Le Cœur de Paris. Le Cœur de la France.

April 18, 2019 by

 

My native land will always remain tucked in my heart. So when hardship strikes in France, I instinctively travel back.

Everyone across the world felt something when flames engulfed Notre Dame cathedral on Monday.

The reactions and concern were genuine, whether coming from officials or on my own phone through kind texts and e-mails.

One of the most visited monuments on earth, Notre Dame is so much more than a renowned Gothic cathedral for French people.

When I moved from my native Normandy to Paris to pursue my graduate studies, I spent many weekends alone. As my feet took me from north to south and from west to east, I fell head-first for Paris, including for its extraordinary architecture, with a weak spot for the bridges.

But when years later my husband and I got the unique opportunity to climb to the very top of Notre Dame, I admit that the cathedral took my breath away.

I also admit that I didn’t feel God watching over me that day but Victor Hugo and the characters that populate his infamous novel Notre Dame de Paris, translated into The Hunchback of Notre Dame. They elbowed me and whispered as I pushed my way up. Located in l’Île de la Cité, in the center of Paris, the cathedral is the heart of Paris in more ways that its location. That day, with my footsteps echoing on the narrow staircase, my own heart beat faster as voices surrounded me, telling of the extraordinary story of Paris and France.

Fastforward a decade, we took our young children for a tour of Notre Dame. Our four-year-old son loved the Disney movie and kept asking about Quasimodo. People smiled as he craned his neck toward the belfries, waiting for the hunchback to ring the bells.

Today the bells of Notre Dame are silent.

They will also be on Easter Day.

As the holiday is approaching I remember my very American Easter, less than four months after my arrival to California. This is when I discovered that a special bunny brought jelly beans, Peeps, and other treats to delighted American children.

In France, bells coming all the way from Rome dropped chocolate eggs in my parent’s garden.

Both traditions have their flaws. It’s hard to believe that bells can carry sweets all the way from Italy. But a bunny that lays eggs is quite a stretch too.

To give a twist to the bunny tradition, one of my very favorite California-based Picture Book authors brought a cat in the picture.

Here Comes the Easter Cat was published in 2014 but it’s still as fresh as it was when it landed in bookstores and libraries all over the country. What happens when a cat decides to take over the Easter Bunny’s job? Kids will adore the hilarious plot and brilliant illustrations and above all that the author makes them the narrators of the story. Funny, clever, with a heartwarming ending, this is a truly picture-perfect book for Easter.

Speaking of books, my agent started to submit my picture book manuscript a few days ago.

I wish to be a kid again and believe that a bunny or bells or even a cat will bring me good news soon.

Meanwhile, I wish each and every one of you a very Happy Easter celebration, regardless of the way you celebrate.

 

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French Friday: Au Revoir

January 4, 2019 by

 

As soon as I knew how to write I turned to words when things overwhelmed me, whether in a good or bad way.

So in my early days in the U.S., when everything was new to me, I first wrote to clarify my thoughts as I faced an entirely new country, new language and new culture. Later, I wrote to remember. And then, after two decades spent on both coasts of my new vast home, I started a blog where I shared my dual French American identity and my affection for my native and adoptive lands.

Like many people who live in the U.S., I speak two languages on a daily basis. Unlike most, I write fiction in American English, a language I acquired in adulthood. The acquisition has been a complex process, frustrating sometimes, but in the end transformative. Living between two languages and two cultures is both a gift and a challenge. My blog became a window on this life.

Ten years later, I know it is time to say goodbye to my blog in order to focus on other projects. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but in the early hours of 2019 I decided to select some of my posts to create an e-book, my personal goodbye to the many people who’ve read me over the years.

My husband, who customized my blog and maintains it, offered to design this e-book. Without his technical and unconditional support, this project would remain tucked in my Words Documents and I would not be able to publish Chez Moi in the USA by the end of January.

Through the process of selecting the posts I became the embarrassed and humble witness of my linguistic wandering journey. In addition, I realized that my writing not only uncovered personal experiences but illustrated also the evolution of our world, mostly in the ways we communicate. In less than a decade, social medias have transformed us, and I followed these changes through my blog.

Some of the posts I chose have never been read, only a few are among the most popular. I will add two original unpublished stories, even though a longer version of one of them won second place in a writing competition.

Chez Moi in the USA will be divided into categories, so you’ll be able to select what interests you most. I still hope that you’ll venture through each and every category and will like what you find.

Although I am closing my blog today and comments after this last post, I am not finished with writing, so this is only Au revoir and not Adieu.

Thank you, my fellow bloggers, for your thoughtful, meaningful comments and also for your sense of humor and your genuine kindness. They’ve meant a lot to me. I’ve never met any of you, and yet I always wished you well, whether through my blog or yours.

In these early days of 2019 I still wish you the best.

Cheers to those blogging years!

Evelyne

 

Filed Under: Chez Moi in the USA, Latest Post, On the Run...

French Friday: En Mai, Fais Ce Qu’il Te Plait

May 11, 2018 by

EN AVRIL, NE TE DÉCOUVRE PAS D’UN FIL; EN MAI, FAIS CE QU’IL TE PLAIT

In April, don’t take off a single thread (of your clothes); in May, do as you please

In plain English: the weather being finicky in April, it’s unwise to wear light clothes since you could get a cold, but in May you can wear what you want.

No panic, the  A to Z Challenge is NOT starting again 🙂

But I could not resist to use one of the French expressions used to depict the month of May. The other one compares May to a piece of Gruyere, due to the copious amount of holidays (Labor Day, End of WWII, Ascension Day, and Pentecost).

This month of May is quite special since it marks the fiftieth anniversary of May 1968.

Sadly May 1, 2018 was marked by violence in Paris. About 1200 Black Blocs, coming from anarchist and libertarian movements, infiltrated the peaceful march, destroyed shop windows, restaurants, bus shelters, and burned cars.

Embed from Getty Images

 

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Even though violence also happened in May 1968, the ultimate goal of the French back then was Change. Political, economical, and social reasons ultimately converged and France was indeed forever changed.

I would change too!

If you don’t read French I recommend this article published in the New York Times since it recapitulates an intense French period of time. The photos are also excellent. In fact, they reminded me that France was a country mostly run by men back then.

My very own mini Mai 68 rushed to my mind when I read:

“It is hard to find any Frenchman or woman born before 1960 who does not have a vivid and personal recollection of that month.”

I was seven that spring and my sister six. School was closed. For kids, it meant an extra month of vacation. What’s wrong with that? The weather was gorgeous, even warm for the season, and our maman let us play outside even more than usual. Playdates, at least in my village, were inexistent. Impromptu ruled. I could either be totally alone on the backroads where I was allowed to bike or bump into classmates. That spring, I suppose that parents were tired to see their kids home all the time since they were homebound too, now that the country had almost stopped. With kids outside, so were bikes and plenty of energy.

Even though women are clearly absent from most photos and reportages from that time, girls my age had no doubt they were as good as boys. We only had to demonstrate it, again and again. Although I was limber my sister was more daring than I was. Racing ran through her DNA. So over this long, unexpected estival month, while in Paris students and factory workers united, built barricades, and threw cobblestones to oppose the police and SWAT teams, elementary school kids in rural France had a blast.

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All was good on our front, until my sister braked with her left brake and was ejected from her bike. She landed on a rock and blood immediately gushed. Her eyelids turned red and I thought she had lost her eyesight. She had not lost her good common sense, though, since she urged me to check on her bike and to take it home with us. Our parents weren’t as strict as others, but we didn’t swim in money. My sister knew as well as I did that she wouldn’t get a new bike if she had wrecked this one.

The boys who had been racing against us only minutes ago had vanished. Thanks for not helping us. So I pulled my bike and my sister’s while talking to her the whole time as we made our way home. I had read that it was crucial to keep an injured person alert until receiving treatment. I was 100% that my sister needed treatement. Maman was hanging the laundry in our backyard when we showed up. She dropped the sheet she was holding and our goat trotted over, excited at the perspective to eat something fresh. She was a sucker for laundry. Like me, Maman believed that my sister had hurt her eyes. But when she washed her face we both gaped at the sight of the deep gash on my sister’s forehead. My diagnosis had been pretty accurate.

In May 1968, I had never seen my father home that much. Papa must have felt weird too since he still drove with his Solex to the “office” where he met his colleagues at the truck company that employed them.

Courtesy Solex

My father allowed me to drive his Solex when I turned fifteen. He was right about the instability, but had not said anything about the feeling of freedom I would feel riding it.

Now that I’m an adult and know more about strikes I imagine my father and colleagues worrying about money, wondering when they would sit behind the wheel again, and bring a paycheck home. But I also detected hope for change when I overheared conversations.

In any case, Papa wasn’t home that afternoon and had exceptionally taken the Dauphine.

Courtesy Wikipedia

Our Dauphine was blue too, but much lighter

Our nextdoor neighbor informed Maman that he hadn’t been able to refill his car at the gas station. Deliveries of all kinds were sporadic in May 1968.

Maman decided to hitchhike to town, only four kilometers away. Ironically a taxi driver stopped and drove the frantic trio to the doctor. Family legend says that he refused to be paid. I think it’s true.

Our family doctor was not on strike and quickly closed my sister’s wound with staples. He was a charismatic man, very well dressed, a father of seven, and a smoker of blonde tobacco that floated through his wood-floored and high-ceiling office. To this day, even if I don’t smoke and know that smoking is a bad health choice, the distinct smell still conveys an image of elegance, confidence, and comfort.

Our doctor owned several cats that wandered in and out and he strongly encouraged the outdoors and even rough games for kids. That day, he only reminded my sister to use her right brake when she biked. Later, Papa would echo the advice.

If my parents worried during this strange month of May they never shared it with their kids. We didn’t have TV at that time, but I read well and tried to understand what was going on, based on the newspapers’ headlines.

Maybe this is when I understood that Paris was the place to be. Clearly May 68 was different there. More than words, photos leave their mark on young minds.

These photos were intense. Even though I would have liked to see with my own eyes I also wondered if this could be the End of the World that the priest described at Catechism.

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In May 68, students and young people who had not known WWII were hungry for a different France. In May 68, the working class was fed up with inequality. In a unique moment in French history, the needs of these two radically different groups of people met.

Years later, when I moved to Paris and studied at the Sorbonne, I thought of them, gathered in the heart of the Latin Quarter, and once in a while envied them.

Soon I grew more grateful than envious. Things would never be the same in France from now on. I had no idea that one day I would write in English a novel set in France in the direct aftermaths of May 68.

At that time, a raw, palpable feeling of change infused the air. Even a seven-year-old could breathe it. The reader I was noticed an expression that took its true meaning only much later.

Sous les pavés… la plage.

Under the cobblestones… the beach.

 

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Courtesy Le Nouvel Observateur

 

 

 

P.S. TO EVERY MOM, MAMAN, MOMMY, MUM, MAMA: HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!

I WISH EACH OF YOU A BEAUTIFUL SUNDAY.

DON’T FORGET IT’S MAY. YOU CAN DO WHATEVER PLEASES YOU.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Reflections Post 2018 A to Z Challenge

May 7, 2018 by

 

The 2018 A to Z is over!

Whoever writes every day knows that it’s not an easy task. Posting for 26 days, following the alphabetical order, can be quite a challenge. What do you say about the last letters of the alphabet, people?

It’s now time to wrap up the 2018 A to Z Challenge and to highlight a few of the bloggers who not only finished the challenge but went far beyond most others, either through unique themes, outstanding research, or gorgeous photos. Often, all of the above.

Here they are.

In alphabetical order, of course:

 

This year Claire featured Literary Maps in Children’s Books. She shared classics as well as outstanding atlases and books that help children gain a spatial understanding of the world. As a traveler who has trusted maps more than her phone far longer than the majority I loved Claire’s theme. Her research is impeccable and her selection of books pretty awesome. Don’t miss this unique journey through the land of maps.

Through poetry and fiction, Mona’s blog Life Between the Sheets (of Paper) reflects her Mexican heritage. For this 2018 A to Z Challenge she blogged about all things Latino, specifically culture, language, music, food, in her Mexican American heritage. She specifies that her writing reflects her family, not the entire Mexican American or Chicano or Latino experience. Don’t miss Mona’s A to Z Series filled with stories, gorgeous photos and food. Oh the food…

 

I was meant to find Stepheny’s challenge. For a month she wrote about bookshops located in the States and occasionally abroad. The research behind her theme is quite phenomenal. Her photos made me want to browse through each and every shop she described. In fact, Stepheny’s challenge triggered a new challenge idea for me 🙂

Though I will likely return, at least for another year, to the French expressions I love so much and sometimes think I’ve forgotten. In fact, as soon as I start writing them down, more pop up, just waiting in the deep layers of my memory.

Susanna lives on Martha Vineyard where she works as an editor and also writes fiction. This is the reason why she keeps two blogs. For the 2018 challenge she combined the theme of her blog From the Seasonally Occupied Territories (Life on Martha’s Vineyard) with the theme of Write Through It (writing and editing): How living on Martha’s Vineyard has affected her writing. And that was a pretty cool challenge to follow.

In addition, Susanna blogs sporadically about the license plates spotted on the island. It’s a year round project with the goal to complete the map of the United States. Along my road trips through the USA I play the game too 🙂

 

As a final note:

When I wrote about the French singer and composer Jacques Higelin’s death, Sabra commented that she enjoyed listening to the song Pars but wondered what Higelin sang about. Unfortunately I’m only Evelyne and not Higelin, so the translation is what it is: a translation.

 

PARS by Jacques Higelin

Pars, surtout ne te retourne pas

Leave, but please don’t turn around

Pars, fais ce que tu dois faire sans moi

Leave, do what you must do without me

Quoi qu’il arrive je serai toujours avec toi

Whatever happens I will always be with you

Alors pars et surtout ne te retourne pas

So leave, but please don’t look back

Oh pars,

Oh, leave,

mais l’enfant…

but the child…

L’enfant? Mais il est là

The child? But he’s here

Il est avec moi

He’s with me

C’est drôle quand il joue

It’s strange, when he plays

Il est comme toi, impatient

He’s like you, impatient

Il a du cœur, il aime la vie

He has a good heart, he loves life

Et la mort ne lui fait pas peur

And death doesn’t scare him

Alors pars

So, leave

Surtout ne te retourne pas

But please don’t look back

Oh pars

Oh, go on, leave

Mais qu’est ce que t’as?

But what’s wrong?

Oh pars, et surtout reviens-moi vite

Oh leave, but please come back to me soon

 

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From A to Z, Twenty-Six Funny, Weird, Vivid French Expressions

April 30, 2018 by

 

LA BOULE À ZÉRO

 

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Literally: the ball at zero

Best equivalent: shaved head

 

In popular French la boule designates the head. Maybe soccer fans remember the French soccer star Zidane’s infamous “coup de boule” that earned him a red card.

Back to the expression du jour: A shaved  head with no hair left can be described as having la boule à zéro.

 

While doing this 2018 challenge I gathered so many expressions that I can already promise to be back next year for another round of 26 funny, weird, vivid French expressions.

 

Meanwhile I want to thank each and every one of you SO, SO MUCH for sticking with me as I plowed my way from A to Z through the alphabet!

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From A to Z, Twenty-Six Funny, Weird, Vivid French Expressions

April 28, 2018 by

YOYOTER DE LA CAFETIÈRE

 

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Literally: playing yo-yo with the coffee maker

Best equivalent: to have a screw loose

 

In French une cafetière is a coffee maker, but in slang it designates the head or the brain. Yoyoter is a fabricated verb based on the yo-yo game, described as simple. By extension, a person with a simple mind, someone who says strange things can be portrayed as yoyoter de la cafetière.

 

See you on Monday for the letter Z, the last letter for the A to Z challenge!

Meanwhile, enjoy your weekend!

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From A to Z, Twenty-Six Funny, Weird, Vivid French Expressions

April 27, 2018 by

 X AU JUS

 

 

 

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Literally:?

This expression is impossible to translate

Meaning: counting down the very few days left until the end

 

That’s a tricky one to explain, especially because I didn’t know this expression .

I knew each expression I picked for this 2018 challenge. To test their popularity in France, I asked my French blogger friend Simone for her approval or suggestions. She helped me beyond reasonable last year.

She and I, however, were stuck with the letter X this year.  I owe a big thank you to my husband for finding the expression X Au Jus. Still a challenge to explain 🙂

Jus in popular French can designate a coffee. For example, a weak tasteless coffee will be called jus de chaussette or socks’ juice. As a kid, I remember my mother asking neighbors if they wanted to stop by pour boire un jus, meaning to drink a cup of coffee.

The expression X Au Jus, however, puzzled me. It was used when the military draft was still in use in France. Young men were counting the days spent at the barrack until the last day finally arrived. The countdown was done using the breakfast coffee as a mark. Military coffee being not the best it was mostly called jus.

The expression can also be used for someone who is doing time in jail and is reaching the end of the sentence.

A more familiar term to describe the end of the mandatory military service or of a sentence in jail is la quille. Which by the way is as stricky to explain since la quille in nautical parlance is the keel. Go figure!

 

 

See you tomorrow for the letter Y, part of the A to Z challenge!

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From A to Z, Twenty-Six Funny, Weird, Vivid French Expressions

April 26, 2018 by

WATERLOO, MORNE PLAINE

 

 

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Literally: Waterloo, gloomy plain

Best equivalent: dreary outlook

 

The expression goes back to the battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18, 1815 in Belgium between the British army helped by the Prussian army against the French army led by Napoléon the First. The French army was defeated, but neither Napoléon nor anyone who fought said “Waterloo, morne plaine.”

Victor Hugo, however, wrote this poem about the battle of Waterloo.

Due to the poem and to the French defeat at Waterloo, when the French say, “Waterloo, morne plaine,” they depict a dreary outlook.

One of my numerous cousins, younger than me, told me the other day that she doesn’t use this expression and didn’t even know it. Surprised, I’m now asking my French readers.

Une de mes nombreuses cousines, sept ans plus jeune que moi, m’a dit récemment qu’elle n’utilisait pas cette expression et ne la connaissait pas. Je suis surprise, mais je veux savoir 🙂

 

See you tomorrow for the letter Y, part of the A to Z challenge!

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From A to Z, Twenty-Six Funny, Weird, Vivid French Expressions

April 25, 2018 by

DES VERTES ET DES PAS MÛRES

 

 

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Literally: some green and some unripe

Meaning: to tell or to listen to unpleasant excessive remarks

Best equivalent: ?

Your turn, please!

 

In the 15th century the French adjective vert designated the color green, but was also used to describe jokes or unpleasant remarks. Mûr(e) means ripe and pas mûr(e) unripe. A green, unripe fruit leaves an unpleasant taste on the tongue as listening to excessive, harsh remarks does.

To tell des vertes et des pas mûres means making unpleasant comments to someone. Someone can also listen to des vertes et des pas mûres. The expression can also be used to describe a rough life: she or he has seen des vertes et des pas mûres.

 

 

See you tomorrow for the letter W, part of the A to Z challenge!

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From A to Z, Twenty-Six Funny, Weird, Vivid French Expressions

April 24, 2018 by

UN DE CES QUATRE

 

 

 

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Literally: one of those fours

Best equivalent: see you around

 

Depending of the sources, the expression draws its origin from the four limbs, the four seasons or still the four cardinal points.

 

See you tomorrow for the letter V, part of the A to Z challenge!

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