The Voltaires: An Explanation

My poor sweet readers. I cannot offer an excuse, or even much of an explanation, but I submit to you an apology, and a letter of gratitude. My previous post was meant to expound on all the things I learned in my Croissant-making class on Saturday, but I also wanted to share with you some wisdom gleaned from reading Voltaire's Candide, and I wanted to capture the essence of joviality which Voltaire did so well in his work. What happened, I'm afraid, is some confusion between a Voltaire and a French Dr. Seuss. I got into a character, and could not find my way out
until I had finished the recipe and was exhausted. At several points in my writing, I tried to remove myself from the character that was asserting himself more and more strongly, but I continued to find myself simultaneously drawn to seeing it through, to meeting the challenge of writing in rhymes, and hoping to maintain some level of philosophy. I think I may have failed on that last, though I vow to return to the wisdom of Candide in, perhaps, a later post.

Until then, my dear, dear, readers, I thank you for following me on this one.

A bientôt!

Voltaire Everywhere: Part 2

Tell me truly. Don't you simply loathe a story when it dawdles and stalls, and finds reasons to stop which are more suitable for hurrying up, and altogether takes too much time to get where it's going? Of course, any self-respecting someone worth their salt and their salary would throw coins for an old wife to hurry her tale, but some things, my dear, take time. See, that same someone would certainly miss the end of the legend to break the seal of a bottle in his cellar, and more likely than not that bottle has more than a toddler's years on it's label. To be sure, we have all had our bouts of overeager restlessness at times, and certainly by now, have learned that patience and prudence and persistence serve better than juice at table.

Bear now in mind as you set yourself down and spread the napkin to your lap, that what is laid before you has spent the entirety of its course in aim of filling you to satisfaction, or perhaps to bloat. That is up to you. Whether it is to palette, "to the teeth" al dente, past the point of fermentation, or cauldrened to perfection, well, that is up to your chef:
"Candidly, I am, to some, an optimist, and yet to others deluded, often I hear myself called in jest "a realist polluted," but for me, you see, I prefer to simply lay it bare, I know the world to be the best that it could ever be; that's the truth, though it is unfair. My name, you ask? Voltaire.

They have asked me here to announce the truth, to stand in front of them in front of you to hide their faces when I do, and show for all the world to see the secrets of the joy you seek and the pastries, too. I do not hesitate to tell, but it behooves me to dispel of those who will not take it well, and so with this I give you leave, all of those who are naive, who heave and grieve when under the rug is perceived, or those as well are free to go who simply cannot take the blow of finding out, just so you know, that hell is not below. If you find, indeed that you are already shaken, I beseech you, reawaken and rise yourself to your feet, leave your seat. You, sir, should retreat. There is no shame in your complaint, I grant you sir, the truth is not quaint, indeed I tip my hat as you retire for in your escape and your restraint, you do inspire others' hearts to be just as faint. I hold no compunction in playing at this function; in fact, in truth, I find it rather scrumptious. Now those of us who have remained and proved thus far to be entertained, we will pursue a few hard truths. For the sake of clarity, the meaning of "hard" must be understood with a bit of irregularity; in perfect sincerity, some of these morsels will be both soft, and difficult to swallow. Do you follow?

I am confident now in the audience's facility, to take with tact, and responsibility, the delicacies and full impact of these following facts. And so without further discourse, to prevent myself from going hoarse, as the church bells sound in the background, I present to you, your renowned serveuse."

On the Menu today, my friends and fellows, a fixe prix, you see, as is seasonally fresh, and well conceived. We will begin from start to end, the day well had was this:

Risen early, though not well rested, with a weight upon the heel, the head is lifted from the pillow, and remembers the first meal. Scurries quickly, to the freezer where the layers lay, dough and butter, taken care to cover each other yesterday. The dough'd been kneaded and left to rise until it conceded its prize and was rolled into a +. The butter in the middle was, of course, the perfect size, and a perfect square. With stipes and patibulums hugging the butter there, all was rolled, gentle and controlled, to be sure to not leak the gold. Again from there was folded, edges and corners inside, and yet again the pattern implied repeated once again besides. Until there were counted 7 layers of dough, each too thin to be counted a gateau, but all together, I think you'll agree, would be the breakfast of quite a bourgeoisie. Allowed to rest, and thus to warm, the dough then is ready to form. Take care though: do not be too bold as to ruin the cold or the butter will leak through the dough! Roll it out slow, gentle, and thin, without sticking itself to the skin or the pin, and then we are ready for cuts. You can add what you'd like from jelly to nuts, and anything else besides, but see-saw your knife first to make the best size for a croissant of isosceles sides. Here's a small secret that's forgotten quite frequent, to cut a small slit on the edge: fold the lapels and then you really get rolling. Fill up your tray, and set in the oven at a temperature that's best for your day (consider altitude, humidity, and if your oven heats in an uneven way), and pursue that virtue of patience.


It deserves to be said, that those with vision degraded, and compensated with spectacles, ought to remove them lest they be proven useless by the buttery, yeasty, gust of steam from the oven that will get your appetite stoked, if it wasn't already by now.

Voltaire Everywhere: Part 1

I am certain that the memory I will relate to you shortly is, in fact, not the first time I ever entered a church. It alludes me as to how something so intimate as one's personal moral and ethical belief system can have technicalities such that I am "technically Jewish," but so be it. I understand the politics of circumcision; or to be precise, I understand that there are politics of circumcision, and I recognize the existence of a history that informs religious impact in our daily lives. My intent, however, is not to sink into the mire of religious theorizing or debate. Let that to the theologians, and those who have both the interest and the time; I have neither at the moment, and we have already sunk into too much technicality. We shall not be lost, pray, don't lose spirit; we have only to return to a memory:

I had, I believe, 12 years behind me on the Sunday morning which pertains to the greater story I am intending to tell. I had stayed the previous night at my neighbor's house, a residence I greatly preferred over my own at this time. My friend, called Louisa*, was one of 5 children in her family and lived only a few houses down the block; we often scurried the inbetween. The Jackson's house smelled of dryer sheets and the use of a plant whose name I would learn a few years later. They had a large yard with a trampoline, and a dark basement full of pillows and blankets and games, and that is where we stayed up most of the night preceding the Sunday morning of which I speak. We were unexpectedly awoken this Sunday morning at the impromptu urge of Louisa's mother, whose first name I called her though I will not do her the indecency to do so now in writing, and who desired, on this particular morning, to attend church, and who intended to deliver all 6 of us to the mass. I had too much grog in my eyes to resist, and I had not a heart to go back home yet, so early on a Sunday. And so we went to church, "Saint Someone, The Great," they called it.
It was not, and I believe, still is not a very beautiful church, and I doubt that they ring any bells. I have no reason or means with which to tell you what goes on, or what went on during that Sunday mass, because I do not remember. Indeed I don't believe I was awake for most of it, or only chattering with Louisa, though even if I had been conscious and capable of recording to memory the substance of the sermon or the sounds of the choir, and through these years had by some chance kept that memory unaltered, I would not reproduce it here now since that is not my intent, which we presently return to. One moment of the mass, all the congregants were seated, pew after pew, and then next moment, as in the changing of the guards, our pew rose, and filed out and the pew before us filed in. I simply followed the feet of those before me, as there seemed no way to avoid being swept by the wave despite my hesitation and ambivalence towards any kind of participation. I found myself presented with a cracker from the man on the stage in his white costume (according to my questionable memory), and with the note that I hadn't eaten, gratefully accepted the awkwardness of having someone else place something on my tongue, and swallowed, unsatisfied.

You understand, no doubt, that this was not "technically" allowed, and you know, no doubt, that retorts about Jesus being originally Jewish, and how really, it is only matzoh, are generally met without acceptance. Regardless of your beliefs, or mine even, I have never been sheepish, or even completely honest in my behavior in religious settings.

Church bells ring frequently, though not on every hour, in every neighborhood I've stumbled into here in France. I love the hugeness of the round sounds that boom from the Basilica Sacred Heart at Montmartre, and I love the orchestral quality at the Notre Dame with its bells upon bells upon bells. I love the echoing bells from the churches surrounding Our Lady, in their attempts to keep up with the grandiosity of Her bells. I love the small clatterings of bells upon every such and such an hour here in Rueil-Malmaison. I have wandered in and out, quietly and reverently, and piously even, of many churches already since I've landed amid these gothic buildings. But I have not been to a mass. I am not sure if I intend to, for I am afraid that I would be disappointed by the flat, unsalted, unsweetened, unbuttered Eucharist, and I would rather retain my fancy that in France, the priests give the congregants croissants.

And what a sigh of relief to have finally uttered the topic of all of this rambling. Thank you, reader, for your patience. You understand, of course- I simply had to write it this way. And you understand, I know, that having written in this fashion, I am now, at the keyboard, tired, and hungry, and having to set this aside for a moment. Pray, don't lose spirit, my dear reader, it will only be but a short break in the story.


*You are smart, my friend, and can, no doubt, understand that the specific identities of those mentioned correlate exactly to the lives of people wandering about their ways, perhaps completely unaware of my referring to them. You can, indeed, imagine the discomfort inevitably caused by their hypothetical discoverance of a public mention of something so personal, identifiable, and specific as their name. Why, imagine if I were to say something nasty. Of course, I never would, but imagine! And so, my friend, names have been altered.

Armies of Dispassionate Cows

There are several reasons why I love cows, and you needn't be bothered with most of them. One ought to be obvious by the naming of this archive, and those with sense enough to search, or a history with me will perhaps smile at the various references made. That is up to you. As for an as yet opaque reason for my love of cows, humor me now, dear reader.

The evening I arrived in La Filaine, Cheateaumeillant, after an arduous jaunt of shopping, I lay on a small brass-frame bed in a stone-walled loft under at triangular ceiling with exposed beams. Five feet to my right, in a slightly larger small brass-frame bed, lay a Ukranian man named Denys. Down the steep open risers to the first floor you would find 6 dogs of various size and volume, but of equal disregard for authority and all in need of some extent of discipline and antidepressants. The poor things hardly ever get any attention, and are barely allowed out of doors. When I asked Denys upon meeting him, how it had been to be living with, and helping Jen for the past week he'd been there, he said, "She is sometimes no good character, and the house is big smell."
Jen is an older woman with a sad sagging face and thin short hair. When she hugs you, you may note her width and softness in the middle. She smells of cigarettes and smokes them frequently and her eyes dart about, lined in sparkling green. She has a boisterous laugh, compensating.
Denys is, at first impression, tall, thin, blond, quiet, rather nondescript. But after spending just a few minutes in conversation, and even more especially a few days with him, the lines of his face and a truer air about him lifts slowly from his center as if hiding at first. There are delicate, shy bags beneath his eyes, he is easily amused and a smile is glad to show itself though rarely. He is generally at ease, his shoulders almost always at the end of a shrug. He is a good worker, and would rather not.

Jen's land is populated by 3 donkeys, a leashed goat, a turkey, two sheep, several chickens, herself, Denys, myself, and the dogs. On the other side of the weak wire fence edging the yard, is a mob of cows. Surrounding on all sides, in fact, throughout the village, are cows. Armies of dispassionate cows.

On the day that Jen emerged from her 3-day enclosure within her bedroom crying and honest, she apologized in her Plymouth accent for being "in a hell of a state," and asked that Denys and I leave. Denys had seen the whole ordeal coming, had warned me, and we were both well on our way to finding new hosts. He, unlike me, had had enough already, and seamlessly removed himself from the ugly encounter, while I tried to comfort Jen. And then Denys and I went for a bike ride.

We rode in the opposite direction of Chateaumeillant just to see what we could. Gradually rising and sinking hills spread out around us. Every once in a dozen farms we faced a hill with greater confidence to stand tall against us, and always after were greeted with a slope of even greater zeal. After one very slow, but indeed pressing rise uphill, there came a decline reasonably envied by lugers with a bridge at the bottom and curves leading up again to an equally steep incline. We soared down, gaining speed we hoped to maintain up the hill, turned our gears down and accepted sadly the slug rate at which we would climb up.

Those who know me closely can attest to the terribly debilitating pain that often accompanies intensive exertion on the part of my heart. I implore those who are unaware, please do not take this metaphorically; indeed my "heart" can handle much exertion. My insides, on the other hand, begin to salivate some cold throbbing mercurial stuff which pools into my pelvis until I lose my peripheral vision. We reached the top of the incline, and threw our bikes down, I to the grass, supine, and Denys off to climb an apple tree. Apples picked, and eating, I sense naught but the crunch and sweet; the dull, relentlessly throbbing pain; and the clouds above like melted butter on a sky of fading blue toast.

As we rode towards what was to no longer be home, we approached the herd of neighbor cows at the fence. As they always do when we pass, their heads lift- heads of the most beautiful shape, if you ever care to notice it- and their eyes behold you with a blank and knowing mien.

I am sure that I am not the only one who has discovered a relationship between one's belly and one's mind, no? That when we worry, our middles gurgle, press out, churn up, or refuse cooperation, yes? The world about which we worry out there, comes in, and rests in here, and it is, of course, at the center of our being that we must decide what is to be welcomed in and what is to be forced out. And, to be sure, the free floating anxiety and groundlessness which understandably accompanies one on adventures which altogether defy expectation and definition, would certainly conjure up some ache for the belly, would it not? I assure you, I expected so, but I am pleased to announce, even given the free floating and groundless characteristic of my travels thus far, I have had nothing but hunger, happiness, and the occasional inoffensive wind. I credit much to the writing which has kept my stomach from digesting too much emotion. My friends the cows have 4 stomachs.

I've heard it said that when the prophet Mohammad told his followers the names of their god, he kept one name a secret to himself until his death, and upon his departure from this world, whispered that single name to a camel. To this day, camels are thought by some to walk as they do, proud, spiteful, and obedient because they know they know.

I think perhaps, cows know something of god too. And I think perhaps, it has something to do with the way they take the world into themselves. It shows on their faces, calm, ever unsurprised, and a kind of happy.
---

I stayed for less than a week in La Filaine, the little village outside of a town called Chateaumeillant, about an hour drive from Chateauroux and the train station. Originally my plan was to stay there for the duration of my 2 months (ish) in France with Jen, a host I had connected with via network: www.helpx.net. I want so badly to believe in things like couchsurfing and help exchange networks, but the truth is, really, most people are crazy. Which is fine, of course, and relative, to be sure, but it becomes a nasty gnarl to depend on the nutcases for your own well-being. I know of people who have made these networks work for them, and I applaud them. I wonder though, if having my own agenda with what I'm trying to accomplish in my travels, and having a sense of myself, while still admittedly utterly lost, impinges on the feasibility of casting myself to the wind for strangers to catch and direct me. I have created for myself a Chinese finger trap of sorts, as I am, as we all are to some extent, dependent on others, and yet so completely and undeniably separate.

My sense of time, for one, is for the most part, lost. Though I know, because of facts, that I've been in France now exactly 8 days, it seems to switch between feeling like a month, and like 2 hours. I am clearly, of course, a mess. I am calm, and happy, and an incredible mess. Amidst it all, I try to smile like the cows, and I am glad to be back in Paris.

Jersey Girl does Paris

---
My last week in the states, at a bar, some fellow with whom I am unacquainted approached me, kissed my hand, and said, "enchanté, ma chérie." I pulled my hand away, and in the jersiest French accent imaginable, I said, "Je ne suis pas TON cherie!" and huffed off.
---
My brief layover and plane change in Reykjavik was spent watching the numerous 10-second advertisements for Iceland, from which I learned that the name of the Icelandic language is Islenska, and that the word "geyser" originated thenceforth. I had received a stamp and a cursory once-over of my passport from Icelandic customs folk, but passed through no immigration or customs rituals, boarded my plane to Paris and slept.

Funneling from the plane to baggage claim, into the taxi line, my baggage into a trunk, and I into conversation with the driver, Dominique, I realized that I never received a French visa-upon-arrival as I had expected. But I was in the city now, haltingly and slowly weaving towards the 9ieme arrondissement through the wheel of Paris. Dominique told me, like the cash-exchange attendant, that I speak French very well. Very kind, I told them both, but untrue. I am admittedly talented in parroting accents which lends me the undeserved scent of knowledge, but like violets, the scent is gone upon nose at the second breath. But, then again, I suppose toute est possible.

I immediately addressed my maslovian needs; I went to stretch my plane-cramped legs, fill my belly, and buy a SIM card. I wandered in and out of several shops and spoke to at least three bouquinistes before settling down for some onion soup, as it is called in France. When I returned to the street which once was home to Le Chat Noir Cabaret, I mounted the stairs to the apartment which had been opened to me and which is decked in dozens of old renaissance romantic paintings in ornate woodcarved and gold covered decrepit frames, and which also boasts of a poster in the bathroom declaring, "Here sits the next movie star!" I had tea and biscuits with my hosts and listened in an irresponsibly detached manner to their charged discussion of family affairs in French. I had to remind myself that their sounds have meanings to them, and are not only fascinating, but weighty. Nevertheless, it was enjoyable to watch the rapidfire cadence and bounciness of the speech, the specificity of each of their uses of the language. I thought I heard something about an umbrella, and was wrong.

I returned to the sidewalks in the evening with feet tired but determined to sync with the sun and had a hopeful heart for finding Montmartre by sunset, which is not far from there. Despite the seemingly explicit signage of Paris, I found myself alone in a city (ungridded) in a foreign country past dark. Remembering the moment when my danger sensors blared and I, alert of the young man behind me, slid into a side shop and changed course, I determined to ask for directions. A bit untrusting due to those New York City walking habits, I hesitated in who to ask. Across the dimly lit street (though those Paris street lamps are truly lovely), I noticed a bouquiniste, and thought, "I can trust book folk." Though I could be embarrassed at my pride , I'd rather boast in having asked for, got and followed directions in French.

Paris threatened to rain for two days with a weak follow-through on Wednesday afternoon that hit just as I crossed the Seine and started on line at the entrance of the Musee D'Orsay. With directions on my journal-torn scrap in hand I had utilized those city-walking skills gleaned early in my youth living in the suburbs of New York; though I noticed that I had to temper the speed those skills had been set to rest in. Paris, though grand and bustling, is still leisurely. I paused at the first several patisseries along the way to linger for an extra bouffée d'air parfumée au beurre. My eyes lifted up towards the unspoken gargoyles, and felt that it ought to be someone's job to always remind people that they are there; these old, gold dendrites on the buildings watching their city and how it's changed.

Thursday morning, once packed again into my rucksack, I walked up La Rue Des Martyrs following with greater attention the signs to Montmartre which stands up beyond two sets of steep stone old steps over the city. I came up to a square populated with artists and tourists and beggars and Eiffel Tower keychains and berets. Portaiteers on the edges of the square grabbing folks from their stares with landscapes and abstract canvases held in the center, the terrain of the paint casting shadows at my feet with the sun as strong as it was.

Hearing the echoes of some jazzy reggae and an emphatic singer, I turned the corner to find three black Frenchmen selling their CD on the steps of le Basilisque de Sacre Coeur de Montmartre, an enormous marble thing beholding a view of Paris unmatched. Throngs of people in every language. But inside the cathedral was a nun's song echoing in the domes of the ceiling where a glittering mosaic of Jesus looms over the priest, with Joan of Arc, and St. Michael the Archangel all around on their knees with their heads thrown back and palms turned up to their savior. The inspiration of religion abounds like I'd not seen before.

I'd made my way to a post office before long. It was busy, and when I asked my overly-rehearsed question, I received an answer unexpectedly longer and more complex. I made like I understood precisely, and hurriedly left, deciding to try sending the package to the US once arrived in Chateaumeillant. On to the train station I went.

Breadcrumbs

I've told a few people that this process of leaving again, this time without the structure, or larger mass in which to subsume myself (student, researcher, business travel, or even a clean way to answer, "where are you from?"), has felt a bit jolting. As though I had been planning this trip for some abstract self, thinking all the while, "what a wonderful life this would be to live!" and then all of a sudden, I find that the only person who is set up to live it is me, and I've quit my job, and bought a plane ticket, and am driving in the middle of the night, coming up to Mt Shasta for sunrise. Really. I have to say to myself, "This is me, I am doing this. No one else will."
My mom tells me I'm living the dreams of so many people, to just pick up and off to France. No pressure or anything, right? Anyway, in a moment like this, it's nice to lay down some breadcrumbs so I can find my way back when I need to.

Now, I won't often do this, but here's an excerpt from my journal:

"Ah, to write about how I truly feel! O! but to have a homebase! Ay! and to make a life!... It feels like my life is on pause, and the deeply personal reasons for my adventures and endeavors are somewhat irrelevant to the beginning of me having a "real life," as in making a living, but I want the exercise of my life to be made of more. My life has not even really (or I suppose truly it has) begun and I am already feeling imminent demise in my first steps! Oh! Hush all! It is well that I do so long as I still land my foot heavy and braced for the burden of my whole self, future and all! To be sure! What time is it? Time enough!"

I was reminded of a poem that I quoted at the beginning of my last big journey by Brian Andreas, in his book "Traveling Light":

carries a lot of suitcases
but all of them are empty
because she's expecting to completely fill them
with life by the end of this trip

& then she'll come home
& sort everything out
& do it all again


And then I just thought I'd share this with y'all.

Fresh Cut Grass and Chocolate

For the sake of absolute clarity, let me just say: my life is fairly nonsensical.

It has taken me some time to come to this. I know that it's not what is supposed to happen. I know that the right thing would be to make some concrete choices that narrow my possibilities into some niche of expertise, to develop my skills and marketability so as to present myself to the world in the neatest little package, compact, simple to open and easily stackable. I should have "majored" in something (anything!) in college; I should have had internships and failed one class before getting my shit together; I should be satisfied with the adventures I've had thus far and not seek more; I should be happy to develop my career path and start to settle down. I also know that is, like, totally not what I want to happen. Maybe it would be lovely to have such a straightforward life. But I doubt it.
And let me just be honest. I tried. Really, I tried to say that I would be something specific, some one thing. But for all the effort I made to walk any one path, the earth-quaking pound of my honest heart would force me to stumble and widen the trail. So here I am. ("which is where, exactly?")

Ah, yes, the moment we've all been waiting for.

Nothing is quite like the feeling of being in a coffee shop in a new place for the first time with the intention of writing, reading, thinking. It's a kind of openness to one's own self because you've cleared your day for this, because this was the point anyway. I've written before about that feeling of leaving a place, and this is usually what follows for me, since whenever I leave somewhere, my first destination is usually a thinking spot, a reflective seat at a small table with an iced americano or hot chocolate, maybe a doughnut. (Speaking of feelings, there is also this). There is sunshine coming in the window which is, of course, drawing my gaze to watch the construction outside rather than to look at my computer screen or the pages written by Poe. There is sunshine here, of course, because it is California. Maybe I can say something of the feeling when you remember that weather is variable in different places. Like, there is a place where you wake up expecting sunshine, and you are not disappointed, a place where you can take sunshine for granted. And, of course, right? Just like the feeling of realizing that you ought not to hope for a clear blue sky, but learn to love rather the quality that your skin takes on when it is usually damp.

There is a kind of pretending that happens. I realize that I am a visible part of the world, and so it does seem like I belong in this coffee shop. I want to stand up and tell each person sitting at the scattered identical tables around me, that my life is nonsense. [I once read Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper on a bus, and once I had done with it, I had some unshakable sense of lonesomeness. I looked around me and saw what seemed to be people, living their own lives (the gall!), and knowing nothing of the insanity I had just been witness to in this story. No one to share with me in the literary genius of being truly and vaguely freaked out by the simple descriptions of some remote, long-dead author.] It seems though, that rather than make a spectacle of myself and risk utter social alienation, I pull on some half-true identity in the milieu of this coffee shop like some house-dress that might fit; I sit here and say, by virtue of drinking this iced americano and minding my own business, that yes, I do belong here. And also perhaps, by virtue of that in itself, that the lives of all of these phantoms sitting surrounding me at identical little tables drinking their various drink choices, are also nonsense.