La Nouvelle Generation Perdue

"...all generations were lost by something and always had been and always would be..." -Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast

You can say that again! Hey, looks like someone already did (looks like Dan Schmitz is running with an awesome crowd: he can identify with the likes of Princeton the puppet and me!). I can name at least 6 friends who are A. college graduates, B. back living with 'the folks' (or 'grand-folks'), and C. currently looking for a job or are presently underemployed. We can spend our time getting angry at the economy for screwing us over (hello! we have degrees! shouldn't we be squeaking by the uneducated folk? or are our degrees our enemies right now: potential employers know we'll bolt as soon as things pick up and we can move on up?), or maybe we need to just grin and bear it and do the best we can. Perhaps that won't be in the US: this economy is driving a lot of people to look for gigs overseas. This in itself is a good thing; hey, is the crappy economy actually encouraging globalization? (Some economist somewhere should look into that...) I'm definitely a part of that exodus: I'm doing a phone interview for the Peace Corps next week!

Maybe I sound a little too sunny, but I've always been an optimist. And fortunately (read: miraculously), just when things were beginning to look really bleak, I got a job (and my first day of training was on Veteran's Day, no less...tying back into that lost generation thing...everything's connected...). Let me repeat that incredible news: I got a joerghb!! After only about a month of looking, and it's a great job too: I'm not flipping burgers, folding shirts, or dressed like an elf and to top it all off, it's actually a resume-builder--something that ties into my future career goals! Many have said that I'm lucky. I'm becoming more and more aware of that.

Meanwhile, I'm eating my way through the world, in a very Portland way: food carts!! I read about them last year in the New York Times article (here, if you insist, but I'm sure anyone who's anyone has already seen it, and I already linked to it on facebook), but had never eaten at them, until now! Yesterday it was a chicken schnitzelwich at a Czech cart, and today it was an old favorite: a lamb gyros at a Greek cart. I'm also 'eating' A Moveable Feast right now, and even though I'm slightly less than halfway done, it has already skyrocketed to '2nd-favorite-book-of-all-time' status. The title is perfect: it's chewy. Each chapter is a delicious morsel; a combination of romantic Parisian reminiscences and frank 'here's how I did it' advice on being a writer. Anyone who's been to Paris, is planning a trip there, or just loves the city of love needs to read this book! (I've especially been remembering lazy sunny days spent lounging next to the Rhone last year in good company with delicious wine and insanely incredible food...Steve, Zandra, Lauren, Zandra, Ruth, Becky, Cotes du Rhone, big fat cherries, goat cheese: you know who you are!)

Hemingway's famous admonition to "write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know" is contained therein, among others. That, in concert with the professions of Project Runway contestants, encourages me. Writing isn't my profession, but it's my passion, and I know I'll always be doing this, even after long days at work (couldn't resist mentioning my fabulous job! yet again!), in the middle of the night, and with no loftier goals than personal satisfaction.

I read on the bus and Max to work and home again. Talk about a typical Portland experience! Riding Trimet you see a true cross-section of society: poor people, environmentally-conscious people, (not mutually exclusive categories, btw), knitting people, reading people, people grooving to their iPods, smelly people, drunk people, commuters, high school kids, thugs, hipsters, bicyclists, their bikes, families. Working downtown, commuting on public transportation: I love feeling like a Portlander in a realer way than I ever have before!

Written on a bench on one of the islands in Paris proper

Paris is the city of lovers. I think for this reason I will pointedly never bring or have (take?) a lover here. Casual sex, maybe (if I haven't already decided that I'm already over that, that is).

I am awesome and capable. Of getting myself to Paris. Of taking care of myself while Daniel's at class.

Before I came today I was thinking I was over Paris. I guess I thought living in a tiny town in Provence (population: approximately one city block in Paris) had gotten me over those old romantic ideas of Paris. But now I'm here again and it's...Paris! And I'm jealous of Daniel's casual use of the Jardins du Luxembourg as the place where he runs, of his Paris metro commute, of his nonchalant discoveries of places to eat in his everyday walks through the city. Neither of us would want to live here, in the big, permanent, install yourself sense of the word, but for a time, (6 months for him, now; a year or so; a post (!) in the Foreign Service) it would be positively delicious. I found myself completely annoyed with a girl, upon her emergence from Shakespeare and Co., gushing that she'd checked off "buy an old book in Europe" from her bucket list. Annoyed that she called this 'Europe;' annoyed that she feels the need to have a 'bucket list' at her age (probably about 17); annoyed that she used the term 'bucket list' (damn facebook notes); annoyed that she probably didn't do the buying, as she was with two older ladies, one presumably her mother. But then I thought about my first time to Paris, with Miles and madre, and I shouldn't be mad at stupid tourists for being...stupid tourists. They should be allowed to be completely bowled over by this place (Paris, in this specific sense; anywhere, in general), without assholes like me walking around feeling superior to that. We're all tourists at some points. And I'm not saying that I'm not loving this (Paris); I was just revelating (musing) that Paris still has this magical hold and power over me, 'still' I use so flippantly, like a handful of times and days here makes me an expert, a one 'in-the-know.' What I am saying is that I want more: more than just a week-end here and there, but less than a lifetime. I want Daniel's experience: Paris, (and France, and anywhere popularly revered that's not your home) doesn't become less magical the longer you're here, but it does become different, deeper. Memories get layered on top of each other as you walk by famous buildings and monuments not just once, on a week's vacation, but everyday, or often. Experiences in the place are less singular, more habitual, but no less fantastic. There's the key: to keep the awesomeness always at the forefront of the experience, letting things become everyday but still being awed by the whole thing. I guess we shouldn't just do this when living in ridiculously fabulous places like Paris or Provence, but when we are living everywhere, becuase we are living, and that is fantastic. Live everyday, but don't become a robot. I soulnd like some sort of poet (lyric? that guy who wasn't married to Simone de Beauvoire? Daniel informed me: Jean-Paul Sartre? beatniks?) but whatever. Maybe it takes living somewhere other than your home, being alien, to realize this and other things.

Some books (think beatniks, Kerouac, Burroughs, Alan Ginsberg, Hunter S. Thompson) shouldn't be bought new, in some new, un-original, packaged-for-the-masses, publisher's paycheck bullshit copy. It just doesn't seem right: it doesn't fit their spirit. Am I right here? (I'm not sure). And unrelated, I'm really glad my budget prevented me from being (going) weak and buying the current New Yorker at Shakespeare and Co. for 7,90€. I would have enjoyed the shit out of it, and at the least it would have made a good story, but now I'll just have to settle for the good story of what could have been, and read what I can (for free) online. The newspaper/magazine industry is on it's last legs anyways. I'll use the money to buy a drink and toast the industry. (I spent 10,90€ later for one pint of beer later that night...who won there? The cafe? The beer distributor? Definitely not. The print industry? No, not that either. Me? Hell no. I got had, in all every tourist sense of the word. But I liked it. Sort of).

I'm not well-read. I could be better-. Working on it. Sort of. Always. Unfinished. Work in progress. We're complete when we're dead.

Moving to France

my mailing address:

Annette McFarland
9 Rue Autheman
Studio Nº 4
84800 L’Isle sur la Sorgue PACA
FRANCE

I have been in France for just over two weeks. In that time I have accomplished many things, had many fabulous unforgettable experiences, and had some crappy ones too.

Upon arrival, I was very proud that I was able to navigate a huge backpack, a suitcase, a purse and myself from the Charles De Gaulle airport onto the RER train, transfer to the metro, and make it to the Place d’Italie stop before calling William. The last time I was in France I paid too much for a taxi to an overpriced hostel. I stayed with William, his sister Aimee, brother-in-law Julien, and 1 ½ year old nephew Max. For two days I hung out at Aimee’s tea shop (in the 13^th arrondisement, it’s called L’Oisive Thé, a play on l’oisiveté which means leisurely). Then I bought a 12-25 card (to get discounts on trains) and a ticket to Lyon, where I stayed with my friend Maren for a night, eating bread and cheese and drinking wine and tea. Then on to Avignon and Steve, who is a dear. I ended up staying with him for over a week as I looked for an apartment in L’Isle sur la Sorgue and thought of options. My first day in Avignon was magical: the centre ville is completely surrounded by an old city wall, and anyone who’s anyone lives intramurales (Steve and I are afraid to go extramurales too often)... We saw a woman akin to Esmeralda singing opera outside of the Pope’s Palace.

One day Steve and I rode his scooter to Saint Remy (evidently a very posh area of France...Brad and Angelina just bought a house there), which is about 20 km southwest of Avignon. We went to see bullfighting, or rather “bull bothering” (they didn’t kill them). A dozen or so men would take turns running at the bull, trying to grab prizes off his horns. If the bull was chasing them they would vault themselves over a fence to get away from him. One bull kept leaping over the fence into the alley between the ring and the spectators. Everyone in the alley would jump into the ring until the bull was led back in. He did this about 10 times. One man yelled “Saucisson!” which means “Turn him into sausage!”

A few days later we had some meetings in Marseille. Steve had to be there a night before I did. I was hoping to get my apartment that day, but the process moved a little slower than I realized, so I was essentially homeless. As I was preparing myself to sleep on a park bench, I texted the one other person whose number I had. Megan from Wales was able to give me the phone number of another assistant, Raina, who without hesitation, without having met me, agreed to house me for the evening. As it turns out, Raina went to Reed, in Portland, and is amazing.

The most incredible experience I’ve had thus far was when the US Consulate General in Marseille hosted the American assistants from the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region for a multi-course buffet at her home overlooking the bay and the Chateau d’If, the prison in my favorite book, The Count of Monte Cristo. I scarfed down one plate of food and then jumped up to talk with the consulate general. She was amazing! I asked her dozens of questions about her career, her education, her life. She’s done tours in Haiti, Saudi Arabia and Morocco, among other places, and couldn’t really talk about Brad and Angelina, although she did say that after hobnobbing with Arabian princes, American movie stars seemed like small potatoes. I also chatted it up with her intern Jonathan, from Puerto Rico. Watching the sunset from the Consulate General’s house, drinking good wine (some of which, Steve noticed, was from Napa Valley) really made me excited for a career in the Foreign Service!

I have visited my schools, but I haven’t met the kids yet (that will come Monday). I’m hoping to get a bike, so I can bike around the region, but I’ve been going one day, one step at a time. I also want to try to find a way to play soccer (or at the very least use the municipal pool). Zandra (another assistant) and I found out today that the kayaking in my town is only for the club in the winter, and it’s now too late to join the club...whatever. I have a pet cat. Well, practically. My first night in my apartment it was hanging out on the roof outside one of my windows...it even came in once! This morning it came in and hid under the bed and wouldn’t leave...maybe that’s because I gave it some cream last night...my hallway stinks because the owner lets it poop in there, but it just needs some love. I don’t have an oven or a microwave, just a range, so I’m going to HAVE to learn how to cook, and where better to do it than Provence? The cheap version of Herbes de Provence that I bought at the grocery store (which are apparently for BBQing) include the following ingredients: sarriette, romarin, serpolet, marjolaine, origan, basilica and thym in variable proportions.

I’ve been alternately lonely and happy, excited and nervous, and wanted to run away a few times, but really, it’s just 9 months! I’ve made some good friends, including some assistants in Avignon and Marseille, and Ruth, the other assistant in my town. She’s from England. I don’t have internet in my apartment, but it may be too expensive. We will see...I may think it’s worth it...I may decide that just like learning how to cook, reading, and learning French, living without internet is just going to be one of my challenges this year.

I love and miss a lot of you fabulous people in my life.