Almost time to pack for Florida!

"I'm leaving on a Jet plane"

It's that time again for us. We have been staying here in France caring for my mother-in-law since the  beginning of January and come April 2nd we will be flying home for a long visit. In fact, for quite a while. The other siblings in the family, my husband's brother and two sisters, will be coming to take turns looking after their mother and visiting with her. So Dennis and I will be returning to his family in Florida for the month of April, May and a little bit of June! I already have plans to fly up to RI to see my family as well. I am really excited to be home again with everyone. I can't wait to drive our car again! It sounds small but believe me, once you are cut off from being independent you really enjoy the simplicity of getting in your car and just going.

I do worry about Miss Anna when we leave. Sadly, she cannot come home with us because there is no where for her to stay in FL. My step-son-in-law (that is probably not the proper way to write that) is very allergic so Mistress Anna must stay behind, soaking up the sun here in the South of France and keeping Denise and her visitors company. I wonder what Anna's journal entries will be like during the time we are gone?

                                                                                                                              April 2

Well...they left for the airport today. They seemed sad to leave me but I think they did it on purpose. All this talk about allergies and difficulty with my travel papers. It all sounds suspicious to me! Well, at least I can con everyone here to give me tons of treats and overfeed me while Sarah is gone! I'll be living the high life here in France while they sweat it out in Fl :) Hahahahahaha

At least that is what her eyes say when I pull my suitcase down and start selecting things to take with me. Anna sits in the hallway outside our room, head on her paws, with this look of absolute abandonment mixed with a "how could you?" look of betrayal. Its gonna be so hard leaving her!

In flux

I am trying to decide whether I should switch to a different blog setup. I want to get the most readers and followers I can and I wonder if a change would facilitate that. Since I know just about nothing about blogging and getting my blog visited, I'm really writing blind here. Any and all suggestions that you dear readers would like to make, I accept gratefully. And here is a link to a practice switch that I am thinking about.  http://mindofahummingbird.tumblr.com/  Please visit it and let me know what you think.

Should I stay or should I go?

Happy Anniversary!

Today marks the 3rd wedding anniversary of my step-daughter Denise and her husband David.

Dennis and I are not able to join in celebrating this happy day in person because thousands of miles separate us but our thoughts are with Denise and David and we wish them a happy happy day full of love and good memories and a lifetime more of happy anniversaries!!!

Far from my sight, out of my heart

I learned a new French expression. Loin de mes yeux, loin de mon cœur. It means, far from my sight, out of my heart. I thought, given my situation, it was very interesting. It was used to express how we need to keep up with those we love, otherwise we will lose them in time. If we don't work at our relationships, distance and absence will cause them to fade.

Since I heard it, I've been applying this in all sorts of ways. Good and sad. I can't see my family or close friends regularly, so I need to keep in contact with them in other ways so that I will not lose being close in their hearts or they in mine.

On the flip side, if I hang in there, sugar and sweets will finally leave my heart and I will not long for them anymore, if I can just keep them out of my sight long enough. Maybe alcohol too.

It reminded me of something someone said when we first talked about moving to France. I knew I would miss everything and everyone around me and I was told that in time I wouldn't need them anymore and they wouldn't need me. In time, we would continue to live new lives and the dependency we had on each other would wane. They would forget me and I would forget them. Life would naturally move forward. And eventually there would be no place for me with them, nothing to miss.

The idea was reassuring in one small way because I knew I wouldn't feel lost and lonely forever but a lingering sadness took its place. I don't want them out of my heart.

Can things and people you love be out of your heart with just less time in your sight? Well, I don't think about iced coffee or chocolate smoothies like I once did. And cheese-less pizza strips or thanksgiving sandwiches (with the cranberry sauce and stuffing). But what about people and land? I live by the Sea here and it is beautiful yet I miss the RI beaches. I miss the trees of my home and the places I know. And the people? Forget it. They are far from my sight but not out of my heart, not yet. I want to hold each face close to the eyes of my soul, study each one to remember and then tuck them safely away in my memory until I see them in the flesh again.

So this expression is a warning to me. To not let the distance of my physical sight to cause me to forget those I love and miss. I will see them again soon. And until then I will carry them close, very close to my heart and see them clearly in my mind's eye.

Things I've lost, Things I've gained

So here is a silly list I have compiled of the things I miss about the USA when I am in France: (in no particular order)

Free parking almost everywhere I need to go

Microwave popcorn

Chocolate chips

Roads that don't make me carsick when we drive 

My car

My king sized bed

Iced coffee (no, making it at home is NOT the same)

Privacy

My family and friends

Mint frozen yogurt from Publics

A bath tub

Screens on the windows

Air conditioning 

A bathroom and a kitchen I can actually fit in without bruising some part of my body

Speaking the language easily (but still not well)

A dishwasher

A garbage disposal

And on the flip side, this is my missing things about France list that I notice most when I'm stateside:

The views from everywhere you look

The pastry, bread and food available

The sea outside my window

Afternoon naps

The wine 

The cheese (its ridiculous how much is so readily available)

The frozen yogurt (only in the summer, down in Menton)

Anna (since she is here in France now)

Walking by the olive tree garden 

The Roman ruin next door

Walking along the sea with Dennis and Anna

Sunday drives into the mountains and eating out

Bernard cooking for us on Saturdays

The sounds of the sirens here (yes, I like them)

Waking up in the middle of the night to the moon shinning in our bedroom window

The quiet pace of our life here

The constant state of adventure (even going grocery shopping can be an adventure)

I've seen Fire and I've seen Rain

I have a playlist of songs entitled "songs that make me cry".  At my old job, during surgery we would sometimes listen to a list we affectionately called "songs to kill yourself to".  Dennis looks over at me and says "why do women do that? Listen to music that upsets them?"  It is crazy. But somehow the weight in your chest that feels like it has no release, when you listen to certain music and let the pain out, the pressure lessens. Or so it seems to.

There is a bottle of water on the table in front of me. And it made me think about how much water we have drank since we went food shopping a few days ago. And that we need more water...and then I thought, my life has gone on. I'm living, breathing and drinking water. How could I when people I love are gone.

"Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone........

I've seen fire and I've seen rain, I've seen sunny days that I thought would never end, I've seen lonely times when I could not find a friend but I always that that I would see you again"

Grieving has a process, life moves forward. Its healthy and natural. But it feels so wrong. How can life move on when a huge piece of you is missing? How? There are so many stories I haven't told her, so many things to ask her, so many ways to make her laugh, so many things to get her support on. How can life just keep moving when I don't want it to? How did I let this happen? Am I forgetting her?

And then you think about the people still in your life that you don't get to see. You are missing out on their lives, the moments every day that mold them, change them.  Daily events and decisions. Joy and fears, highs and lows. And no manner of distant contact can make up for not being there. And I am not there right now. I am so very far away, from all the things I love. 

Life is even more fragile then I ever thought, even more fleeting.  People simply disappear and there is nothing you can do. No manner of wishing or wanting or pleading will bring them back again. I went to France in a bubble of newness and joy the first time. And while I was gone, everything changed. And that changed me. I'm sitting at this table staring at a bottle of water, listening to James Taylor, crying over memories I am afraid to lose. Crying over the memories I am missing out on. Crying because I am living when people I love are sleeping. People I need. And no matter how hard I cry, the sun will rise and we will need more water tomorrow and we are forced to live, live without them. 

There is a grief that arises from the healing of a pain. As if the sharpness of the pain was tangible enough to hold you tight to that person. And when the pain fades, will they fade with it? Will you be letting them go? Is their face, their voice, their laugh vanishing? I find comfort in the pain. With the pain I know she is close to me, I can see her tossing her salad with her cargo pant capris and lipstick on. She is alive in my memories, even within the cloud of pain so heavy I can't take a breath. She is there, cheering me on, laughing at my stories. She is still alive and well in my mind. If I heal, I will forget. If I forget, I will die.

"thought I'd see you one more time again"

Old Friends

Spent the day with my family and friends that I haven't seen in what feels like a lifetime or more.  Some of them have children grown enough to not remember me, some of them look totally different then when we last spoke and still others haven't shifted in any way.  That amazes me.

Most people who weren't expecting to see me looked genuinely surprised.  They said Hello but then did the double take "Hello!" immediately after.  I hope its because I looked so good that they didn't know it was me.....or maybe they just never thought they'd see me there.  Either way, they were shocked.

Funny how time passes and life passes and a year can slip so quickly for some of us and crawl by so painfully for others.  I felt the loss of one friend just as sharply as ever, the empty seat where she should have been like a beacon to me, pulsing her absence, glaring in my face.  I saw her family, raw still and wounded from losing her.  I am happy to have seen each of their loved faces and held them in my arms, even just for a moment, but the loss of her was like a terrible bitter taste in my throat, strong and burning making breathing difficult and filling my eyes with tears. Its almost been a year. It feels like no time has passed at all without her. I'm still holding my breath, waiting for her to sit down.

Most of all I was with my family, my whole family, together under one roof...as it should be, as I have wanted it to be for a very long time.  The only one missing was Dennis, since he was abandoned by me back in Florida (for further guilty confessions on this subject please see the previous blog entry)

The empty seat next to me was a reminder of the fact that my life and the me I am in my life now has changed in a year too.  Dennis is my life now and even being with all these people I love and miss, without him there is no home.  I am home in location but Dennis is where I hang my hat.  Its a seemingly obvious conclusion to many, I'm sure....but a reassuring one to me nonetheless.   Missing my husband is a good thing in my eyes.

I feel exhausted from the day, all tattered around the edges but not in a negative way.  I feel spent and satisified that I was able to connect with so many people from the pages of my memories.  Especially some toward whom I had given up for lost, scratched them off completely whenever they entered my thoughts.  I am happy to see their faces again and share a laugh with them, as if we saw each other only yesterday.  I have missed them and being in their company again, falling into the old ways with them again was so natural and so right.  Easy....as if nothing has changed.  In a spinning world of change, an island of something constant has a nice feeling to it.

Old friends...old friends..sat on their park bench like bookends....

can you imagine us years from today..sharing a park bench quietly

how terribly strange to be seventy......

time it was and what a time it was it was

a time of innocence, a time of confidences

long ago it must be, I have a photograph

preserve your memories, they're all that's left you

Please pass the pamplemousse

One of the greatest loves of my love is food. Simple. I need it every day and I love it. That being said, I didn't really anticipate that this journey would revolve around food but it has.

In looking through my pictures today I realized just how much food I have photographed and consumed while being here in France.

Right from the start the trouble or pleasure began. We flew Delta on their business class and let me tell you, I can't imagine going back to coach. The moment you sit down they hand you glass (not plastic cup) of champagne. So instead of getting yelled at to put my purse under the seat in front of me, I am sipping champagne. Next they give you the menu FOR YOU TO CHOOSE YOUR DINNER. Have I mentioned that we are still attached by the jetway and not even moving yet? Naturally I chose cheese for my dessert and it hasn't stopped since then.

Now that's not to say that we ate out every night but the food everywhere we did go was unbelievable. Maybe it was the surroundings that made it so. Like this sandwich I had at a tiny restaurant that sits along the olive grove park in town. Just ham and swiss cheese, on the best bread ever baked. Some pink wine and I'm stuffing my face. Wonderful! Plus the knife they give you is fun.

Here, staying with my mother-in-law, food is a 3 meal a day event. Although breakfast is a easy, coffee (2 lumps of sugar please) bread

(cut into small pieces and toasted in the oven, thank

you) and assorted jams (blueberry, strawberry and fig)

However, lunch is at 1 and requires a full out meat and veggie along with a paired wine, fruit and dessert. Here I learned that my mother-in-law loves my potato salad and that celery greens are edible.

Here I just smashed some garlic spuds and put it with an amazing salad (amazing because of the cheese on top and Dennis makes the salad dressing in his lab) and this is added to the turkey breast. Notice my bitten piece of bread..sitting there as a testimony that I couldn't wait until I had taken the photo before devouring it. Bread glutton.

We did purchase along the way pieces to add to our meals. Cheese in Italy, desserts from Nice.

Actually, desserts by a general rule were always bought. I did absolutely no baking while in France. There was simply no point. Even the boxed cookies were amazing with hazelnuts or lemon bits in them. We found a particularly heavenly

coconut macaroon, soft, sweet and

wonderful at the grocery store. They even come enrobed in dark chocolate. I contrived many reasons that we needed to head down to the store but my real drive was for more coconut cookies. Even before we had the car, I would willingly trek the 3 miles in the hot sun of mid day so that I could have a supply in the fridge. Dennis got wise to that and soon put an end to my tomfoolery. So I spent my time and energy making meals, Dennis focused on buying the wine and we let France herself make the dessert.

Here we have the stove I managed to do all the cooking on during our stay in France. I found the knobs to be very disconcerting as well as the temp dial. Rather then try my hand at the math, I just guessed.

Some how though, everything worked fine. It must have been the wine.

The salads tasted better here....some how the daily fresh veggies just melted in your mouth. Biggest decisions of the meal were back balcony or front? Usually we chose the rear facing balcony that gave you the view of Monaco and the mountains. It was hot at mid-day so we tried to eat by 1PM and avoid too much sun.

And a word about the ice cream....it is worth

walking 3 miles for. Whether you get the frozen yogurt and enjoy in its lemon/citrus tartness or you combine the coconut with the dark chocolate... you won't come up for air until the entire cup is GONE. They serve it to you with this tiny plastic shovel-like spoon, I think it's to slow you down. But I was still able to stuff my face with every cool morsel, I just had to work quickly.

Almost every restaurant has something called "The Menu" which is their meal plan for you. It usually includes the starter (including a house drink) main meat choice, salad or pasta choice, dessert of choice, wine and bread and coffee. It ranges anywhere from 18 Euro to 200 Euro and up depending on where you eat it. I like the Menu because it takes the decision of what to order out of the problem and I can just sit back and enjoy every lovely surprise they bring me. Here is one menu we did in a restaurant at the Castle village before the concert in Monaco. Every bite was incredible.

We have also been able to enjoy the local flavor of friends that Dennis has known for years who have invited us to eat with them. Always an event and the flavors are unforgettable. The

highlight of this meal was shelling the little guys myself. It made me feel like I worked for the food. And the addition of the pink grapefruit (pamplemousse) in my salad was a summery surprise that paired so well with my white wine, my berry iced tea and the sweetness of the glaze on the fish. YUMMY!

Truly a wonderful experience, with something delicious to eat every single day. For 6 weeks I sat for every meal at a table, with a view and a tablecloth. Never once did I "take something to go" nor did I eat while getting dressed, driving or standing. It was a treat to enjoy the food, every single bite. I had to learn to relax and allow the time to float by. Getting your check here is almost insulting to the wait staff. You have to flag them down and beg for it. Once they have you in their restaurant they never want you to leave. But there is no iced coffee. That's my only suggestion. Other then that.....perfect. And for the record, if there was bread placed on the table, I ate every piece. I had to. It would have been a disgrace not too. I mean, look at it!!!

Thank you France, for feeding me so well. If you ever come to stay with me, I promise I will try just as hard to make you as happy as you have made me.

Start the day out right. Strong coffee and a chocolate croissant. Or two.

I have always thought glass blowing to be an amazing thing but I have never actually seen it happening. There is an ancient glass blowing factory in the town of Biot, which happens to be very close by. So we made a day of it, starting with breakfast. Cousin Bernard was our pilot again and off we went, first to watch the magic in Biot. A picturesque medieval village that dates back 2,500 years, situated 4 km from the Mediterranean Sea and nestled between Antibes and Nice, it was only about 30 minutes worth of driving.

We found the little factory with out much trouble and leaving Bernard and Denise

in the shade, we made our way inside.

There was a crowd of people watching several men of various ages, all dressed in shorts and sandals, working with long, hollow rods each with a molten piece of glass on the end. It made me wonder

where their work safety poster was hanging. Maybe in the lunch room? Without much fuss or fanfare, you could watch these men heat up and shape their glass into all sorts of different pieces. There was no fuss and little conversation but after a few

moments you become entranced by the dance they

perform. Afterwards, you can walk through the gallery and admire beautiful works of glass art from around the world. And each piece has a price tag, just in case you want to take some artwork home.

Back into the car, we are quickly off again. This time bound for a candy factory sitting along a river that bubbles under the remains of an ancient bridge that was destroyed by German invaders. All that's left to testify are the huge stone supports.

We had lunch in a restaurant a few steps from the candy factory. It would seem that the more you are willing to eat and drink, the more popular you become here. So I am thinking I may as well run for Mayor next week. After eating huge salads, drinking beer, wine and coffee and enjoying the local ice cream we made our way over to watch some candy being made and sampled their famous rose jelly. I was forced to buy some dark chocolate too.

The candy tour was fun. Although I had to wrap my mind around the fact that there are no screens on the factory windows and the workers don't wear gloves..of any kind..... Dennis says I need to live outside my American box, so I am rolling with it. No easy task for me, especially when we had to drive around for 30 minutes looking for a handicap friendly bathroom for my mother-in-law because the glass factory and the candy factory bathrooms were up 18 flights of stairs. Ok, only 2 flights, but the woman is 94 and in a wheelchair. Dennis says that change comes slow here and the people are accustomed to being uncomfortable. I can see that now. I guess I want to stay un-accustomed to that.

Off we go again, headed into more mountain passes. Suddenly Bernard stops the car and tells us to walk back to the "Cascade" because it is "varry beautiful and famous".

I don't stop to question but grab my camera and run to where he pointed. We were almost pushed off the tiny road by oncoming cars including a huge flatbed that became stuck going through the tunnel and almost caused a 3 car pile-up but the waterfall we found was worth certain death. Breathtaking. Of course, I learn a few minutes later, when we have literally run for safety back in the car, that for a single Euro you can walk on stone pathways carved along the waterfall...but who needs the easy way? Not us! Anyway, the life risking pictures look better in my opinion. We did decide to splurge and pay the Euro so we could view it from above.

Onward and upward, Bernard takes us to another medieval village, this one high on the mountain edge giving

you breathtaking panoramic views.

The Chateau

Gourdon awaited us with tiny shops selling all sorts of candy and cakes, soaps and perfumes. Another shop sold glass jewelry and another oil paintings of the local beauties. Several restaurants tempted us but we were too full from the salad and all that came with it earlier. Everywhere you look you drink in the spectacular scenery.

With so much to feast your eye on you start to feel full. Your eyes become overwhelmed by seeing so many things in one place.

This is the view from the Chateau and of the village from below.

At this point my camera battery dies :( We started heading down to the coast again and soon we are in Cannes, driving through the downtown area, right where to film festival is held every year. The buildings are a mix of modern and ancient with many famous hotels facing the ocean. We continue on through Nice, then Monaco and finally we are home again. All totaled we spend 12 hours enjoying the changing scene outside the windows of our borrowed car. The air was breezy and cool, especially in the mountains. But then a few minutes later you are by the sea and you can feel the warm sun on your skin. It felt good to be full. Full of the food and drink and full of the scenery.

Thank you cousin Bernard~