Mom in France

Spring, and a potager

Two years ago, the work was underway at Tiny House.  We had moved into a rental apartment close by and were trying to live a semi-normal life.  As the demolition and renovation got started, and immense slag heap (love that word, slag) grew just outside what would become our main doorway.  It stayed there for more than 6 months after we moved in.  The photo below does not really do it justice - it was taller than me and almost 5 meters long.  It was, eventually removed to make fill in for the new driveway.  What was left was a dead space, just grey dirt in between two olive trees. Below houses the septic tank.  So while we didn't have the ugliness anymore there didn't seem to be many options. 

More Spring at Tiny House

An Awakening

 

A normal kid, growing up.

Boo turned 6 on Easter Sunday and the same weekend he discovered evil. Or at least he understood that there are some things in this world that are not as they should be.

As I reflect on it now, I realize that Boo’s awakening came in increments – as so many things do in childhood.

First came the book about firefighters. It’s an amazing compendium about starting with the history of fire (caveman) through the history of all the firefighting equipment. Towards the end of the book is a page on 9/11 – explaining the terrorist attack and role and bravery of the firefighters that responded. I find the book amazing – it’s for youngish kids, and there is 9/11 which obviously we remember in blistering detail served up as….history. So we explained about the bad guys. My boys, lovers of crashes and destruction as boys often are, were amazed by the planes into the towers. But the history is still raw and Boo understood that it was something serious.

The theme of his birthday party was Star Wars and everybody knows that Darth Vader is a villain we love to hate, and even more so because he’s redeemed during his death. Boo asks a lot of questions about what happens in the movies (we’re doing IV-VI, the original trilogy) and why. He’s making his map of right and wrong. (He's not the only one; I've spoken to numerous adults about our "Star Wars" experience and it's a moral map for many- that's proably a different discussion)

Easter Monday, a holiday in France, found us on the Croisette in Cannes, in the rain. It was not the Croissette of glittering sea and light and magic glamour but rather wet wet wet and quiet due to the rain and early season.

Low on cash we stopped at a cash machine on the street. Every since my days of pulling out 20s at the Wells Fargo ATM at 16th & Mission in San Francisco, I’ve been aware of vulnerabilities at the machine. I’m on my guard. Boo held the umbrella and I was cursing because I’d only brought one card and the account was overdrawn – our monthly pay hadn’t arrived yet. So no cash could be had.

A boy, 12ish, in grey hoody approached asking for money. In my grumpy voice (a little fear, a little irritation) I waved him off and hustled Boo into a nearby café for a promised sirop à la menthe. I had at least enough cash for that.

Oh – did I mention that Boo had been bugging me to pee? So as we settle, and order I finally give him a look across the table. He’s crying. But not a whiny “me, me, me” cry but something quiet and very sad.

"What’s wrong" I asked.

"Why didn’t you give that boy any money?"

 Shit. I’m in trouble now. At the moment I realized how I answered would be important and afterwards I continued to wrestle with this question.

You see, I have no set policy on giving handouts. It’s not a blanket yes, or no. There’s also not a criteria I try to use to judge if someone is ‘worthy.’ My giving is always completely spontaneous (or carpricious). I almost never feel good about it – whether I give I feel like it’s either too much or not enough or anyway not useful for all the usual reason and if I don’t give then I feel like a heel and try to move on as soon as possible.

Boo, however, didn’t see it that way at all. With the simplicity of a child he saw another child in need. And I didn’t help him. In Boo’s mind here was a lost orphan (the noble orphan of Dickens) who needed my help and I refused him. He insisted we go look for the boy and give him 2euros. Out in the rain we walked up and down the Croisette but didn’t see the boy again. Meanwhile we talked. Boo threw the guilt at me: Jesus would not be very happy with you , Maman, because you didn’t help that little boy.

I did not want to explain vulnerability. Or the drug dealers and hookers I’d cross in the Mission, or the pickpockets and bag snatchers on the Riviera.

Since I didn't have any ready pat answer, I let him do most of the talking (A good tactic in many circumstances).  I was amazed – it was the first time that I saw him really express sympathy for a stranger or to really try to understand a wrong and right outside of his sphere. The episode stayed with us for the rest of the day.

The next day, on our way to school, I made him a proposition. Since we weren’t able to help that boy in Cannes (who, let’s be frank, may or may not have needed our help) we could try to help other children. We agreed that we would not accept any presents for the aforementioned star wars party but rather ask our guests to donate a toy to charity. I was interested how this would go down; it’s one thing for Maman to her coins but now it was Boo’s turn. How would he react?

"Couldn’t we do both--A present for me, a present to give"

Ah, no. We can't ask our friends to buy two presents. Without much discussion he agreed. An email was sent to the parents who were so supportive. Boo made a box to collect the toys that would be delivered:

 

Boo learned, but so did I. I learned that Boo can handle truth, that his intuition for social justice is already intact and that it just needs to learn. And, that in the face of trouble he can be a helper.

A Note: As recent events in Boston, my former city, have shown, we may at any time be called to be helpers. As Dennis Lehan wrote in the NY Times: "...(the human) spirit merely trembled before recasting itself into something stronger."  This is what I want to help impart to Boo and Little Guy.

The Story of the Free-Range Chicken

I keep wanting to be a booster for the community-supported agriculture but I often fail.  My stories are often about what doesn't work, as my friends can attest. Potatoes anyone?  Cabbage?  Chard?  I'm sure they wonder why we continue, year after year.  A few years ago, in the early days, we had chickens.  A poultry farmer in the back-country village of Cipieres provided chickens to a co-op and agreed to work with us as well.  It was the first time in my life that I ate "real" chicken - one that did not come from a supermarket (and I include Whole Foods here too).  These chickens had taste, not just texture and not just the taste of the lemons and rosemary I often roasted them with. They tasted...earthy and in a very very good way.   It was during these two seasons that I discovered cooking the chickens en cocotte and I haven't looked back.  The chickens are jucier and the kitchen isn't filled with too much roast chicken smell.  Alas, after those two seasons our poultry provider decided to call it quits with us and took his hens elsewhere.  Back the supermarket for us. 

Imagine my excitement then when last fall a new chicken agreement was reached with the CSA. I signed up right away and ordered two a month.  It turned out to be two too many. These chickens gave a new meaning to free-range - in the mouth the stringy meat felt like these chickens had been running marathons.  They didn't hold up to the dutch oven so I tried a poulet à la basquaise.  All I ended up with was a nice tomato sauce with some stringy chicken. The second one I just cooked into stock, so disappointed I was with the meat.  I hated doing that though; just cooking it and throwing all meat away.

As you may know, with the CSA, you don't just buy what you want.  You engage. So the chickens keep coming home. (Oh, and did I mention that you have the thrill of chopping of the head and feet and figuring out what to do with viscera which has been kindly included? Yum)  Just before Christmas, two more.  We froze them both whole and drove off for our holidays.  Upon return, there they were, taking up enormous space in our tiny freezer.  Something had to be done.  I took one out on New Year's morning intending to cook it that night.  My heart wasn't in it.  Back to the fridge.  Yesterday I decided extreme measures were needed: Time to brine.  My thinking was that if the fanatics did it for turkeys, maybe it's what my chickens need.  At least, I reasoned, it wouldn't make it worse.

I found a basic brine recipe and the only thing I skipped was putting into the fridge- we just don't have that kind of fridge space and I figured I was going to be roasting it later anyway.  It sat in the brine all day approximately 8:30 to 4:30pm.  At five it was in the oven after being rinsed, dried, rubbed with olive oil, salt and pepper and stuffed with lemons.  I roasted it the old fashioned way, in a pan with rack at 400F/200C.  I drove off and picked up my family and when we came home an hour later it was nearly finised and golden, crackling brown. 

We had invited friends over (excuse: finish the fois gras) and I warned them they may be eating stringy chicken.  Luckily :  No!  It was a perfectly delicious roast chicken.  It wasn't an exceptional, rave-about-it roast chicken but it was moist in the right way and had both its own flavor and a bit of the lemon.  I'm so encouraged, I'm ready to empty my freezer of the second one and try a different brine, something with some other flavors to add to it.

If you haven't done it, I say give it a go - it might even give the supermarket chicken something. If you've done it before - any further tips or good brine recipes you want to share?

Wow! 10 years of living in France!

I made a timeline of my 10 years in France and realized that I cannot stuff those years into a 700 word blog post.  Impossible.  Maybe a book.  Would you read a book about what it happened after I left leafy Boston and arrived on the ancient shores of the Mediterranean ( I know, tough life)?  I can only write about now, what it feels like to have lived in a foreign country for so long. 

And it is still foreign, after 10 years, though not foreign meaning strange.  Just foreign as in not-where-I’m-from.  France is a foreign country.  I am a foreigner. This foreignness has become the backdrop of my daily life, which is full of my accented and grammatically incorrect French.  I fill in forms for school, I buy groceries, do laundry, take the cat to the vet, go to church, do my banking, go the dry cleaners and tend to a thousand other details of daily life. All in another culture, with its very own language and maze of hidden rules.  It took a very long time for me to feel that this was in any way normal.  For the longest time a trip the hairdresser filled me with a deep dread – I mean, I just wanted to go get my hair cut and relax!  Instead, I had to deal with making the phone call and not mixing up 2pm and 4pm on my calendar, and then once I arrived at the correct time figure out how to ask for the hairdresser to cut my hair just.a.little.bit.  Just make me look good, please.  And don’t talk to me.

Yes, yes, I speak French.  I can say, now, finally, that I am bilingual.  But I’m always not-from-here.  I’m usually mistaken for being British, and I know after years of looks that people prefer that I’m American.  It’s more hip to be American than English (no offense to my lovely, wonderful, British friends).  Immediately I can see the imagination whirring in the eyes of the questioner (new colleague, taxi driver, shop keeper, bureaucrat).  They picture movie scenes of New York, or LA.  They ask where I’m from.  Sometimes I say: California.  Sometimes I say: Nashville.  Both are true and helpful.  California, is, well, California.  They imagine the bridge, and the Bay, or remember the time they went. Nashville is a mythic place, full of the best music in the world (as far as they are concerned).  At least I have that going for me. People (in both countries) often ask what I miss most about the US.  I’m sorry, but this is an impossible to answer question.  I usually say fish tacos.  The truth is that I miss my scattered family and friends and wish I could have them all around me all the time.  Fish tacos is an easier answer, a believable and painless sacrifice to live in France (I mean, it’s fricken’ France, people! )

When I fly “home”, that is, back to the United States, usually to Nashville,  I’m also, just a little bit, foreign.  I speak another language.  My kids hop and skip between the two.  We, just a little bit, carry our other culture with us, how we eat, how we talk, how we carry ourselves, what we wear (though, honestly, and every Frenchman knows this:  The US is THE shopping paradise in the world.  I almost never buy clothes in France).  At work we speak a special kind of English; mixed with the accents and syntaxes of all kinds of languages, mostly European though not exclusively.  I call it International English.  This English has messed with me.  It started very early on when a colleague, who knew me before the move, told me I was speaking English like a French person.  Which was true, sadly.  I had adopted the syntax of a French person speaking English to be better understood.  My vocabulary became simpler.  Whenever I go visit the US, it takes me several days to find my ‘regular’ accent again to sound and talk like those around me.

I used to think that I’m a mix of Tennessee and California, with a little dash of Boston thrown in   So Tennessee, California, dash of Boston, and France added like a muddled herb.  I’m a mix, now.  Like a perfect cocktail.

 

Our legacy, and "The Conflict".

Elisabeth Badinter is a French creation:  a feminist philosopher, her Intellectual cred cannot be questioned.  A friend wanted to read her new book, The Conflict, and you know what?  I was surprised I’d never heard of it or her.  Not that I’m up on my contemporary French intellectuals (except for the true media-whores who you can’t escape. Bernard-Henri Levy, I’m talking to you). 

I decided to read the original French text for good practice and while I waited for the book to be delivered from Amazon I read up on Badinter.  I read the profile in the New Yorker, the Wikipedia page and got the skinny from E, my French cultural attaché.

The book arrived and I was relieved it was so skinny and I dug in.  No problem with the French language.  And then I realized that this book, written by an aging feminist is a letter to me, and the generation just behind me who is entering motherhood.  It’s about what we’ve inherited and where we’re headed from here.

What we inherited is choice.  Freedom.  We choose if, when who to marry.  We choose if and when to have children.  We choose our education, our careers.  Freedom means we control much more of our lives than in any other period in history.

Badinter writes about the revelation of female ambivalence towards motherhood.  She has a point to make – that maternal instinct is not real, in a biological sense.  The ambivalence is born out of the choice – the birth rate drops in societies where the woman has control and spends her time doing other things. 

A terrible thing, freedom.  We become obligated.  The child that we have by choice is different – we feel responsible in a different way, it seems, and the other choices we then make (where to give birth? Breast or bottle?, etc. in an avalanche) are somehow become a direct expression of our values and identity.  She records sociological surveys that display the heterogenous group that are women: Those who choose career over children, those that choose children over career and the vast majority of us who by choice (and other social & financial pressures) try to do it all.

Badinter reminded me that career, for the educated, is largely a matter of choice as well, and that for her at least, women are meant to be happy at work, happy to be able to work and escape the lack-of-choice role of housewife.  She does not disparage the woman who chooses this role over others; the importance is that it’s chosen freely.

I wrestled with this a little.  I liked the research and a sense of my inheritance.  There was an omission though.  Because the book is about mothering, there was no room to write about the ambivalence I know so many people feel about their careers. We work, it’s true, because we are educated and want and / or need the financial benefits it brings.  But we are not happy.  We wish for other work, more fulfilling work and certainly we wish that the conflict between our roles and identities fade.  However, no answers are forthcoming.  We soldier on.

Part of the book is controversial.  Badinter lights into what she calls a ‘naturalist’ movement, also part of the inheritance.  She traces the roots to the 60s as a backlash from post-WWII industrialization.  Environmentalism and ecology were born then in their modern states.  So we get a growing renunciation of things manufactured and a desire in our mistrust towards things ‘whole’ and ‘natural.’  She saves her greatest vitriol for La Leche League and the war against the bottle.

 I’ll state right here that I’m one of those people.  I had my ergobaby, I breastfed, I made my own (organic) babyfood.  I agonized over “green” diapers (but didn’t do cloth), we chose a nanny that cooked all the food instead of buying pre-made meals.   I also mixed breast and bottle once my kids were at the nanny, each at 5 months.  I bought my share of pre-made (organic!) baby foods.  With the second kid I filled the landfill with pampers.   The extra work – making food, shopping at the natural food store, the occasional stares and the awful, awful pumping at work – mostly made me happy. Doing the work made me feel closer to my children, especially in the early days.  But she’s right about the trade-off.  Do go the full-natural way means that a regular work-life is nearly impossible.  And of course it mostly falls on the mother, as she laments.

Having said all that, I’m not at all offended.  The contrary, I think she’s on to something.  It’s good the have the sacred cows rattled and to think about the consequences of the choices. I still stick as much as possible to whole foods (and not the supermarket chain, but the actual cooking of whole foods) for my family.  We tried to build, as much as possible, an energy-efficient home.  Still, I would be fool not to recognize the compromises, and if choice, and freedom of choice is something that we inherited then I can not put myself in a position to judge those mothers who choose bottle feeding over breast for perfectly good reasons that are none of my business, or that pack their kids’ lunches with ready to go foods so that they can spend an extra 10 minutes with them or whatever other reason that is also none of my business.