Last month we went to Paris for passports, armed with a thick, triple-checked dossier and many backpacks full of the endless items needed for the care and keeping of two little kids. We knew it wouldn’t be easy. I wasn’t expecting a flâneur’s thoughtful weekend or a romantic getaway. But I dared to hope we could manage a little fun in addition to our American … Continue reading les enfants terribles: a hasty tour of paris with children
I kept thinking what a privilege it was, this work of creating tradition. I get to choose what will come to my family’s mind when they think about Thanksgiving; what will taste like home to them. Continue reading it’s tradition: another thanksgiving in france
We celebrated my birthday this week, with steak and roquefort butter and key lime pie. It made me pensive, as milestones tend to do, and specifically I was remembering two years ago, when I turned 25 and was six and a half months pregnant. My growing belly broadcast a reality that I couldn’t fathom. I was someone’s mother. Clara didn’t have a name. We’d made … Continue reading life lately: liminality & key lime pie
We’ve been blessed lately by a spate of sunny days that make it hard to remember what I was complaining about a month ago. (There’s a lesson in there somewhere.) Things are changing color, trees display their first tentative buds. The days quietly stretch out, waking from winter slumber. The world feels full of possibilities, hope, renewal. The city might burst into song like a … Continue reading life lately:inching towards spring
January is the cruelest month. In every place I’ve ever lived, even the South of France, it is bleak. It is the color gray. It is lassitude and chapped hands, seasonal depression and teeth-chattering chill. I wish we could skip it altogether. In France we are currently under a strict 6 pm curfew. This would feel utterly strange if there was anywhere to go, anything … Continue reading life lately: cruel January
Croissants & Conjugations 