Someone Else is Living Your Parisian Dream

We left the Club Med Tunisie and it’s perfect weather, enroute Paris, where it was gauged at ‘below freezing.’ At the airport, tanned, rested faces bobbed through the gate, in contrast with their Franceridden rides, who braved the cold to meet insufficiently dressed incomers.

I once stated emphatically, “I’m not taking French (in high school); I’ll never need it.” In similar tone or perhaps an octave higher, I’ve also stated a distaste for these all inclusive resort-types, tucked away in remote cities amidst palm trees and cocktail umbrellas. Markets and crowded streets, back streets and life, are segregated behind tall concrete walls, worming vacationers into a netherworld. “Resort? I don’t think so.” And if you were telling me about your trip to one, I’d likely tune out the story with smiles and nods because they’re boooring.

Happy Feet. Watching The Husband sail.

Color me boring. I’ve discovered - after many adventures in a previous life, a curious and mobile 10 month old baby, endless household chores that actually reproduce more chores when babies are present, and years later - that I just never know what’s good for me.

And what’s good for this new mother and overworked, running-on-fumes father is two weeks of activity, from bows and arrows, tennis, sailing, kayaking, to 4 o’clock daily beignet eating, Baby Club Med’ing, pool side laying, more eating, beach going and general not cooking or cleaning. For all of my travels and touting the ‘real’ travels as those where I’ve visited different cities in the same countries over and again to really get to the culture, I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit that I have no idea of what Tunisian life entails. For those of my friends who clicked over in search of swashbuckling tales and cross country adventures on buses and trains on my first trip to Africa …. I’ve brought no such stories home. Tan lines, relaxation and probably few extra kilos; however, are aplenty. We stayed in the concrete jungles of Djerba - seaside - where the only swashbuckling that took place was the snipping of bushes and landscape, and eradication of weeds, on the premises of each of Djerba’s 100 resorts.

What did I learn? That we really, really needed a vacation where The Husband and I could take time to play together, play separately, read, and not have the stresses and time constraints of everyday life on-the-go. In two weeks, I read as much as I have in the last 9 months, finishing two novels, and finally getting through 4 issues of a backlogged slew of Time magazine, which comes weekly.

Although not planned, the trip coincided with Max’s 9th month, a time when he is on-the-go, non stop; Places to go, new things to find and things to put in his mouth and all that. He’s a very, very busy little boy. Baby Club Med was a great place with a great space for Max to burn some energy under the watchful eye of some enthusiastic young 20-something women. We left Max there each morning in the brightly striped and colored Baby Club space, smiling in the arms of his caretakers who seemed to be genuinely taken by him. This knowledge is further reinforced when I noticed on the 2nd or 3rd day, that he always wore the scent of another woman’s strong perfume on his neck and cheeks. Have other girls been kissing you, Son?

The timing of this trip was impeccable, as mentioned above, Max is Mobile. Max is Moving. Alot. Club Med provided the space for him that we just don’t have in a 45 m2 apartment. As well, this is our first experience with Max in a daycare setting. Though everything went well, I was glad to be nearby each day for this “experiment”, at some time of each day saying to My Husband who would shake his head at me,”Let’s go spy on Max!”

The girls reported at the end every day, that he “eats very well at each meal, that he doesn’t sleep at nap time - but does in the stroller on most days when they would tour the huge premise, and that he traverses the classroom, repeatedly, from end to end. All.Day.Long. They also loved how good nature he is, unless another child steals his books, in which case the fury is unleashed, apparently. These are among his favorite toys these days, and he does not tire of licking the furry bunny on Page 4 of “Pat the Bunny.”

The whole experience was lazy, active, reassuring, relaxing, playful, and oh.so.easy. I didn’t rub any brain cells together. We’re already discussing a next trip, between the US and Europe, where some of my best friends can meet us for some ‘fun in the sun’ with their new babies, as well. While The Husband and I will continue to take ‘real’ trips from time to time, I’ll gladly lose myself poolside in the midst of palm trees, anytime, seeking shelter from the whirlwind of everyday life under cocktail umbrellas.

October 24, 2007 marked the second year of my arrival, as a resident, in France. In celebration, Max learned to put his hands together on the same day, after watching me do it several times whenever we hear the song, “If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands…” If his nature and demeanor aren’t a result of my mothering, then I like to know that he learned at least this from me.

And he’s taught me a world of new boundaries, patience, and love that I didn’t know two years ago when I arrived. Ironically, motherhood has liberated me from the confines of myself in a this place, rather than limited, as some may believe that parenthood takes over one’s life. There have been changes in my day to day, no doubt, but I have become more open to receiving different, previously hardened and cut-off emotions through learning to love in a new and heightened way.

In these 2 years of role shift, I’ve evolved into a person that I didn’t think I had the capacity to be: A mother who loves to mother. My previous fears of not being able to book a flight and grab a bag when the travel bug bites? I’ve realized that no matter how much I still fantasize about wandering distant lands, the desire to stay with Max or to take alternative, safer routes is so much stronger. And I’m perfectly comfortable with these choices. No anxiety, and only the most minimal feelings of ‘missing out.’ So, some places will have to wait for our arrival. While I find myself living vicariously through my friends who are doing a stint with MSF in Kenya, or others who are working in Sudan, or wandering in China, I’ve learned that I have no problem with staying home to be with my son, making plans that suit the family. Not just me. And it feels good, to have this new purpose.

Two years later, there are still many things that I find extremely disagreeable about Paris and the deep rooted culture of what I formerly believed to be French, but may in fact be more Parisian in nature, young and very old, alike. But they’re not enough to make me wish for home, anymore. I find my footing, I’m able to walk away, shaking my head at certain attitudes, wondering why lung cancer hasn’t killed some of them. Like that old, very 6eme woman at BIOgeneration who croaked through the hole in her throat? “Blah, blah, blah, blah, Je veux passe,” she announced, to the air above the stroller. It was in her path. “D’accord“, I croaked back. She still hadn’t looked at me, though. It might have been my comfortable, sage colored fur-lined clogs, which my husband calls house slippers, that invoked her air of “I can’t even be bothered to look down to you“. They do look like slippers, but they’re excellent quality comfort shoes and in some San Francisco circles, are very cool. Ma’am didn’t care. She could stand to own a pair, though, because her cankles were spilling over the top of her own shoes. I encounter this personality type far too often, here in Paris. As I expect it more often than not, sadly, I smile a bit less and stand more on guard. Perhaps the way the Parisians do. At the end of my second year here, am I becoming more like them?

As I embark on year 3, things are falling into place - to make life here more mine and less for someone else. Or perhaps I’d even go as far as to say that being Max’s mother, teacher and playmate has also been a catalyst for life evolving onto a whole different level. At one time or another, I was a student, then an employee working to learn, earn, and advance. And now… here I am, learning, teaching, working at a job where I was able to tell my manager that ‘my son is my first priority’, allowing me the best of all worlds to advance as a mother and my own woman. With some balancing and reprioritizing and the help of friends, I do it all while ensuring that my son stays priority number 1. Women. Mothers. We’re pretty amazing.

Suddenly, everything that I’ve learned and will continue to educate myself on - for fun or professionally - is a tool with which to open his world. Whether it be about technology, the environment, my travels, our world, or even just throwing and catching a ball, all of this and more, is something to share with Max. I look forward to the day when the Husband and I bicker over whose side of Our Rain forest-Jungle Love Story is more accurate, as we relay it to Max. That story is an amazing one laced with anecdotes of the world, oceans, animals, nature, detours taken on a whim, caution thrown to the wind, naivete, childlike wonder, and trusting ourselves and in the goodness of strangers the whole way through. The details, the unlikeliness, the irresponsible nature of how I ended up at the right place at the right time; I want him to know the exhilaration and being on top of the world, as he discovers his place in the world, one border crossing at a time. And let’s not forget everything that I will learn with and from him. Like French.

Motherhood is the light that blinds all that I’ve accomplished and learned in two years here, but I’ve come far on my own. Yes, with a lot of trudging in mud. When I arrived, I knew the words bonjour and payettes. Hello , and glitter. I didn’t know my numbers or the days of the week, but I was very familiar with the word Plouf. And now, I speak with my in-laws, though not very eloquently. I have memories of having met a friend of a friend in the early days, as well, who told me with laughter in her eyes, “Oh! When you speak French, you’ll charm everyone!” You mean when I learn to speak French..in 5 years. In 5 years, I can turn on the charm. In the meantime, I think I’ll go bury my head.

In those days, I often wandered the streets with an Australian woman, named Sam, whom I rarely understood, for her accent was so strong and her voice so low. I learned the streets of Paris by following Sam’s shopping habits through alleys of boutiques. Not long after, Sam returned to Australia - with many, many new clothes, boots and a broken heart. I have yelled, hurled objects and hurtful words, picked up the phone on more than 100 occasions to buy tickets home, cried, and hated with a passion, everything that is Paris. Because many things that are Paris are all things that bore no resemblance to home. Two years later, while Parisian culture is still not for me, my life is evolving to include lighter elements, outside of my core emotions.

I began writing this, with me in mind, my life, but as I’ve realized for a while now, there is no me, anymore, without my son. He impacts every iota of my life. The difference in between Year 1 and Year 3 is a yawning, bottomless ravine, yet I don’t feel that I’ve changed at the core. I still have interests aside from my role as a mom. I care about the environment. I know much about it and will continue to educate myself. I keep up with my former career and still fiddle with this and that, as a wanna-be-geek. I have friends in my life, whom I fully trust with Max’s wellbeing. No, I haven’t become less as I thought I might at one time, with a child tugging at my pant legs and wiping his nose on my shoulder. With the ability and desire to integrate all of the important aspects of my life into motherhood, I’ve become so much more.

As I learned on my of many trips through Asia, back in the days of booking international flights on a whim and leaving just days later with a backpack packed less than 1/4 full: I’m ’same-same. But different.’

I bring my own canvas bags to the grocery store 90% of the time, but I sometimes forget or don’t have them with me for a spur of the moment purchases. They’re too bulky to carry around at all times. I was happy to see that that some grocery stores charge for plastic bags, these days, but the .02 pricepoint, or lack there of, isn’t high enough to make anyone think twice. I once fantasized about those nice old-people carts, which many people of all ages use in Paris to schlep their groceries, but the fantasy died when the baby stroller took it’s place.

I beat myself up every time I have to take a plastic bag from the store, and have put off grocery shopping on occasion just for that reason. So we recently purchased grocery bags by Reisenthal, which I highly recommend after several grocery runs. Made of rip-stop nylon, they’re extremely durable, spacious when open, and most importantly, very compact when folded into their little pouch: smaller than billfold-sized wallet; much smaller than the palm of my hand. And they feel strong. I’ve purchased three (6.95 each, shown in photos) to ensure that I’m never without one: stroller, my work bag, and the baby bag. The website shows several cute floral patterns in different colors at a pricepoint of 4.95 (same bag, different price), but I didn’t see them at Kitchen Bazaar (Ave du Maine, 15eme), so I bought solid ones there, instead.

In the US, they can be ordered through Reusablebags.com .