In our transition to streamline, simplify and get rid of unnecessary clutter I sat staring at two boxes too big for one person to carry alone. Tucked behind was my duffel bag of shoes I brought back from France. Granted I threw away a few pair before we left, but all in all I bet I was fashionable with 3 pair of boots (brown, black and red), one pair of running shoes, a pair of hiking boots and trail shoes, a comfy black leather mule, a green cole haan walking shoe, green and orange flipflops, black sandals, a pair of black professional shoes for work, and a two pair of higher heels for summer evenings. Seeing that on paper it seems like alot but at least I know each pair were worn throughout the year. Now however, I am faced with at least 4-5 dozen more shoes that I haven't seen in three years.
"A system." I say to myself. "I need to a system." Pile #1; ugly, old, done. Pile #2, old comfort shoes - think about. Pile #3, useful - think about. Pile #4 Wow, I forgot about these. Pile #4 Absolutely, I missed them.
An hour later I sorted, sifted, tried on and whiddled my shoe collection down to about 2 dozen- a major feat. Still too many I'm thinking looking at my colorful collection of fun tennis shoes in six different colors and sandals of every shape and form and three pairs of comfy velvet and patent leather hush puppies in black, navy , and red. What is a girl to do?
The Good and the Bad of being fluent in a language came to me this morning after a rough evening at an English book club. Living in a country where I only speak a “functional French” and that is still limited to mostly face to face conversations versus the telephone, I’ve actually been secluded from having to deal with conflict, anger, other people’s “pain body” as Eckhart Tolle calls it or ordinary frustrations. I smile on greeting, say “Bonjour,” and at times enter into a conversation about scheduling a play date, a pickup or asking a question. My comfort level with deep, fluent conversations in French is still limited to my hour with my French teacher who tolerates anything and talks with me about everything, a five minute conversation here or there with a patient person I’ve gotten to know or with friends and neighbors when Jean is there to help fill in the gaps later of what I missed. As a result I never realized how protective being only “functionally French” is. I don’t have the capacity, the language, the speed of speech, or the tenacity to engage in conflict in French. As a result I am quite a peace in the language!
Maybe this is my answer to a more peaceful existence while living here!
I had an epiphany today driving from our village of 2000 people in St. Quentin la-Poterie to Uzes a village of 8,000 people 5 kilometers away through the countryside to the larger town of Nimes 30 kiliometers away with a population of 60,000. I realized that if I never went to Nimes or outside of the Uzege region (about the size of Marin country) I would be able to drive without ever stopping at a red light. The reason I realized is that there are no stoplights in this entire area. In 14 summers and over a year living her this is the first time I noticed this. No stoplights. The reason I even noticed it was because I was driving alone and had to stop at a red light. Wow a red light I thought. I haven't seen one of these in a long time.
Instead France and especially in the country roundabouts are loved. Those beautiful circles that are planted with various landscape designs, fountains, vineyards (yes on a roundabout) gardens and trees. The French being a very civilized society knows how to weave their cars through the double lanes, pass a car on the left and cut over just in the nick of time to the cut off to the road on their right. Cars entering the roundabout yield to those already in the circle (first come firt serve) and somehow they all move together.
In driving through these roundabouts I’m amazed at the feeling of flow. There are no abrupt stops where you wait forever for the light to turn green or in the worse cases for the left hand turn lane to go, then the right hand turn lane, then the opposite turn lane, and ten minutes later you get to go. I could have finished the New York Times crossword puzzle in the amount of time I waited.
Now roundabouts have their challenges also, especially if you don’t know which direction to take. More marriages have been lost in a roundabout when the wife is reading the map and the husband is yelling “Which way do I go.” The solution is simple however; keep going around until your wife figures it out. Sometimes it’s one time around, sometimes two and our all time record was four times around.