How many heartbeats?

Last Tuesday one man's heart stopped beating.  It had been beating for 90 years, after all.  It had started beating between the two world wars.  Its heartbeat no doubt accelerated while he lived during WWII as a young teen.  It fluttered when he met his wife, had his child, saw his grandchild and great grand child.  It beat all those years, without fail.  While he slept, while he worked in his garden, to the very end.  But 90 years is a long time for a muscle to stay so strong.  And it had to stop one day.

If you live to be 80 your heart will beat over 3 billion times.  That's a number we can't even fathom. Add a few more million if you live to 90.  Maybe the number doesn't even matter.  It's what we did during all those heartbeats, all those milliseconds that piled into minutes, hours, days, years.

In this man's case, my husband's grandfather, he led a full life.  He worked till his late 50s, retired, travelled Europe, then puttered in his house and garden.  It was a good and long life.  Much longer than some can ever dream of.  An exceptionally long life for a man, too.  Despite all that, it's still hard to say goodbye.  He might not have been my granddad, but in the last 13 years living in France, he became my surrogate one.  I lost my own grandfathers when I was a teenager.  I lost my paternal grandma in 2004 and my maternal one two years ago.

You could say I adopted Dédé, as we called him.  And he would call me, "ma fille", an affectionate term.  When I first arrived in France I couldn't understand all his jokes or his local dialect.  When my French got better I started to realize some of his jokes were frankly a bit off-color, so I pretended not to understand them!  And in the last few years his speech had become very slurred, so communication was tough again.

But even in the end when it seemed more like air coming out of his mouth than sound, or when he would nod off in the middle of our already broken conversation, I could see some glimmers.  He still recognized us and I noticed his eyes lit up especially when Juliette was there.  He would reach out his hand speckled with age spots to touch her or try to tickle her.  His laughs were heartier when she was around.  For her it was harder to see her great grandfather as such with his haggard face and crusty eyes.  I told her Dédé wouldn't be around forever and he was happy to see her.  Both were true.

So Dédé breathed his last breath, and his heart beat its last beat.  But along with my already departed grandparents, he's in that better place.  Another pair of eyes up there to watch over our family.  And as it always is after a death in the family, I'm more determined to make the most out of my heartbeats.

New Year, New You...nah!

I'm sitting here watching the sky turn dimmer on a winter evening.  It's 5.40ish and luckily the days are getting longer.  But they are still short enough to make me want to hunker down when it gets dark.  Christmas and the warmth of the festivities is over and we have to turn our thoughts to the new year ahead. 

But do we really have to? 

It's so predictable.  My new year phobia.

As predictable as all the weight loss and gym membership ads after Christmas.
As predictable as all those year-in-review montages.
As predictable as white sales in January.
As predictable as...all the predictions experts and astrologers are going to make about 2016!

Because another year means stock taking and measuring up.  It means comparing where I was last year to this year.  And generally realizing I haven't fulfilled all my goals/dreams/wanderlusts... Hence my new year phobia.

But remember last year I made a "to do" list?  I thought it would be more doable, after all.  Let's see how I did...

Last year's list included:
Getting published: still not there yet but I did submit two short essays to Chicken Soup for the Soul and sent one pitch to an online publication.  Nothing back, but I will keep trying.  I guess I mostly write for me.  I don't get many pageviews, but your comments (here or on FB) really encourage me.  So I'll keep writing, because it's part of who I am.

Visit Barcelona: Not yet, but I did buy a book about it!  And talked to my husband about it, who didn't pooh-pooh the idea.  Still dreaming about that one.

Find physical activity: I have done a few (ok, just three) classes at the fitness association that meets in my neighborhood.  For 70€ a year, I don't feel bad if I don't go every week.  Plus, I did learn how exotic I was! 

Try new recipes: I did make a chocolate mousse charlotte.  And recently brioche, using my bread maker to mix the dough.  This is one of the easier ones to fulfill because I do love sweets and especially eating them! 

So for this new and shiny year ahead, I hope to keep working on those goals.  I would also add that I want to learn to knit!  I have a few people in my entourage who know how to do it and have said they can teach me.  Heaven help them.  I bought the yarn and needles, so I am ready.

And I hope to find more balance in my life.  It's not that I work non-stop, but I need to find the right mix of work and play and take care of myself.  And not feel guilty about doing nothing.  Because doing nothing is sometimes the best way to realize what you need. 

So, deep breaths for 2016, which I hope will be a kinder and gentler one for this planet and its people!

Doing vs. Being in the holiday season

I always have this holiday vision.  Not of sugarplums dancing in my head.  Wouldn't know a sugarplum if it rang my door anyway.  Rather I dream of having a cutesy gingerbread house and perfectly decorated sugar cookies.  And every year I fall far short of my expectations.  This year is no exception.

There I was searching for the perfect gingerbread house template online.  Something simple and small.  I found a basic one but was afraid I didn't have enough dough for the dimensions.  So I cut down the paper templates a bit and reduced the slope of the roof.  I was calling up old middle school geometry wisdom and modeling my paper cut-outs for size. 

Then I rolled out the dough after letting J have a go at it first.  I cut out my templates rather approximately and removed some dough for windows and doors, too.  Then it was in the oven for 10 minutes followed by cooling on a plate.

Meanwhile J had found my iPad and was "liking" things on my Facebook account without me knowing.  Perhaps even liking my own posts and passing me off as a narcissist.  That's when I realized I had been going about this all wrong.  Plus she told me the Charley Brown Christmas music I had put on was "sad."  And though I normally love the 60s jazz myself, I had to admit it was perhaps not always so joyous for today's seven-year olds.  

So since I had my main pieces cut, I let J roll out and cut cookies to her heart's content with the remaining dough.  She's come a long way since her three-year old self.  At seven she proclaimed herself an "artist" as she expertly cut out her snowflakes and angels.  And I switched iTunes to my Bollywood's greatest hits album.  We were improvising Bollywood dances while the cookies cooked.

Once the house pieces had cooled, I used my royal icing to start assembling the gingerbread house.  Two side pieces, stable.  But all four walls and the roof, err, not happening.  Total cave in. 

I tried saving the structure, reconstructing, bracing.  But my front piece with the door now had a crack and J was seriously doubting my architectural skills.  I had to laugh.  I started eating one part of the roof and just used the remaining piece for a flat roof.  At least it tasted good.

But this is just another example of me aiming high and falling low.  And often ignoring the most important thing: spending time with my daughter and having fun.  We did end up having fun but not before my perfectionist tendancies nearly made me scrap the whole thing.

It's the old battle between doing and being.  I get so absorbed in "to do" lists and think that everything will be great when that list is done.  And I often forget to have fun while "doing."  In the holiday season we seem to have so many more things to "do".  Or "make."   

Make pastries for the school Christmas market, for colleagues or students.  Do the Christmas shopping, of course. Make Christmas meals and organize visits.  Do the decorating of the house just so.  Do the caroling or church events.  And while all of these things can bring joy and fulfillment, I mustn't forget what I need to "be" this season.

I need to Be Generous.  Not just by buying presents.  Anyone with a credit card can do that.  I need to be generous in my words, in my acts, more forgiving of my husband, child and myself.  Be generous to those outside my inner circle: charities, the homeless.

I need to Be Cozy.  With all that "doing" and "making" I forget that some couch time and holiday movies or reading are also great soul food.  Relaxing with my family, That's more important than a perfect house, and heaven knows I'll never get that anyway.

I need to Be Present.  If I keep telling my little girl, just a minute, hold on a sec, I'm not being with her and enjoying the moment.  It's such a balancing act being a mom anyway, but I need to just be there for her and put aside some of the things on my list.

And that goes for me, too. I need to Be Here Now and enjoy the season instead of waiting for everything to be perfect to feel contentment.

So my gingerbread house wasn't perfect this year.  But after a day the royal icing had cemented the structure well.  We kept decorating together the next day (to Echosmith on youtube, this time).  I put the frosting on the candies and she placed them.  I added a chimney. 

It's an improvement on my gingerbread ghetto a few years ago.  Maybe an Alabama gingerbread barn that is in need of repair.  There are chinks where the light comes through this house.  But it's not too bad and I hope it has made some nice holiday memories for Juliette.  And in a week we can look forward to eating it while we're being cozy and chilling.

To be honest, I will still keep my "to do" list and hopefully get some of the things actually done on it.  But I will also keep in mind my "to be" list and try to maintain that precious balance.

So friends and family, Be Kind to yourself and others this holiday season and I'll try to do the same!

Why the French are gonna be alright

Family and friends have been asking me how things are in France.  We are now going on three weeks since my adopted country got shaken by the worst acts of terrorism most of the French have seen in their lifetimes.  If the horrific images of November 13th are starting to grow distant, they are still in the back of our minds.  If the hunt for the terrorists isn't the top story on the news, we keep wondering if something else will happen soon.

One of my students asked me if it was perhaps easier for me to deal with since, as an American, I'd already experienced 9/11.  As we were sitting there five days after what people were already calling the French 9/11, I had to say, no.  It doesn't make it any easier, I said, as I wiped away the beginning of a tear.  And besides, as France is also my home now, it was like they were attacking my second homeland.

After the rawness started fading more into resolution that life in France had changed, I noticed something else starting to happen.  Resistance.  "The danger is eveywhere, so the danger is nowhere," an older stage actor said on the news as he encouraged people to keep going to the theatre.  And not more than a week after, I saw Parisian ladies drinking mojitos on TV and proudly  saying they were going out anyway.

That's when I realized, the French are gonna be alright.  And it's for the very reasons they are sometimes mocked around the world.  But now those "faults" have become their strengths.

It's because they're proud and stubborn.  How many times have I bemoaned these very things on my blog in some gentle French-bashing?  Like how they love to brag about how their country and food are so great, for example.  But now that pride will serve them well as they remember how much they love their country.

And as they keep going to concerts, even if they are afraid and check out the exit doors before, as one TV report showed, they are also one of the most hard-headed nations I've ever seen!  Just look how many train strikes these people can pull off in a year!  Never try to win an argument with a Frenchman.

It's because they love life.  Joie de vivre.  It's a French expression that has even crept into English.  As one journalist mentioned after the attack, it seemed that's what the terrorists were targeting when they so cowardly shot people on terrace cafés.  But you can't kill the spirit of a people who love life this much, who can go into ecstasy over the subtelties of cheese and wine and pastries.  I know, 'cause I teach French people, and their capacity to talk about the little things in life is endless.  And in these dark days after the attacks, that will help them get through things.

It's because they are more like Americans than they realize!  For all the jokes our two nations may trade across the ocean, we are actually eerily similar.  After the attacks, there were more French flags put proudly on display.  The president even encouraged people to hang them from their windows two Fridays ago during the national "hommage."   The flag that used to be reserved for sporting events and Bastille Day has come out of the closet.  The French are just as patriotic as we are, just in their own way.

So even though I am still worried about the threats out there, I know the French are strong.  Strong-willed, too.  It takes one to know one.  And just like America after our 9/11, they will keep on going.  Keep on living and laughing and fighting.

Fakin' it in a tweetin' world

Tweet! Get it?!

Yes, I am one of those people who writes silly hashtags on my Facebook posts from time to time.  Another attempt to be witty and get a like or a virtual chuckle.  I really should consult a professional about this perpetual need for approval. 

But I was wondering what happens to all those fake hashtags I add as an afterthought to some posts. So I signed up with Twitter. For the sole purpose of investigating my hashtags.

This is monumental if you know that I swore I would never have a Twitter account.  Something about not wasting all my time on the Internet.  Yeah, that one worked out well.  And my mom actually had a Twitter account before me.  I know!

So there I am, eager to see my hashtags in the Twittersphere and...silence.  Virtual crickets chirping. 

A newsflash that will come as a surprise to no one except me- if you don't link Facebook and Twitter and make your posts public, your hashtag will fall silently in that deep forest that is in the Internet.

But I wouldn't let it go.  I was still curious if other people had used some of my "fake" hashtags.  So I searched for some of my more recent ones like: #toomanyfairytales or #shesgotapoint and #childlogic. And, bingo, a string of unrelated posts (not mine) of people saying these very same things.  Different situations but the same hashtag. 

And I felt an immediate kinship with these people.  Ok, we're not going out for coffee or anything, but I got a kick out of the fact that there are other people who were having some funny or frustrating moment in their lives and categorized it with the same feeling or phrase as me. 

And I got to thinking that Twitter, with its limited number of characters, is a bit like our modern day haiku.  And I'm not the only one who thinks so. Forcing us to condense ideas in a small space, adding a tag to label that moment.  To capture the essence.

So the take-home message is, there is no such thing as a fake hashtag.  Because we are the authors of the Internet and we are making this up as we go along. 

Recently there have been some funny and powerful uses of hashtags.  No doubt you've heard of the Muslim backlash against ISIS or Al Qaeda with #notinmyname. But there was also a slew of humorous cat tweets in the  #Brusselslockdown situation last weekend where Belgians posted cat pics instead of giving away information on police or military searches. 

Not to mention #MuslimID recently from Muslims posting their military, hospital or police badges in response to Donal Trump's suggestion that all Muslims have an ID or closer surveillance.  Or the husband who honored his deceased wife with #100lovenotes and inspired others to express their feelings to their loved ones.

Frankly, I love the idea that one person can come up with an idea and it can set fire to the Internet and spread a message so quickly.  So with all the ugliness in this world and all the futile stuff we can find on the Net, sometimes a little tag can go along way.  Will Twitter and hashtags last forever? #onlytimewilltell

Message from a war zone

I woke up this morning because my husband was blowing his nose rather loudly.

My daughter came in shortly after and woke us up again (though we were already up).  We had a family cuddle and I gave her Eskimo and butterfly kisses. 

Then she opened the living room door letting the cat come and "wake us up" in his turn. 

I woke up to rain on a chillier autumn day than we have had recently. 

I woke up to three iMessages from my mom.  Asking me if I'd seen the news, was I ok. 

I woke up to the bad news that most of the rest of the world already knew.

I woke up to three messages on Facebook and several emails from concerned friends and family.

I woke up in a war zone of sorts.  I woke up to a France more terrorized than ever.  To a Paris that was mourning its dead and wondering what would happen next.

If my my small city two hours from Paris seemed spared this time, it is still all a little too close to home.   It is also a little too familiar after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in January and the near miss of the Thalys train in August. 

Where I live, life goes on pretty much as before.  People gathered to light candles and observe about half an hour of silence.  But other than that, we are here for another day, shopping and driving and just living. 

And as with every attack before, we are saddened, and scratching our heads.  Wondering how people could kill innocents like that, kill themselves, all for a cause that is so perverted and so far from godly.

I have a dream, a lot like Marin Luther King, Jr.  A dream that Muslim children and Christian children play together.  A dream that kids play together no matter where their parents come from or what language they speak at home.  A dream that people from different backgrounds talk openly and see how very much they are alike.

The thing is, that dream is already here.  I see it everyday in Juliette's school.  Her best friend is from a Muslim family.  Yesterday when I picked her up I did the cheek kisses with several moms, two of whom are Muslim, one of whom was wearing a scarf that let a few black strands of hair peek out. 

I heard the Syrian father who came to France with his family about a year ago and whose French is improving every day.  I saw his son come happily out of the schoolyard, speaking French like the other kids but his own language with his father.

So if it can work in the schoolyard in my little middle-class city neighborhood, and if it can work in so many Parisian offices and schools and park benches, why is this kind of evil still being perpetrated?  The terrorists attacked Paris, attacked the French everyday citizen.  But how many of those people are/were living out a peaceful coexistence with different faiths and cultures?

These terrorists picked the wrong target.  Not that there ever is a right target.  France, the way I see it, is already doing pretty well at integrating and accepting different nationalities and religions.  It's not perfect, but it's getting there. 

And I know, as the father of Juliette's best friend has told me time and again, this is not Islam.  Real Muslims don't kill in the name of their god.  And I know French Muslims weep today just as I am. 

And I know that my dream of different cultures living and working together will keep being played out.   We have to keep that dream alive.

How the French do Halloween

Candy and pumpkins, check!

I thought about calling this post "How the French DON'T do Halloween."  But that wouldn't be exactly true.  They do celebrate Halloween, just in there own way.  That is to say, not exactly how North Americans do.

I was looking for some type of accessory for Juliette to be a vampire for her day care party last week.  We were in the biggest supermarket in our city, where they had dedicated an aisle to costumes.  I was surprised that nearly all the costumes were of the scary or dark kind: witches, grim reapers, vampires, skeletons. There were a few pumpkin costumes for the little ones and some called "gothic dolls" which were more like Monster High "light" for young girls.  But what about pirates, cowboys, fairies?  If you want a costume like that in France, you have to go to the toy section, thank you very much.

That is the thing about the French and Halloween.  When they aren't dissing it for being an "American" holiday they are complaining about it only being scary and gory.  My other expat friends have noticed this, too.  No, I tell the French naysayers!  You can be anything you want for Halloween in the US.  When I was a little schoolgirl I was anything from a doctor, tooth fairy, witch or school teacher.  Halloween may indeed have its origins in ghosts and ghouls, but it is also about any costume and being anything you want, for just a day or night.  Kind of like a Halloween American Dream fusion.  And though I did see a few kids dressed in non-scary costumes, the majority of those I saw going door-to-door this year were in black and bloody attire.

Speaking of trick-or-treating, I think I am doing my American parenting thing wrong.  Living in an apartment, I have never actually taken Juliette door-to-door.  When we saw some kids out around 5 pm last Saturday, she was at first perplexed, then wondering why they were all dressed in scary things.  For the record, she was also a cowgirl for the home parties we attended and hosted.  The vampire outfit was more in honor of her favorite TV show du jour, Chica Vampiro.

Those French parents who do not let their kids do trick-or-treating may (rightfully) say it's kind of dangerous.  They might also tell you that they already have a holiday where kids dress up, and that it's not scary (oh, please, stop with the Halloween is scary thing!).  That would be carnaval, the equivalent of mardi gras.  During carnaval children dress as anything, knights and princesses and animals.

Besides, many of my French students tell me, Halloween is just an American thing to make money!  Well, not exactly.  It is Celtic and Anglo-Saxon, but not exclusively American.  Some students make a point in telling me they celebrate All Saints' Day, the day after Halloween, which is a religious holiday.  Ok, so not only is Halloween a money-making opportnity in their eyes, but they have to get all sanctimonious on me!

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on Halloween, as on so many things.  They will never exactly get my giddiness about dressing up at work for Halloween (Bollywood princess this year) and I will never understand their love of silly slapstick comedians like Jerry Lee Lewis.  Can't we all just get along?