Groundhog Day

Where'm I at? Is it today or last month?

The house was sold almost three weeks ago and things were rolling - we went to England pre-riots and played gigs that all were enjoyable and well-attended. Even the one in Mildenhall Football Club ended up being fun. Got to see Eric's gorgeous granddaughter. Then we went to Paris for the final visa appointment at the US Embassy.

And since then we've been in weird semi-existence with Eric's passport in the ether. You hear about how tough the US is on immigration but I was sure we had everything they'd asked for and Eric had even tested negative for syphilis and chicken pox. No - they still need more. We've been trying to get them the additional paperwork they require, at the same time turning everything around for the US house purchase - all from the French countryside where getting things done is sometimes possible if it isn't Tuesday afternoon, or Monday morning or any time Wednesday or Thursday before 3:30, but not after 5:30. Multiplied by August.

We had to break down and get a French mobile - the final straw was trying to make a call from the only payphone within miles, the one attached to a wooden toilet cabin that serves a small camping area. While I tried navigating the bank voice command system, shouting "PERSONAL", "REPRESENTATIVE!" "NO" and practically screaming my social security number and other pertinent details into the ancient receiver, some poor camper was whimpering, groaning and eventually releasing his bowels on the other side of the wall. "Would you like to make a deposit?" "SOMEBODY ALREADY HAS!"

Later at the library, Eric and I tried to get on the internet to find a Fed Ex place while a safari-suited man across the table kept clacking his dentures. Why was it that the harder I concentrated and the more frustrated I got, the more his clacking intensified?

The only Fed Ex depot around was fifty minutes away - Eric drove us there in thirty.

"What's that burning smell?" I asked.

He took a turn on two wheels, clipped a chicken, roared past an old lady on two crutches and navigated the BUSES ONLY lane. "Somebody's brakes," he answered nonchalantly. Hmm - and I'm vouching for this man.

Still, there have been some lovely dinners and moonlit rambles with our friend Emmanuel - we're staying at his place in a tiny hamlet next to an ancient church. One of our paperwork deliveries showed up by UPS yesterday and we'd stationed ourselves outside the house so the delivery guy could find us. We had wagers going on whether it was the hamlet's first UPS delivery ever - he confirmed that it was.

The new owners of our old house are loving France. They adore the house - we went over for dinner the other night and their stuff looked so cute in the place. The kids have been swimming at the nearby lake every day, playing in the garden, riding the rusty old bikes we left behind.

They had to go away for a little while. And since we already paid for the phone and internet in the house up til the end of August, and canceling the service early to move away outside of France involved sending a registered letter and signing an attestation and packing and mailing the router via Chronopost and probably a trip to the mairie and another embassy somewhere, they said "hey, why don't you just come by and use the phone and internet here, at your old place?"

Which is where I'm sitting now. All the neighbors that we said our tear-filled goodbyes to a few weeks ago have gotten used to seeing us again. Like that old TV commercial "I thought you died." The double-takes have turned back into howdy neighbor waves.

It's like we never left.

Skeleton Crew

We're camping out in the house now. There's four mugs, a couple of dinner plates. A towel or two apiece. A pot, frying pan and baking dish. Two laptops, a couple paperbacks, a television that will soon be made redundant, the 4th season of Peep Show, some garden chairs and a wobbly old table. Suitcases as nightstands. And all our musical equipment - we have a gig in Le Dorat on Saturday.



The rest has made it up to England. Like a modern divorce where everyone co-operates, this is a modern house sale - the new owner came down with a load of stuff before the final completion date, and offered to take a load for us. Shipping from France is complicated - of all the ports in this country, right now only one will do container shipping of personal goods so getting space is difficult and expensive. So we go through England - that's where we'll put everything in a container for the US.



Packing has been all-consuming, that and healing. I'm going back to the fine doctor in Bordeaux tomorrow, hoping that he'll give me the okay to put makeup on.

It's been pretty bizarre, having a nurse come to the house every other day. I feel like I should be wearing a turban and being taken out for a spin in a wheelchair. Feeling guilty about using what feels like a luxury, I'd asked at the hospital if they couldn't just show me how to take care of things myself. They insisted that it was more consistent with an infirmiere. I can see now that it also helps keep someone in employment in rural France. In a few days I'll say goodbye to her. Then we'll have a little get-together with our friends and neighbors, and the new owners. Strange, melancholy, exciting, terrifying. Did I say exciting?



Two months ago it was "will we outlast the bottle of balsamic?" - now it's the expiration date on the milk bottle. We'll be going off before it does.

Packing

I'm sorry things degenerated for a while there into the equivalent of a TV clip show - sort of like that early Simpsons episode where Homer ends up in the hospital and instead of an actual story line, they just revisit past episodes? I remember what a shock that was, but how they turned it into comedy gold. No such luck here.

Ashamed to say I even sunk to re-using a photo from a post a year or two ago. But all that's behind us now, because I'm on the mend. Maybe I had a sort of revelation one night when I was feeling sorry for myself. It went something like: "Oh fuck it. Just...FUCK IT! I'm alive, I'm reasonably healthy if kind of banged up, I've got a lovin' man beside me, my family's all doing okay, we have a buyer for the house. What is, is."

Thought of stopping the blog temporarily because things are in such a state of flux right now, and it's hard to concentrate. But I'd miss it. Just as it's never a good idea to question the meaning of life while applying eyeliner in a dank basement dressing room with only beer crates for company, so it's best not to examine too closely why I share details of my life in public while sitting in a roomful of moving boxes.

More soon.

In The Club

I went out for the first time in a week yesterday - the neighbors were having their annual get-together. Angeline from next door had been over to check on my progress and insisted we come. She said everyone would understand.

A little old lady demanded an explanation for my bandaged and battered appearance after I'd done the obligatory kissing, very gingerly, uncertain that we'd ever met before. "Chacun son misère," she said.

"To each his own misery." I'd finally made it.

France is full of little expressions that sum it all up. I guess American English is too ("it is what it is" springs to mind). I try to stay out of territory covered by pat phrases, but sometimes it's nice to be in the club. For a little while, anyway.

We told all the neighbors we'd be leaving soon, and that they will have a lovely new family in our place. With kids. I remembered Hazel joining us at the first neighborhood meal, and how she fled in tears from the farci and the toothless as they drank soup and red wine. The new family, will they join us, next year? the neighbors asked. They are really sad to see us go, and we feel sad too.

They've lived here there whole lives. Not much changes. They accepted us and now we're moving on. Their lives are very different from ours and in the end, there was never much to talk about.

The pears on the tree out back are coming in. When they ripen and drop, we'll be gone.

I get a little misty about that, and then remember what a nuisance they were, those damn pears. If you leave them on the ground, they ferment and gather wasps.

Maybe some day I'll feel like I have time to go collecting, cooking and preserving pears. But not yet. I have other things I want to do first.

Today I Am A Man

Today's the day for Fete de la Musique in France. A few years back I wrote about about how Eric and I rented an electrogenerator and spent the day and night traveling around the area, setting up and playing for the few. A memorable experience but a one-time only thing.

I noticed this year what was supposed to be a day of musical anarchy has gotten even more and more organized - June 21 falls on a Tuesday, so posters and flyers advertise Fete de la Musique events for the 18th and the 25th because those are Saturdays and people are more likely to go out. C'mon, go nuts for a change, open the shutters and leave your house on a Tuesday night! Maybe in Paris but not in the countryside. So what's the point of this thing again?

We could have fired up the old electrogen today, but I'm recovering from Mohs surgery and that's a good excuse, right? I'd been fretting about this skin cancer thing - BCC, the non-deadly kind. Just a tiny little pore on the side of my nose that the dermatologist with the lousy bedside manner biopsied and sent me for surgery. I've had a hell of a time finding the most effective kind in France. Asking various doctors about what is absolutely standard these days (this is for surgery on the face, where conserving as much tissue as possible is what you'd hope for) I was told - nope, not in France. I asked if it was because the complexions are heartier, less pale, so less incidence of skin cancer? Not at all. It's socialized medicine. Mohs is too costly.

Going to the doctor in France is a mix of brusqueness and care that it is hard to imagine in the US, where health care is huge business. If they're going to sock you with a bill they better provide some service. It all works very differently here. The first time we saw a doctor for a checkup, I couldn't believe it when I called for an appointment - "Can you come in...tomorrow morning?" Expecting a delay of several weeks, I figured this doctor must not have any patients, but that's just standard. She took so much time with each patient, I wondered if perhaps she was charging by the hour. Then it came time to pay and we gave her our euros and she pulled a little pouch out from her desk and made change. I double-checked that there was hand soap at the sink, thinking of her handling money all day. When she retired, I called asking if she had any recommendations, anyone who was handling her patients now, taking over the practice? No. Nope, sorry, can't help you there.

Everything's covered, or almost covered, by the system. But when you get a gynecological exam or mammogram, you the patient are not covered - literally: no robe, no sheet, just drop your clothes right there in a corridor. But if you need a taxi, or a nurse to visit you at home - just call! It's taken care of.

I ended up finding a hospital in Bordeaux that does Mohs surgery so we drove there yesterday morning. I'd called beforehand, just trying to verify that I had an appointment, and did I need to know anything - this is surgery we're talking about. Nothing but irritation from the nurses.

But when I was under the knife (and it was a knife and it was awful and I'll never go through anything like that again without being unconscious. That option was not available to me nor were tranquilizers which would have been welcome. I can understand much better now the idea of cardiac arrest on the operating table. I prayed, I vowed to be a force for good, I imagined myself a soldier on a Civil War battlefield and thought "this has to be better than that." I apologized to the nurse for being anxious. "Vous avez raison" she said - you've got reason to be - I'm not sure if that made me feel better or worse) anyway, the nurse was holding my hand and being so sweet. The doctor took the whole day with me in between sending to the lab. He told me several times I'd done the right thing because the cancer was very deep. He stitched me up and left me so swathed in bandages I can only think of that poster of the Phantom of the Opera. They gave me a private room to lay down in in between cutting and sewing and for Eric to wait in. I told him after it was one of the worst days of my life but at least he was there to share it with.

So no Fete de la Musique today. I hope it's alright to write about this. I hope the stitches will be okay and the scar will fade or if it doesn't that I'll look dangerous in a chic way. Or chic in a dangerous way. The nurse is coming over tomorrow. In some rite of passage I never wanted (who does?), today I am a man.

The Chain

I just told my next door neighbor that we're moving.

"C'est pas vrai!" She had tears in her eyes. I'd told her a while back it was inevitable. But I don't think she'd registered it until now.

But all that hard work that Eric did on the place, she said.

True, the man worked like a demon. But wasn't I there too? Is it just this part of France? Around here, when a man is on a ladder or loading wood into the barn or leaning out of a window painting, it's "oh, isn't he wonderful - look at him working". When a woman has a paintbrush in her frozen claw or is hacking through waist-high weeds with a scythe, it's "il faut travailler" (it's necessary to work).

I wanted to scream, then remembered I don't have to - we're leaving.

Instead I hugged my neighbor and told her I'll miss her. Which I will.

We have a buyer. We have somewhere we want to move. I looked for a video of this Fleetwood Mac song because I'd heard of a real estate chain but never knew how stressful it was to be in one. A rather short chain, thank God, but a chain nonetheless. Then there's doctors' appointments and visa interviews. Hoping all the pieces hold until the thing completes and we can move forward. Until then I'll have a hard time writing about it.

There were several live versions, but this has to be the best - Lindsey Buckingham has always been one edgy dude but here he outdoes himself.

I feel downright calm in comparison.

One Of The Flock

I was running away from the news, from the computer. And looking for a snack.

Sunday afternoon in rural France. Good luck finding anything to eat. The shops and restaurants are closed. Most of the bars are closed. And even the ones that are open don't have much in the way of food. Some peanuts maybe?

Then I remembered - it's springtime! Vide greniers, flea markets. People selling old stuff and always a few tables with cans of foie gras, cassoulet. Bottles of wine, apples. Usually a cake or two.

So I was navigating the tiny roads, fuel gauge on E but no gas station between me and the closest flea market. I figured it was worth the risk, to get a snack.

I never imagined I could enjoy driving a manual car - not back when I was learning. But now that I know the roads, where to brake and shift, through muscle memory as much as anything, I feel capable when driving again. The way I used to do back on the open roads of the USA.

Back. I'm going back! I can't stop thinking about it. Everything I do I'm thinking, "if all goes well I won't be here this time next year." And this (brake, shift, shift, accelerate) will all be a memory. I am ready to go.

Round the corner in front of Chateau de Brie, start to descend and there's a car in front of me, slowing down. A flock of sheep is being driven along the road. They're so cute.

And annoying. Really annoying. The woman urging them on isn't really urging hard enough. She's smiling a little too smugly, and her clothes aren't exactly farmer clothes. A sheep farmer come lately?

At first I'm smiling too. Look at the little one, trailing behind his mother. So cute.

Then I'm cursing, the same as if I was stuck in traffic on the Williamsburg Bridge or on Chagrin Boulevard or Hillsboro Road. "Would you move your fucking....sheep?!"

Finally make it to the flea market. And it's like every person I ever met around here is there. Not friends I've made but people like the butcher and the massage therapist, and the evil boulanger and the kooky woman who used to sell old furniture. I'm thinking maybe I died, back by that flock of sheep. It could be that this is what it's like in purgatory, because nobody that I really really love is there, and we're all going to be stuck together for eternity unless I make amends for...things.

I see Nick and Angie and that hints at a more promising forever, but they're headed in the other direction. Then I hear Shania Twain blaring out of tinny speakers that are hanging everywhere. That would be about right, for purgatory. I like Shania okay, but with all the country music I love to choose from, it would be pretty sad if she was the soundtrack I had to purify myself to.

I hear the thumping of boots on a wooden stage, and across a field I see a team of country line dancers. All togged up in jeans, plaid western shirts and matching straw cowboy hats, they are kicking and stepping, slapping leather and turning and clapping, then changing position and doing it all again. Brows furrowed, mouths set in grim determination, eyes staring straight ahead - they don't appear to be having much fun. I see the woman who owns the lingerie shop execute a joyless heel and toe. The man who works at the dump, the lone male dancer, is the only one who smiles.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Inside I do a little of both while dialing in "wry smile" for a facial expression. Then I find the table with the cakes. I buy some and hurry back to the car, which I wisely parked facing away from the fete. I must've known I'd want to flee.

"If the car starts, and has enough fuel to get home, I promise to be a better person," I pray. I turn the key.

Then I see Bob Dylan's "Modern Times" on the seat. I put it into the player. "Thunder On The Mountain" comes in. It's not purgatory any more. Or if it is, it's not so bad, because someone I really really love is there.

The lousy and wicked and perfect things people do and the future in front of me and Eric, and whatever missteps behind and ahead - like a good acid trip, Bob still helps me feel like it's all leading to something. I guess that's called hope? Happy Birthday Bob.

I'm tempted to go back to the flea market and force them to stick Dylan in the player and see how the line dancers do. But the gas tank light just came on.