whole food
i spent a long lunch hour today with friends i have known my whole life, celebrating a birthday... our shared history unspoken between us, but sound.
i have known one of them since kindergarten, the two of us sharing those first lessons in creating angular letters on the chalk board. Later, we three shared reading groups, basketball and cheerleading tryouts (one of us AlWAYS sat on the sidelines.)
endured algebra class and diagramming sentences, weathered boyfriends (a few of whom we have in common), college angst, the uncertainty of new marriage (and the 30+year kind), parents who perplex, siblings who sometimes don't give us what we hope, or sharing the complexity of being an only child.
today we weather elderly parents, children launching themselves or who attempt, siblings who have never needed us before but now who suddenly do. all difficult things.
though i don't see them often enough, they make me whole, somehow, in a way only home can do.
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
we'll always have paris (hold on, it's a long one)
my high school french teacher was an eager young woman who ran around the room pointing at things, shouting 'kes kur say?'
we played along, shouting back at her in our best eastern north carolina accents that i'm sure a frenchman would have found appalling.
when she moved on and the new teacher came — a family friend i'd known all my life — he spoke 'real french,' the guttural kind, introduced us to Paris Match and actually expected us to read it, and taught us how to sing carols in french. my last year, i opted out, having enough credits to get me to college, not wanting to disappoint him with my poor pronunciation. (i think i disappointed him more for not taking his class, and that year i would not land a role in the senior play, which he directed. i was not even picked to be a stage hand.)
in college, i took french again, could do a pretty decent translation, though in my third year, when i showed up to class and couldn't understand a word of what was spoken, i opted for calculus. (the outcome is an entirely different story that involved begging during the final exam...) back in those days, france was this place so far away from my life that i never imagined going there. who would want to visit a place where you couldn't speak the language?
wouldn't you know though, that 25 years ago, my husband found himself working for a French company. and he would visit a dozen times —even spent our 15th wedding anniversary in Paris without me— but never once asked me to tag along. he spoke a little spanish but no french, and you would think he would have liked a helpmate who still knew how to conjugate a couple of verbs. but no. weary, he'd drag himself in from the flight back saying: you'd hate Paris. the people smell. it's just 'so French.'
but by then i had stretched myself beyond the boundaries of my high school life enough to know i would like to at least make that determination myself.
i eventually did visit Paris, traveling with him on a couple of trips, staying in a small hotel just off the
with a dynamic view of the arch d'triomphe. i found out that i did love paris, smelly citizens et al, and those two trips are among my favorite memories. i promised myself that i'd return to the city of lights one day, trying to figure just how to afford it.
one day came a few weeks ago, when i left my husband to tend to the dog and boarded plane for a a week in my favorite city, this time with the girls.
we rented an apartment in the 9th arrondissement — Anne Boone, my best friend since 8th grade and two of her friends, who became mine in short order. and for a week, we lived like i imagine a lot of parisians do — beds low to the floor, small furniture, baguettes, cheese and jam for breakfast, and walking. lots of walking.
we timed our trip around a special event — the premier of an Agnes De Mille ballet produced by the
, the oldest ballet company in the world. Anne Boone's friend Andy is the executive director of
, and the POB would be staging de Mille's
, a ballet about Lizzy Borden, of all people. we were set to attend on opening night at the
, the home of the POB. (Agnes' brilliance of course gave us Oklahoma!, Paint Your Wagon, Carousel and many others in iconic American theatre.)
a week before the trip, i picked up a novel i'd read about: three sisters who danced with the POB in the late 19th century. i knew nothing about the book, but thought it would serve as a worthy companion on the flight. once settled, i pulled it out of my carry-on, and at the same time Anne Boone revealed her book —
— the exact one i had chosen. as great friends, this happens to us from time to time.
the book would prove the perfect backdrop for our experience, as it is the fictionalized story of three real sisters who danced in the late 19th century with the POB. they lived in the very area where we stayed, and so as we walked the streets of paris, i began to recognize places mentioned and could picture them there.
my favorite museum in the world (so far) is the
. home of the great impressionists, you will find degas, monet, manet, renoir, cezanne and more. degas is famous for among many things, his depiction of the reality of parisian ballerinas at work. he used to hang out at the Opera Garnier and sketch the girls dancing there, trying to capture their pain and fatigue. the model for the
La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze An
is Marie, one of the sisters in the novel.
oh, how i love a good book, and this is great one, one that took me inside the POB, behind the scenes in a way i could not have imagined had i not read it. when Andy took us to the dress rehearsal for the de Mille ballet, we entered from the back door of the opera house and i could see where Marie might have entered herself. i saw the fatigue on the ballerina's faces — just as Degas did — though their beauty on stage hides it well.
chagall ceiling
on opening night, i wrapped myself in a fringed silk shawl that had been my great-grandmother's and sat below a painting of Chagall. as the ballet played itself out before me, i imagined the thousands of people who had sat in my seat (or at least the area of my seat) in its 150-year history. the stories that had been told there. the magic that people had experienced there. (i didn't even mention that this is the setting of the Phantom of the Opera, and the box he is said to inhabit is high above the stage, to the left.)
the day before the ballet, we spent an afternoon with a guide at the Musee d'orsay, and for the second time in my life i looked at the face of la petite danseuse. on this visit, she was real to me, and i found myself wanting to sit with her for awhile, and take her in, but the crowds would not allow it.
+++
in our week in paris, we found ourselves trying to speak more french. to be understood, and the challenge was refreshing. we found ourselves reading signs in the metro, saying je voudrais as we asked for our meals, saying much more than merci when someone gave us what we asked.
i think back almost 40 years ago to that first 'kes kur say?' (
qu'est-ce que c'est?)
what is it? what was it about this place i never imagined visiting but now can't imagine not? hope to go again before too long, just to experience it again.
qu'est-ce que c'est?
the best answer is this:
allez la-bas et vous comprendrez
ps: i took a few pics (400 or so) and here are a few.
stumbling in on a ballet practice
city of lights
artists Place du Tertre
writemuch.blogspot is the original work of author susan byrum rountree. all written work and photography is copyright protected and can only be used with written permission of the author.
the third day
of course this is ridiculous. there is plenty of light inside me somewhere, but lately, it feels like i am almost choosing not to let it out.
on new year's eve as i left the grocery store, a woman walked through the doors with a smile stretching so wide across her face that i looked around to see what could be so delightful. turns out, nothing — she was simply smiling. i huddled to myself against the wind and aimed for the car, wondering just what could make someone walk around that happy, all the time. i was also well aware that my expression would bring a passerby the exact opposite question to mind: why would someone frown so?
i spent that day as i often do on the last day of the year, taking stock of the things i have done and ought not to have done, understanding that i am not as right or as true as i sometimes think i am. the last few months of 2012 found me using angry words against the very people i love most, distancing my children and friends, and the reality of that leaves me feeling mired in the weight of me.
in all of my thinking, i promised myself i would make the changes in this new year that would make me more loving, less critical, less judgmental. no longer would the glass be half full. and i would tell the truth when i screwed up, not making excuses for my bungling of so many situations. not anymore.
on the first day of this new year, it took me exactly two hours to learn that even in truth telling, i will always be a bit broken. sometimes, like in the past couple of days, it feels like most of me feels broken, shattered into minute shards like the ornaments that fell from my tree this year, and most often from my own doing. on other days, somehow, i'm cracked, but the cracks hold together.
i spent the second day of 2013 second-guessing every decision i have made, pretty much in my life, praying that surely it is not in my DNA to hurt others, over and over again. and if it is, asking how i might go about deleting this fatal flaw.
a good friend who knows my heart and life very well said she sees much light in me. she didn't know that i had wrangled with those very words, that image of myself, as i began this post five days before. she says that none of us is all good or all bad. we are mixed up parts of both, and everyone has days when the light does not show through.
like any strand of Christmas lights, some of the bulbs do burn out. i have spent hours, sometimes, going through a strand to find that one defective piece, removing one bulb after another until i just throw the whole thing out and start over. but i can't throw my whole self out because half the light in me seems at best, dim in these early days of 2013.
on the third day of the new year, i went about my way, walking the dog, checking off the details of my work day. i've said before that when you work at church, God is pretty much in every corner. so there is no escaping the broken pieces of self, nor more than you can escape the light that flickers, even in the shadows of a darkened nave. God is there and watching, waiting i think, for those calls for help.
at the end of the day, i sat with my friend/priest/boss and we talked it all through. i cried a bit. we prayed a good long prayer, me saying right out loud that i wasn't really sure it would work. he said, yes, in his experience, prayer worked in even those most extreme situations, to bring about reconciliation of self, of others torn apart. so we closed our eyes and prayed for light. for love. for healing.
i was late picking the dog up from doggie day care. as i waited for the kennel worker to bring him to me, i overheard a woman on the phone explaining that she would get to work as soon as she could, but she was in a domestic situation and was uncertain of how she would get there.
she had just dropped her dog off at the kennel for the first time, uncertain, too, of when she would be able to get him. she was about my age, a soft face and graying ponytail, and there was something about her that showed great beauty.
sometime in me wavered, but i heard myself say:
do you need a ride somewhere? where do you work?
at a gas station, not far from here, she said.
so a few minutes later, the dog and i invited donna into our car. the dog licked her, and she talked about her own dog, a pug, she had rescued not long ago, and how he was going blind.
he is in good hands, i told her. the best. they will care well for him.
as we drove down the dark highway toward the quick mart, she spoke of being escorted by police from her home earlier that day, the same place where her fiancé had tried to kill her in october. he'd been in jail but had posted bond and showed up. she called the police, left all of her belongings except for the dog and walked out with no place to go.
she had left him before, sleeping in her car in 23 degree weather, so as not to be hurt again. but she did go back. until yesterday. his court date was to be this morning, and she was to testify.
he thinks if i'm dead i can't testify against him, she said, and i felt my throat catch, my own trivial self-inflicted problems fading. this was a woman's life. her life.
i'm intelligent and educated and embarrassed that i have gotten myself into this situation, she said. things like this don't happen to me.
they happen to anybody. this is not your fault, i told her.
as we pulled into the lighted parking lot of her work, i told her about the shelter for women in her situation, a place where she could find food, clothing, shelter and support. the police had told her about it, but she didn't know how to contact them, so i offered to get the number. she wrote the number of the gas station on a sheet of paper, squeezed my hand and disappeared into the busy quick mart to begin her job overnight job.
at home i found the number, reading online that:
• One woman is abused every minute in the United States*
• that it takes seven attempts for a victim to successfully leave her abuser*
i thought of all the women right in my town who died in the last year at the hand of someone who was supposed to love them, one of them in a shopping center i frequent. i have been distanced from this world, i think, but on the third day of this year, a beautiful woman in the midst of this very crisis shared a ride and conversation with me.