August 04, 2010
There she goes again.
I'm taking off on another solo camping trip. Well, there will be a male companion and bedmate, but this one has four feet and usually lifts one of them to pee. If you want to come along, I'll soon be posting my route. A bientôt!
August 09, 2006
In The Beginning Was The Word
An American writer living in France is bound to be obsessed with words--c'est la vie. You want to express yourself and your ideas in the most colorful, profound and beguiling way. In your native language you have a vast reservoir of words you've been learning all your life. But in your chosen language you have a relatively small puddle of droplets, which you scatter into the air hoping your audience will pick up something of your meaning. (Read David Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day").
Anyhoo, being as I was born in California of Midwestern parents, (that's why I said 'anyhoo'), raised in Georgia, (y'all) and spent dreary decades in Washington DC...I will do my blogging in American, the linguistic stepchild of English.
For the past 7 years I've lived with an American painter in an ancient building that was once part of the ramparts of a medieval village called Saignon, perched high on a rocky outcrop of the Luberon mountain range in Provence, in the South of France. A far cry from DC, but not so far from a small town in the U.S. Deep South, where everybody's kinfok and strangers have to earn their stripes.
We host creative programs and events, so there's a steady stream of strangers from all earthly directions, wandering into our home like puppies, creating both joy and messes.
It's from this vantage point that I will write about la vie as I see it.