It's Day 30

Hello people of the interwebs.

Today marks the 30th day of my 30 day commitment, something I've sort of harped on over the past few posts because I'm a little surprised I made it without incident. That said, I figured I should address how this blog will progress from here.

I had a lot of fun with the themed days, and will continue to post to them sporadically, though not every one, every week...a Travel Tuesday here, a Secret Saturday there. If you're a regular reader (thank you!) I hope you'll bear with me as I scale back the number of posts I write per week. The rest of October is going to be a little crazy, then November will begin a whole new novel writing project, but fear not, the blog will not be totally forgotten. I aim to post at least once a week, more if I can manage it, and hope you'll keep popping by.

Tomorrow I'll board a 6am train that'll take me a couple hours north to attend an international book fair, complete with interviews with and readings by authors, discussions about digital publishing, and the chance to meet other members of SCBWI (Society for Children's Books Writers and Illustrators). My head is so submerged in writing and publication, I never want to come up for air!

Until next time, thanks for reading.

France? Oui, s'il vous plaît.

Travel Tuesday

Today I’m not writing about one particular trip, but my overall impressions and experiences with the people of one particular country. Having just spent a weekend in and around Colmar in the Alsace region of France, my tummy still full of escargot gratin, and my trunk full of fresh pastries (okay, maybe not full), I’ve got France on the brain.

When Chris and I first moved abroad in 2004, beginning this high travel way of life, we did not immediately venture off to Paris, perhaps the most popular European destination for Americans. We visited Croatia in the east and Ireland way up north before we ever set foot in France. It’s relevant to note here that we were living in Northern Italy at the time, the French border a mere 4 hour drive away. France was so close, but our desire to explore within its borders were heavily influenced by what other people told us about their time there. For instance, we heard nothing but negative stories about Paris. Everyone we talked to who’d been said everyone was so rude, they didn’t care to ever return. Looking back now, I’m a little ashamed that we let other people’s impressions dissuade us from going anywhere, but we were new and impressionable; call us Freshmen of the University of Travel.

It was November of 2006 when we decided we really did want to see Paris, and it would be our first Thanksgiving not spent with friends or family around a big table full of enough food to feed an army. We went prepared for over the top snobbery, pushy Parisians and endless pretension, but what we discovered had us floored: Parisians were nice, and not just nice, but helpful. Sure we inspired our share of sighs when we walked a little too slowly in front of someone who knew where they were going, but you get that in any big city. (This reminded me of being in New York for the first time and being surprised by the helpfulness of the people there, too, after being fed story after story of the horrible and rude people of that metropolis.) We attempted French whenever possible, both badly and apologetically, and I think that helped because we weren’t feeding the stereotype of the loud, entitled Americans who demand to be catered to. People were generally friendly and patient as we stumbled through their melodic language, smashing its toes with our clumsy American accents. And suddenly some of the stories of horrid rudeness we’d heard made sense, because we’d seen some of the people who'd told us these stories out and about. The difference was, we embraced the fact that we were visitors in someone else's country, and we were trying.

One night we were looking for an art gallery in a neighborhood near the Moulin Rouge. We’d been over and over the map but still couldn’t figure out what we were missing. It must’ve been around 9 o’clock at night and we were staring at our little tourist map under a streetlamp. There was a woman walking toward us leading her toddler by the hand, and I reflexively smiled at the little girl as she drew closer to us. I didn’t expect what happened next.

“Ay twa vare do? Preesh voosadi?” said the woman, or something that sounded like that to my non-French-understanding ears.

I gave her the look that meant I didn’t understand a thing she’d said, which I’ve now perfected and consists of eyebrows raised to my hairline, eyes as wide as golf balls, and a cartoon-esque smile.

To which she responded, “Oh, pardon me. Do you need some help finding something?”

Clearly a Parisian walking home with her daughter, and she was asking to help us. This was our Paris, and pretty indicative of the rest of our time there. It should be said that we did encounter one man whose rudeness had me considering walking out on the check, but he wasn’t even French.

After that trip, we happily returned to France several more times, eager to help them get through some of those butter croissants and amazing cheeses and bread and wine and crepes and foi gras on toast and fondant chocolate and wow do we love French food.

This weekend in Colmar, our experience was no difference. Granted, Colmar isn’t Paris, but it gets it share of tourism all year long, or so our waiter said today at lunch. Jordan’s actually from New Zealand, but living in Colmar because of, what else, the love of a French woman. Before we knew he wasn’t French and he took our order, he was quick to make sure I knew I’d ordered snails, and his facial expression told me he expected some show of revulsion on my part. I smiled and nodded, because I freaking love escargot. My favorite is the Alsace style of simmering the snails in garlic butter, or sometimes pesto, but today it was escargot cooked in a gratin kind of potato, cheese, and onion casserole and I’m still full. After we’d eaten Jordan asked where we were from, detecting our North American accents, and we had a nice conversation with him about our respective homes and living abroad. His fiancé is from Colmar, it turned out, so there he was, trying to learn French and making plans. As we chatted on, I noticed the rest of the (presumably) French restaurant staff standing behind the bar watching with smiles on their faces. Later we mused that perhaps they were giggling at the chatty Kiwi they worked with, for Jordan was the only waiter we had such a nice long conversation with on the trip. We even talked about service with Jordan, and he kind of rolled his eyes and commented on how rude the service usually was around Alsace, but we had to disagree – we’d had great service, friendly, even. He said we’d been lucky, and perhaps he was right, but to this day we’ve never had a terrible experience anywhere in France. Knock on wood.

Hiking back out of Verdon Gorge

Jordan is the second non-French person we’ve met living in France because of a woman, the first being artist Kamil Vojnar. We met Kamil athis gallery in St. Remy a couple of years ago. Kamil is Czech, and his wife, a French woman from St. Remy, which was one of the stops we made on our road trip through Provence in the spring of 2010. That weeklong trip has got to be one of my favorites. We took to the road and rolled through the countryside of southern France, stopping in Apt, Rousillon, Moustiers-Sainte-Marie, Avignon, St. Remy, and Annecy slightly out of Provence on our way home. On that trip we learned how amazing a simple picnic of market sausage and cheese on a fresh baguette with local mustard and fresh strawberries on the side could be. We also learned how good small town French hoteliers were at charades, as this was generally how we communicated with them. We hiked to the bottom of a small canyon on that trip, and only found our way out because of some French hikers who’d come prepared with a map of the trails. We tried real aioli for the first time and never loved blanched vegetables so much. I fantasize about having a little cottage in the countryside where I can buy my produce from the farm down the road and write in a garden bursting with lavender.

I guess my point in recounting these times in various parts of France is that people are people, and just because a person happens to have been be born in a place like Paris doesn’t make them any more (or less) likely to be a jerk. People appreciate it when you attempt to speak their language while you’re visiting their country, in the same way we expect everyone in the States to speak English. People also appreciate it when you acknowledge the cultural differences with respect. Every place has its own rhythm, and you don't have to understand it or force yourself to fall in line with it, but it is my opinion that you should at least be respectful, if not give it a try. The people of any given place know its rhythm and therefor function with it; this is something visitors do not innately understand, so my advice is to try not to hurry when you're there. (Thanks, Nancy, for this thought.) Take a step back and just observe a place for a minute; you might find you understand it a little more. And yes, some people can be real douchebags, but that’s true wherever you go in the world. If there’s one thing I’ve learned while living this traveler’s dream over the past eight plus years, it’s that no matter where people come from, we are all very much the same. We all love, fear and dream. We can all be rude and obnoxious, and we can all be gracious and helpful, depending on our moods. Everyone has their moments, I think it has more to do with our attitudes than anything else, and being open to whatever comes, in my opinion, is the best way to be in a world so full of could-be spectacular moments.

Mazel Tov, ME!

Mazel Tov Monday

I know I said MTM would be for pointing the good job stick at others, but I'm nearly done with the 30 day commitment of daily blogging and I'm damn proud of myself. It wasn't easy, and I'm afraid it wasn't always mind-bending or revolutionary, but I stuck with it. 

When I was down in the dumps, I wrote. When I felt like I had no time, I wrote. And even when I got no comments to suggest anyone else in the whole wide world had read the post that day, I wrote. Yea ME for following through when there was no one holding a gun to my head or guilting me into keeping my word, because that means I did it for myself. This means likely nothing to anyone else, but it means something big to me. I'm not very good at keeping my word to myself, you see, so this gives me hope.

It takes a bunch of tiny steps before you can look back and realize you just made a really big one. Here's to the tiny ones.

Mazel Tov, Me, on making it to the end of my 30 days (tomorrow) without tripping up or justifying away the commitment I made to myself.

Dun, da-da-daaa!

Something Learned Sunday

It's almost over, the commitment of 30 days! And being the final SLS of this stretch, let's look at what I've learned from this whole experience:

• It is possible to post something every day and still be a functioning human being - mostly - so if I can post a blog daily, I can surely write/revise daily.
• Writing every day is easier for me when there are restrictions in place. Who'da thunk being less free would work better for me?
• I probably put too much stock in comments as proof of readership, but am capable of writing for myself anyway.
• The Blogosphere is a really fantastic place full of amazing people and lots of support.
• It's impossible to type with Murphy on my lap.
• Murphy will not, in fact, implode if I ignore him to work for a while.
• I like Britney Spears less now that I've seen her on XFactor.

And the biggest lesson of all...

• I can follow through with a commitment I make only to myself.

Quotes I'm Loving

Whatever I Feel Like Friday

So I admit this is sort of a cop-out since I'm not really writing anything of my own, but sometimes it's worth taking a minute or two to appreciate the words others have managed to put together so well.

“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”

- E.E. Cummings

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”

- Henry Ford

If there's a book you really want to read, but it hasn't been written yet, then you must write it.  ~Toni Morrison

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.  

~Anton Chekhov

Outside a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside a dog, it's too dark to read.

~Groucho Marx

Thanks, Universe

Thankful Thursday

Image borrowed from VeryLOL.com

Today I'm feeling hopeful, and dare I say, a little excited. There's a ton to be stressed about as it feels like my life is up in the air right now, but I've noticed a whole bunch of coincidences recently. I keep hearing I'll see it if I'm open to it... Okay, Universe, you've got my attention.

I'm not sure how I feel about coincidences. I'd like to not believe in them, but to instead subscribe to the belief that everything happens for a reason, and there is a path for me and it's just a matter of me recognizing the signs. This would mean, to me, that there is some magic in the world that exists just to keep things in balance and help us all find our way to where we're meant to be.

However, the ever-skeptical questioner in me (and lover of general nerd-dom) can't un-hear Sheldon's scientific take: "This would be one of those circumstances that people unfamiliar with the law of large numbers would call a coincidence." (If you don't know Sheldon, you don't watch The Big Bang Theory. Luckily, I forgive you.) And even if the lines written for this fictional character on a TV sitcom are not, in fact, pulled straight from authentic scientific sources, it sounds pretty rational to me.

Either way, several things have suddenly lined up for me very recently with regards to my writing. It's not as if anyone has hunted me down and demanded I hand over my manuscript for immediate publication, but the opportunity to go for it has just sort of popped up on my radar, thus giving me a really good reason to get this thing done already. Silent Refuge has been hanging around far too long, and it's time to let it go. I'm sort of scared to say much more for fear of jinxing myself, not that I'm superstitious like that... Let's leave it at a bunch of strangely specific things are falling in line in a way that makes me wonder if perhaps I could have some sort of success if I jump onboard. Right now. And even if this doesn't go the way I'd like, I'm still grateful for the kick in the pants. 

So here I go. I'll let you know what comes of this vague (for you) but exciting (for me) coincidence-laden...I don't know, time? 

Dear Universe, you may or may not possess the ability to accept my appreciation, but for the sake of my hopefulness, I'm going to go ahead and assume you do. You've suddenly made me wonder if some things really do happen how they do and when they do for the best, or even for a reason, as they say. You've placed some deadlines in my path that could not be more specific and perfect for where I am, and given me reason to believe I'm headed in the right direction. You have given me the gift of drive and confidence.

And for that, I thank you.

Silence

Wordless Wednesday