Off to Paris

We were packed and ready for our trip to Paris, our friend was on her way to our house to take us to the airport, and Bob was doing one last pass on e-mail.  What???  Our flight from Champaign to Chicago had been cancelled and was not being rescheduled?  This had never happened before.  Turns out there was too much traffic at O'Hare.  Bob tried everything, including several different airline reps, to find us another flight from here to meet our 5:00 p.m. flight to Paris, but it was a no go, and there wasn't enough time to drive there.   The final result?  We would leave on a flight early the next morning (if it was again a no go, we had time to drive to Chicago), connecting to another 5:00 p.m. flight to Paris.  Time for rest for the journey.

Hide my smile?

Not smile?  All of my life I’ve been programmed to smile.  It visually demonstrates my Midwestern friendliness.  Why I even get health benefits from smiling.  A frown turned upside down can relieve my stress, release endorphins, and boost my immune system while lowering my blood pressure. But when in France, I must not smile.

Smiling at strangers or customers is not part of the French culture.  There isn’t even a French word for “friendly.”  French people do not smile without a reason.  No crinkling eyes and upturned corners of the mouth for them,  instead, it is a funereal expression that is painted on French faces.  It’s a bit daunting when interacting with them, almost harder to not see a smile on the person in front of you than to not smile yourself.

Another thing.  The French don’t admit mistakes.  It’s culturally unacceptable.  Odile Challe, Professor of Organizational Behavior at the University of Paris-Dauphine, says that, “One does not have the right to make a mistake in France.” [translated]  It’s all a matter of saving face and appearing strong.  In dire circumstances, one might admit to an erreur but never a faute.

I think Americans often feel like we’re the center of the universe, and everyone does everything exactly the way we do.  One of the joys of traveling is finding out that it’s not true.  Another of the joys is trying to assimilate into a different culture.  It’s not always easy, but my heart leaps each time I’m addressed in French and not English.:-)

To understand more of the cultural differences between the French and the Americans, you can turn to the book French or Foe? by Polly Platt.  My thanks to Paula for the gift of the book and also to a French cultural ambassador who tried to explain some of the differences to us.

Where I'm From, #1

I am from the British Isles
and the provinces of France
that are sometimes German,
and from Cherokee blood and
probably that of slaves--
my very own melting pot.

I am from the prairie
where grasses and wildflowers
once reigned, now replaced
with soybeans and corn,
the soil, black and fertile,
life-giving.

I am from the flat land,
where only silos break
the rhythm of the horizon,
and the sky is so big that
I can see sunrise and sunset,
stars, and infinite possibilities.

I am from a town of faculty
and business people, and poor
without hope.  For some it leads
to riches, for others to new discoveries,
and, for the invisible, it is only
a dead end.

I am from a family where
I was the only child and loved.
I lived in a make believe world of dolls
and playing school, and books and books
and books, escapes from the
anxiety that controlled our real lives.

I am from friends and cousins
who have become my siblings,
who played with me, distracted me,
and today help keep my memories alive.
I hold them in my heart, and
they accept me as I am.

I am from daydreams and
wonder, silence and solitude,
on a journey of my own,
looking for that peace
that transcends all understanding,
filled with an internal fire to achieve.

I am from dust,
created in Her image,
holder and reflector of Her
light, Her hands and feet
in this world, until I am
dust again,
born into eternal life.


A writing prompt based on “Where I’m From” by poet George Ella Lyon

Yes, Yes, Yes

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

                   ~Robert Frost

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares many not obliterate the sense of beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.

                  ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary.

                  ~Kahlil Gibran

Me? I think poetry is all those things and more, but high school ruined my enjoyment of it for a long time.  If ideas were conveyed directly with words, then I was fine, but I didn't have the experience or insight to understand all of the layered meanings that the teacher insisted were being shared.  Forget all those literary devices.  Mostly I memorized the poem, including all of the punctuation, and passed the class.

 My friends have introduced me to wonderful poets and poems through books they have given me.  Some include ten poems to set you free by Roger Housden, Rilke's Book of Hours--Love Poems to God, Thirst by Mary Oliver, and She Walks in Beauty--A Woman's Journey Through Poems, selected and introduced by Caroline Kennedy.  I recommend them all.

Right now, I am intentionally reading a poem a day through the Library of Congress' Poetry 180 Project that daily e-mails a poem for American High Schools.  If you're interested, the address is loc@service.govdelivery.com.  Today I received poem 126--one of my very favorite, and I wanted to share it with you.  I encourage you to read different poets--Billy Collins, Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Kay Ryan--you may just find the words for what you've been feeling.

  

God Says Yes To Me 

           by Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don't paragraph
my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I'm telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

Aliens?

There's a lot of power in movies.  Bob and I recently watched three very different movies that introduced us to three people (one fictional) who in some ways were aliens in the mainstream culture.  The people and their films are spell-binding.  I hope you'll check them out.
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 Become immersed in the life of a non-documented worker's harsh life in LA and his hope for his son by watching A Better Life.  We found it very moving and  Demian Bichor's (Carlos) performance deserving of his nomination for Best Actor.  What is it like to live without a driver's license and an inability to rely on police?

A Better Life:

Roger Ebert began his review as follows,
Carlos is an undocumented Mexican immigrant who works as a gardener tending the lawns of Los Angeles residents who are rich, especially from his point of view. He lives from hand to mouth and day to day in a tiny house whose garden is used to raise starter plants for his clients. His wife left some years ago, and he raises his 15-year-old son, Luis, by himself.

In "A Better Life," these two men are being pulled apart by life in America. Carlos (Demian Bichir) keeps a low profile, works hard, holds traditional values. Luis (Jose Julian) hasn't joined a gang in his neighborhood yet, but that would seem to be his trajectory. He misses school, he quietly considers his dad an irrelevant loser, and when he asks for money and there isn't any, he knows how to get under his father's skin: "I'll jack a little old lady."
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Meet one of the greatest painters of the 20th century, Alice Neel.  She didn't lead a conventional life, but chose to lead a life true to herself and her passions--that of an artist and a feminist with a strong social conscience.  It took a lot of courage and came with a high cost, at least as far as her children were concerned.
Alice Neel with her Self Portrait, 1980 (from her website)


Alice Neel:
Director Andrew Neel looks at the life and work of his grandmother, Alice Neel, one of the 20th century's best portrait artists, in this documentary that uses interviews, photos and art to detail her struggles as a painter and single mother. (from Netflix)

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 Quentin Crisp, with his "outlandishly effeminate appearance," was a writer, performer, and raconteur.  He accepted any invitation for a free dinner and charmed his benefactors with his stories.  Born in England in 1908, he lived there until his move to New York in 1981.  Many of those years were difficult for a man who lived an openly gay life.  Sting immortalized him in song and part of the lyrics in the chorus are, "I'm an alien I'm a legal alien.  I'm an Englishman in New York."

An Englishman in New York:


John Hurt plays celebrated, iconic gay author-artist Quentin Crisp (the subject of Sting's song, "Englishman in New York") in this pseudo biopic that chronicles Crisp's high-profile move from London to New York's Bowery in the 1980s. (from Netflix)
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 What a trio these films make!  Don't miss meeting any of these people...your lives will be enriched.