Monday, July 21, 2014
Back to the Suburban Grind: Married to the moment
Back to the Suburban Grind: Married to the moment: Our vacation was almost ruined before it started by my anxiety, the collapsed ceiling in our hallway that fell hours before our flight, and ...
Married to the moment
Our vacation was almost ruined before it started by my anxiety, the collapsed ceiling in our hallway that fell hours before our flight, and the miserable failure of XL Airlines and the absolute breach of professionalism and trust by this new airline. Were it not for a few Xanax in my pocket, the Minnow would be lost. After a night of sleep stolen on the uncomfortable chairs in JFK Airport's Terminal 4, we got on a new airplane commanded by the incredible Omni Airlines and Virginie promptly vomited into my hand. In the end, she was just tired. At the moment I wondered if we were doomed. We weren't and we made it into the air and to Charles de Gaulle Airport by 7 pm France time, only to get into the car with the French husband's brother and head 5 hours to Bretagne. The brothers chatted in the front seat, the French husband surely delirious from a lack of sleep and tortured resting positions, while the girls and I passed out in the backseat, twisted and contorted but salvaged by animal neck pillows. It was crazy getting here, but we were now in France.
They say when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Unless they are estranged, this is true. You want to make a good impression on everyone involved and you hope that you find you are also interested in some, if not all, of the family. When I married the French husband, someone from another country, and sometimes, it seems, another planet entirely, I felt that to know and love France would help me to know and love my hoped-to-be-husband.(I mean, the French got it down this love of country and pride of people.) I got the Rosetta Stone, brushed up on my history, listened to him wax on and on about the superiority of his culture to pretty much all others. He meant well. I know this. It wasn't so much arrogance as a cock-suredness that, frankly, was pretty damned sexy to this American broad.
It was the same with the Austrian for whom I tried just long enough to figure out how to conjugate a sentence or two and then was reduced to tears. I drank beer, ate wurst, supported their teams, even recognized the Habsburg jaw. With the Spaniard, I took 4 semesters of post-graduation Spanish and spoke to his parents, my friends' parents, anyone in my broken Spanish. I ate everything, wanted to learn flamenco, loved that Spanish guitar. I have cheered for all of their futbol teams. Sure, this reporting is stylized and reduced to the most obvious cliches of each culture, but trust, I was deep in. I still am.
Thanks to my anxiety, I still want to make a good impression every time, to marry them ALL all over again, to prove to them that marrying this crazy American girl was a good choice. But I was so tired and grumpy and crazy and tired that I nearly tore my poor French husband a new one when he tried to help me get through the security line while I held our sleeping five year old. Though this trip had been planned for months, we still found ourselves jamming things into a duffle bag at the 11th hour and racing out the door, sadly, without the girls' headphones but WITH my dance shoes and our library cards. :-/
We made such good time on the drive we were sure our luck had turned until we arrived at the airport to the gate of some airline called #XLAirways which has discounted fares to France. I'd heard about the airline just once through a new French friend in my dance class and recalled the many times we'd flown overseas without incident on a variety of airlines. Well, at Terminal 4 at JFK, a crappy early 80s design flaw of a place anchored by all the Middle Eastern and Israeli airlines as well as Caribbean Airlines, there was not one representative from XL Airlines, but there was a young woman in an unmarked blazer slowing passing along the bad news that, though none of us had been informed, there would be a delay in our flight time of 6 hours. Thank you very much and please stand on this line against the wall on the other side of anything civilized. Food, bathrooms, and escape were on the other side of the door. We slept on the floor. It was like the Wizard of Oz except not only are the memories of the start of our trip in black and white, but in slow motion.
On the other side, when we opened our eyes, was France. I love being here. I love attempting and trying to convince myself that I actually speak French. I love that my husband and I, who have been struggling with connection as many parents of time/energy/affection-sucking small children do, have time to look at each other. I love that there is discovery and adventure for all four of us and that the places where we roamed as we fell in love the first time in his country are now shared spaces. We showed them the beach where I first sunbathed topless, shy and embarrassed though no one else was with us, and they went topless too (though of course with decidedly different results than a grown woman bearing it all). The girls climbed the rocks leading to the Cote Sauvage where their father played as a young boy. We ate countless croissants, celebrated the iconic monuments of Paris, and drove from West to Central to nearly southern France squealing with delight at castles/chateaux, cows, sunflowers, horses, and vineyards.
And as much as they loved every one of those moments, they were happiest with their family. Their cousins, their uncle and auntie, their Papi, a surly, French, 84-year old fountain of wicked truth telling and a crazy crotchety Gaul. I married them, married them all. Because of my children, I am infinitely tied to this place. It is a part of them that it can never be for me as I am not OF this, no matter all my attempts. When we left Paris and my parents, who visited with us for a few days, I took the last Xanax (save the one for the return flight), closed my eyes, and let it all spin around me. There is too much wine, too much bread, too much cheese, and staying up too late for the under 8 set. But I feel good about it. I even spend a moment or two with the tatas out on the beach. The French husband gives it hard, he can be relentless in his superior posturing, but sitting with my toes in the sand, eating baguette and cheese, flipping through the glamorous pages of French Vogue, with the sun beating down on my naked stuff, I let go.
My trip was nearly ruined by my anxiety, by the stress that I ooze before I finally let go and just be in the place, whatever the place. Right now we have no idea what time it is or what day. We eat baguette and croissants every morning and sit in the garden with lavender all around. We walk to the sea, we eat good food, and we broken Franglais-speak with anyone who will listen to us try to describe this crazy beautiful moment. I say it every time, right before it's all over. We should do this more often. Travel. Be in the world. Be impressed and make impressions on people. I have to remember how I tied myself to that moment when I am home fretting about the hamsters and the bills and the school and the play dates. I have to remember that all those crazy, beautiful, hectic, wicked, scary, freaky, lovely moments are all part of my life. Even when I am not eating a baguette on the beach in Bretagne.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
They say when you marry someone, you marry their whole family. Unless they are estranged, this is true. You want to make a good impression on everyone involved and you hope that you find you are also interested in some, if not all, of the family. When I married the French husband, someone from another country, and sometimes, it seems, another planet entirely, I felt that to know and love France would help me to know and love my hoped-to-be-husband.(I mean, the French got it down this love of country and pride of people.) I got the Rosetta Stone, brushed up on my history, listened to him wax on and on about the superiority of his culture to pretty much all others. He meant well. I know this. It wasn't so much arrogance as a cock-suredness that, frankly, was pretty damned sexy to this American broad.
It was the same with the Austrian for whom I tried just long enough to figure out how to conjugate a sentence or two and then was reduced to tears. I drank beer, ate wurst, supported their teams, even recognized the Habsburg jaw. With the Spaniard, I took 4 semesters of post-graduation Spanish and spoke to his parents, my friends' parents, anyone in my broken Spanish. I ate everything, wanted to learn flamenco, loved that Spanish guitar. I have cheered for all of their futbol teams. Sure, this reporting is stylized and reduced to the most obvious cliches of each culture, but trust, I was deep in. I still am.
Thanks to my anxiety, I still want to make a good impression every time, to marry them ALL all over again, to prove to them that marrying this crazy American girl was a good choice. But I was so tired and grumpy and crazy and tired that I nearly tore my poor French husband a new one when he tried to help me get through the security line while I held our sleeping five year old. Though this trip had been planned for months, we still found ourselves jamming things into a duffle bag at the 11th hour and racing out the door, sadly, without the girls' headphones but WITH my dance shoes and our library cards. :-/
We made such good time on the drive we were sure our luck had turned until we arrived at the airport to the gate of some airline called #XLAirways which has discounted fares to France. I'd heard about the airline just once through a new French friend in my dance class and recalled the many times we'd flown overseas without incident on a variety of airlines. Well, at Terminal 4 at JFK, a crappy early 80s design flaw of a place anchored by all the Middle Eastern and Israeli airlines as well as Caribbean Airlines, there was not one representative from XL Airlines, but there was a young woman in an unmarked blazer slowing passing along the bad news that, though none of us had been informed, there would be a delay in our flight time of 6 hours. Thank you very much and please stand on this line against the wall on the other side of anything civilized. Food, bathrooms, and escape were on the other side of the door. We slept on the floor. It was like the Wizard of Oz except not only are the memories of the start of our trip in black and white, but in slow motion.
On the other side, when we opened our eyes, was France. I love being here. I love attempting and trying to convince myself that I actually speak French. I love that my husband and I, who have been struggling with connection as many parents of time/energy/affection-sucking small children do, have time to look at each other. I love that there is discovery and adventure for all four of us and that the places where we roamed as we fell in love the first time in his country are now shared spaces. We showed them the beach where I first sunbathed topless, shy and embarrassed though no one else was with us, and they went topless too (though of course with decidedly different results than a grown woman bearing it all). The girls climbed the rocks leading to the Cote Sauvage where their father played as a young boy. We ate countless croissants, celebrated the iconic monuments of Paris, and drove from West to Central to nearly southern France squealing with delight at castles/chateaux, cows, sunflowers, horses, and vineyards.
And as much as they loved every one of those moments, they were happiest with their family. Their cousins, their uncle and auntie, their Papi, a surly, French, 84-year old fountain of wicked truth telling and a crazy crotchety Gaul. I married them, married them all. Because of my children, I am infinitely tied to this place. It is a part of them that it can never be for me as I am not OF this, no matter all my attempts. When we left Paris and my parents, who visited with us for a few days, I took the last Xanax (save the one for the return flight), closed my eyes, and let it all spin around me. There is too much wine, too much bread, too much cheese, and staying up too late for the under 8 set. But I feel good about it. I even spend a moment or two with the tatas out on the beach. The French husband gives it hard, he can be relentless in his superior posturing, but sitting with my toes in the sand, eating baguette and cheese, flipping through the glamorous pages of French Vogue, with the sun beating down on my naked stuff, I let go.
My trip was nearly ruined by my anxiety, by the stress that I ooze before I finally let go and just be in the place, whatever the place. Right now we have no idea what time it is or what day. We eat baguette and croissants every morning and sit in the garden with lavender all around. We walk to the sea, we eat good food, and we broken Franglais-speak with anyone who will listen to us try to describe this crazy beautiful moment. I say it every time, right before it's all over. We should do this more often. Travel. Be in the world. Be impressed and make impressions on people. I have to remember how I tied myself to that moment when I am home fretting about the hamsters and the bills and the school and the play dates. I have to remember that all those crazy, beautiful, hectic, wicked, scary, freaky, lovely moments are all part of my life. Even when I am not eating a baguette on the beach in Bretagne.
(c) Copyright 2014. Repatriated Mama: Back to the Suburban Grind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)