Il Meurt Lentement

This is a poem by Pablo Neruda that I read aloud in French last night at slamalamer. Valerie had brought it with her and it really spoke to me. It is originally written in Spanish, I read it in French and I am going to post a translation in English although I found that all the English translations I came up with are a little odd in places.

Il meurt lentement
celui qui devient esclave de l'habitude
refaisant tous les jours les mêmes chemins,
celui qui ne change jamais de repère,
Ne se risque jamais à porter une nouvelle couleur
Ou qui ne parle jamais à un inconnu

Il meurt lentement celui qui fait de la télévision son guide

Il meurt lentement
celui qui évite la passion
celui qui préfère le noir au blanc, les points sur les "i" à un tourbillon d'émotions
celles qui redonnent la lumière dans les yeux
et réparent les cœurs blessés.

Il meurt lentement
celui qui ne change pas de cap
lorsqu'il est malheureux
au travail ou en amour,
celui qui ne prend pas de risques
pour réaliser ses rêves,
celui qui, pas une seule fois dans sa vie,
n'a fui les conseils sensés.

Il meurt lentement
celui qui ne voyage pas,
celui qui ne lit pas,
celui qui n’écoute pas de musique,
celui qui ne sait pas trouver
grâce à ses yeux.

Il meurt lentement
celui qui détruit son amour-propre,
celui qui ne se laisse jamais aider.

Il meurt lentement celui qui passe ses jours
à se plaindre de sa mauvaise fortune ou de la pluie incessante.

Il évite la mort celui qui se rappelle qu'être vivant requiert un effort bien plus important que le simple fait de respirer.

Die Slowly
by Pablo Neruda


He who becomes the slave of habit,
who follows the same routes every day,
who never changes pace,
who does not risk and change the color of his clothes,
who does not speak and does not experience, dies slowly.

He or she who shuns passion,
who prefers black on white,
dotting ones “is” rather than a bundle of emotions,
the kind that make your eyes glimmer,
that turn a yawn into a smile,
that make the heart pound in the face of mistakes and feelings, dies slowly.

He or she who does not turn things topsy-turvy,
who is unhappy at work,
who does not risk certainty for uncertainty,
to thus follow a dream,
those who do not forego sound advice at least once in their lives, die slowly.

He who does not travel,
who does not read,
who does not listen to music,
who does not find grace in himself, dies slowly.

He who slowly destroys his own self-esteem,
who does not allow himself to be helped,
who spends days on end complaining about his own bad luck,
about the rain that never stops, dies slowly.

He or she who abandon a project before starting it,
who fail to ask questions on subjects he doesn’t know,
he or she who don’t reply when they are asked something they do know, die slowly.

Let’s try and avoid death in small doses,
always reminding oneself that being alive requires an effort by far
greater than the simple fact of breathing.
Only a burning patience will lead to the attainment of a splendid happiness.

Twittering little girl

Miette had a friend from school sleep over last night. They had come up with a plan to go together to this neighborhood festival that took place yesterday then come back here for a sleepover and go to school together the next morning (today). Her friend's mother and I agreed with the plan on the condition that they were in bed and asleep on time so they wouldn't be tired for the school day. All went well except for the impression that my child had turned into a French bird on amphetamines. Chirp chirp chirping away in French. Miette took it upon herself to remind me that Marie didn't speak English and to correct my pronunciation of things in French and to make jokes and was basically talking non-stop until they fell asleep at night and when they woke up until I dropped her off at school. It was if she had turned into a different animal. She never talks so much and so quickly when she speaks English! What is going on? It was cute and very annoying at the same time. She was making bad puns in French! (THAT is a talent she inherited from her good old Dad, I guess it doesn't matter what language she's speaking.)

Otherwise, we have had a beautiful weekend of warm weather and relaxed activities. The doors and windows have been open to let in the breeze and the warmth and we dined al fresco on the balcony for lunch on Sunday. The only downside to this is that the spiders are back and they've obviously had an easy winter- they are big, scary, and they bite. We caught the biggest one yet yesterday- the photo isn't great but I'm posting it anyway because I want you to see the beast. Hopefully you can get a sense of scale from the picture.

Les Trois Singes de la Sagesse

This was the beach sculpture of the day- see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. As it happens Miette had just learned about the "Three monkeys of Wisdom" from China in school last week. I think it's also funny that the monkeys also look like topless women.

There's a place in France...

where the ladies wear no pants- but the men don't care cause they're in their underwear. Well, that's not true (so far as I've seen), but I just felt that the toplessness at the beach deserved a blog post of it's own, and the old song we chanted as kids popped back into my head.

YES. They do go topless here, and it's a free for all. We spotted a bit of it last September but the weather was already cooling down and beach season wasn't in full swing. But today was hot and the beach was packed with topless women and men in speedos. Liberté - Egalité - Fraternité (sororité?) All ages, all shapes, all sizes. It's all very cool and nonchalant, a totally not-for-show, comfortable in our skins kind of thing. As I reflected on bared breasts at the beach, I saw one of my students walk by, notice me, and come over to say hello. And I thought, "And now, if I was missing half my bikini, what kind of situation would this be?"

Still debating what picture should accompany this post........

spring - stone - sky

can i post too many cloud photos? (i am guessing yes, but they never cease to be beautiful to me, especially over the ocean). also the largest poppy ever (probably my favorite flower, followed by lily of the valley). some amazing rocks that are omnipresent here, mitzi was an expert finder of the most amazing ones with perfectly round holes. we also made a rock house last week as the tide crept back up where we had been exploring tidepools and snail activity. when the tide finally chased us away, we ran off the park across the way and romped in the blossom dotted grass. i climbed a tree (and then twisted a muscle in my leg jumping down, that's what i get for being a show-off)

we had some beautiful little moments with the snails and the tide pools. The snails attached to dry rocks appear to be all dried up, as if dead, when you pick one off. But I wondered if they were dead or just waiting for water so i decided to put into in to the shallow tide pool and lo and behold, it's little leg starts to unfurl and extend from it's shell upon contact with water. it seemed to be searching a place to latch onto, to orient itself. it was a bit like those mini-sponges you got sometimes as a kid that would swell up in a full sink of water, magically growing upon immersion. but then, as miette reached toward the snail, wanting to help it to turn itself over, her shadow fell over the snail and it recoiled, shrinking immediately back into itself. no contact whatsoever, just a shift in light. when she moved her hand back it came out from it's shell again. over and over we watched as we would block the sunlight over the snail and it would shrink, remove our hand and see it come back out. and it responded similarly to touching the water's surface or vibrating the ground next to the pool. i was so amazed at the sensitivity of this little creature.

Plug for unplugging

http://www.adbusters.org/metas/psycho/mdw/

Well, its no longer "mental detox week" but I thought I'd put a blurb here anyway having noticed that my brother in law Sean had posted to his facebook profile that he was offline for the week. So I went to the adbusters' site and read more. Though I don't have a TV I have spent more time in front of the computer this year to stay in touch, and as a sort of companion substitute since I'm on my own after bedtime this year. But sometimes it feels like a vacuum and can be a distraction from more fufilling things. So check it out, think about it, turn some things off for awhile, and relax. (you too, Ry!)

I am going to blame my visitors

Yes, I know I haven't been keeping up with the blog and I didn't even really get into telling about Paris or our travels in the Loire Valley. But to my defense, my friend Mitzi showed up here in La Rochelle only one and a half days after our return from Paris. We hadn't even gotten all our bags unpacked yet and we all had little colds and felt kind of tired. But we did a few things around town together until she ate a bad egg and got food poisoning and spent the better part of 2 days between the toilet and the bedroom. During this time her boyfriend joined us as well. They waited for her to recuperate and visited La Rochelle a bit more and then headed off to Paris and Berlin this past Thursday. So this weekend is only my second weekend without visitors or traveling in 6 weeks.

Starting with the present- Finally I can't gloat about our gorgeous weather while imagining the snow being dumped on Chicago. It is absolutely beyond beautiful here but I get the feeling it is for everyone everywhere. People are flocking to the beaches and strolling along the port and one just feels happy to be alive and outside. There are flowers in bloom in every imaginable place- pushing through the cracks on sidewalks, overflowing the walls of yards and adorning vines that creep up the buildings. Miette and I have especially been enjoying the fragrances. I love the way springtime overwhelms all the senses- the wind like soft hands on your skin, smells from blossoms that are so intense it's as if you are eating them, digging in warm sand on the beach, seeing the range of colors exploding everywhere, the magical light at the end of the day, eating sweet little strawberries that are in season again, and hearing birds chattering up a storm. Yesterday walking into town as we crossed a little bridge over the stream in Park Charruyer, we heard a crazy sound and looked over to discover tons of frogs swimming and hopping around and making the wildest noises. So this is probably the real reason I am not blogging, I'd rather be outside!

Since I spent two weeks non-stop with the kids during vacation, starting back to school and work this week actually gave me some alone time again and I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and time by walking to my Thursday school rather than biking as I usually do. This school is actually in a suburb of La Rochelle and is thus the farthest away from our apartment. It takes me 25 minutes pedaling fast on my bike to get there so I gave myself ample time to go on foot. Well, this was a great theory, walking and all, but I was wearing my knee high boots and work clothes and after about a half-hour I started feeling the pain of blisters, especially one on the underside of my heel. And I still had about 45 minutes to walk before arriving. I thought of my friend Lynn and her reflections on pain and the precious human body. (She has just started a blog which is already inspiring me but I will talk more about that later). Anyway, I had to seriously meditate to make it 45 minutes uphill with a huge painful blister to get to my classes on time. And then I took the bus home :) (Next time I will wear gym shoes and change when I arrive at work!)

Yesterday we went to the Ludothèque to return some things and walked out with 2 scooters for the kids and a skateboard for me! Julian is bugging me to go outside and use them now and I think that's a good idea so I will wrap this up for the time being. I will note briefly all the things on which I hope to update later today:

-I have started learning a little German with a (German) friend of mine in exchange for helping her practice French (?!) We are going to meet weekly for this exchange.

-I have been running a little bit and biking a ton this year but have been inspired by my friends Juliet (who wrote to tell me she did her first race recently) and Lynn (who is training for a 5K) and I have decided to do the same and run a race in La Rochelle. It is on May 31st just for women called "Les Filles de La Rochelle"and you can do either a 5 or 10K. My friend Florence (with whom I go the gym from time to time) is going to run with me twice a week to train.

-I am trying to educate myself about French music and singers and am borrowing and checking out CDs from the Mediathèque.

-Last night we went to Miette's school's "masked ball" a fund-raiser with dancing and lots of food. It was a lot of fun and made me appreciate what a great group of families are in the school / neighborhood here.

So I am internally dealing with a whole other set of questions relating to the imminent shift that will occur as our time here draws to an end. I am so happy here and the kids are really flourishing. They have lovely friendships, are speaking the language, and are in amazing school communities. I am torn about leaving these things behind and returning to the big city hustle. Miette's teacher and the Directrice want us to stay. Her teacher can't say enough about her astonishment at her level of French and success in school here. But we miss the papa so much and all of you friends and family and I think that the answer is that you should all just move here. What could be simpler? Anyway. I am going to go make a fool of myself trying to skateboard and enjoy the present.