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.

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. 

Lessons from public speaking...

Dearest Clara,

To  be completely honest, I've never been a huge fan of public speaking.  I get nervous.  I tend to have dreams where I worry I forgot what I was going to say — or that I came on the wrong day — or that the audience didn't understand me.  But somehow through my work I tend to find myself presenting a lot — I'm always anxious going into it, but even though it's not my strongest skill, everything seems to turn out okay in the end.  And over the course of these presentations I've learned that:

• Practice makes perfect: Trite but true.  Figure out a scripting mechanism that works for you and learn your content — practice often, and practice in front of a mirror.  If nothing else, have an introduction and transition to each point you would like to make.  When it comes to speaking, practice pays off.
• But give yourself a cut off time: There comes a time where more practice and more review and more notes don't help.  Give yourself some space to reset your mind and compose yourself.  Use that time to build your confidence so that you can go into your speech with a clear mind.
• Speak much more slowly than you think: Trust me, it will sound much faster to everyone else, and it will help you avoid stumbling.
• Milk coats the throat: A friend who is also an opera singer told me that once, so I always go into a long presentation with a cup of warm milk.  Most people think it's a coffee but really, the milk helps to coat the throat to keep the words coming smoothly.
• The best presentations feel like conversations: But that doesn't mean they are unscripted.  Good conversations take preparation, and when you ask a question to a public group, make sure you know what the answer you want to hear is in advance.  Think of how you will transition from that answer to your following points.
• Start strong...remain strong...finish strong: And if you don't start strong, you can still be strong, and finish strong.  And if you don't start strong, or remain strong, you can still finish strong.  Don't let parts of the presentation that didn't go well get you discouraged.  You can always get yourself back up - and people remember the last impressions of a presentation the most.  Make sure your impression counts.

All my love,

Mom

[Photo of the lovely Erin Loechner at Alt Summit by Justin Hackworth]

Landmarks

I’m pants at directions.  I’m pretty sure that’s British slang for really bad, if not, well I’ve never been to Great Britain so you’ll just have to excuse my ignorance.  International colloquialism aside, I’m really pretty terrible at directions, both giving them and following.  If you’re ever giving me directions, and you hope to actually have me make it to the destination, kindly avoid saying things like ‘Turn North after two miles’.  I have no concept of either which way is north or how far two miles is. The only time I know which way is east or west is if the sun is either rising or setting. There’s an old scene in a Muppet movie when someone tells the Muppets to turn left at the fork in the road.  You can probably guess the next part, the Muppets drive a little ways until they see an actual fork, a giant utensil sticking into the ground, and then they make the turn.  Those are the kind of directions I could follow.

I like landmarks.   They’re how I make my way from point A to point B and how I describe where I’ve been. My memory records locations like others remember dates.  I may not remember the year or even the month, but like any good wanderer, I can remember where I was.  When I heard Mother Teresa died: in the parking lot of my grade school. When the twin towers came down: College at mandatory language tutoring.  The first time I slow danced with a boy, my first taste of alcohol, the first time I kissed my husband.

I remember the where; like little snapshots in my brain. Polaroid pictures of significant moments that have made up my life and likely quite a few insignificant ones.  I can see the view, where I was, who I was with, and my surroundings. The images often have invisible aspects too, how I felt, my perception of the event or moment.  Perhaps there is some deep psychological or physiological reason or correlation; a left brain versus right brain debate.  Maybe Katherine’s research into memory and narrative would have an explanation.  Or perhaps all the artistic talent that I see in my family tree filtered into my DNA after-all, leaving my brain to prefer visuals and images over statistics or dates.

Whatever the case, the snapshots of my memory are there to show me where I’ve been.

They are the Landmarks of my life.

Marriage Equality

This week, the Supreme Court is hearing cases that will determine the constitutionality of DOMA and the legality of Prop 8. It saddens us that we have to even write this, but we believe in the fundamental equality of all human beings. Love is love is love. Here are three pieces from our archives on the subject: Renee explores the difference between Civil Unions and Marriages: The Same, But Not Equal

Nora ponders what she and her wife will tell their son about marriage inequality: On Inequality

Miya argues that marriage equality is about families, and has ideas about what laws should come from this battle. Family Equality and the Legacy of the Struggle

Please read, enjoy, discuss, and share.

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

ltr">El Anatsui

Defiant Beauty

Meet the Local: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Meet the Local is a series designed to uncover the differences (and similarities) in how we think and live in different parts of the world.  Over the upcoming months, I’ll ask locals from places all over the world the same set of getting-to-know-you questions.  This week, meet Neno, who was born in Sarajevo and has lived there ever since, including four years spent largely underground during the siege.

What do you like about the place you live?

I like, first of all, the people.  The people and the size of the city.  Sarajevo is a quite good city to live because it’s quite a small city---it’s only 400,000 people---so you know everyone.  It’s like one big family.  And also the history, the culture.  But mainly the people.  The people are very friendly in this city, so you can always count on someone helping you in the city.  I like that feeling.

 What don’t you like so much?

I don’t like politics in the city, and the politicians.  It’s affecting the every day life---we could have better public transport, we could have more investments, we could improve many things in this city.  But unfortunately we have a lot of bureaucracy.  We have three governments, and three presidents.  It’s a small country---only four million people---so to make one decision when you have three presidents. . . it’s quite impossible.  Nothing gets done.

What do you normally eat for breakfast?

I drink tea, or sometimes coffee.  Then scrambled eggs, with cheese.  No pies!  Because people think we are eating the pies for the breakfast.  The pies are more for the lunch or for the dinner.  People think we are eating pies every day, but it’s very, very heavy on your stomach.  It’s more like a fast food things.  I eat pies only maybe two times in a week.

What do you do for a living?  How important is your job to your sense of self?

I’m a student of political sciences and diplomacy and international relations, getting my masters.  I lead walking tours when I have free time from my studies.  I think I will stay in tourism.  I’m studying political sciences, so people always think I will be involved in political life but I think I like history, I like the political philosophy, but I don’t see myself in a political life.  I want to send a message from this city, this country.  I think we have more to offer than just the recent history.  That’s the reason I started doing walking tours.  Unfortunately, this country still has a reputation as a war torn country.  When you say Bosnia, the first image people have is the war in Bosnia, Sarajevo under siege, but I truly believe this country is a country with a long and rich history, friendly people---I think we have a lot to offer.

My job is very important to my sense of self.  It’s very difficult life in this country.  You know, I’m 27 years old and I’m still living with my parents.  But in some ways, I have freedom because I earn all of my money.  So for my self-confidence, it’s very important that I also earn something.  Most people live with their parents till they are married, because they are close with their family, but also because of the economy.  It’s a very high unemployment rate---43% at the moment.  So unfortunately people can’t afford to have their own flat.  And also Sarajevo is a very small city, so even if I rented a flat, I would go every day to my mother’s to eat something.  So at the moment, I think it’s better to stay with my family.

What do you do for fun?

I like to hike, when it’s sunny weather, in the [1984 Sarajevo Winter] Olympic mountains.  I also like photography---I like to walk around and take photos.  I like to bicycle---there’s one part of the city that has bicycle infrastructure, so I go there and I bicycle.  I also like bowling, so I go there with my friends for bowling very often.  I also like to read, and to travel.

How often do you see your family?  Tell me what you did the last time you saw them.

I live with my family.  We are very close, because I was here during the siege so we were always together then.  The sense of community in this country is very strong.  The people are close to each other; the neighbors are close to each other.  The siege made us closer, because we survived together the most horrible moments. I think the siege of the city affected people in a positive but also negative way.  I think that people in this country appreciate small things more.  Maybe like some other countries or the younger generations in this country, one small thing is nothing.  For example, I like to eat everything.  I’m not choosy, but I have a niece, and she was born after the war.  And we all have a Sunday lunch together and she is so picky---I don’t like that, I don’t like that---and I get so frustrated, like, you need to eat everything, because you don’t know the feeling of when you have nothing to eat at all.  I appreciate the food.  I try to enjoy small things.  But also the war had negative effects---like, I never celebrate New Year’s Eve on open squares.  I don’t like fireworks.  Whenever I hear fireworks, I get flashbacks, because it’s the same sound as the shells exploding.

What’s your biggest dream for your life?

To travel around the world.  Now, I’ve traveled almost all of Europe, except the UK and Ireland.  Personally, I think that’s the best spent money.  When you learn about other cultures, you start to appreciate more about your own culture, and your own life.  But after traveling, to again always return to this country.  No place like home, no place like home.  I experienced the worst things in this country, so why not stay?  I think this country deserves a better future with smart and educated people.  We will not have a bright future if all the smart and educated people leave the country.  So we need to stay, and we need to fight for the changes.

 If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?  Why?

I like Spain and Portugal.  The people are very similar to us here---they’re also very friendly, very open.  They also have not very good economy, like this country, but they’re like, let’s enjoy life!  Things will improve!  I can imagine myself living in Lisbon for one or two years, but like I told you, I then want to come back to Sarajevo.

What are you most proud of?

I’m proud of my family.  I’m proud of my mother, my father.  Because I think they directed me in a good way, they raised me to be a good guy.  My mother for me is like a big hero because I was with her during all of the wartime.  She was also working every single day, walking back and forth through the snipers, because she needed to do something, to occupy her mind, to not be in a basement all the time.  She was working not to lose her mind, and a little bit to keep her job position. She was working for free.  Sometimes she got paid in cigarettes.

How happy would you say you are?  Why?

I am very happy because I have a good family.  I have my mother, my father, my sister, my niece.  It’s a very small family, but we are very close to each other.  That’s my biggest happiness.  Also, I’m happy because I live in Sarajevo.

To read the answers of a local Londoner, click here to meet Carleen.

Favorite Favorites

I don’t mean to be a notebook snob. But after four months sailed by without a page of journal writing from this dedicated journal-writer’s desk, I promptly accepted my status and hit purchase on a stack of my favorite notebooks. You might be tempted to assume that I wasn’t writing in a notebook for all this time simply because I was busy or because I was writing in other places. Those excuses might fly for some of the other tasks that have lingered on my to-do list for months, but they could not have accounted for my having fallen off the notebook path. I have written through busy. I have written through crazy and happy and sad. I have written even when I had so many other things to write that I wondered if I’d run out of words. In the notebook, everything is different. No matter what else is going on beyond its margins, I always look forward to meeting myself on the page.

The special notebooks, in case you are wondering, are these. I’ve had other notebooks lying around over these four months, which is why it took me so long to order my favorites. A piece of paper is a piece of paper, I kept telling myself—all the while abandoning one mediocre notebook after another only a few pages in.

I’m sure most artists would agree that it’s no use to blame your tools or your medium for your own lack of production. In fact, creative limitations are often a perfect starting point for innovation. And yet, if you’ve found the thing that works for you, you might as well stock up on it and never risk having to worry about running out.

The pages of my favorite notebooks are so perfectly smooth to write on and not so harshly white as to blind you. The cover is red, which makes it look very inviting and easy to spot when I’ve left it in a pile of all the other books and papers awaiting my attention. It’s small enough to carry around in a tote bag and large enough to allow for some breathing room. It lies flat when it’s open, and it’s flexible enough to fold one side around to the back if you need to. It’s sturdy enough to write with it on your lap, and it doesn’t (thank heavens!) have lines.

This is not an advertisement for my favorite journal, but more of a celebration of favorites. Sometimes it seems the internet is flooded with “favorites” and “likes,” but I’m talking about the really favorite favorites. These are not the pretty pictures, pinned and forgotten, or the impulse buys that end up in the back of the closet. They are the tangible things that stick with you for the long haul and accumulate layers upon layers of memories. The perfectly reliable pens to go with your perfectly favorite notebook. The tea that makes your day. Every. Single. Time.

When my notebooks finally arrived, I tore the box open and started writing. It was like meeting an old friend for coffee after a very long time. You can pick up just where you left off last.

XXIX. Savoie

The past four months have been the loneliest I’ve ever experienced, no thanks to me. My reaction to life in a new country has been to hole myself up and reject most social interaction---hardly a path to happiness, but what do I know when I have never lived away from home for so long before.

On the eve of my departure, Marie and I exchange e-mail addresses. We’ve been living together since January but our interaction has been fairly limited---she has her parents house to go back to every weekend, not to mention her ongoing three-way relationship keeping her busy. When we’re both in Chambéry, I spend my time in class, walking around the hills north of our apartment, or shut in my room. Our conversations, which have been pleasant and fun, are when we both happen to be in the tiny kitchen having breakfast at the same time. Most have centered around Nutella.

Marie and I hug and she hands me a slip of paper with her address along with a small gift, a pair of earrings that will faire ressortir le vert de tes yeux, bring out the green in my eyes. The simple gesture, like so many others I’ve experienced in the week leading up to my departure, makes me wish I could go back to the beginning and start all over. I wish I’d had the courage to be real friends with you, I want to say. But I don’t.

I tuck the piece of paper into one of my books knowing that I’ll probably never take it out again. Years have since passed, and like the red poppies that I once collected outside Clémence’s house in Normandie and pressed inside the pages of one of my journals, I have no idea where that slip of paper is now. But it’s nice to know that it’s somewhere, and if I ever feel like looking, I might be able to find it again.

Swept Away

Hello Sibyl,

Last summer while at the Paris airport on a layover, I met a guy who was also there on a layover.  We emailed and texted and he came to visit me in Amsterdam in November, and again in December (he lives in Venezuela). During these first visits, he opened up and told me that since meeting me he was thinking about a future with me and that he has never done that before.  We fell in love, discussed marriage and where we could both live together (he has a 5 year old son, so cannot move here, and after a recent visit, I know I could never live in Venezuela).

Once he was home (in January), I mentioned something about the future, and he said he could not talk about it.  I wrote him a long email explaining that HE was the one who brought up the future and talked about plans, etc.  He said he was sorry, but just needs more time, and for me to please be patient.  

I do understand we need to be patient and get to know each other better, but it seems like he has changed.  He used to be very open about sharing feelings and affections, but now seems to have pulled back (I visited him 2 weeks ago in Venezuela).  Plus i wonder if there is a future between us given the distance and the fact that it would be difficult to find someplace to live together.

I wonder if I should end it now or just enjoy the times when we see each other?

Thank you very much and kind regards,

Futuretripper

Dear Futuretripper,

In the short time since I started this column, I have received several quandaries like yours.  They are from women who are disappointed by the men in their lives, but claiming that they love them, and hoping for a future with them still.  Here is what is missing in these letters: any indication of what there is to be loved about these men, why they are worthy of such undying love, and what makes them eligible to be a good life partner.

From your letter, it's clear that the two of you had an immediate connection that went very deep, and made both of you want to hang on it to forever, by planning a future together.  However, other than the fact that he's a father, and he lives far away from you in a place that you never want to live in, what have you told me about this man?

Paraphrasing The Little Prince, I want to know what his voice sounds like, what games he loves best, and if he collects butterflies.  I want to know why he is worth the struggle of a long-distance romance.  Just the fact that he changed his mind and no longer wants to talk about the future with you is not enough to end the relationship, as most people have trouble with commitment.  However, it does seem like there is some denial of the reality of the issues the two of you are facing, if you chose to go forward with this relationship long-term.

You had a lovely Before-Sunrise-esque connection with this man.  However, not every connection one makes with another person needs to be followed to the fullest extent.  Some people, no matter how deeply we feel we are cosmically drawn to them, are meant to just be brief interludes in our lives.  It's hard to make meaning of those experiences and let them go, but otherwise, it is like trying to hold the ocean in your hands.

Of course, there is a chance that you do indeed have a future with your cross-continent lover.  However, my advice to you is to hang back, and give the relationship room to grow.  You need to let it breathe, and see what transpires in the space between the two of you---which for you, is a lot of space!  Just let that be the reality.  Don't force anything, and use the time you used to spend planning the future reflecting instead on why this man is so special, and what he can really offer to your life.

And then write back and tell me of all his stunning substance, and how it resonates with who you are and what you need.  But please, if you find that you only like this man for nebulous reasons, and if he doesn't seem to really want all that you are willing to give him, release your hands, and let him float on.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

What Are You Reading (offline, that is)?

Magdalena Macinska is a dreamer, interpretor, translator, and writer---weaving words between her native language Polish and the English she lovingly adopted. She makes a home in Warsaw, but has left her heart in places around the world. The world never ceases to wonder her and she blogs about her endless questions at www.questionchest.blogspot.com. Books taught me that there is something such as love at first sight. So many times has it happened that I was wandering aimlessly around the airport waiting for my plane and ended up in the airport bookshop and there, among the bestsellers meant to ease my travel time, was the book  that could potentially change my life!

My eyes often land on self-help books, a mention of them on my favorite blogs makes me prick my ears. I am always ready to experience a moment of enlightenment. But they also have to be beautifully written. Self-help books are for me a challenging genre of non-fiction. Good advice is not enough. There needs to be captivating story behind, the author’s spirit and presence must flow through the pages.

I believe that some books are meant for us to read, just like some people are meant to be a part of our life. Maybe because they help us to connect with the more tender parts of the soul, heal the darker places. Here are some of the ones that not only helped me, but have enchanted me and made me fall in love.

Laura Vanderkam’s 168 Hours. You have more time than you think challenged me to rethink my relationship with time. She asks for brutal honesty in demystifying one’s o weekly planning patterns and at the same time offers an optimistic encouragement that there is indeed time to do all the things we want. She does so by beginning not with time saving techniques, but with inviting the reader to dream about they want to fill their time with. Laura has a sharp eye for myths and makes witty remarks about our obsession with perfect households and commandments of time management like “don’t work in the evenings” which do not always match the reality of our today’s working life. She balances thorough research, deep common sense and humor, which makes this book feel so down to earth and real to me in all those times I want to moan “there just isn’t enough time!”

Gretchen Rubin, the author of Happier at Home, holds a warm and simple conversation with the reader right from the start. In the first pages she recalls how her husband asked her why she wanted to write a second book on happiness if she had already done one project on happiness and was satisfied with it. She gives us an answer in another scene from her life, describing how when she was standing at the kitchen counter one day she felt a wave of  absolute contentment and at the same time a profound longing for home. Gretchen unveils the paradoxes of happiness: being grateful for what we have and believing we can always happier. She guides us through her personal journey of making the home a happy place, sharing stories and anecdotes. In the background we discover a heartwarming picture of her family where small changes make a big difference, and yet nobody is perfect. I feel gently prompted to look for my own happiness for home and at the same time don’t feel scared of impossible commitments.

Susan Jefferson speaks with a strong and passionate voice in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. She uses the whole arsenal of expressive and exaggerated rhetoric we sometimes find in self-help books, and yet never ceases to be convincing and authentic. Susan understands how paralyzing fear can be and counter-attacks it with a language of positive self-esteem and self-power. Reading this book made me feel that the writer believes in me, and that I can do also do the same for myself. She teaches that by changing the language we speak to ourselves and trusting in our own resources and power we can tame fear and learn to live with it.

Brené Brown’s book The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Should Be and Embrace Who You Really Are is written by a researcher converted into the language of the heart. With clarity and precision she redefines to the scary notion of vulnerability. She shows courageous ways to show our vulnerability and in effect create connection. Brené contemplates on the paradox of embracing darkness that leads to light in our relationships. Philosophical reflections are intertwined with touching and hilarious stories of how she experienced her “nervous breakdown” AKA “spiritual awakening”. Her honesty encourages me to experience my own.

On Reading Fiction and Ethics

By Carrie Anne TiptonIllustration by Akiko Kato

I have many faults; some are known fully to me, and many, I am sure, are felt more expansively by others. But this one virtue I have in spades: empathy. Such a strongly-buttressed wall of my interior house, it has, ever since I was a child, prevented me from being able to read descriptions and view depictions of people being unkind to one another; in fact it is almost impossible for me to stomach any graphic rendering of suffering at all. I enter easily into others’ pain, a trait I can only attribute not to some oustanding moral fibre, but rather to my childhood gorging on fiction—which trains the mind and soul to inhabit the skin of another in a way that little else can.

It has always been difficult for me to comprehend the willing and cognizant visitation of pain on an innocent party: given a choice, why choose to hurt? So on that bitter cold Chicago afternoon, riding the schoolbus home from fourth grade, I did not understand why the young boy a few seats ahead of me cracked his window, casually tore pages out of a paperback, and sent them lofting away on the wind. That was someone’s book, I thought to myself, aghast and angry and pained, for my little mind grasped that he had perpetrated two sins: one against the book and another against its owner. To be fair, he first held the volume up high and asked if it belonged to anyone before cheerfully ravaging it. I remember the scene now as he brandished the tattered, faded copy of C.S. Lewis’ The Silver Chair above his head, whole for the last few seconds of its life while he waited in vain for its owner to claim it.

I recall thinking quite vividly, How strange that he should have found a copy of the very book that I have in my backpack (for I was once again working my way through the Chronicles of Narnia). Thought number two: I’m so glad that mine is zipped away in the outer pocket. I didn’t think to doublecheck, naively gazing on at what I thought a complete coincidence.

When a thief takes something outright, to kill or to destroy, one is chagrined. But when a thief half-steals, with the half-permission of the thing’s owner helping him along, the burden of pain doubles with a measure of shame. At home, the vision still seared into my head of great chunks of paperback hurtling against the grey winter sky, I realized the pocket was unzipped after all. It was mine. He took mine. He ripped mine. He savaged mine. It had been mine. It was still mine, in all its pieces on the sidewalk blocks away. We didn’t have much money. The copy had belonged to my mother.

I’m sure I cried. My mother also felt my pain keenly (this makes sense: another great reader of fiction, she) and sensed the book’s pain sharply too. Soon she had ordered another copy. I remember her shaking her head and asking no-one in particular, why would someone do such a thing? As I write this I turn around and see on my shelf six faded and tattered volumes of the seven-book Chronicles, tucked into a shabby old case, and a glossy fourth volume nearby that doesn’t fit into the case. And together, they make me wonder: if he had read books, if he were in the practice of walking in the roads trod by make-believe people, would he have so readily hurt a living person and a living book all at the same time?

I will read to my child.

Daylight

It’s a miraculous thing, what a few extra hours of daylight can do. Last week we finally turned the corner in our saga of wintertime suffering and pushed our clocks ahead. Waking up in the semi-darkness isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but I’d gladly take the darker morning that comes with the time change when it means a lighter finish to the end of the day.

Whether it’s summer or winter, by the time that I need to turn on the lights in my apartment, I’m ready to transition to the dinner-making, movie-watching, tripping-the-light-fantastic-portion of my waking hours. I want to switch on the radio and pour myself a glass of wine and generally distance myself from whatever I’ve been working on. In the wintertime, early sunsets mean that I’m ready for the transition beginning at roughly 4:00 pm. I need to force myself to stay productive for another hour or two until I finally give in to temptation and begin chopping onions and preparing myself a dinner. Now that the days are longer, I can last at my desk until nearly 7:00 pm without even noticing. I’m hoping to fill the extra hours with the more soul-satisfying activities of walks along the harbor and eating ice cream cones on the church steps, but for now I’m just happy to be able to enjoy the extra sunshine, even if it is from my desk.

Spring begins officially tomorrow and while the temperatures haven’t exactly risen in New York, there are daffodil shoots coming up in all of neighbors’ yards. I have high hopes that any day now the Bradford pear trees in our neighborhood will begin their springtime spectacle, decking themselves out in white blossoms and preening against the blue sky. Soon enough, I'll get out there with them.

What it sounds like

I didn’t notice how quiet winter was until spring came along. Last night, I fell asleep to birds chirping, and this morning, I woke up to more of the same. Since the frenzy of our wedding came and went in October, a funny sort of quiet has settled over our lives. It is the quiet of two quiet people smiling at each other over steaming cups of tea. It is the quiet of a sleepy dog curled up in a pool of light beneath the window and the quiet of a corner apartment at the end of the street.

It is the quiet of working hard, mostly, or of searching and watching and waiting for work. You can count on the gentle clacking of keyboard keys and the clicking of mice at any point during the daylight hours. Sometimes the hum of the dishwasher or the rumble of the dryer kicks in with a sort of baseline, offering signs of domesticity.

It is the quiet of staying in on Saturday nights for any number of reasons, the foremost of which is that we like each other’s quiet company. It is the quiet of a few plants nearly dying every few weeks and then graciously coming back to life when I remember to water them. Much to my surprise, a certain hand-me-down orchid has been quietly sprouting tendrils right and left despite my careful neglect.

It’s the sort of quiet I’ve always wished for, and it’s even more lovely than I’d imagined. I grew up in a tiny, noisy house where the TV was always on and voices were always raised. I wanted nothing more than to shut out the constant tumult of lives lived stubbornly, passionately, and loudly, but the sounds always seeped in through the crack under my bedroom door and boomeranged off the walls. I hoped very much that one day, I would trade in all that noise for a quiet place to read and rest, to love and be loved. I might have even been convinced, until last weekend, that keeping quiet is the surest path to a life well lived.

But when we arrived in Baltimore last weekend for the wedding of friends, I was bowled over by the raucous, brilliant sound of joy. The singing and dancing and stomping and toasting and clapping and whooping and laughing kicked off on Friday night and didn’t stop until the lively mass of revelers reluctantly dispersed toward sundown on Sunday. I may or may not have enjoyed the expert plucking of both harp and ukulele strings in the very same weekend. And I can’t say I’ve ever witnessed so many blessings shouted from the tops of tables and chairs and anything else that would help the sound carry. I was exhausted as we drove away, but I left with a full heart and a certainty that love can, and should, be lived loudly too.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

Hi Sibyl, I was at brunch the other morning with some friends and my husband and our 4-year old daughter. When we got up to leave the restaurant, there was a woman seated at a table with her friends who had no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes. My daughter proceeded to laugh (I don't think in a mocking way---just surprised), and yell "Look, Mom! She's not real! She's not real!"

My solution was to hurriedly pick her up and carry her out of the restaurant (as she was making a beeline towards this woman's table--perhaps a better verb than "pick her up" would be "tackle her"), explaining that the woman was real and that she just looks different and pointing and laughing like that can be really hurtful. I was also mortified, and didn't know whether to address the woman and apologize or just pretend like my daughter was talking about something else or to just abandon her at the restaurant and pretend like she wasn't mine.

I know I could have handled it better, but I don't know how. What's your advice for these types of situations that are definitely teaching moments, but where the teaching happens at the potential embarrassment of someone else?

Thanks!

Abashed Mommy

Dear Abashed Mommy,

First of all, I understand your reaction and love that you still want to do even better.  Let’s break down why you were so mortified.  The honesty of children can be adorable, but not when it is public, culturally inappropriate, and has an implied power imbalance, like the situation you wrote in about.  But you know what?  It’s not just kids that say seemingly-ignorant things to perfect strangers—adults do this all the time, too, so it is great that you are the kind of person trying to navigate such situations with consciousness.

My family is multicultural, and not a week goes by that some nice, well-meaning person, usually from the race that holds the most power and privilege in our society, says some stupid racist bullshit to one of us.  They are not racists, but, speaking from their own ignorance, social awkwardness, and unconscious internalized racism, my husband is jokingly called a token minority, I am assumed to be the nanny, and our child is considered "exotic" for having brown skin and a big blonde afro.

It is exhausting to hold all these projections, and though I usually find a way to forgive the perpetrator of these (and many more) awkward statements, I really wish someone would, in the moment, acknowledge that they said something messed up and that they still have some work to do on themselves.  But then I think, how could they, if it has never been modeled for them?  They are like little children who have never been taught to handle faux pas in a graceful way.

I think we can change this, starting with our own children.  In the situation you wrote in about, you and your daughter, who assumedly have all your hair, are in a position of privilege in regards to the woman with alopecia.  You have the expected, preferred amount of hair on your body, she does not, and it's not because of a fashion statement.

Therefore, it could have been a powerful statement to your daughter, and to the woman without hair, if you had been able to manage your own shame in the moment and, in front of everyone, say to your girl, "Honey, I know you are surprised to see someone that looks differently from you.  You didn't mean anything by it, but that woman is a person, just like you, and calling her ‘not real’ could have hurt her feelings.  Now that I know that you have never seen a person like her before, I’ll teach you all about it when we get home.”

Then you take your cues from the other woman.  Is she pointedly ignoring this conversation?  Then just smile apologetically at her and leave, as it’s clear she doesn’t want to interact.  However, if she is paying attention to what you’re saying to your daughter, address her, “I’m sorry if we surprised you in the middle of your brunch.  My daughter is still learning about people who look differently from her, and I’m doing my best to teach her.  Enjoy your meal!”  Then go on your way to answer the myriad questions your daughter is bound to have outside the woman’s earshot.

I know that this approach seems like it will be awkward.  However, it’s already awkward, for all of you, so you may as well name that, and approach it head-on.  Through doing this, you’ll be showing your daughter that mistakes happen, and it’s best to stay calm about them but admit them, apologizing but then moving on.  She can then use this experience whenever she makes a well-meaning but still offensive social faux pas, in any arena.

Which is going to happen.  There is no way to avoid, sometimes, putting our foot in our mouths, in ways that offend due to differences in ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, politics, age, size, or health.  That is part of being human in a diverse society.  However, if we can start recognizing power and privilege in even the most innocuous environments—like Sunday brunch—and doing so publicly, perhaps our kids will grow up in a more self-aware society, seeking to make changes that start within.

Love,

Sibyl

Submit your own quandary to Sibyl here. 

What Are You Reading (Offline, That Is)?

Erin Van Genderen is a writer and editor currently based in west Texas, but now that she married into the military she anticipates moving soon. This thrills her, as she grew up in the same place as her great-grandfather was born and has an itch to see the world. Erin posts daily about food, travel, books and simple living at Little Dutch Wife. I was probably too young to be reading Seventeen magazine.

I usually had enough discipline to finish my homework before sneaking into the magazines to read about periods, boyfriends, makeup, sex. I got a thrill from reading Seventeen, although it wasn’t so much about the content as it was the potential contraband nature of the publication itself. I credit much of my knowledge today about proper eyebrow plucking technique to those early days — nothing more risqué than that stuck with me.

And yet the best thing I ever found in Seventeen was a list of “25 Books to Read Before You’re 25”, compiled by then-First Lady Laura Bush for readers surely more interested in how to call a boy than how to read Dostoyevsky.

I ripped the pages from the magazine and later taped them to my bedroom door, where they remain today.

Two withered, sun-faded pages, held up by a few waxy strips of tape. I’m still a little short of twenty-five years and a few books short of finishing the list, but the ones I have read have colored my life in ways unimaginable to the twelve-year-old in the library.

Or perhaps it wasn’t the books, per se, that shaped my experience. Rather, they are the mementos that---with a cover image, a remarkable phrase remembered, a certain tear on the dust jacket---bring to mind a certain point in time. A personal library is a museum of sorts. Not one of old books, but one of places, people, events represented by those old books. What was I reading when I fell in love for the first time? What was I reading when I first traveled abroad?

Remembrances of those times are augmented by the books that got me through it all, those familiar pages like a friend. It’s often uncanny how the subject matter paralleled my own journey---but again, I wonder if it was my choosing the book or the book’s choosing me.

Here are five of my favorite books from that list:

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya This novel is mystical, fantastic, and was for me an entry into Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ world of magic realism. Anaya writes of dusky desert towns, awash in witchcraft and religion, the horizon flecked with saguaros and the silence punctuated by coyote yips. It is a rich read.

My Antonia by Willa Cather Bohemian immigrants, Nebraskan farmland, unrequited love and cultural differences; My Antonia was my grown-up version of Little House on the Prairie. As much as I loved Laura Ingalls as a girl, Cather didn’t have to dull the blade of settlers’ hardships to make it appropriate for a younger audience. Her descriptions of sod houses and plowing vast fields of flax are just as authentic as Ingalls’, but only more real.

It’s hard to get into the book without imagining yourself on the prairie with far-away horizon lines and nothing but gently undulating wheat in the wind, the sky so very blue. A dose of this book is my prescription for the cramped, too-much-city feeling that usually hits around summer.

The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty Welty’s characters are so perfectly Southern that, at times, they seem like caricature, but I, being from the South, know that her words are true. Not all of us are dapper gentry or welfare queens, but then again some of us are.

It isn’t all joke, though. Welty’s father-daughter relationship is heart-rending, and struck a sad chord in me when I was preparing to cleave from my family and start my own home. The worst time I read it, I had to fight back tears in the reading room, the quietest place in the library and privy to each and every sniffle. The best time I read it was the first time. 

The French Lieutenant’s Woman by John Fowles This was one of the first books in which I was continually struck by the author’s brilliance and intention, one in which I took notes about storytelling from his raw-but-humorous perspective. The title hints at scandalous rendezvous, but Fowles’ genius is that he never quite gets around to it, encouraging the reader to roar through the pages hoping for a glimpse of a petticoat or the officer’s pressed uniform, consequently, not so neat.

I read it while, incidentally, falling in love with a would-be American Lieutenant who would later become my husband.

The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham I was lonely when I read this book, and so the loneliness of a WWI veteran’s trauma resonated with me. The novel’s setting is a perfectly rumpled version of Europe, with a short stint in both twentieth-century America and the wasteland-cum-spiritual haven of India. Maugham traces a man’s journey to enlightenment, but only as reached through detachment and self-destruction for most of the characters involved.

Sophie’s Choice by William Styron This was a book that I first read when I was much too young. My lifelong (and perhaps morbid) attraction to Holocaust literature was stunted by my encounter with Styron, but after forgetting about the book for a few years I was able to read it again with an entirely fresh perspective. It has become one of my favorite books of all time.

Styron’s style, his characters---so rough, flesh-and-blood on the page with their neuroses and desires---tell a story of danger and history. The main character is consumed by his youthful yearning for a woman so marred by tragedy that he can’t escape her demise. It is passionate, incredible, harrowing, and should be read all at once.

Lessons from a Big Box Hotel...

Dearest Clara,

On this recent trip to Mexico, our last few days were spent in what I tend to call "big box hotels".  Big, behemoth structures on the beach that cater to hundreds---if not thousands---of sun-seekers at a time.  Some people love them, but I typically don't.  It's just not my style.  I prefer something quieter, something less engineered to be a not-quite-right replica of home.  But after one time in Tunisia where, after a desert adventure that nearly went awry, I paid the ludicrous day entry fee for the luxury of a clean shower and an afternoon spent next to a beautiful pool with a lemonade, I realized that I needed to change my approach to these hotels.  They are still not my favorites that I seek out, but life will bring you to them in some form or other.  Maybe you have a wedding to attend, maybe you have points to use up, or maybe there is a family vacation.  Or maybe you find yourself far away from home, and like in Tunisia, it happens to be the best place to cure homesickness.  In any case, here are a few things I keep in mind to make sure I have just as good a time:

• Manage your expectations: Big box hotels are not quaint, and often times, but not always, they are not particularly personal.  Don't look for those qualities here as you won't find them.  You can likely guess well what will or won't be there, and what might or might not happen from a service or food or entertainment perspective.  Manage your expectations accordingly---pleasant surprise is always a better feeling than unprepared disappointment.
• Play to the hotel's strengths: While a larger size might prevent the hotel from doing certain things, it does enable them to do other things well.  Maybe they organize activities of some sort, maybe they have a grocery store on the property. . . Any big hotel has some things that they are good at---seek those things out and make them a priority for your time.
• Make a smaller world for yourself on the big property: Carve out a small corner for yourself where you can find one.  You'll find that no matter the size of a hotel, there is always a terrace or a part of the garden or the library corner that largely goes unnoticed by all the countless other patrons.  Make those spaces of calm your own.
• Claim your chair early: If there is one thing larger hotels do well, it's usually the beach and pool scene.  But everybody knows that.  It's worth getting up a little bit earlier to stake your claim on the best chairs with the gorgeous views and a bit of fruit or coffee.  Enjoy the cooler morning view or breeze on your chair, and as things get crowded stake your claim while you leave to have a late breakfast.  If you have breakfast first, you will always have second tier beach seating.
• Pack books: Several of them---when the world outside with all the people and hustle and bustle becomes too much, you can create your own world in the pages you choose to bring.  I like to bring books that are particular to the destination---while a big box hotel doesn't lend itself to leaving the property easily, you can still continue to learn about it through books.
• Find ways to eat off the property: A break in routine is always a good thing, especially when hotels are bigger or more generic.  Your taste buds and waistline will thank you.
• When in doubt, look out at the ocean: Big box hotels are often amongst other big box hotels and the sight can be overwhelming.  So many stories, so many people, and it makes you wonder how different it all must have looked when the coastline was bare.  When all this development feels too much, just look out in front of you rather than the world behind you.  The ocean and the horizon will always give you a sense of infinite possibility.

All my love,

Mom

My Grown-Up Desk

I remember visiting my Great Aunt Ann when I was about 7 or 8. At that time she lived in an apartment in a house in Martha’s Vineyard. During the summers, when the rent was higher, she would find tenants to rent part of the space, which was always an adventure. She had a couch covered in patchwork denim which I think was where her art therapy clients were supposed to sit, although I don’t think such clients actually existed. She was very whimsical and would swim every day and complained about her bad back and drove a really old Volvo with a lot of sand in it. Then, as now, she seemed to live like a charming cat, pulling things from thin air, acting according to her own whims. One of the best things was walking in the dark warm air at night to get ice cream cones. But I think the really best thing was her desk. A slanted artist’s desk lit by a bending lamp, and on it an entire set of colored pencils sharpened and waiting. It seemed so magical and inviting and sophisticated.

When I was a kid, there were certain things that I knew I wanted to have or be when I grew up. And then along the way I forgot about those intentions, or maybe not forgot but ingested them entirely. Because sometimes they show up here in my adult life, as if they were a point on the map that I had been walking toward without remembering why.

Today I looked down at my desk (built by Brian), lit by a bending lamp (impulse buy from a yard sale in Maine), with a couple of colored pencils and a pile of paper on top, and thought, here it is: my Great Aunt Ann’s desk—my 7-year-old idea of what being a grown-up artist looks like.

I'm a Freelancer! (Any Tips?)

It’s been ten days since my very last day at the office. After more than two years spent inside those walls, editing, copy editing and working on tremendously beautiful books, such as Gone Girl and The Art of Fielding, definitely my favorites, I made the decision. It was quite unexpected, yes. But many other projects opened up that seemed interesting, so I secured a few, closed my eyes and jumped out of “office publishing” to try the “home publishing” for a while. Many new plans are on the horizon now for my family, too, I can see them coming true day by day. And so I figured this was a good and brave and stimulating idea—breathing new fresh air and focusing on the unexpected ahead of me. And maybe being more creative on my own! So it’s been ten days. Days in which I feared I could probably feel regret or conflicting emotions—who does such a thing when publishing is going through such times? A steady income wasn’t bad after all. But well, I told myself, focus on the positive thinking! These projects mean new things to work on, things I never had a chance to do before. Plus, I no longer commute between my hometown and Milan, which was stealing off more than three hours a day.

Day 1 at home went well. I decided I deserved a little “vacation” on my own, and sometimes vacation can only mean going out for a walk alone, enjoying every step, noticing all that you never noticed when you walked on the same route a thousand times but your mind was full of the old same worries. So I took pictures of places that felt familiar and foreign at the same time, while walking oddly slowly like a drunk girl after a fun night out. Many memories came alive in my mind, beautiful ones, of two full years in a field I will always love and cherish. What can I do more for it that I wasn’t doing before? I have several ideas in mind, which include translations and maybe doing some writings of my own. We’ll see. For now I just enjoy my new freedom, but also the new responsibilities that are arising. Freelancing isn’t a piece of cake, or so I heard, and this long walk I took in a sunny winter morning was actually the only one in the last ten days.

After that, I have been working a lot (on an Italian language textbook, YAY!) and have been trying to establish new rules for my schedule. I chose the best spot in the apartment, the most luminous one, but still light isn’t enough when you find yourself working after dinner. . . I put the most comfortable chair before my shabby writing-table, and placed a new lamp on it. And I surrounded myself with piles of books—maybe that will inspire me? There are so many of them I still have to read, and this is my top three list, not a random one:

1. The Impressionist, by Hari Kunzru (a great friend gave it to me for Christmas)

1. Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen (oh yes, I still have to read this one! Shame on me…)

1. Girls of Riyadh, by Rajaa Alsanea (very curious about this one, on my shelves for too long now)

If you have any tips on how to face the possible struggles of freelancing, feel free to send your advice! Fingers crossed!