What is the Point?????

So, I have been thinking about 'starting' a blog for a while now.  I had started one THREE years ago.  It was to facilitate connection with me and my former life, to share my not very brave new world with friends  and family and yes, to join the masses of cool people who blog.  I guess after moving from NC to Paris, I was consumed with living in Paris and not really talking about it.  Not that there wasn't much to say, and frankly, wish I had - but that is neither here nor there.  I got right NOW, so let's go...

I have read many, many blogs - found many times by clicking at the blog suivant, or in english, the next blog button and roaming around on the blogosphere enjoying the many variations of how people express themselves, make their lives appear and share new information.  A great many of bloggers have inspired me to think about things in new ways, feel deep jealousy at how beautiful someone can make their home look during the holidays, feel lucky at how good I have it, create new sauces and provide insights into life as an expat in France.  I have watched perfect stranger's families grow, change, win some and lose some.  These strangers eventually become online friends.  Probably will never meet them, but in some ways I keep better track of their lives than my 'real' friends who don't have blogs.

Me, age 15, when I spent half my life
blabbing on the telephone.  

It makes me sad sometimes.  I recently read an article about telephone conversations and how they are really, really out of style.  Had I been blogging when I read it, I would have been able to bookmark the link and share it with you.  But anyway, you don't really need a link to believe that long phone calls are just more rare these days.  I can remember HOURS spent on the phone, sometimes even falling asleep with the phone hot next to my ear.  I know it sounds so bizarre now days, but it is true.  I remember watching movies on tv while being on the phone.  Interestingly, I still have long conversations with friends I used to have long conversations with (you know who you are)... but people whom I have met in the last 15 years - with a couple of exceptions, it just doesn't happen.

Many of my old friends tell me that they just don't find people like me in their life anymore.  (yes, it is not me trying to feed my ego a giant bowl of smooth mint ice cream, it is just true).  A few of my new friends have told me how nice it is to finally find someone they can 'be themselves' with and connect with authentically.  I doubt very, very much it is because I am super friend of the year, I have had many people tell me straight to my face that they can't fucking stand me and all my drama (bye bitches).  In any case, I get the desire to connect - I have it too.  That is why I am resuming this blog.  I really, really, really deeply, sincerely hope that I will hear back from people sharing with me their thoughts on what I share here.  Don't hold back, you know I rarely do (but I have learned that I can when I really have to).

This blog is also to share my experiences with myself, to witness my own life as I articulate and reflect later on something that happened.  What I used to recount to good old friends on the phone for hours simply is more difficult because honestly, I think I think slower then I used to.  As stuff simmers in my head, authentic notions are developed.  I am pretty sure that when I was younger I thought more efficiently, more intense, more vulnerable, more open, more quick to tell you what I thought because so much was so interesting and exciting.

Blazing her own trail, 15 months.

Well, I am getting older, more experienced and frankly, sucks but true, I have seen a lot of what the world has to show.  I now get to see my little daughter Sabine as she points with great interest to the little path over there.  She is a little explorer and wants to get the hell off the beaten path whenever she possibly can.  The good news is, while I am her mother and therefore protector, I am also her companion happy to go where ever she wants to (as long as she will have me).

So, okay, here's to resuming a blog, connecting with words my little bubble to your little bubble - together we can burst into a new scene of ideas, sharing, challenges, growth, inspiration, vulnerability, and tons of pictures of Sabine as she explores her new world in 2011.  Please join me (and subscribe it you want to).

Sabine in Doorway

It takes a while to get down the street because Sabine has to go up to each step and try it out.

I am back (plus one)

Just a quick note to say, bonjour and I am picking this blog up again! Yes, it has been a shamefully long time. I even have a 15 month old child now - and really want to blog about being a mama in Paris to an absolutely dynamo daughter and my life in general! So, more posts and pics very soon! woot woot!

THE MOMENT - or shall I say, my awakening

Ever the walking cliche' or at least I feel like it, I had my 'awakening' and it was today. I have had brief interruptions of sleep-walking through the day of the blazee, BUT today was a day that all the naysaying negativity about Paris has gone to sleep and I ... I have awoken to the glory of the city of Light.

I had been in my sleepy way of should be practicing French, but watching "Valley Girl" on YouTube is just so much more interesting. Like totally! But I had a grocery list to get and as you may know, the stores in Paris are unbelievably closed on Sunday!

So, I dreaded doing it. I pretty much have only had fun when I am out - but it's the thought of leaving our cozy sanctuary that does not appeal to me. I am not pleased to say it, but living in Durham made me a serious homebody. There were only two places I would rather have been: the forest or the dance floor - and the truth is, they are just extensions of home. ANYWAY!

Got the bags to carry the groceries home. On my list was toilet paper, coffee, bread, soy milk, yogurt, apples, laundry softener (gonna give it a try), rice cakes, cereal and lotion... We will get the veggies tomorrow at the market and I will bring the camera for blog purposes! Which is what I wish I had done today!!!

But of course, what exciting thing could happen between here and 4 blocks to the store? Well, a group of musicians COULD be standing on the corner playing Fwenchie music like the other day... or a new store could have a wine/cheese event... or there could be some particularly beautiful fruit or flowers in one of the numerous street shops worthy of a photo... but today there was a musical extravaganza in the streets!

AND IT WAS MOST LIKELY ONE OF THE COOLEST THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN. Now, don't get me wrong, I have seen some dynamic drumming in India (imagine hundreds of Indians drumming and walking) and some funkadelicious drumming in Honduras on the islands during some Garafuna holidays and so on... but today, I saw the French version of drumming that would have put Hillside High in Durham to shame (well, not really)... but allow me tell you what was so special about this drumming and dancing down the streets of a small neighborhood in Paris. The drummers were 80% FRENCH WOMEN AND GIRLS and the dancers were all French women. The entire group spanned from 14 years to 50 years old. These lovely women were pounding those HUGE drums and swinging their hips and the dancers were giving the crowd filling up the sidewalks everything they had! I of course, started crying right then and there. Now if you know me, I can cry over a feel-good commercial.

The other interesting thing about it was that for the first half of the parade, the cars drove right along side of the dancing/drumming parade. It was a two way street and they all seemed to take turns going. That is one cool thing I have noticed about the people here - sure, they may not be 'friendly', but nor are they aggressive or possessive. From what I have observed, they genuinely know how to share space. It is kind of unbelievable at times. Even during this dancing in the streets, the flow didn't just STOP because of this, the street became used by both. I, for one (and maybe the only one standing there grinning and crying)thought it was totally amazing. Everyone, people with full shopping bags like me, daddies with strollers, old ladies with canes, young men with motorcycles, fashionista females all just doing their thing.

I stood their bopping, grinning, shining and crying at seeing French women in a new way and in seeing myself living in Paris in a new way too! I now am beginning to understand my relationship to the outside world needs to open up in a new way ... and so I need to change too. So, now it is when I say, see: I am now the cliche and I like it like that.