The Rabbit Died

I had a very sweet male rabbit. Tuesday morning, after listening to a call from my husband that only contained bad news regarding taxes and the health of his aging father, I padded downstairs in my slippers and opened the shutters hoping and expecting to catch a glimpse of my chubby rabbit munching dew-kissed dandelions in the glorious light of the morning.

I thought I saw him out in the parc, a large white blob on the dark green lawn. However, I thought he looked larger than usual. As my aging eyes focused better on the scene, I saw that the large white cat, who has black spots, as the rabbit did, was sitting very close to the rabbit.

I hate this tomcat and he hates me. He runs away whenever I appear, but first he sits and transmits his hatred through an evil stare. I call him THE RAPIST because he’s always putting his penis in something: his mother, his sisters, his aunts, his tiny cousins. I was sitting out by Blanche one day, and he wasn’t more than twenty feet away from me, raping his screaming sister. One afternoon, I heard some screaming on the terrace, and when I looked out the window, he was raping a small kitten.

The Rapist being near the rabbit was not a good omen. Either he was raping the rabbit, or, as it turned out to be the case, he was pulling the rabbit’s heart out of its neck! Perhaps he did rape the rabbit. I’ll never know. Dead rabbits tell no tales.

The Rapist sat there, staring at me, and then as I approached, he ran off towards the creek. I had a dream two nights before that The Rapist had attacked the rabbit and eaten off one of its ears and part of its face, but the rabbit was still alive, and I took it inside the house, and there I lived happily ever after with my Phantom of the Opera Rabbit.

However, prescient as that dream was, the rabbit was not able to be taken in to convalesce with me because his head was missing. His head was no where to be seen. I thought this was odd, because I didn’t think that a cat would eat the head of a rabbit, along with its skull and long ears before it devoured its internal organs. I walked around the parc and looked in the weeds along the creek bank but couldn’t find a head.

I went back to the house, grabbed my gardening gloves, two trash bags and the wheelbarrow. I picked up the headless rabbit, which was still warm. I thought of cutting off one of his feet to make into a key chain, but figuring that they hadn’t provided him with any good luck, I quickly abandoned the idea. I threw him in the garbage bags and tied them up tightly. Unfortunately, my garbage bags are clear, and so the bloody mess was visible. I put it in the back of the van and drove to the trash bin. I felt this strange sensation of guilt as if I was a murderer trying to dispose of my victim. I looked around furtively for any possible witnesses, as I don’t know if you’re allowed to throw any type of dead body in the communal trash bins, and gently lowered the headless corpse into the bin.

When I returned to the house, I continued searching for the head, but only found a small swatch of his pelt.

I will miss the little guy. Now I have no excuse not to weed the dandelions out of my flower beds. Now I have no little furry white blob to greet me when I open the kitchen shutters in the morning. I’ll miss Monsieur Bush. (That was the name the neighbor gave him when she took care of him for me during the winter of 2002-03.)

Missing in Action

You haven't heard from me because I haven't been feeling well since I fell off of the horse.

I haven't been doing anything except licking my wounds and so I have nothing to write.

Check back this weekend . . . I'll try and muster up the energy to write a report.

I have to go to the dentist today. I broke a tooth when I fell and have to have that repaired.

Well it happened.

I fell off a horse today.

My head hurts a tiny bit. Thankfully I was wearing a good helmet. I knew as the accident was occurring that I was going to bang my head hard on the ground, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to prevent it from happening. Whack!

My right side is suffering from a mild pain. I hit my back, just below my right ribs. There are some scratches there, and if I sit down for a while, it’s very difficult to get up. I soaked in a hot bath, and took some aspirin and feel much better.

I noticed when I was brushing my teeth that my right arm is covered in bruises. And I must have also whacked my left hand on something because it's aching a bit.

However, I'm very happy. I’m happy to be intact. I’m happy to be alive.

I went riding with Norman this morning. Somebody else was riding Nicole’s horses, so I took Norman’s wife’s horse. His name is Garob. He’s a lovely white Arab horse. Before we set off, Norman joked and told me that I had to watch out if I turned him to the southeast because he would take off running towards Mecca.

Garob was easy to saddle, and was a joy to ride. He has a very pleasant walking gate which is faster than Tasha’s. He doesn’t mind going down hills. Tasha doesn’t want to tackle them. He doesn’t try to eat while you’re riding. Tasha has the bad habit of fighting you to allow her to eat as she walks.

Norman had to walk his horse, Jesse, down the big hill through the woods behind my house. Jesse has arthritis. But, Garob handled the hill admirably. When we arrived at the bottom of the hill, we sat and waiting for Norman and Jesse to appear. When they showed up, Garob picked up his gate and we trotted down the level lane that crosses behind our farm buildings. I was able to slow him down and stop him when I thought he was going too fast for my skills.

We traveled about two kilometers down this path, and then turned off onto a narrow path that heads back up through the woods. I have never been on this path with the sheep or with a horse. Several times Garob took off running up the hill, and when he would get going too fast for me, I would rein him back.

Eventually, he refused to respond to my heavy reining and went flying up the hill. A fairly thick tree branch was hanging over the trail. I saw it. I tried to push it forward to break it while leaning forward to try and avoid it, with the horse galloping underneath me. My admirable attempt at avoiding catastrophe failed. The branch was too low. It wouln't give way, and I went tumbling over the back of the horse.

In the past week I've been felled by a peach and a tree branch. To hell with gun control, I'm going to start lobbying for Vegetation Control.

My helmeted head and my ancient body hit the ground. Hard. I lay there stunned, wondering if I was alive. Garob ran up the hill out of sight. I tried to pull myself up so Norman’s horse wouldn't run over me when she came around the slight bend; Jesse had also decided to start running when we turned onto the little path so instinctively responding to my deep will to live, I attempted to quickly move myself out of the narrow trail to avoid being trampled to death.

Poor Norman. As he put it, seeing me lying in the path gave him “the shock of his life.” He’s a veteran of World War II so I think he’s exaggerating. I was trying to roll myself out of the path, but I found that impossible to do: because I couldn’t move without great pain, and because there were raised embankments on each side that prevented me from easily getting out of the way.

Luckily, Jesse stopped when Norman asked her to.

I rolled over on my stomach, and slowly raised myself. As soon as I could stand up, Norman told me to mount Jesse. Psychologically, I knew that it was imperative that I get back on a horse, immediately, and I was willing to do this. However, the right side of my body wasn’t ready to mount a horse. So as I tried to pull myself up into the saddle, and then dropped back down, Norman interpreted my moaning and failure to mount as a lack of will to mount. I told him I wanted to get back on; I just needed to walk a bit, to get the “kink” out of my side. We walked up the hill. I led Jesse, and Norman walked ahead with the intention of finding Garob.

But Norman is eighty years old, and he was running out of steam as we walked up the steep hill. We stopped in a meadow for Norman to catch his breath. I was worried that Norman would have a heart attack and I didn’t quite know how fast I could get out of there to get help. I didn’t even know exactly where I was: whether it would be faster to go up the hill or back down the hill to get aid. We soon heard the thundering of horse hooves approaching. It was Garob returning to the scene of the crime. He was apologetic the way a horse can be apologetic, rubbing his head against my body, easily letting Norman take his reins, willing to be led, no trouble at all.

We continued our trek back up the trail winding through the woods. We walked, because we didn’t know if we’d encounter any more low hanging branches that wouldn’t break off. (The trail is owned by a Dutchman who is only here a few weeks a year, and he keeps the trail closed. So it isn’t used a lot; hence, there is a high possibility that the branches might be hanging dangerously low for horseback riders. We only thought of this after the accident.)

When we arrived on a wide, better-traveled trail, I managed to get back up on Garob. He walked slowly the rest of the way. I know he was repentent.

Lessons Learned:

1. It’s great to be alive.
2. If your horse is not responding to your rein commands, pull his head sideways as if you are trying to turn him. Reining back and yelling “Whoa” (and this was a horse that understands English) doesn’t always work. Especially when the horse is galloping.
3. Always wear a helmet when riding a horse. I think I’m going to get a bike and a ski helmet now.
4. If you fall off, get back on the horse immediately.

Norman’s wife and I plan to go riding this coming week. If I can walk. I’ll take Garob again, even though it’s her horse. (Did I mention that he’s a really TALL horse?) She’ll ride her husband’s shorter horse, even though she’s six feet tall. It’s very kind of her to go out with me. She hasn’t been riding much. She says it’s because her helmet and boots were burned up in their house fire this spring. But when Pamela isn't within earshot Norman claims that she doesn't ride any more because she was spooked when she fell off while galloping on one of Nicole’s horses. I think Pamela is seventy years old. The fall shook her up and made her think that she was getting too old to ride.

When I was pulling myself up from where I had fallen, Norman said, “Well, this will be good for Pammy. She’ll see that it wasn’t because she of her age that she fell off.”

I’m glad I can be an inspiration to people!

Enjoy breathing today!

(Oh, and we were heading towards the northwest . . . not towards Mecca when this happened.)

Grasshoppers and Gangrene

I’m not a superstitious person, but what does it mean when you have a large map of a country hanging on your wall, and there is a grasshopper sitting on it, directly over the point where you live? That’s what I’m contemplating at the moment.

If you recall yesterday’s tear soaked installation on the blog, you know that I slipped on a peach in Paris and badly scrapped my left knee and foot. Examining the wound yesterday, I thought it seemed a bit “green” and so I called up the doctor at 4pm on a Friday. He answered the phone and said that I could come in, but that I would have to wait until he saw the other patients who had scheduled appointments. I said that was fine with me, I would bring a book to read.

Normally, the sight of my knee wouldn’t have bothered me and I wouldn’t have bothered the doctor. But just the week before, my horse riding buddy Norman was telling me a story about some man who contracted gangrene and each time that Norman saw the man, he was missing a piece of his body until one day he was dead. I thought perhaps Norman's story was a lesson that I should heed.

I arrived at the doctor’s office at 4:30. He doesn’t have another person helping him, no receptionist, no nurse, no secretary; I sat there wondering if he did his own janitorial work. There was one woman in the waiting room when I arrived, who I knew, and so we passed the time chatting while her fifteen-month-old toddler played in a plastic playhouse. The doctor opened the door to the waiting room, acknowledged both of us, and led her to his office. I remained behind reading some French celebrity magazine that amazingly, didn’t have a story or a photo about a Royal in it. Another couple arrived to see the doctor, sat down, and the man lit up a cigarette. Now that’s something you wouldn’t experience in the doctor’s waiting room in San Francisco! And I didn’t tell him to put it out. See how mellow and tolerant I’m becoming . . . thanks to Preston's guidance.

When the doctor’s patients are finished with their consultation, they leave via a back door, so I didn’t see the woman with whom I had been chatting when she departed. (The grasshopper is now heading north-east towards either Clermont-Ferrand or Lyon.) In the doctor’s office, we spoke English, and he said that I did have a mild infection, so he cleaned the scabs and bandaged my knee and foot.

He wrote out a prescription for bandages, antiseptic spray, and a vial of serum for a tetanus shot. (The grasshopper chose Lyon as his next destination. Smart bug. I’d pick Lyon over Clermont-Ferrand any day.) I asked the doctor what I was to do with the tetanus shot stuff. Why I was to call a nurse and she would come to my house and give me a shot, he said. I didn’t believe him, so I repeated what he said to me, and he repeated it back to me. He handed me a bill for 20Euros ($24) and I wrote out a check for him. He placed the check in a fanny pack he wore slung low around his waist.

I drove to centre ville to the pharmacy, being forced to exit the car with my heavily bandaged leg in front of the tea salon with all of its outdoor tables and chairs filled with afternoon tea drinkers. I scanned the faces of the patrons to see if there was anyone I knew, anyone that I’d have to run up to explain how I received my wound, before they could circulate some wild rumor about the Americaine who fell off a horse, or was beaten up by a sheep. I didn’t recognize anyone so I scurried to the pharmacy.

The French pharmacy is a throw-back to an earlier time when the pharmacist was often consulted and trusted more than a doctor. Many French people will still go to the pharmacist for a medical consultation before they’ll head to the doctor. The pharmacist fills prescriptions, is an herbalist, and can give you access to all sorts of medications that a doctor would have to sign off on in the U.S. The woman ahead of me was asking the pharmacist what she should do about her dog’s fleas. My total tab at the pharmacy was 72 Euros ($89). The tetanus serum comprised the bulk of that amount.

I resisted the temptation to visit the bakery before I headed home. I felt so sad yesterday that I wasn’t eating and so I decided to take advantage of the sadness, and try to drop a pound. You know I'm depressed if I don't go the bakery it there's one in sight.

I drove over to Therese’s house across the road from me. Her mother was sitting outside in her wheelchair while Therese was tending to her garden. Therese takes care of her invalid mother and a nurse visits their house every other day. Being familiar with the home nurse system, I asked Therese to call and request the nurse for me. She told me that her usual nurse was off in Sengal for a vacation. Therese called the nursing office but no one answered so she left a message on their phone saying that the person who lived “across the street” from her needed a shot. Her directions were so vague, and she didn’t leave my phone number, so I assumed that the nurse would have to call her back before she showed up at my place. I told Therese I would leave my vaccine in her refrigerator. She asked why I would do that, and I said I was going to visit my friend Pierre-Yves and his wife, and that I would return to Therese’s to find out when the nurse was coming after they called her back. Therese said that the nurse wouldn’t call her back; she would just show up at my house, so I better go home.

Before I left, she told me how nice Preston was to her. He went by her house before he left to say au revoir. I started crying telling her I was sad because I missed him so much. She put her arms out and wrapped them around me in a big hug that was exactly what I needed. She said, “I feel the same every time Bernard leaves on the weekend to return to Toulouse.” This wasn’t comforting. Bernard is forty-eight years old. I didn’t look forward to falling into a deep depression every time Preston left after visiting me.

I went home, wanting badly to go visit Pierre-Yves, my French friend who is fluent in English, so I could cry on his shoulder in ENGLISH. The problem yesterday was that I was very lonely and sad because I couldn’t pour my heart out to my French friends. Having a limited vocabulary when you’re trying to express angst is more frustrating than holding in the angst and being engulfed with grief. So I went home, wishing that I could go up to P-Y’s and assuming that no nurse was going to come to my house on a Friday evening.

Pierre-Yves called to see how things had gone with the doctor. I gave him the report and told him I was waiting for the nurse to arrive, but since it was approaching seven, I didn’t think she’d show up. P-Y said, “Oh, don’t worry. Those nurses always show up.”

The nurse pulled in the driveway at 6:45. I was holding a bouquet of half-dead geraniums in my hand that I taking to Blanche. The nurse gave me my shot. She filled out a simple one-page form that I could give to the French government if I was a citizen to get her fee reimbursed. She then told me that I owed her 7.90 Euros! That’s fewer than ten U.S. dollars! I said, “Why your gasoline costs more than that.” She shrugged.

I like this socialized medicine stuff. Now, if only they would socialize the pharmacies and the drug companies. But that is only a dream. It won’t be long before they won’t have universal health care in France.

I do have several friends who live here who have had cancer. And the consensus seems to be that as long as you aren’t in the Paris region, you get great healthcare in France, even for health crises that are graver than scraped knees. The problem in the Paris region is that the system requires longer waits, and when you have cancer, that’s a problem. However, I know of one woman who lives part time in New York City, and she chose to have all her breast cancer treatment done here in France rather than going back to the States. So I get the sense that the people I’ve met do trust the French health care system. It consistently rank at or near the top, depending on the year, of the World Health Organization’s ranking of the quality and availability of the world’s medical systems. I know of someone’s grandson who had a heart-lung transplant two years ago, and he’s still kicking, in fact, now he’s in such good shape he’s stealing motor bikes for a living.

My knee isn’t so green this morning, and the red streaks that were emanating from the scabs have lessened so I’m not so frightened about gangrene. And, my girlfriend who’s a doctor in Pasadena told me that I don’t have to worry either. That gangrene happens when your circulation isn’t good. She’s flying out here on the 23rd, so I have her visit to look forward to. Today I’m going into the big town to have lunch with a fellow San Franciscan, well he's more a person from Marin County, who bought a house here. Thankfully, I’m feeling better and he won’t have to listen to me crying about how much I miss Preston. Well, maybe just a little bit.

Have a peach-free day! (The grasshopper went on to Geneva and then I lost track of him.)

Preston the Great

My son just arrived back safely in San Francisco. Air Canada lost his beloved guitar. It has been twenty-two hours since he left and I’m still crying because he’s gone. I left him at noon at the airport in Paris and I started crying as soon as he disappeared up the escalator at Terminal One. I cried on and off during the seven hour drive back home. I broke out in sobs when I walked in the door and he wasn’t here. I’m sobbing now as I write this.

I thought that I would be content when he left, perhaps even slightly pleased. Without Preston around the bathroom door that opens out into the foyer would always be shut. The house would always be as neat as I wanted it to be. I wouldn’t be nagging him to wake up, to mow the lawn, to read a book, to study more in school. He wouldn’t be nagging me about my driving, or the clothes I wear, or my embarrassing comments. I would be free.

But I discover that with him gone I’m just free to cry.

For the past three years, I’ve had a testy relationship with Preston. We always got along great until he was fourteen. That's when I sent him off to school in Toulouse. I simply wanted him to have a better education and the experience of living in Europe. I didn’t send him off to get him away from me. When he did leave, I missed him deeply and telephoned him every day. The following summer, when he decided not to go back, and not to come back to live with me, but to live with his father in Montana, my entire world collapsed. I see now that he wanted to be with his family, not a surrogate French family even though they loved him dearly. I’m sorry that I sent him away when he was fourteen. I thought I was doing what was best for him, but I missed out on that year in his life, and because of it, I missed on having him with me during his high school years.

When he was six, I moved to California from Montana to become an option trader, and being overwhelmed by that undertaking, I sent him back after a month, to live with his father during the school year. I didn’t know what else to do. His father wanted him, and I didn’t have any idea how to trade options and take care of a six-year-old in California where I had no support network of trusted babysitters. I regretted putting him on the plane that took him back to Montana, and was sad every day that he was gone. I was so happy when I got him back the next summer.

Often I look back at that decision with regret for what I missed out on by not being with him when he was that darling six-year-old. But was it so horrible of me? He spent a good year with his father and his paternal grandmother. Because of this year, he is the grandchild that is the closest emotionally to his grandmother.

But now I want that year back.

This spring, Preston surprised me by telling me that he wanted to spend the summer with me. I was flattered. Two months and ten days spent with my eighteen-year-old son. That’s a lot of time to spend with your mother away from your friends and new girlfriend. I was a bit wary, because I didn’t know how we’d get along spending every day together for that long a stretch.

But we did great. He had three friends from his middle school days in San Francisco who showed up for five days. His girlfriend flew out for two weeks. All his visitors were polite and well-behaved. They created more work for me, but I didn’t complain too much. The days went by swiftly, and surprisingly very smoothly. Other than the small nagging bouts that I mentioned, there weren’t any fights or confrontations during his stay.

Still, I thought that when he left on August 12, I would be ready for him to go. When he left, I wouldn’t have someone questioning what I said or did. The house would be neat. The bathroom door in the entry hallway would always be closed as I wanted it to be. His bedroom would be tidy. I wouldn't have as much laundry to wash. There would be no one around to unbalance my perfect little world. I would be the queen in my castle.

But how perfect is a world without love in it? How stupid am I to want to control everything to the point of not wanting anyone around me? I cleaned his room up last night when I returned, and all I wanted as I cleaned was for him to be in it messing it up. I got what I wanted, which was to be able to control everything in the house, and I cannot describe to you how miserable I now am. I want the teenage visitors back. I want my son back. I want my husband back.

Preston has taught me my most important life lessons:

He taught me what unconditional love is. I didn’t understand what love was until he was born. And even now, he’s refining that understanding.

He has taught me that loving someone is not always as easy as we want it to be, especially when the people we love disagree with us. But that accepting that disagreement is an expression of love. And learning from that disagreement is one of the highest forms of intelligence!

He has taught me that I can’t control people or things. And that lack of control is good, because I’m certainly not perfect; and God-forbid that people act the way I act or the way I think they should act for if that were the state of affairs the world would be a dull place. Preston is teaching me to accept people for who they are. He is much more tolerant than I am.

He has taught me how to be humorous. We had so much fun together laughing at each other’s jokes and witty observations and faux pas. He’s much wittier and funnier than I am, and this summer he taught me to see the humor in just about everything that crossed our path.

He and my husband have taught me that real love grows and becomes more intense. But with Preston, that lesson is more poignant because he has transformed more than my husband has in the years that we’ve been together. For it’s incredibly easy to love a baby, or a cute six-year-old. But I would have never guessed that the love I feel for Preston could possibly grow deeper as he became a man. After all, I've always found men rather difficult. How could my love for him grow deeper when he was a teenager breaking away from me? How could it grow when he didn’t dress the way I wanted him to dress any more? How could it expand when he didn’t follow my directives any more? To my amazement, I feel a deeper love and respect for him as an adult than I did when he was a baby. He’s an adult who has different interests and thoughts than me, and initially, that was alienating, but after this summer I enjoy his differences. I don’t view them as threats. I love everything about him.

Well, almost everything about him. He does have some bad habits . . . but he picked them ALL up from ME so I can’t complain. If I did, that would make me a hypocrite.

He was standing at the counter at Charles de Gaulle Airport checking in, they wouldn’t let me go stand with him as I used to do when he was a minor. That was symbolic to me: the airline telling me that I had to let my son go, that I had to let him take responsibility for himself. I was so proud that he was my son. He stood up straight. He was handsome and self-assured and I didn’t fear for him any more. I realized that he’s got a brilliant head on his shoulders and whichever path he takes will be the right one for him. I just wish through my tears that it was a path that had us always walking through the streets of Paris together as we did the past few days and as a favorite photo that my friend Laurie took of us depicts us: eleven-year-old Preston with his blissful Mother walking hand in hand down the Champs-Élysées at night.

Preston didn’t really want to go to Paris for two nights and days. He just wanted me to drive him up to the airport and drop him off, maybe spend one night, and I was going to acquiesce to that wish. After all, it would be easier and less expensive for me, especially if he wasn’t excited about going. But for some reason, I was determined to spend two days up there with him. I don’t know why, I just wanted to do it. At one point, because he didn’t want to go, I thought about just putting him on the train. As you recall, I don’t like being in Paris in August: too hot, too many tourists, and the good shops and restaurants are closed. But I just had this urge to go, and I’m so happy that I followed that urge.

We had such a fun two days. The weather was cool. The city was crawling with tourists, but it didn’t seem worse than any other month. The traffic was light on the Periphique. We were able to find some really good restaurants and that's something that I had never mastered before in Paris. (The good shops were closed though.)

We walked a lot. Preston discovered the creamy deliciousness of real Irish beer. I discovered an “unknown” quartier and we had a great Thai lunch there. We watched a matinee showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 in a little Paris theatre. I slipped on a peach and fell down in the Latin Quarter in front of a café full of diners. Preston helped me up. My knee and foot were bloody from scraping them on the pavement and I had peach smeared all over the back of my skirt. Embarassing as the incident was, I was eternally grateful that I hadn't slipped on dog doo-doo. Preston developed bad blisters later in the day from walking around too long in his Top-Siders with no socks. That evening, the two of us literally limped to the restaurant for dinner. We laughed and joked a lot. I couldn’t have had a better traveling companion . . . even if he did nag constantly about my driving and I found him annoyingly correct.

How lucky am I to be crying because I love my son so much, and miss my husband, and am sitting on a walnut farm in beautiful rural France? And we're all healthy. Damn, I have everything . . .if I could just get us all together in the same place! Nothing's ever perfect enough for me.

Have a loving day.

August in Paris

I'm heading off this morning for Paris. I won't be posting again until Friday. My son flies out of Charles de Gaulle Airport on Thursday, so we're going to drive up today, and spend tomorrow visiting the Musee d'Orsay and the Picasso Museum. August in Paris isn't the most desirable time to visit the city. It's mostly deserted by the French who are vacationing now so the city will seem more touristy than usual. Normally, it is miserably hot in Paris in August, but blessedly, the weather report is predicting rain and cool temperatures.

My son went around and said good-bye to the neighbors. They gave him going away drinks at all his stops. Monsieur Besse gave him some "fire water."

I changed the water in Blanche's basin. The gate has been secured so she can't open it. The rabbit is loaded up with three days of provisions. The neighbors have been alerted to keep an eye on the place. We'll take off about nine, with the intention of arriving early enough to avoid the rush hour traffic on the dreaded Periphique.

I went to a going-away aperitif for the retired mayor of our little town. He sold his house, a very old one with a tower and a magnificent view of the valley. A French couple from Paris bought it and everyone is very happy that they are going to be moving here permanently. The thing the locals hate more than strangers moving into the area, is when someone buys a home here and only uses it for a vacation home. They would much prefer that people live here all year round, even if they are foreigners. Personally, I was very happy to hear that a real-live French couple is moving in to the house. Hopefully, their gorgeous view won't be destroyed by the rumored four-lane highway and big bridge that would also cut through the valley they look out on.

The entire village and the residents of the commune showed up for the party. The current mayor is supposedly gay, but no one has seen his boyfriend whom it is rumored never leaves the house, which leads me to believe that he doesn't exist. The current mayor gave a small introductory speech, and then turned over the proceedings to a retired philosophy professor from the University of Toulouse. This guy went on for an hour, literally lecturing the impatient crowd who was impatient to eat the food they could see piled up behind the man and his podium. He paced the room as a professor does. He itemized lists and I had the strong urge to whip out a notebook and take notes. People started walking out, and still the lecturer didn't get the idea that no one wanted to listen to him droning on. A man standing behind the podium took a few sheets of the the professor's notes when he had walked into the crowd to make his points. I couldn't stop giggling at how funny the entire episode was. My friend Pierre-Yves, who walked out said, "That man will use eighty words if it only takes three."

At the party, I met a British couple who just got married after living together for thirty years. They knew about me because they have seen me pass their house with the sheep. They were adamant that the next time I walk by, I stop in for tea.

Our neighbor's son is a violin maker, and he made a very beautiful plaque for the old mayor that had the scroll of a violin attached and the name of the town carved in the wood, to commemorate the cello concerts that our little village is now famous for in the area. The local vintners each donated a bottle of their best wine, and Monsieur Burc, our neighbor who is an artisan carpenter, built a large beautiful wooden box for the wine.

I talked to Horatio Alger who lives on my road, and has farm land that borders it. His son's house is built exactly on the edge of our road. I asked him if he had heard anything about a plan to build a four-lane road through our valley, and he said that wasn't going to happen. They might widen the road a bit, if at all, but they weren't going to put in a large road. I felt a little bit relieved assuming that he would know better than anyone what the situation truly was.

Surprisingly to me, my husband didn't seem to be upset about any road expansion coming through when I told him what Monsieur Besse had told me.

I'm going to start boycotting freeways. It won't make an iota of difference in the world if I do, but I don't want to support such an evil that destroys people's homes and properties.

I'm also going to keep my eye out for an isolated property that isn't near any road . . . of course that doesn't guarantee that they won't confiscate that for a freeway either. I guess there's really no place in the Western world to escape from the invasion of "civilization." The France I wanted to live in started dying twenty years ago. Sadly, I'm searching for something which doesn't exist anymore.

Goodbye Cruel World

Warning: Contains Profanity

Went riding this morning at nine and finished at noon. I was hoping to go alone, to meditate on the evils of asphalt, but Nicole woke up her niece Caroline to go with me. Aita was difficult to catch in the pasture. That should have been an indication that all was not right with the world; but he was fine as I led him to the barn, and groomed and saddled him. In fact, he was much better behaved than Tasha who was kicking and acting up for Caroline. Tasha was so agitated I was afraid that he might kick me because we were in such a tight space together. So I took Aita around to the other side of the barn to finish saddling up. I figured that Caroline must be having some psychological problems she wasn’t dealing with honestly.

We finally headed out for our ride with the intention of going for a long two hour ride. But we weren’t more than a half a mile from the house, when my horse, Aita, started acting up. It was an interesting experience trying to control him as he bucked and turned in circles. I don’t know if the horse flies were bothering him, they did seem heavier than usual, or whether he just did not want to go out for a ride, but he was impossible to get to move forward, and he was almost impossible to stay on.

However, I did stay on, for around a half an hour of almost constant light bucking. I headed back to the house with him, but didn’t unsaddle him because I didn’t want him to think he could get his way, so I rode him around the pasture, while he was still being ornery and bucking a lot. I was rather proud of myself for staying on.

Finally, I decided I was testing the Fates, and so I took him back to the house to unsaddle. Nicole wheeled out in her electric wheelchair and told me that if I wanted to take Tasha I could, and Caroline could unsaddle Aita and stay home. So I went out for a pleasant hour and a half ride through the woods. I had a bit of difficulty at first, since Aita was whinnying loudly for Tasha to return. Tasha whinnied back in reply and stood still, then tried to turn back, but I was able to prevent that and we headed off down the trail.

So, based on my understanding of the Tao of Equus the horse must be reading my deep subconscious and seeing that it’s out of whack with what I’m really projecting to the world. And that’s true. I’m mad at the world and its cars and its oil wars and its pollution and poison and its unbridled greed and gluttony. I’d like to just live alone with my sheep and a horse, a sewing machine that doesn’t require electricity, paper, pencils and paint, and I’d like the outside world to just leave me the fuck alone. But yet I haven’t quite cut the ties that bind me to that same society which I hate.

Yes, Aita, you are quite right. I’m messed up. I’d like to stand on top of the Eiffel Tower and scream at the world: Quit buying all that plastic junk made in third world countries. Don’t drive so much. Walk off that fat ass you’re carrying around. Quit being so greedy. Learn how to enjoy unadulterated NATURE so you'll quit poisoning the eco system.

See following link to see what one of our good corporate citizens, Dupont, is up to: http://nytimes.com/2004/08/08/business/yourmoney/08teflon.html?pagewanted=1&hp

Quit mowing down the forests. Quit paving the beautiful hills and valleys. JUST STOP. Stop what you’re mindlessly doing just because society told you to do it, and figure out what would truly make you happy. The answer is not going to be a new freeway, a new pair of shoes, a new Teflon pan, a new house, a new car. I can guarantee you that the answer is not going to be found in anything material. And while you’re searching, just leave me the fuck alone with your asphalt and poison and elevator music.

There I got that off my chest. Now maybe I can go and ride Aita.

They Paved Paradise

I just had a depressing visit with Monsieur Besse. I took a spool of thread over for him, to replace the one he had left on his sewing machine. He had a friend of his come over to his house to fix and clean the sewing machine, and he put his spool of white mending thread on the machine so they could see if the machine worked properly. When he brought the machine back to me, he wanted to take the spool back with him because it was the only thread he had for mending; but I asked him to leave it so I could study how the machine was threaded, since it doesn’t have an instruction manual. I ended up using most of his spool as I sewed all night and morning, forgetting that I was using his thread.

So I walked over a new spool tonight, and he invited me in for a drink of ratafia. We were having a fun time talking about the local history of the area and his family history. Then he ruined my bliss by telling me that he had hear a rumor that plans have been drawn up to put a four lane highway through our little valley so the trucks can pass from the western side of our departement to the eastern side to hook up with the new auto route that cuts from north to south. Our valley is very narrow, so if they put in a four lane high way, and didn't take out our house, the highway would literally abutt our terrace.

Roger said he didn’t pay much attention when he heard the rumor the first time, but after the third time, he believes that there must be something to the talk he’s hearing. He did say that often there are plans drawn up but nothing happens. As he told me this, a great sadness came over me. Because if it is true, our property is totally ruined. If it turns out not to be true, we have to live with this rumor for years, and there’s no incentive to work on improvements on the house or the property. We won’t be able to get back what we put into the house, and I don’t want to put all our time and money into fixing a house that will be next to a highway. Right now we have an architect drawing up plans for an extention into the moulin and a remodel of a bathroom. But now we’re put in this horrible limbo.

Roger could tell that I was upset, because I immediately wanted to get up and leave, and I know he felt badly that I felt badly. He lent me a flashlight so I could walk back home in the dark. I rushed into the house and looked at the map on the wall and seeing the map, I felt a little relief. I can’t imagine why they would want to build a four lane road that is only eight kilometers long that doesn’t connect to any other four lane road through our valley.

He said the purpose of the bigger road would be to keep the truck traffic out of three small towns along the “main road” that now connects them with our large town. But that still leaves the truck traffic running through a well-preserved medieval town that has the most historical interest of any of the towns they are trying to keep traffic away from.

When I look at the map, there is a wide road currently in existence that connects the two areas that Roger says the government wants to connect. I just don’t believe that they’re thinking of putting a short stretch of auto route through our little valley. Of course, it makes no sense to me but it could make perfect sense to bureaucrats in the highway department. Maybe it wouldn’t be so horrible if a freeway ran past our terrace: we could always put in a McDonald’s franchise.

So hearing this bit of news has turned my entire world upside down. I’ll try my best and have a good day tomorrow. I’m going horseback riding in the morning and will attempt to enjoy what’s left of disappearing rural France before they pave it all over.

A Sheep Saved Me

Blanche is living up to her name. After a 24-hour heavy rain shower, she now appears as a white, angelic, virginal (she is) apparition when I glimpsed her out amongst the fog-shrouded trees this morning. My son and I now suspect that she has figured out how to open the gate to her pasture. In order to accomplish this feat, she has to deal with two latches, but we think it’s highly probable that she has figured it out.

For a sheep, she’s very intelligent. I remember hearing a long time ago that orphans in institutions are small and sickly because they don’t receive any physical attention. Blanche was an orphan, and there’s nothing more small and sickly than an orphan sheep. But now, people tell me that she’s the largest female sheep they’ve ever seen. I think she’s so huge because I give her lots of physical hugging and massaging . . . and I wouldn’t doubt if this has raised her IQ high enough that she could figure out how to open two latches on a gate.

I was reading a book, The Pig Who Sang to the Moon, and in it, a chapter on the intelligence of sheep. The book claims that there have been many instances of sheep that have figured out how to open latches on their enclosures. This book also claims that once they do, the owner immediately takes the sheep to the slaughterhouse because they don’t want to deal with the escapes, and they don’t want to breed sheep that are intelligent.

I’ve been wondering for quite some time what would happen if you bred animals for intelligence and not utility. And conversely, what would happen if humans paid as much attention to developing their instinctual powers as they do their intellectual powers. If this happened, would the world not be a better, happier place?

When I mention that I have a sheep to someone, they invariable say, “Sheep are the dumbest animals in the world.” That’s a mistake, because I’ll give them an earful about how sheep are quite smart, if just allowed to develop their potential. People could learn a lot from a sheep. They are very loving and affectionate. They are very obedient if they trust you. People are always amazed that I walk Blanche for miles, on trafficked roads, visiting people’s houses, and I don’t need to put her on a leash. I would even go so far as to say that a pet sheep is more affectionate than a dog. It always wants to be near you, it thrives on being hugged and petted, and it loves to cuddle. As an added bonus, a sheep can also provide you with enough wool for a beautifully tailored new suit each year.

In the book, The Tao of Equus, the author writes about her experience using horses to help people who are undergoing psychological therapy. Of course the author writes more elegantly than I can when summarizing her ideas, but she claims that horses are tuned in to a different level of consciousness. This allows them to virtually read a human’s deepest emotions. So say, if someone has deep emotional disturbances that they are masking with a faux smile and enthusiasm, the horse will react negatively to this disconnect between the true feelings of the person, and the person’s public persona. On the level on which a horse instinctually exists, it is receiving conflicting data that it finds agitating. This situation, for the person dealing with the horse, is troublesome because the horse will not behave well for a person who is emotionally disconnected from their subconscious.

According to this book, in order to get along well with the horse you don’t need to have solved your hidden psychological troubles, you just need to be acknowledging them and not attempting to paper them over with a false sense of well-being. She also gives the helpful advice that you have to treat the horse as a thinking, feeling being if you want to have a horse that takes care of you. Believe me, you ride on the back of a horse at the horse’s discretion. If the horse wants to kill you, it has many ways to accomplish the task. You need to have a horse that will do everything it can to protect you.

The other day, when I was standing in the pasture petting Tasha, he jerked his head up quickly and whacked my jaw. My pain was intense, and I didn’t want to think what would have happened if he had intentionally wanted to knock me out. According to the Tao of Equus author (maybe I’ll look up her name for you) the horse is aware of where you are at every moment, and so if it whacks you, or if it nuzzles you, that is what it is intending to do. Because of this, it is imperative to purchase or ride horses that have been trained in a gentle manner. You don’t want a horse that has been beaten into submission because that horse doesn’t trust humans, and has no desire to be kind to or bond with a human.

Yesterday, the owner of Tasha wanted me to take out her other horse, Atia, because she wanted her fifteen-year-old niece to ride with me in the afternoon and take Tasha. I had heard from a neighbor, another horse owner, that Atia was probably too spirited for my abilities. However, Atia’s owner assured me that he would be fine. And he was. I enjoyed riding him more than Tasha. He responds to reign commands immediately, so that I can just apply subtle pressure on his neck. I don’t have to pull the bit from the side of his mouth which is a more aggressive, less pleasurable way of reigning, for both me and the horse. Atia is more spirited, but that means he has a faster, more enjoyable walking pace than Tasha.

After the ride yesterday, I had taken off Atia’s saddle and harness, and had brushed him down, and I was thrilled that as I was standing there talking to the girl who rode with me, Atia rubbed my back up and down with his head. According to the book, this is a sign of great affection from a horse. I gave him a big hug around his neck in return.

I was also flattered yesterday, when Tasha was acting up for the girl, who does take formal riding lessons and knows how to handle a horse well, and the owner asked me to calm him down because Tasha was used to me; and I did calm him down. I suspect the girl must be trying to mask some psychological troubles!

The author of The Tao of Equus claims that it is possible for a human to learn from horses how to function on and benefit from, this other, wordless, subliminal level of awareness. I would have thought that assertion was New Age poppycock, if I hadn’t been walking through the woods every day with my sheep for five months prior to reading the book. Animals don’t communicate verbally and so if we really want to commune with them, we have to learn to communicate with them in a silent, instinctual manner: a very difficult task for modern man, and me, to enter into silence in order to access this other psychological level of being. If you can do it, you discover a well-spring of abundant peace and well-being. And you also discover that by relaxing, and letting your “instincts” take over, you don’t have to be constantly passing judgment on every action you take or don’t take. You are just BEING; you’re in a natural state of Zen; you are how you were meant to be from the moment you were born.

The sheep helped me to discover that there is this other level of existing that we humans rarely access. One day, it dawned on me while I was had to work very hard at trying to reach a Zen state, the sheep were perpetually in a Zen state. I realized that the sheep had quite a lot of useful information to impart to me.

The sheep just are. They have a purpose, they don’t question it, and they live non-violent, peaceful, vegetarian lives. (They are the only animal that cannot defend itself in any way. That is the reason they flock together.) Then I got to thinking, that humans also have this powerful instinctual force, the result of millions of years of development which courses through our minds and bodies. What would happen if one allowed this instinctual side to become more highly developed? Our modern society does everything it can to make us slaves to its products and structure; and in order to do this, the innate trust that a person would naturally have in themselves, engendered by a strong reliance on their own innate instinct, has to be sublimated to the more easily manipulated ego-driven intellect. So we become these fat heads with no use for our bodies, no use for nature, no use for our fellow humans except as a source of income and a means of creating matter to consume. The instinctual, spiritual side is devalued and slowly dies. As a result, the sensual, the amorous, the spiritual, the Holy Grail that we truly are searching for during our short sojourn on this planet, are lost to us. That’s the reason people are studying Zen, are becoming fundamentalists (pick your religion), are enveloped in a fog of drugs/alcohol/consumption. We’ve lost our instinctual foundation that allows us to just be: be content with ourselves, be content with the decisions we make, be content with the world and its order, be secure enough to love unconditionally and be loved.

An animal, if allowed a large degree of freedom, can teach you contentment, can teach you to trust your decision making skills, can teach you to love yourself and others, and can teach you how to access your deeper spiritual self.

I hope you have a beautiful day.

(Oh, the author of The Tao of Equus is Linda Kohanov!)

Rainy Days and Sheep Always Get Me High

Oh, it’s very beautiful outside. The morning is still dark at seven in the morning and a steady rain is pouring down from the clouds. As an added bonus, we don’t have to irrigate the walnut trees today. Nature’s doing the work. I love dark rainy days here at the Moulin. Days like this just add to the cozy, protective womb atmosphere of the place.

One of my most memorable trips to France was with my son during a rainy October. We went to Normandy, where the weather was clear for the most part, but cool, and we were the only people on the D-Day Beaches. I have a photo of my eleven-year-old walking alone on a long, desolate stretch of the beach. What a singular experience for him, a World War II buff at that age, to have that magnificent historic site all to himself with his imagination free to run wild without any visual impediments, like other people, destroying his fantasies.

After Normandy, we drove to Paris, and stayed in the ultra- modern Hotel Square across the Seine from the Eiffel Tour, in the 16th Arrondissement. The hotel is in a residential area and we had great fun watching the Parisians go about their real lives as they walked their children to school, visited the bakery, had their hair done at the coiffure. It was a very different experience than staying on the Left Bank, or near the Opera House, where we never were able to witness the pleasant daily routines of French families.

During our Paris stay, it rained, and rained hard, every day. I loved it. We seemed to have the tourist haunts of Paris all to ourselves. The rest of the world can have springtime in Paris, but give me the autumn. To sit in the Tuilleries garden when the chestnut leaves are falling is heaven made manifest. To promenade under an umbrella down the Rue St. Honoré with your eleven-year old son is all I could ask for. The sensory experience of huddling under an awning at a sidewalk café for tea and hot chocolate is heightened when torrents of rain are threatening to douse you.

I don’t know what I’ll do with my beautiful rainy day. I might work on my novel, or paint, or sew, or do all three. I had “scheduled” Blanche for a walk this morning. I’m trying to ride the horse every other day and walk Blanche on the off days; but she doesn’t like going out in the rain.

Yesterday Blanche once again escaped and didn’t have the decency to announce that she had arrived at the house. I just happened to have glanced out the kitchen window and was shocked to see this large sheep devouring one of my large pots of geraniums; the same geraniums that I had been admiring for their vibrant beauty earlier in the day. She had no intention of going quietly back to her pen. When I opened up the door to the kitchen, she barged in, ate some old flowers I had sitting in a pitcher on the sink counter, and then checked out what was on the kitchen table. Since she wouldn’t go back in her pen, I decided to trim the large hedge out by the road, to get Blanche away from the flowers and accomplish some work at the same time. She happily followed me out there. But after a while she moseyed back to the terrace with the intention of eating more geraniums. My son chased her away. After several attempts at trying to coax her back to her pasture, even sitting with her to rub her belly in the hope that she would follow me for more massaging, I resorted to using cookies to lure her. It worked. So now I have a sheep that drinks out of a cup and eats cookies. If she polishes her manners, for instance realizes that you don't eat the hostess' flower arrangement, she’ll be presentable enough to attend high tea.

Isn't this timely?

After I posted The Sound and the Fury I found this great article in The New York Times about the perils of watching television . . . for children.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/03/health/03brod.html?8hpib

The Sound and the Fury

For many years, I have been battling to try and keep media brainwashing out of my life. And, for a person who lives in a modern city, I think I do an admirable job. I don’t own a car so I don’t listen to the radio in it driving to work or running errands. I don’t own a Walkman, so when I run or walk I just hear the loud humming of the City accompanied by my labored breathing. I’m pretty good at keeping the television turned off when I’m at home. I’m pretty good, in the sense that I ONLY watch about two hours a day at the most. But that amount bothers me, and as much as I try, I can’t stop my television habit.

When we purchased the Moulin, I didn’t want to sully the tranquility by buying a television and bringing all the ills that lurk in the outside world into our little paradise. My husband said he was going to get one, but in four summers, he hasn’t. He always threatens that he’s going to buy a television; but at this point I don’t know if he means it or if he just wants to tease me. Without a television, we talk a lot more, we sit down together at the table for meals, we are more creative, we read more, and we get more work done. Without a television, my eighteen-year-old plays his guitar, draws, and to my great surprise, devours novels.

When I walk the sheep or ride the horse, I’m out in Nature and rarely bothered by noise pollution from the modern world. I believe that this “cleansing” of my mind from outside influences that have agendas to promote – political or commercial – is what brings me the peace I find here in France.

Yesterday, I made the mistake of listening to a radio program from the U.S. on the internet while I sewed my quilt squares. About half an hour after I turned the noise off, I was sitting outside on the terrace sewing, and I was overtaken by a painful headache (I don’t often get headaches) as the commercials from the radio continued playing in my mind. Their catchy sayings and their infectious music just wouldn’t leave me alone. As I write this I see that I must sound like a nut case to those of you who are daily inundated with television, radio, elevator music, store music, traffic.

But I think that I had finally reached a point where I had cleared my mind of unnecessary media noise and that when I listened to the radio yesterday, my brain just didn’t want to be faced with that onslaught of attention-deficit-inducing material.. What’s interesting to me is that I had really wanted to listen to this show and I enjoyed hearing what the guests on it had to say. Still, my brain rebelled. For a tonic, I sipped a small glass of wine and went to bed. As I lay in bed, plagued by the headache and the oppressive heat, I remembered that the radio show had featured a film critic who discussed the recent remake of The Manchurian Candidate. This new film is about a corporation planting monitors in people’s brains to control their thoughts. In the movie Denzel Washington keeps pointing to his forehead and saying, “It’s in here. It’s in here.” According to the critic, the message this film is making can be garnered not only from the plot, but from the soundtrack as well as corporate media is playing constantly in the background -- television news, talk radio, advertising, etc. This ubiquitous programming of our minds to buy that, think this, takes away any hope we have of being original thinkers as our minds are too busy processing the thoughts that others are paying to plant in them.

Well, Amen Brother, I’ve been aware of this form of “control” and have been fighting it, and then when I relapsed, you were there to remind me about what I’m trying to run away from. My own brain rebelled against the takeover as well by giving me the headache.

This morning I woke up at 5:30. I tried to get up at 5 but couldn’t do it. I want to get on horseback by 7am because after ten it will just be too hot to ride. By ten the flies will be out swarming and the horse will be too busy fighting them to give me a pleasant ride. All evening and through the night, we had lightening flashes which buoyed my hopes, and I’m sure the hopes of all the neighbors, that we would have a rain storm. But no rain arrived. Already at 6:30am it is quite hot. I can’t wait to spend a couple hours on the horse, just wandering through the woods, clearing my mind of the media debris I deposited in it yesterday.

I reached a milestone on my quilt yesterday. I pieced together enough patches to make the small quilt I had originally set out to construct. However, I’m now debating whether I should continue and make a larger quilt. My husband suggested that I make it big enough for our bed. So I’m debating whether to spend another month piecing together the squares by hand. Last night, Roger came and took his sewing machine back. He’s taking it to a friend to have him clean, oil, and put it in working condition. If the machine works, I could quickly piece together a large quilt. So I just may stop now with this current small quilt. Then when I look at it I’ll know that every stitch in it is a hand stitch of mine. I don’t know why that thought would bring me satisfaction, but it would.

Have a great day, and for your own peace of mind, try to stay away from the television and the radio.

Too French

This morning is very beautiful, although I think the rest of the day will turn out to be a miserable scorcher. The church bells are ringing now, telling everyone to start working. The birds are singing and I’m still waiting for them to stop so that I can hang out my laundry in safety. When the birds are singing their little bodies are also busy digesting and eliminating.

Yesterday evening, I was just about to step out the door to go to an aperitif party, when I heard louder than normal sheep baaaaaing. I opened the door and there stood Blanche. She was polite though. She didn’t eat the flowers but was simply calling at the front door to have me come out and play. Luckily, my son and I were able to easily herd her back to her pasture. I wish she didn’t eat flowers. I’d love to let her wander around the near the house all day. (Later: We just came back from a two hour walk and she’s yelling at me from her pasture.)

I watered the flowers at seven this morning, and picked some blackberries off of my bushes for my morning yogurt. Blanche and I will head out for a walk as soon as I finish this post. Hopefully, we’ll be back before the sun turns Blanche into a mouton roti. (Later: I took a large bottle of water with us and gave Blanche water in a little plastic cup.)

The house is quiet because my husband and my son’s girlfriend left yesterday.

This week is the nineteenth annual cello festival in our tiny village. The place is buzzing with excitement as the famous Parisian cellist Roland Pidoux is here with young musicians from all over France. The festival puts on four concerts and then there is a daily master class that the public can attend. Last night, the head of a famous French corporation together with his wife put on their annual aperitif in honor of the musicians and the local people who work on the festival. (Later: I found out that the party ended up going until midnight.) They had their two French grandchildren with them who speak incredible English. The grandchildren have been living in the United States where their mother is a researcher at a famous institution. I asked the man if his company had had problems because of the Americans boycotting French products last year over the invasion of Iraq. He said that of course they were financially hit by the boycott. He said that while his daughter didn’t have any problems at her work, because her co-workers come from all over the world and are highly intelligent people, she didn’t experience any problems. However, the ten- year-old-daughter came home from school crying because she was verbally attacked for being French.

When I was introduced to the ten-year-old, I was standing with a Scottish man. The little girl told us that they were in the process of moving from California to Florida. The Scottish man asked her if her parents were going to vote, and she said, “We can’t because we’re French.” That little exchange highlights the importance that everyone I meet over here, French, British, Dutch, Tasmanian, places on the American Presidential election. Everyone, from seventy-five year old Scottish retirees to ten-year-old French girls, is conversant about it.

The French friends I spoke with the morning after Kerry’s acceptance speech were absolutely ecstatic about his performance and the radio reports I heard were breathlessly saying that Kerry had the election wrapped up. I told them to hold their horses, that half the people in the United States support Bush.

The French just can’t see how Bush can win the election here. I’m afraid they’ll all be very disappointed when he continues being President for four more years. My French friends point out to me that Kerry is ahead in the polls, and then I deflate their naïve views by pointing out that Bush didn’t really win the last election either, so they shouldn’t get their hopes up.

I don’t have television here, and that’s probably a big reason why I’m so blissful here; but from what I can gather from my discussions with people, the Democratic convention was covered in its entirety on French television. Isn’t that amazing? The American networks decided this year to barely show any of the convention proceedings and the French citizens were treated to gavel-to-gavel coverage.

I see that the French/Evil/Bad meme is still being trotted out in the U.S. I read today where Trent Lott attacked Kerry saying he was “a. . .French speaking . . .” liberal from Massachusetts. Oh, how I would relish someone for attacking me for the same reason, “. . . she’s a French speaking liberal from San Francisco.” Hopefully that attack will come soon. My French skills have deteriorated since I’ve been speaking English all day with my family for the entire month of July. But after my son leaves on the 12th, I’ll be able to run around speaking only French. And then, let the attacks begin.

We had lunch with a friend who exports Bordeaux wines, and she said that her specialty, high end, very high end Bordeaux wines, are still selling well in the United States. So the people who can buy $10,000 bottles of wine aren’t buying into this anti-French crap which seems to agitate the Republicans in Mississippi where the Honorable Senator Lott’s line got a big applause. (I’m not exaggerating that price!)

When he was at the Moulin, my husband commented that he wasn’t noticing any American tourists this year. And that observation was confirmed when his plane arrived at SFO and the foreigner customs line was many times larger than the American line. I think that a large part of the absence of American tourists in France is mainly due to the difference in currencies, not to a boycott. My husband said last year that he felt as if he was from a Third World country whenever he exchanged the dollar for the Euro. I pointed out last night to my son that the 41 Euro shirt he bought the other day was purchased with the equivalent of 51 dollars. Back when we purchased the Moulin, he would have only had to have forked over 37 dollars. You can see how painful the surge of the Euro is for Americans. However, the Dutch and the Germans are taking up the slack created by the American absence.

I just got my son out of bed to turn on the water sprinklers for the walnut trees. Hearing that the birds had quieted down, I bravely hung out my laundry. And now, I’m going to take Blanche for a walk in the bright morning sun. Have a beautiful, French day.

Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves

I left the house this morning at 4 to drive my husband to the Toulouse airport. He was sad to leave, and I was sad to have him go. The full moon was so bright that I had to drive with the windshield visor down.

The freeway heading south towards the Mediterranean and Spain was surprisingly crowded for so early in the morning. In August, the French leave en masse for their vacations and most French people don’t have air-conditioned cars, so they drive during the cool nights when the days are hot. Listening to the radio, there were reports of huge traffic jams at five in the morning, all of them caused by car wrecks. At 4:30, we passed by a horrible wreck where a person traveling down the freeway plowed into the side of a car merging onto the freeway from a rest area. The car that was entering the freeway had rolled, several times I surmised, and resembled a piece of wadded up aluminum foil.

This year, the French government started cracking down hard on speeding and drunk driving. They stiffened up the fines and penalties considerably so that no one speeds on the freeway any more. You might see your odd German or Italian speeding by, but the French remarkably, and quickly, have given up the habit. The French still roar around the small roads and towns, but the 100-mph-plus norm on the freeway is a thing of the past. Our accountant told us that the drunk driving crackdown is working so well that two out of four nightclubs in our big town have closed down this year.

There is a cute billboard campaign running now, featuring the real bodies of models with their heads replaced by ping pong balls, trying to get people into the habit of having designated drivers. My husband was commenting on the fact that the government health warnings in France are much more frightening than the government warnings in the U.S. For instance, in the U.S., a pack of cigarettes carries the rather uncertain statement that “the Surgeon General has determined that smoking is hazardous to your health.” In France, the warning takes up a third of the front of the pack of cigarettes, is printed in a bold black font on a white background and bluntly states, “Smoking Kills.” I pointed out to my husband that since the French government provides the health care for its population, it has more of an incentive in making bold health warnings in an attempt to keep its citizenry healthy.

In 2001, when my smoking brother was visiting, he loved France because it gave people the freedom to smoke anywhere, and smokers weren’t ostracized. But I think that era will soon come to an end, just as the speeding and drunk driving eras are fading into history. However, we did hear on the radio that the government is discussing liberalizing the marijuana laws in France. They feel they have no choice but to do so because Holland and now Great Britain are allowing cannabis growing and smoking. Since we have so many British and Dutch people traveling back and forth, the French government doesn’t see the need to have a ban on marijuana any more.

Many Americans I know are under the mistaken impression that people in the U.S. are “freer” than any other people on earth. But I believe the French (and probably other Europeans) have much more personal freedom than we do in the U.S. Here in the provinces the police, or gendarmes, are virtually non-existent. I’ve pointed out to my son that the rural French seem police themselves. It’s very much like the American Old West. People aren’t running around with guns, but because everyone knows who everyone is, the villages and towns do a good job of policing themselves. I suppose the best analogy an American would understand would be to compare the area to the fictional portrayal of Mayberry RFD: there are law enforcement personnel, but they don’t do much, and the crimes aren’t hardcore. When you go to an all-night street party, the police aren’t there. The only time I see the police at public events here in the south is when they show up at the street markets in the morning to collect the vendor fees.

Before the crackdown on speeding, one rarely saw the police on the road. And still, compared to the ever present Highway Patrol in the U.S., the French police are infrequent sights on the freeway. The French police occasionally set up road blocks to check for insurance and registration, and sometimes administer breath analysis tests, but they don’t drive around patrolling towns and streets. Yet without this police presence, the French crime rate is low.

There is a lot of petty stealing. But your French thief is one who wants to avoid physical confrontation so it’s not likely he’ll enter your house while you are in it. The big crime in our area is car theft. Someone told me that last year there were over sixty cars stolen from our little town of 4,000 people. My manicurist told me that her car was stolen in town and the insurance company wouldn’t pay her for it because it was never found.

The townspeople all seem to blame the local gypsy camp for the car thefts, or for any missing item. But I would think that if they really thought the gypsies were stealing over sixty cars a year that they would put pressure on the local government to clear out the camp.

The grandson of the woman behind us is a well-known thief. However, none of the neighbors want to talk negatively about him. He was parking all of his stolen motorbikes on our property when we weren’t here. I keep asking the caretaker why these motorbikes were showing up, and he would just shrug and say they belonged to the grandson of Arlette. He didn’t give me an indication that they were the STOLEN motorbikes of the grandson of Arlette. One day the police showed up to retrieve one of the motorbikes and they spilled the beans. When I mentioned the police visit to some of my neighbors, they just shrugged. I guess I was simply the last to know about the thief living behind us.

It seems to me that the French don’t have a need to see people locked up in jail for crimes, and they don’t get indignant over crime. They just accept it as part of the burden of being the owner of something. For centuries they have lived a very simple life here in the countryside, and the general consensus seems to be that if you have enough money to buy something fancy enough to attract the attention of a thief, then you only have yourself to blame for not protecting it better when he steals it.

I was told about a carpenter, or plumber, whose van was stolen. He found out who took it, so he went to visit them at the Gypsy camp. Sure enough, there was his van parked outside the Gypsy’s camper. The carpenter/plumber told the Gypsy that he could keep the old truck if he would just let the carpenter/plumber take back his beloved tools. The Gypsy told him that it was too late; he had already sold all the tools, but that the carpenter/plumber was free to take the truck if he wanted.