Giving Thanks From Rouen ~ 11.27.08

We are here in Rouen and thinking of everyone we love on Thanksgiving.
We are thankful and we miss you.



LOVE IS IN THE MUNDANE DETAILS




The Rouen sky has a crush on me and shows off each time I look up. I'm grateful and empty handedly humbled. The sky wants nothing from you here. Just your attention. I can PAY attention. It's the best kind of currency, don't you think? - and I am thankful.





SEE WHAT I MEAN??

When I call across the world, to chirp with some of my favorite people in the whole world, it sounds like we're right next door to each other. - Thank you technology brainiacs for making it all possible, despite my skepticism, I love the phone and the computer.



We live on 1300 euros a month and I still feel like a feasting velvety queen every day of my modest life - Thank you for the good life despite the challenges.



My ears stick out like little satellite dishes and the frigid Normandy air bites them if I am without a hat, but when I walk inside our apartment and all three electric heaters are cranking, I could not be happier - Thank you heater people who give electricity to us.

I married my best friend on the planet and I'm madly in love. He is the funniest, smartest, most gentle, brilliant, forgiving, patient, complimentary, athletic, graceful, well rounded, artistic, sincere person I have ever met in my life. - I am beyond grateful everyday to share a life with him. - Thank you Italian Mati.



Every Saturday and Sunday morning, we have the strangely masochistic pleasure of rowing on the Seine River in France! The boathouse is the second oldest in France but I bet its the most beautiful and afterwards we eat Pan au chocolate and Quiche Lorraine -Thank you Mr. Bakery Man and the nice toothless girl who helps me every time I go in - Bon Soir et Merci, Merci beaucoup.







Our French Press, The Bright Red Soup Pot that always beggs for veggies and The Yellow Water Carafe I found at the Sunday Market - I give thanks for the good belly filling assistants in my world.







The Butter Tower beacons and beckons day and night wherever you are, whoever you may be. - Thank you for landmarking my journey here, beautiful Monet painted Cathedral.





To the man who plays the accordion from the depth of his big heart with frigid fingers and a big love and who plays the most quintessentially French music. He has passed his love for his city to me through his music in the Cathedral Square. He makes eye contact with me and we both smile a thankful smile....me for him and his being the best French outdoor city host and he for me, emptying my pockets of everything I have to show my thanks...Thank you, Mr. accordion, man..thank you for making my day beautiful.


Happy Thanksgiving.

La Folie Obama

Mati is back with his impressions on life in France and beyond.

Culturally, the past few weeks here in Rouen have been fascinating. Interest in the American politics has been and continues to be very high in France. Everyone is of course ecstatic about Obama's victory, having now settled into a pattern of firm and continuous debate about the future implications of his presidency for the US and our planet. TV, newspaper, magazine--it is literally Obama mania.





I've even noticed that Segolene Royal, the Socialist Party candidate who finished second to Sarkozy in last year's presidential election, has latched onto Obama's coattails so to speak in her message to French voters as she prepares her future candidacy. The tone and call for change in her speeches has been eerily similar to the Obama style, which is especially surprising given the more reserved nature of French political discourse. She's an interesting figure in France who seems to represent, much like Obama, new segments of the population so-long excluded from the political process.



Indeed, the whole experience of being abroad at a time like this has been unique. It's a fascinating time to be a citizen of the world and it's nations. I learned with dismay that Prop 8 passed in California, which called into question my own non-participation in the political process. In fact, it was the first time I really considered voting in an election. I'm half sorry I didn't. It's especially ironic when you hear of how some two-thirds or more of the African-American vote was in favor of this discriminatory legislation. One barrier falls and another goes up it seems, fashioned expressly by the newly enfranchised.



I'd love to know how the past few months have shaped your, our reader's, relationship to politics. Personally, I know it's changed my idea of what politicians represent. Years prior in Boston, I was struck when visiting the Kennedy museum by the difference in language and tone between the black and white newsreel images of JFK and the simplistic black and white world-view of the Bush presidency. The eloquence and inspiration of Camelot was so keenly lacking in the banal drone of terror level pronouncements. If Obama does nothing else than reintroduce the notion of civic duty into the American vernacular, he will have delivered the revolution in which this nation is of such need.

On a more personal level, I don't know if this election has much changed how I see myself fitting into that massive patchwork of American society. My work visa allows me to work in France for one-year. At this point, I'm really not sure though if I'll want to return right away to finish my degree at Long Beach or look to extend my visa for another year. I've enjoyed teaching here at the university. The students are good, the classes small and I have a pleasant variety of subjects from literature to history. And teaching in my native language once again invests me with a new respect and pride for my culture. It's been an interesting experience to say the least.

we ride the bus

the eight rounded the turn, inched up hill
the Butter Tower stable
poking through the affectionate mist
a beacon to all moving about the city below
or anywhere.

I saw a man today with twinkling eyes
of someone who has been happy here forever.

That's the train station behind me.
We walked to that train station from our flat in 5 minutes.
To get on a train.
In the morning.
In the dark.
I love that.






We got off the train an hour later.
In Paris.
To spend the weekend watching master's tennis.
And found a Starbucks.
Remember back in the day 3 months ago when I so desperately craved a venti brew?
Well, there it was in all its forest green sign glory.
The motherlode of American coffee bars .
We stopped in front of it and I stared in disbelief.
And then the Italian looked at me and asked, "Well, do you want to go in, baby?"
I hesitated. I didn't think so. I didn't Think SO?? What??
I had been wishing for this very moment for over two months and I didn't THINK SO??
But it was weird.
I haven't seen a chain coffee bar in what seems like forever.
It was cold that day, though and I really wished I had wanted to go in.
So we did. Because it was what I had, after all, been wishing for.
Walked right up to the counter. I looked in the glass case and recognized the names of all those Starbuck's pastries I never ate but felt comfortable knowing were there:
Carrot Passion Cake
Marshmello Twizzle
Starbucks trademarked granola bar packed with papaya, raisins, pecan nuts, heavy corn syrup....etc.
Tazo Teas
and the one thing I'd been asking for since I'd arrived here in France.
The Choice
- small, medium, or large
- tall, grande, or venti
- meaning: big, bigger or biggest.
That's how we Americans like to roll.
All big like.
Aaah Starbucks
Everything so uniform.
So familiar.
As I gazed over the counter, though, the venti suddenly appeared like the most giant vat-like container I'd ever seen.
Ridiculously large.
Could I seriously drink all that?
I felt myself freaking out inside a little, noticing it appeared that I'd had a change of heart.
Had I changed my mind? Was I fickle?
I Finally got the one coffee thing I'd asked for and I was rejecting it.
Weren't my 20's over?
I mean, the Venti was always a little much, admittedely,even in the states, but now even the grande looked gigantic.
I wasn't ready to admit anything yet, however.
We ordered a tall house brew.
and paid.
and walked outside with the awkward feeling "to go" cup in hand.
Now, understand that, "to go" coffee is not really part of cafe' culture here.
Cafe' culture - by the way - which I'd previously been giggling at the absurdities of - I accidentally wholeheartedly find myself participating in.
Anyway, the "to go" cups aren't common here as they are in our neck of the Starbucks infested woods and when you see them you really do have to laugh because they're just so damn tiny. (see for yourself-and its only half full, BTW)
It doesn't make any kind of sense to drink from them, since by the time you leave the coffee bar, with your miniture "to go" cup, you've either tossed the shot back or it's cold.



Not to mention that I've become fond of sitting with the Italian in the cafe' and the espresso in the porcelain cup and sip sip sipping, after watching the barista pack the grounds just so and the crema just ever so perfectly dense atop the delicious noir nectar.
mmm mmmm mmmm. deelish


So I was paralyzed standing outside the Paris Starbucks with my grande brew. I should have been ready "to go". It was pretty early still, I hadn't had a coffee yet that day. I wasn't fully awake for the day, either. It should have been the perfect coffee scenario. To go cup in hand, will walk.
"Let's Go. On y Va!"
I couldn't move. I was paralyzed.
It was all wrong.
Why were we going to "walk" with the coffee?
Why weren't we going to sit and sip, again?
Out of a real cup?
So we stood outside Starbucks and tried to drink the slightly bittered brew.
And it wasn't the same.
I'm not the same.

Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood?

He's too damn cute, I think.




Oh, Reaally.




Seriously, those are leather.
And the strut, I am happy to say, actually translates to photo. Thank God.
Notice, it is daytime - business hours, no less. I love it. I do.



They both had cigarettes. Just kidding. Only mom.


















She has fresh flowers hanging out of her purse.
How can you not feel happy when you see this?

November 5, 2008

“Yes we can.”
And I believe him.
In a sea of analysis, prediction and recollection of the night, the campaign, the meaning and the man, I am without words to describe the affection and hope I feel for a country I was never soulfully connected to before this election.
And today, I wish I were home.