---

Strasbourg in April

This is an enchanting restaurant in front of our hotel where we enjoyed an Alsatian speciality (a tarte flambé) and watched the people stroll by until we finally gave in to our exhaustion from the day of exploring the city and went upstairs to sleep.

 

We spent a week altogether in Alsace.  These are just a few of the infinite number of photos I took of the trip.  Perhaps, I’ll show some of Colmar and the villages along the wine route another time.

Tiny Glimpse of Paris

                                                                                  Roses in a Paris Garden

Renoir's Studio

                                                                           

Hmm...this place looks familiar.

Here it is May already!   I left for the States in December.  I finally got myself back here.  It wasn’t easy.  Suffice it to say that my fast recovery from the illness that almost felled me slowed down and got complicated for a while.  But I think I’m back on the path to recovery.  Hopefully it will be easier over here.  My little corner of the Burgundy countryside always has a healing effect on me.  I’m counting on that.  My family wouldn’t have agreed to my coming back if it weren’t for that. 

 

I want to thank those of you who visited my blog and left warm comments.  It was a pleasure to see them when I opened my blog today.  It’s nice to know there is a small cyber community to fit back into now that I’ve returned.

 

I have lots of catching up to do.  I’m sure many of you have done great things since I left.  I guess I better hurry up and go read about it.  Catch you later...     

A Brief Blog Visit

Visiting the US is becoming more of a problem for me the longer I live in France.  The culture shock was definitely more pronounced this time.  The enormous concentration on consumerism in every facet of American life seems to be getting worse each year.  Products are in your face everywhere you turn.  The number of TV channels devoted entirely to shopping is proliferating rapidly.  Conversations are often discussions of products that have been bought or will be bought soon.  It's annoying and scary.  People don't seem to notice how much of their attention is focused on spending money.  One of the comments on Flighty's blog about the wasting of resources in American households is true.  Even in the homes of the most environmentally conscientious I see a lack of awareness of or a blind spot for some resource-wasting practices.  For example, the furnace thermostat may be turned way down, but the big dryers and washing machines are running.  Is it really necessary to wash the bathroom towels everyday?   SUVs and Hummers still command the highways.  The hybrids are few and far between.

Even more disturbing is the mean spirit displayed in the US media, which must be a reflection of the general, adult population and, unfortunately, is absorbed by young kids.  Family dynamics; lean, mean corporate policies; thugs running the government; doomsday prophecies; and any number of other possibilities must play into and foster and support such attitudes and behavior.  Whatever it is, I wish it would stop!  This meanness is unnerving, disappointing and stressful to watch.  I guess I could stop here and talk about the history of man and how uncivilized the world was for thousands of years and how modern times are the best of times, etc., etc.  I often get that argument when I express my concerns about the direction our country (and the rest of the world) is going.  And you know what?  That doesn't cut it for me.  There is no excuse for meanness - end of story.

I realize that my living in France where I speak only a smattering of the language gives me a false sense of reality there.  Here in the US I can hear and understand conversations around me.  I can participate freely in discussions on any subject.  In France I can hear but, mostly, not understand the conversations around me.  I can participate in discussions on any subject as long as the other participants are willing to hang in there and talk at half speed and repeat themselves now and then.  No matter what the discussions are, I'm not fully understanding them.  The subtle nuances, innuendos and most of the idioms are sailing past my head like soap bubbles on a windy day.  For all I know, they may be talking about the latest washing machine they bought or an SUV they want to buy, but for some reason I don't think they are quite so consumer driven as Americans - however, I could be wrong... 

Once again, I'm reminded that I belong to neither French nor American culture.  I belong to an expatriate culture with roots that go nowhere.  I can identify with both the French and the Americans, but mostly I identify with those brave or crazy souls who left their native soils to explore other lands and simply never returned.  It's both a freeing and terrifying adventure.  For me, it's also an obvious opportunity to practice the Buddhist wisdom of letting go and living in the moment.  

I will return to my home of choice in a little hamlet nestled in the hills of Burgundy in time to tend to the roots in my garden.  Those flowers, herbs, vegetables, bushes, vines and trees are solidly anchored in their chalky, Burgundy soil.  When they are uprooted or harvested, they bear the taste and the fragrance of the soil that nourished them.  I find comfort in that.          

Next page >>