Paris Letters (21 page)

My son, Bruce, the one who lives in Simcoe and ordered your letters for me, has been following your blog and was telling me about your touring around. I had my sister and sister-in-law from Ottawa here for the first time ever, so I have been seeing my own neighborhood through someone else’s eyes. I took them to Manitoulin Island one day to tour around, hence this card. Aside from the landscape—very different from around here—and the lovely non-chain shops, they were thrilled with cormorants and Sandhill cranes that they had never seen. They had to hop out of the car to take pictures of a pair of Canadian geese with twelve goslings that crossed the road in front of us and slid down the bank and into the creek that the road followed. None of this was new to me, but I was gobsmacked by the thousands of yellow lady slippers growing in the ditches. I thought we had been looking at dandelions until I had to slow down to make a turn and realized what they were. I had never seen yellow ones and in such profusion! There are four deep pink—almost burgundy—ones on my walking trail that thrill me, but these thousands took my breath away. I guess we just have to be open to the wonders around us.

I absolutely love the watercolor sketches that accompany your wonderful letters. Thank you for the personal note (on a piece of a Fitzgerald book!). What a clever, inventive woman you are!

Happy reading and exploring.

Mary

• • •

September, Canada

Dear Janice,

Glad to hear you are back in Paris. Hope the Canadian holiday lived up to the Euro boyfriend’s expectations.

This card is from a restaurant I’ve been to three times this summer. It has a lovely garden setting and wonderful food. I have the same thing each time. I can’t get past the Stilton cheesecake with salad greens!

The roadsides here are resplendent with the golds (goldenrod and tansy) and purples (asters of all shades of purple) and white (Queen Anne’s lace) to rest the eyes. The maples are beginning to turn and the ferns are browning. The Canadian geese and Sandhill cranes are gathering in the local farmer’s fields. We are starting to hear flocks of geese go over at dusk and daylight. We suspect they overnight on our beaver pond, but the trail is steep and tricky, so night is not a good time to go see if they are there.

We spent the weekend with a group of friends in the South River, south of North Bay down Hwy. 11. I was there to learn to rug hook. Actually, now that I know how it’s supposed to be done, I learned it’s not going to ever be something I do. But good to get away and learn something new. We also had a couple of lovely dinners out and enjoyed the beautiful old house we rented.

I am busy dealing with garden produce before the frost gets the last of everything. Tomatoes and beans yesterday. Pears today.

I always look forward to your letters. Thanks.

Mary

In October, I received a letter from Mary full of what appeared to be amber-colored crumbs.

October, Canada

Dear Janice,

Fall here has also been “changeable.” One day warm and lovely, the next gray and miserable. We actually had wet flurries today! I picked these leaves last month when they were at their peak and ironed them between sheets of waxed paper so hopefully they will stay intact until they get to you. The rain and winds have stripped most of the trees around here. Thankfully the evergreens fill in the spaces, even though they, too, have dropped lots of needles this year. Thanks for the soup recipe. Just happens I have some squash—three humongous ones from the garden. I have cooked one down and used it in muffins, pie, and “pumpkin” butter—a first try this year. It’s definitely soup weather so I look forward to giving yours a try.

Off to a quilt show in Sudbury tomorrow with friends and taking part in a Fiber Festival next weekend. I am demonstrating the making and using of yo-yos—not the wooden kind—fabric circles gathered to look sort of like flowers. I am working on a pair of heavy wool/nylon blend work socks for our youngest son. Part of his Christmas present.

À bientôt!

Mary

Dear Áine,

Winter in Paris is light on tourists, heavy on rain, and very light on light. The place is plunged in darkness from late afternoon until 8 a.m. If I stay inside until 5 p.m., I’m out of luck for any chance of soaking up natural Vitamin D from the occasional ray of light. I’ve spent most of my time cozy inside with my sweater, blanket, and tea.

The flower shops are selling hyacinth bulbs. I’ve brought a few of them home and watched them slowly burst forth in Easter pinks and purples on my window sill. It’s more entertaining than looking beyond the windows to more gray—perpetual dusk.

The cafés are bustling par usual, except most patrons are inside, shoulder to shoulder, sipping their café crèmes. Only the smokers brave the seats outside, huddled together—puffing and sipping but never lingering.

For two days, it snowed enough for an army of small snowmen to appear. But then came the rain and all that remains are a few twigs and carrots. The wind has been particularly harsh, and when it arrives with the rain, they gang up, snatching umbrellas like common thieves and sending them crashing and rolling down the street until they slink and hobble like injured spiders.

Tonight there will be no rain, just cold. It may be a good night for cassoulet at the bistro up the street. Cassoulet is a bean and meat stew, and really, a fancy name for what we call pork and beans in Canada.

And tomorrow, another day of gray, followed by darkness, with the lamps working overtime to make the city look like a big birthday cake.

Janice

29

Potatoes and Proposal

I was burning a pot of potatoes on the stove. Smoke billowed and I started yelling about how dinner was completely RUINED and I spewed a lot of other choice words that Christophe would never find in his French-English dictionary. I really let those potatoes know just how I felt about how unkind they were to ruin dinner. Christophe stood by and stared. “Is this who you are?”

A question. An exhale. The truth. The truth is that this is not who I am. The truth is I was stressed about more paperwork from the French government requiring more information I didn’t have and didn’t know how to get. I was projecting my frustrations onto the potatoes. It wasn’t their fault. I didn’t know how to explain any of this to Christophe, so I sighed and shook my head. “No, this is not who I am.”

He handed me a baguette. “We eat without potatoes. No problem.” And it was done. Later that night in bed, he turned to me and whispered, “Darling, no more potatoes for you. It’s my job now. I am Polish man. Potatoes no problem.”

A few days later, the burning continued. This time, in the shower. The stupid shower of squalor. First, the shower curtain would slick up my leg. So gross. Even when I bought a new one, fresh out of the package, I felt like I was at the Bates Motel. To avoid the shower curtain, I had to lean back toward the tap that sometimes dripped hot water on my bum, which it did that day. I had reached my limit with this shower. I stormed out, wrapped myself in a towel, and stood dripping and heaving in front of Christophe who was happily strumming away on the guitar. “I…need…a new shower door…and new…taps.” I was crying now. “My bum is burnt…AGAIN!” Now I was wailing. I had mentioned the shower door and taps before but was clearly not convincing. He began with his same reason as before, “It’s not my house.” And yes, a shower door did slide into the home renovation category, which would require approval or permission or something that always made him hesitate. But this time I had ammo.

My eyes narrowed. “I want a new shower door for my birthday.”

Now, Christophe’s greatest concern was gift-giving. He always freaked out, not knowing what to give and wanting me to be happy. So he was usually relieved when I told him exactly what I wanted. Here in this moment, I told him exactly what I wanted. He looked at me, dripping and shivering before him. He exhaled. “Anything for you, my darling.”

A new shower door may not seem like a romantic gift, but after getting down to my one-suitcase life, I discovered that for me, lasting happiness comes from experiences, not things. And though a shower door is a thing, it would provide daily spa experiences.

After a few weeks of searching for a store that sells shower doors in Paris (not easy to find), we had it delivered, assembled it, and installed it in the bathroom.

And then.

He was standing in the shower. I was standing outside the shower. No one was touching the shower door that decided to, on its own accord, come crashing to the ground and break into thousands of tiny light blue glass pieces.

Here’s something I learned that day about Christophe: when he was very mad, he whistled. I suggested warming up leftovers for dinner. He suggested going out for a beer afterward. We agreed. He shoveled up the glass and I got busy with dinner, both of us on opposite edges of the apartment stewing in our own misery. I wanted that shower door. He wanted to give it to me.

Soon he came out with a bloody finger. “Darling, I need something.” I looked at his finger and grabbed for the bandage.

He went back into the bathroom, and I went back to the kitchen. He came back to the kitchen, got on one knee, and revealed an aquamarine ring, the exact shade of his eyes…and the exact shade of the thousands of pieces of glass scattered in the bathroom. The same ring I had picked out six months before and mourned over when it disappeared from the jeweler’s window.

Oh my, I thought. Life is happening.

Christophe began. “I love you, darling. Will you stay my…” He didn’t know the word for wife.

“Wife?” I said.

“Yes! Will you stay my wife?”

I didn’t get into the verb correction between “to stay” and “to be.” Later. Later. “Yes! Oui!”

Ring on, dinner ready, wound dressed. A perfect proposal. It was hardly a lobster dinner at the Rainbow Room, but it would do. He said later that he was probably going to propose on December 21 with an End-of-One-World-Beginning-of-Another theme, or possibly on Christmas. Or maybe after a nice dinner out. But on this night, he realized that this bad feeling about the stupid shower door had to be changed into a good feeling about something else. This is one of the many reasons why saying yes to him was easy.

Yes, yes, yes, and oui!

Two weeks later, another shower door arrived and this time it was installed without shattering. Good-bye, Bates Motel. Hello spa.

Dear Áine,

The City of Lights lives up to its name at Christmas. With the sun setting in late afternoon and twinkle lights draped from the trees, Paris is truly enchanting. There is something marvelous about walking briskly under the deep blue sky beneath the gaze of old street lamps, then popping into a boutique to absorb the cozy warmth. Parisians overheat their stores. Not that I’m complaining. I love it. Though I spend a lot of time peeling off layers.

The windows at the large department stores are a magical display of animatronic hypnotic wonder that keeps kids, young and old, gawking from the sidewalk. Usually a heavy hitter designer such as Karl Lagerfeld designs the windows to ensure they are très chic. Actually, the twinkle light displays are très chic too. My street, rue Mouffetard, has a massive string of lights cascading down the street like a shimmering waterfall. It’s all rather tasteful around here, which makes me wonder why many of the Christmas trees are heavily sprayed with fake snow of fuchsia, teal, and—I’m sorry to say—yellow. Where I come from, you steer clear of all yellow snow. There isn’t much snow in Paris, which is surprising since every tchotchke shop has walls of dreamy snow globes featuring the world’s most recognized monument. That reminds me of a conversation I had with my old French teacher from my life before cafés and croissants. He had asked me if I’d ever been to Paris. “No,” I responded. “I dream of Paris.” He shook his head. “Mademoiselle MacLeod, you’ve got your verbs wrong again. It’s not ‘to dream’; it’s aller, ‘to go.’”

Joyeux Noël!

Janice

30

A Baffled Bride

The moment the temperature dropped below trench coat weather, all the ladies of Paris started strutting their stuff in fur. I saw bulbous fur collars, puffy ear warmers, and fur coats that draped nearly to the ground. The whole city was a catwalk, and every lady was a supermodel.

I come from a world of animal rights activists, so all this fur made me gasp and wonder if they got the memo. The memo likely came around the same time as the memo about smoking being bad for health. The French likely rolled up the memos with tobacco and smoked them, declaring “Joie de vivre!” between puffs.

One blustery afternoon, I walked into a vintage clothing store. There were so many fur coats it was like being in a bear cave. I stroked a few that were so soft I wanted to name them Fluffy or Cuddles. Soon I was hugging them and leaning into the racks, whispering, “Joie de vivre.” Weren’t the French the most marvelous people on the planet?

November, Canada

Dear Janice,

Furs in November? Really? How cold is it there? I’m still just putting a sweater under my fall jacket. Some days I just need a T-shirt under my jacket! Though I do think you should definitely indulge in a vintage fur. Chances are the fur is Canadian, bought at the annual fur auction in North Bay, Ontario. Buyers come from all over the world. You’d just be supporting the Canadian economy and honoring your roots.

À bientôt!

Mary

Though the French were generally marvelous people, they were insane when it came to paperwork. I started to suspect they were nutty with red tape when I started watching home renovation shows. In all these shows, the owner of the house required a massive bookshelf to hold massive volumes of binders.

Binders made me shudder.

Now that Christophe and I were betrothed, we had to go to City Hall to see what papers were required to make it happen. We sat across from the lady in charge of such things. She pulled out a large folder for us to take with us. Inside the folder were forms to fill out and a very long checklist of other documents to gather.

I mentioned to her that this was a lot of paperwork.