“Are you going to give me instructions?” I asked.
“Yes, of course! But the less you know, the better!” he replied.
I suppose there is some truth in that. It’s best not to think about all the things that could go wrong when you leap from an airplane with 4000 metres of nothingness between you and planet Earth.
Here are the things no one told me before I signed the 14 waivers required to make the jump:
Continue readingI love the idea of Places.
There are just so very many of them. Inner Places, outer Places, upper Places, lower Places. Even those of us who collect Places can never hope to find them all.
You think you know a Place, until you see it from the sky. And then you think you know the sky, until you’re falling through it. How the sky feels in an airplane, in a free-fall, in the cushion of a parachute; how the river feels beneath a bridge, beneath a raft, above your head; how a mountain feels, within, without, above, below; there are oh so many Places. Did you know that every Place has a verticality?
Continue readingHere we are in the Ides of March, and it’s the Ides of Ex-pat Angst.
It’s the season where many among us who live abroad have decided to move on, but now find the abyss of the unknown gaping before us.
It was not an abyss six months ago, when horizons were broad and sunny, possibilities were endless, and we were itching for a change. Whether it’s our insatiable wanderlust, or the inescapable pull homeward to our roots, or (in most cases), a combination of the two, we are people on the move, and it’s time to go.
Continue readingDo you like the idea of going to remote places? If not, you will find this piece quite funny. You will roll your eyes a lot, and wonder why I’m like this. You will also spend the next few minutes thanking the merciful heavens that you did not join me on this vacation.
If, however, you do like the idea of going to remote places, this post might be just what you have been waiting for. I, on your behalf, will visit a remote place, and tell you all about it. And then you will laugh, roll your eyes, and think twice about your own vacation preferences. Continue reading
I have a little book, in which I record the small happinesses of each day. It started a dozen years ago when my life was miserable, as a way of ending my days with thankfulness instead of bitterness. The misery has long since passed, but the habit of searching for and preserving morsels of goodness remains.
I write a few words in my little book each night, and publish them once a year. In so doing, I find a perspective that eludes me when I am absorbed in the minutia of my jam-packed life.
Here, then, is my 2018 Gratitude list. It’s been an epic year: Continue reading
Three years ago I had a disastrous encounter with a maestro who shall not be named. It would not be a stretch to say that there were elements of trauma to that evening. Before you go any further, you should probably read the amusing, but heart-wrenching account of my first audition experience in Casablanca.
Now, three years later, I did the unthinkable thing, and repeated the experience. Same never-ending round-about. Same obscure church entrance. Same ghastly maestro. Same everything. But not the same me. Continue reading
Natasha here, reporting in on the aftermath of the infamous DELF B2.
I was worried. Let’s find some better descriptors, now that I’m functioning in my mother tongue. Words like chagrined, nausea-ridden, paralyzed. I dreaded that exam. My entire body was stiff with tension for eight solid weeks, from the moment I walked into my first class to the day after the inquisition. My long-awaited summer in France turned out to be, in many ways, a summer of travail and trepidation.
And then, just like that, I passed. Not just by the skin of my teeth. Not just with a satisfactory margin of breathing room. Not quite with the flying colours I secretly dreamed of. But almost. Almost.
At one point, I re-coined the DELF acronym (“Diplome d’Etudes en Langue Française”) as “Dumb, Enigmatic Lists of Faults.” I still kind of think that. The test-makers are simply méchants, in my well-studied opinion. They rub their hands in delight as they formulate one trick question after another, in a sinister attempt to separate the dumb from the dumber. I know. I met one of them. And she was mean.
But do you know what it was that bumped my score down two points from the 80% I’d hoped for? Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I posted my very first French blog. I am re-posting it today, with two critical changes:
(with many thanks to my good friend in Vichy, for teaching me how to say “hockey” in French, and for letting me teach her a few Canadianisms as well)
For those of you who didn’t read the original story and have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s where it all began…
This summer I got to do a little creative writing in my French class! We were asked to write a funny story that exaggerates the stereotypes that foreigners have of our home countries. My Spanish, Mexican, Brazilian, Korean, American, and Basque classmates shared their stories, and then I offered up this little piece of Canadiana, inspired in part by our beloved Bob and Doug McKenzie.
Warning: This is my very first blog-worthy French composition. There might be errors. You might be offended. Be gentle with me.
Venez! Venez! Venez au Canada! On vous accueille, comme on accueille tout le monde, tout le temps! Venez!
Dès que vous arriverez, on vous mènera à votre igloo, où vous dormirez en tout confort, en portant votre anorak et votre toque!
Le lendemain matin, vous prendrez votre déjeuner (au Canada, nos repas sont tous mélangées): un bonne portion de poutine avec une bonne portion de bière (Molson Canadian, bien sûr). On vous donnera vos patins pour votre premier match de hockey.
Something has happened to my French, and it’s because I’ve made a friend.
She is a retired doctor. She’s travelled the world. She has a tiny little dog called Charmeur. And she loves words. Words thrill her, as they do me. I read her paragraphs from books that stir me, and she recites poetry with all the animation of a master story-teller, and we delight together in this magical, magical space called language.
It’s a space that we inhabit together while seated at the Grand Casino Cafe, so named for its proximity to what used to be a casino, but is now something else. It’s a space that we inhabit together over tea, coffee, kir, water, chocolate. It’s a space we inhabit through the careful completion of grammar exercises, the meticulous correction of essays, and the endless parroting of phonetics. It’s a space we inhabit from 12:15 – 1:45 every day, and it is changing me. Continue reading
Have you been wondering how I’ve been faring since I bade farewell to les vaches?
I am slowly adjusting to life on the French Riviera.
Slowly.
My drive here was uneventful, except for that time my GPS became my enemy and led me in circles for two hours in downtown Nice during the height of tourist season. Navigation systems don’t do well with pedestrian-only streets. That’s all I’ll say about that.
And now I am perched on a hill overlooking the uppity town of Villefranche-sur-mer, with its uppity yachts, BMWs, and fake hedges. Why anyone would need a fake hedge in this lotus land is beyond me, but there it is. Why water a real hedge when you can buy a fake one?
No, to be honest, I’m missing the friendly, down-to-earth charm of my village in the Alps. Well, okay, the cows were not so friendly. But there was an endearing honesty to that place, a sense that life had substance, and that everything else was somehow false.
Not so with the French Riviera. Everything here feels half-empty, like the soul of the place just drained out into the Mediterranean when the people all arrived. I’m sure at one time it was quaint and delightful and historically significant; but right now, it feels to me like a toy neighbourhood, constructed out of blocks and toothpicks and dotted with plastic accessories. Doll houses, all, papered in Euros…
But I, too, am a falsehood, here on the French Riviera.
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