Noyers houses (8) and my annual trip to North Carolina

Here are another couple of pictures from Noyers-sur-Serein in Burgundy. I'm winding this series down now.

Today is train day, and tomorrow is plane day. Walt will drive me up to the train station in Blois this morning, and I'll catch the train to Paris. The train takes about 90 minutes. In Paris, I plan to walk about 20 minutes from the train station to a café on the edge of the Marais neighborhood where I want to have lunch. And then I'll get another train out to Roissy CDG airport, where I have reserved a hotel room for the night. I'm headed to North Carolina, on the U.S. central east coast, 800 kilometers south of New York City.

This is not a photo I took in North Carolina, but another in the Noyers in Burgundy series.

I have no real choice but to spend the night at the airport, because my plane to Atlanta is scheduled to take off at 8:00 a.m. from CDG. That means I have to be in the terminal around 6:00 a.m. to get my suitcase checked and make my way through the security obstacle course and out to the departure gate. It's about a nine hour flight to Atlanta. There I have two hours on the ground, which will be taken up with getting my suitcase, taking it through customs, re-checking it for my connecting flight, and making it through passport control and security (again). Then, with luck, I'll have time to get to the gate for my flight to New Bern NC, which is 800 km east of Atlanta on the Atlantic coast of NC. That flight takes something like 90 minutes. From the time I arrive in the airport terminal at Paris CDG until I land in New Bern something like 12 or 15 hours will have elapsed.

A 15th century house in Noyers in Burgundy

New Bern was the British capital of NC in the 1700s. It's a nice old town (by American standards) with a population of about 30,000. It was founded by a group of Swiss and German colonists in 1710. My home town is about 40 miles southeast of New Bern, right on the coast. It's called Morehead City (pop. 10,000), and it was founded as a deep-water port and railroad terminal in the mid-1850s. Just a couple of miles east of Morehead is the old town of Beaufort, founded in 1709 — that makes it the third-oldest settlement in what is now the State of North Carolina (pop. 10 million). It was a sailing port in Colonial times. It is still an popular layover point on the U.S. Intracoastal Waterway, which is used by smaller boats and yachts from New York and points north that are headed down to Florida and the Caribbean. It might just be the most picturesque town in North Carolina.

I did several posts about New Bern NC a few years ago. You can find some of them here. And I've done several about Beaufort NC as well. Scroll down through these posts for some photos and text about this part of North Carolina.

Noyers houses (7) and renewed optimism

The days are getting longer and the dollar is getting stronger. Springtime and optimism are in the air. As for springtime, it's inevitable, I guess. But the nice streak of sunny, clear weather we are having is anything but. It's something to relish after the gray, rainy days of winter.

And as for the dollar, maybe it sounds crass to go on and on about it, but the fact is that the level of prices for everyday necessities here in France would certainly justify having the dollar and the euro at parity. In other words, 1€ with a value of $1. The value of the euro has been as high as $1.60 over the past 10 years.

The southern gate into the old town of Noyers-sur-Serein, in Burgundy

This morning, the euro is worth $1.09 or so, which is what the exchange rate was back in the spring of 2003, when we bought our house in France and were optimistic about being able to live here on our meager resources. As Americans, our visas didn't give us the right to seek employment in France back then, and we were still too young to collect retirement pensions. For years, we lived on the proceeds of the sale of our house in California, and we had next to no income.

Carved wooden beams decorate the façades of houses in Noyers-sur-Serein.

I can't really say that life here has been a struggle over the past 12 years, living on (weak) dollars as we have been obliged to do, but I can say that it has been nerve-wracking. Some days and weeks I felt truly pessimistic about even being about to stay here. I became very price-conscious and strict with our monthly budget, and we didn't do nearly the amount of traveling that we thought we might be able to do. Now I've almost lost interest in traveling. It's too stressful.

The low euro might be good for the economy in the Eurozone countries. It will mean that exports from Europe to other markets, including but not only the U.S., will be more attractive in terms of price. A European car priced at 20,000€, for example, will only cost $20,000 instead of more than $30,000. That could help European exports, and it will certainly help us American expatriates.

Noyers houses (6)

Yesterday was an exception. I thank you all who sent encouragement and good birthday wishes. I realize this morning that 66, now attained, feels pretty much the same as 65. Who knew?

This is not Montaigne's famous tower near Bordeaux, but one of the towers in the fortifications around the town of Noyers in Burgundy.

I don't know why I wrote what I wrote yesterday on the blog. I just woke up thinking about my life, and I sat down in front of the keyboard and started typing as soon as I had a hot cup of tea in front of me. Fact is, I've never really wanted this blog to be about me. In my mind, it's about France, and I try to keep it focused on France. I'm just a conduit.

As you might know, the Renaissance essayist from down near Bordeaux, Michel de Montaigne, said that the subject of his essays was himself and his flaws. « Ainsi, Lecteur, je suis moy-mesme la matiere de mon livre, he wrote in the preface to his Essais. ...c'est moy que je peins. Mes defauts s'y liront au vif, mes imperfections et ma forme naïfve, autant que la reverence publique me l'a permis. » You could translate that as "So, dear Reader, I am myself the subject of this book... This is my self-portrait. My flaws will be apparent, along with my imperfections and my true nature, as much as public decency allows."

Well, I don't feel that way about this blog. My subject is not me — at least not directly or primarily. My subject is France and life here. Montaigne's real subject was not what he said it was, either. He was being slightly disingenuous. I suppose we all are, and some more than others.

The photos here are of a couple of other buildings in Noyers-sur-Serein, in Burgundy. I'm coming to the end of my Burgundy cycle. And I'll be leaving Saint-Aignan on Sunday to go spend a couple of weeks in North Carolina. I'll start blogging from there next week.

My 66th

Today is my birthday. I will have finished my 66th year of life when I go to bed tonight. I never thought I would end up living to such a ripe old age. I guess it’s time to take stock.

In my life I’ve had half a dozen or more long-term relationships with special people, and dozens of other happy friendships. I’ve gotten married three times and divorced twice. My longest and in many ways closest relationship is with my mother, Mary Allen, who’s now 85. I’ll be flying to North Carolina to see her next week, and my sister Joanna, another long-time friend.

I’ve been lucky to have two very good friendships that started in the mid-1970s with Cheryl and Sue, who came from Illinois but live in California. They, Walt, and I spent many great weekends and holidays in California together over a 15-year period. As you might know, I also have a long-lasting friendship with CHM, a 90-year-old Parisian who has lived in the U.S. for more than 40 years now. We first met and worked together 32 years ago.

And then there is my long-time partner and now spouse, Walt. He and I have been a couple for 32 years, and I’m not sure what would have happened to me if I hadn’t met him back then. I would have been much less happy with my life, that’s for sure. Alone, I wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of the things I’ve done. My existence would have become pretty bleak as the years passed, I think.

Over the course of my 66 years, I’ve lived in at least 15 apartments and 4 houses, counting only those where I spent more than three or four months. The longest times I’ve spent in one house or apartment are the 18 years I spent living in my mother’s house in North Carolina at the beginning of my life, and the 12 years I’ve now spent in this house near Saint-Aignan. Walt and I lived at five or six different addresses between 1982 and 1992. We got really good at packing up and moving our furniture and other belongings from one place to the next — including across the North American continent.

I’ve lived in three major cities over the years — Paris, San Francisco, and Washington DC. I’ve also lived in many smaller cities, including Rouen and Aix-en-Provence in France, and Durham NC and Champaign-Urbana IL in the U.S. And now Saint-Aignan for 12 years.

Speaking of Paris, Rouen, and Saint-Aignan, I have to say that France has been one of the biggest mysteries and joys of my life. I say it’s a mystery because I don’t know how or why it began. It just did. We had some French friends for a few years when I was growing up in North Carolina. I was fascinated by them and the fact that they spoke French to each other.

Then I studied French for four years when I was in high school because I wanted to get a university degree afterward and American universities back then had what was called a language requirement. I ended up majoring in French at Duke U., because it was a good way to justify coming to France to live and study for a while. My first trip was in 1970 when I was 20 years old — six months in Provence and Paris, including my 21st birthday — and the fascination has never ended. I’ve always just been happier in France. I have a master's degree in French literature, though I'm not a literary person. I'm more interested in linguistics. I've been known to say that the greatest accomplishment of my life has been mastering the French language as well as I have.

Since that first trip in 1970, I have flown across the Atlantic Ocean more than 75 times. I haven’t counted recently, but my upcoming trip might bring the total number to 79 or 81. It’s an odd number of crossings because I started in America and have ended up in France. In all, I’ve lived in France for about 20 years out of my 66. Even when I was in the U.S. from 1982 until about 1992, I was working in French (with CHM in DC) and I was was moonlighting as a teacher of French language classes evenings and weekends (at San Francisco City College in California). Starting in the late 1980s, Walt and I came to France at least once a year for vacations and travel.

The way I look at it, I’ve had three distinct careers since I started working for a living at age 22. I was a teacher for more than a dozen years. I taught French in the U.S. and English in France. Then I became a writer, editor, and translator. That lasted a good dozen years, in Washington and in San Francisco. Then I became a manager in a series of software companies in Silicon Valley. After about 10 years of doing that work, which was rewarding but exhausting, I threw in the towel at age 53 and Walt and I moved our life to France.

I’ve never broken a bone, had major surgery, or spent a night in a hospital. I had debilitating pollen allergies when we lived in California. Those have greatly diminished since I moved to France.

I’ve owned 10 cars since I got my first one, a Ford, when I was 22. Two were Japanese, three French, and four German. The car I’ve owned the longest is a French Peugeot. So far, I’m very happy with my ‘new’ Citroën. I’ve had three or four minor car accidents in my life. The worst one happened in Florida when I was 25 years old. Nobody was badly hurt, and the car was repaired.

I've been writing this blog for nearly 10 years now. Blogging is perfect for me, because I love to take photos (a late-in-life hobby) and to write, but I don't have the self-discipline or focus to write long, organized material. Besides, I have made some really good friends through this blog — people I would never have gotten to know otherwise.

Some other highlights: I turned down a teaching fellowship at Harvard when I was nearly 30 years old. I knew I didn’t really want to be a teacher any more. What I wanted to do was live in France, not teach French in America. Similarly, I surprised a lot of people when I suddenly quit my job in Washington DC to move to California, because Walt wanted to go live there. I didn't have any idea what I'd do in California, but I figured things would work out.

When I was 36 years old — 30 years ago this month — I traveled to Africa and Switzerland as part of the press pack covering then Vice President George H.W. Bush on an official trip to visit drought-stricken countries including Sudan, Mali, and Niger. Around that time, I was frequently in the White House and in the U.S. Senate chamber, working as a reporter and writer. I saw Ronald Reagan up close many times, and I even once sneaked into the Oval Office at the White House, pretending to be a photographer, for what they called a “photo op” with Reagan and some visiting foreign dignitary.

I once stepped on French President Jacques Chirac’s foot. He was campaigning on the street where I lived in Paris at the time, and as I pushed through the crowd I didn’t see him until it was too late. I’m not sure he even noticed. I also stepped on Senator Ted Kennedy’s foot once, in a hotel in Geneva. I was unaware that he was standing in line behind me, and I took an unfortunate step backwards for some reason. Kennedy was polite about it.

On a more positive and rewarding level, I once interviewed Coretta Scott King in Washington, and she already knew my name because she had read a magazine article I’d written about the Martin Luther King Center for Non-Violent Social Change in Atlanta.

One of the most charismatic personalities I ever met was the late President Samora Machel of Mozambique. He died in a mysterious plane crash in South Africa a few years after that. Walt and I later met and chatted with the king of the West African Asante people when he visited Washington and New York in the mid-1980s. We also were in attendance in the House of Representatives when French President François Mitterrand addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress around that same time.

I'm not musical at all, really, but there are singers who have been important in my life. Linda Ronstadt, Emmylou Harris, and Kate and Anna McGarrigle have been among them. Also, many French singers: Georges Brassens, Francis Cabrel, Daniel Balavoine, France Gall, Véronique Sanson, Eddy Mitchell, Alain Souchon, Laurent Voulzy, Patachou... I'll stop there. I like to say that I had two childhoods: one in America up to the age of 20, and a second in France up to the age of 30. French music was a great teacher for me back then, as I was learning the language.

Sometimes I say that I always knew I would meet Walt one day, but of course I didn’t know that. I recognized him as somebody special when I met him, however. It’s funny how a chance encounter or an seeming coincidence can change the course of a person’s existence.

I also think I have long known that I would end up living and probably dying in France one day. I’m enjoying the living part and not dreading the prospect of the dying part. As I heard a French journalist and TV host (the late Jacques Chancel) say in an interview not too long ago, everybody who has ever lived on Earth has also died. Death is an integral part of life. If you don’t ever die, that means you never actually lived.