Karen and Tom’s Excellent Adventure
Lafayette, we are here
We almost didn’t make it. Two and a half years earlier, when we were only ten days away from our scheduled visa interview at the French Consulate, we discovered Karen’s illness. Everything stopped. Karen began a series of two surgeries and recoveries, three months of chemo, and recovery, and another surgery. Now, finally, she is given the “All Clear” from all of her doctors, and they all told her, “Go to France”. And given the all clear, we picked up where we left off, applied for the Long Stay Visa, and one day shy of Karen’s birthday, arrived in France with permission to stay.
It is all so improbable. For most first-time visitors, Paris is so exciting and romantic and enthralling that most everyone thinks at least for a moment, “Wow, I could LIVE here. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live in Paris?” That’s the fantasy, of course. But the reality is that Paris isn’t France, any more than Manhattan is the U.S. And you don’t really experience France until you get out of Paris. And well, that’s what we did, from our very first visit. And along the way both Karen and I entertained fantasies of living in France for longer and longer periods of time. Karen always wanted to have her own kitchen, to go to market, to shop, and to cook in France. Both of us fell in love with the country, and both of us came to understand that we are simply happier here in France.
It has been a long and unique journey from the first tentative and exciting visit to Paris and the Normandy coast in 1998, to life in an apartment in a tiny village in the Sarthe twenty years later. Neither of us could have imagined the series of circumstances that led to this moment, and the more we reflect on it, the more both of us can only shake our heads in amazement and admit that we have been incredibly blessed.
Today we are living in a very small, very French apartment in a tiny, rural village with an ancient church on the minuscule town square, built atop a roman era temple. Or so they say.
Located in the Sarthe, the village of Luche-Pringe sits on the banks of the Loir river about 8 kilometers from the large town of La Fleche, from which the French departed on their journey that led to the founding of Montreal, Canada. In many ways it is a picture postcard village, almost a caricature of The French Village; There are two small bakeries…boulangeries...side by side on the town square. Two small corner-groceries…epiceries; one café, and one small restaurant that doesn’t appear to be open with any regularity. There are two butchers, one located next door to us, where Manu and his wife give us big smiling waves whenever we walk by.
There are times when I feel like I’m living in a movie.
“Lafayette, We Are Here” was a greeting called out by an American general when US troops arrived in France in 1917, upon the American entry into WWI. The implication is one of “returning the favor” for French assistance in the American Revolution.
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Uh-oh!
‘Tis the season! The season for parties and great food and cooking and time in the kitchen. And spending time in the kitchen, is a time that I am always fearful of hearing words I have come to dread there : “Oops”, “Ooopsie”, and (God forbid) “Uh-oh”. Because “Oops”, “Oopsie” and “Uh-oh” in the kitchen inevitably…
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And Now For Your Viewing Pleasure…
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And Give My Love To Rosé
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Papi’s Hidden Treasure
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A View From Across The Pond
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In Praise of the Comma
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What Did You Do In The Quarantine, Daddy?
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Oh, The Pain! The Pain!
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Verdun
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The Bank Job
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Addendum
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Goose Town
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A Small Tragedy in a Tiny Village
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Market Day!
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Ice Cubes and Trash Bags
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The Drink That Nobody Drinks
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That Ain’t Pizza
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A Beautiful Silence
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Travels With Karen
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A Bottle of Calvados
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You can’t be hungry. Its not the right time.
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Let’s Buy a Car!
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Reveillon and Bad Santa
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Cultural Stubbornness
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Heaux, Heaux, Heaux!
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Granted, I may be an unabashed romantic, but there is no denying it….
It’s a revelation that cuts through all of the anxiety and stress of becoming settled in a different culture. And one day, like the proverbial light bulb going on overhead, you say it out loud and you realize that it’s true. It happened almost simultaneously for Karen and me. People in France are just nicer.…
The Butter Shirt
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Talking Turkey
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It’s a fair question…
And it probably should be addressed before we get too far along: How the heck did this happen? How did it come to this? The answer has convinced me that you simply cannot foresee what even the most insignificant occurrences can have on your life. And I’m not talking about pieces of falling space junk;…
France Isn't Paris 