in a week, I’d come back for it, and if it was still there, well, perhaps it was meant to be.

For the most part, those things I thought I couldn’t live without disappeared within twenty-four hours into my vast mental archive of objects briefly admired but never possessed. The things that stuck were rare and sometimes unexpected. A pair of boots I wore to pieces over several years. A yellow, vintage-looking kitchen timer I never came back for because I was sure I didn’t need it. I’m still sure, but it persists in my memory years later.

I’ve been thinking lately that a similar policy might help with my internet consumption. There are so very many lovely things to read online that I could spend my whole life consuming them, never stopping to let one of them sink in, never returning to being and doing in the world. The ever-changing landscape of the internet lends a sense of urgency to all this. If I don’t read it right now, it might be gone later, I might forget about it entirely, or worse, I might not be able to retrace the winding path of links that led me to it in the first place.

In order to deal with the last fear, I’ve taken to bookmarking articles of interest in Evernote and making an effort to avoid reading every great thing I find on the spot. If it’s really worth my time, I’ll remember it later and come back for it. If not, well, I suppose it disappears then into my digital archive of things briefly admired and never possessed. For what it’s worth, at least the digital archive is searchable, and perhaps I’ve saved myself as much time as I saved money during my student days in a land of beautiful and expensive things.

The Art of Returning

I have fallen in love, unconditional love, with so many places. Various weeks or months into living in a new location, I often declare it “home.” This is not a sense of growing roots or settling, but rather a feeling of comfort and belonging. To give a few examples---I claim my home town of Boulder, Colorado, to be heaven-on-earth [thus, my true love], I claim I fell in love with living abroad in Nicaragua, I claim I found my career in Uganda and Rwanda, I claim I felt more secure and loved in Washington, DC than anywhere else thus far in my journey, and, finally, I claim I re-found happiness and bliss during a year long journey in Mexico City. All of these places are homes. 

This story has two parts: 1) the magic, wonder, and awe of a huge, vibrant, culturally-infused city and 2) the impressionable and open place in which I existed when I found myself living in Mexico City.

I have a theory that you should try to return to places you fell in love with through living there within a year of leaving. That amount of time allows the freshness to remain in relationships and in most cases halts significant enough changes in the city landscape, such that you won’t recognize your favorite blocks, cafes, or parks. Within nine months of leaving Mexico, I returned for the first time, yet I could already feel the changes---I missed my friends and many had already moved on to new experiences as well, my Spanish faltered, but above all, I already felt far away from the person I had embodied when I lived there. The context of this blog post is my second return trip, which comes exactly two years, or better put---a whirlwind of life---after the first visit.

Returning to a place is always accompanied by so many questions ranging from the more mundane (Will my favorite park still look the same? Will the coffee shop on the corner still be there? Will I remember how to get to my old apartment?) to the deeper, more existential questions (Will I still love the city? Will I regain the sense of freedom I had when I lived here? Will I still feel like I belong here? Will I feel like I could live here again?). For those of us who have moved between cities and countries, it is always heartbreaking to leave while at the same time inspiring to move and settle into a new community. In the back of my mind, I imagine past homes as places I can always return to, like visiting old friends or family. They become pieces of me scattered in the world that I can collect, if I return to walk the same streets and share coffee in the same parks with the same friends. Of course, I could easily, fall back in love with the bold, colorful buildings, dry summer days, bustling city parks, and long fun-filled nights. Who couldn’t?

Part I: The city that left an impression

Roxanne Varzi, the author of Warring Souls, describes cities as landscapes that individuals walk through, writing their own versions of the city as they walk. In her eyes, the individual experiences a sense of poetry in the city that they write as they walk and inhabit the space. Returning to Mexico City meant revising and adding to the story that I had written years before. Walking around certain parks and on certain streets brought back dormant emotions, some of which exist in the past, and I briefly visited them, and others, re-ignited bringing me back to the joyfully open and tenderly vivid experiences of the past. Re-writing the poetry, as Varzi would call it, requires openness to re-experience a city and to then reconcile new experiences with what you fell in love with in the past.

The magnitude of the city still leaves an impression, from the top of the tallest building in the centro historico, you can witness the city stretching on in every direction. Although your eyes can sense the cars and people 43 stories below, it is nearly impossible to comprehend over 22 million people sharing this space. It is breath taking. Every element feels more vibrant, buildings burst with colors, food with flavors unimaginable in my Boston life, salsa dancing with a sense of glee. Even the light cast by the sun setting over the zocalo feels more radiant. Returning doesn’t change these elements, in fact they feel more alive and more intense---almost as if the point is to confirm my stories and memories.

Part II: The girl ready to be molded

As vulnerable as it is to write about why we make major life decisions, it is important in the context of this marvelous city. I moved to Mexico City mostly because I was ready to spend a significant amount of time abroad and I had a friend living there. The combination of those two simple facts landed me in this particular city. Moving had meant uprooting a world and home I had created in DC---of close friends, a wonderful job, and a boyfriend of a number of years. The year passed as I healed, taking the training wheels off and experiencing a new sense of freedom and fulfillment in living abroad.

Although my memory would like to re-write the story of Mexico City as full of magic and glee, the year did not pass without challenges, questions, and heartache, as ripping out roots often causes. Some questions which are not and cannot be answered by moving or even the passing of time. Yet, returning after a number of years away caught me off guard, as many of the same questions of uncertainty surfaced, as though triggered by spaces I used to inhabit. Past insecurities gently haunted me, illuminating today’s struggles that mirror those from a few years ago that my current self had attempted to grow and learn from. But, there they were in their gut-wrenching openness.

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Silently walking, questioning my life, Varzi’s words rang true---as I rewrote the stories and the memories, capturing them in my current space, not just in the magical, gleeful past. This is a long term relationship, with this enchanting city, and I can only imagine the new stories my future self will write.

From Higher Learning to Simply Earning

Dear Sibyl,

I've been teaching upper elementary school for over a decade.  I usually love teaching, although I have gone through some tough situations that have shifted my view from teaching as a calling, to teaching as a job. My question is: my enthusiasm for teaching upper grades is waning, and I'm wondering if a grade change is what I need to bring back my passion for teaching, or is it just gone? What do you think?

From,

On The Fence

Dear On the Fence,

You’ve hit on a central question to many people in the workforce today: “Does my job need to be my calling?  If not, then how do I get through it?  If so, how the hell do I get out of this job?”

Let’s set that huge question aside for a minute and just talk about your circumstances.  It sounds like, even though you no longer feel jazzed about teaching, you are currently looking for ways to bring the magic back.  You’ve been burned by some bad experiences, and are wanting to turn things around before you get too jaded.

This is completely possible.  It will require a good amount of change, but if you can be open to the changes, it could be beautiful.  You can still be a teacher and not do exactly what you are doing now.  I encourage you to consider ALL the options: a grade change, a school change, an entire genre change---you are a teacher, but do you need to teach in schools?  What do you love to teach, and is there a market of people who would be interested in learning that from you?

Take your career to couple’s therapy.  Sit down with a pad of paper and a pen (not a computer---the brain works differently long hand), set your watch for a 50 minute session, and write, stream-of-consciousness, a conversation between your Teacher Self and your On The Fence Self.  Go ahead, ask TS all your hardest questions, answer “Yeah, but what about the time. . .”, and hash it all out.  Notice what voice Teacher Self takes on.  Is it a tone you recognize from another part of your life?  Are there action steps you can take to salvage the relationship?  Can you seek out training, a teacher support group, or go to some of the galvanizing events groups like Yes World provide to support people doing good in the world?

Let’s say, at the end of all this soul searching, you and Teacher Self decide to break up.  You want to discover your true/new calling.  You won’t be alone.  More and more people are spending their nights and weekends working on the things they are passionate about, either to eventually make their living off of those things, or just because it feeds their everyday experience that much more.

You can’t stay on the fence forever.  At some point, you’ll have to jump one way or another, and my advice to you is to do so with both feet, whatever direction you choose.  You might find yourself dismantling the fence, slat by slat, despite the splinters incurred, in order to find a new, less polarizing way to live.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

Alchemy

I’ve been thinking about this Joseph Campbell quote: “If the path before you is clear, you're probably on someone else's.” As artists, we really don’t know what effect our work will have once we put it into the world. Whether working for a client, collaborating, or preparing for a solo show, that uncertainty is always there. As artists, we have to be confident enough to make work that is honest about who we are and the world we inhabit. We never know if we are good enough; there is not a set path for how to succeed or even a clear definition of what success means. Embracing that uncertainty and going forth honestly anyway is our job, the same way that when I waitress my job is to set aside my ego and serve the customer as well as I can, even when they are annoying and the kitchen is slow and I am so tired and I have my period and I just want to go home.

The worst part is, when you’re a waitress you know that it makes sense that in a city with a lot of people, there are lots of restaurants, because everyone needs to eat. But as an artist living in The Age of Mechanical Reproduction™, a lot of times it just seems like there is already enough art! You can buy a printed copy of any great painting, illustrated book, or amazing poster you like. Why make more? When I think about the sheer number of artists making things and trying to make a name for themselves, it boggles my mind. Throw in some heaping self-doubt and it’s enough to make you want to stop trying altogether.

I thought of this overabundance of art when I heard about Meriç Algün Ringborg recent show at Art in General, The Library of Unborrowed Books, in which she culled a selection of books from the Center for Fiction’s library. The piece, following the same guidelines as her 2012 show at the Stockholm Public Library, “comprise[d] all the books from a selected library that have never been borrowed.”

The show is a little embarrassing for the books. Claire Barliant of the New Yorker writes that “while [she] browsed [she] found [her]self searching for flaws in the books that might have made them undesirable” to others, which sounds like online dating. The Center for Fiction’s tumblr is ostensibly supportive, but incorrectly refers to Ringborg with male pronouns, so perhaps there’s a little buried resentment on their end.

But Michele Filgate of the Paris Review finds that the show made the books more attractive, writing, “there’s something about displaying the books as art that made me want to page through each and every novel. It’s as if all of the words put together are trying to say, We are necessary; we have stories to share.”

Although the mass of artists living today can be daunting, it is also be powerful. If there are that many of us who want to approach problems creatively, there are ways to harness that creative power to make the world a better place, and that is exciting.

The truth is, most of my artist friends think about a lot of the same questions I do. I see the different ways that we try to make ourselves and the world better through art, whether it be through an overtly political message or simply a celebration of creativity over consumption. Nobody has it all figured out, but everyone is trying.

Artists like El Anatsui (go see his awe-inspiring show at the Brooklyn Art Museum!) and Chakaia Booker (read more about her here) are especially exciting to me, because of their approach to materials. They take objects that most people think of as ugly and disposable, and make them into gorgeous sculptures. It’s not just that this is a surprising thing to do, it’s also that their work acknowledges the world we find ourselves in, with all of its industrialized waste and ugliness, and finds beauty there. The detritus and tires and metal scraps that make up Booker and Anatsui's work are not so different from the unborrowed books in Ringborg’s piece. All three artists find value in objects that other people have ignored. That’s what art does. It takes the parts of ourselves, our worlds, our perceptions that we thought were the most unlovable, the most obscure, or just too obvious to bother with, and transforms them into something to share with pride.

Further Reading:

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Paris Review: Borrowed Time

New Yorker: The Art of Browsing

Ringborg's Website: Meriç Algün Ringborg

Center for Fiction: The Library of Unborrowed Books

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Defiant Beauty