De France, avec l'amour

If I thought having visitors with a toddler, who cooked, cleaned, watched after my children, rented and drove their own car, did their own laundry and some of ours, and generally took care of themselves while enjoying beautiful Barbados was tough, I could not be prepared for the visit of Didier's mother and brother for their two week stay.  Not since Virginie was a newborn and Lily had begun her struggle as the jealous older sister, have I had so little sleep.  Just when I thought it was not possible for me to have more to do, I am trying to keep up our household with the addition of two adults, one in the Master Bedroom, the other in the guesthouse, who speak primarily/only French all day long.  As is expected, when one's family comes to visit, especially one's Belle-Mere, all details are to be taken care of by the hosts.  Read Didier and me.  Didier is doing all the driving and cooking.  I am doing all the rest.  And all the rest is in addition to the care of Lily and Virginie who have begun a two week break from school and are home for most of the day.

We are six people, four adults and two children, scrambling around the island in one car as a rental car has not been pursued.  We are two different meals (You think the kids want to eat a seafood pasta with calamari, crab, and shrimp?) , lots of dishes and no dishwasher, well other than me or anyone else who might like to volunteer to get their hands in the murky water.  We are trips to the beach, to all points of interest, to four coasts, to swimming lesson catch ups, and back for nap times.  We are speaking and listening in French, heat rising as semi-cool Barbados "winter" has begun to give way to blazing sunshine and humidity.  We are different parts of a family, but we are indeed family.  And you do for family.

While I am blotto, this has been magical for the girls and, I hope, for Didier's mother.  We dreamed that she and Jean, Didier's father who could not make the trip, would have the kind of time that my parents have often had with the girls.  It is no secret that none of us is getting any younger and at 78 and 81 respectively, Paulette et Jean, Didier's parents, are up there.  They are not in bad health, but not great either and are certainly mentally active, but our living in the Caribbean while they spend their days in France make frequent travel difficult, and time has gone by quickly.  To get to Barbados, Paulette and Didier's older brother had a five hour train ride to Paris, then a 6 to 7 hour flight to Martinique, where they stayed overnight with a friend as there was no suitable hotel for them there, a fifteen minute flight to St. Lucia and finally another fifteen minutes to Barbados.  That's quite a trip for an elderly lady.  Add to that the jetlag and extraordinary humidity and you can imagine how courageous it was for her make the trip for us.

Creating memories can be hard work.  I have been happy to practice my French and see if the Rosetta Stone is really working.  It is.  And even more excited that Lily and Virginie are hearing their father's mother tongue spoken and tuning their ears to it.  In the first days, they began calling me "Maman" because Grandma in French is "Mami" pronounced similarly to "Mommy" and they wanted to be sure that we knew to whom they were speaking and making demands.  Of course, I knew.  But I can say that Virginie demands that it is Mami who gives her her medicine or helps to brush her teeth and Lily asks Mami to do puzzles with her and look at the animals in her drawings.  Maman gets to get up in the middle of the night for water, trips to the potty, and early morning stories or TV watching...as it should be.

We have seen Barbados again from another set of eyes and while I have come to love the picturesque landscape, I have never counted all the flowers or marveled at every bird and vista.  But I have pushed my chest out in pride at the girls' swimming, been thankful that the coconut guys came just in time for a performance for Paulette, and that Mr. Arthur, the pool maintenance guy is such a great character.  All of this and the love from les petites has given Paulette more memories to share, more life to consider, more love to receive.  Even through my tired eyes, I can see the beauty of this. 


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.

Inspiration on Facebook

I have a friend on Facebook called Denise.  She was a friend, more like an acquaintance actually, in high school, whom I always liked, but never knew very well.  Before my twentieth high school reunion, I got back in touch with so many friends, classmates, even practical strangers from high school in anticipation of that reunion and the reconnecting was intoxicating.  Whether currently or previously friends, nearly strangers or teammates, buddies, church friends, all of those people went through those developing years directly or peripherally attached to me.  It was such a head trip.  Where once one would walk off in to the sunset never to see or hear from some of these people again, there we all were...on Facebook.  For better or worse, a little better than, certainly older than we once were walking through the hallways of FTHS.


I never thought I would care.  I wanted out so desperately that I raced out of town, never looked back, and my parents' move from town when I was 19 years old, made it easy to forget from where I'd come.  But nostalgia did get the better of me and I was curious.  Though I'd signed on to Facebook at the request/invitation of a former lover, I got attached to it catching up with folks from high school.  And it is here that Denise became my inspiration.

From what I have gathered, she endured a pretty crap marriage and hideous divorce but has emerged like a gorgeous butterfly with two incredibly articulate, artistic, caring, charming young boys, a gaggle of friends and family who love and support her, and a joie de vivre that makes me forget my stuck-in-tar shoes and try to take off into the world.  Every morning.  As she does.  She is a teacher and artist, an incredible photographer, whose posts reveal that she is often to bed late and up before the sun, creating, thinking, dreaming, living.  She works non-stop, writes words to motivate and inspire, sends love in abundance to her friends.  Even when she is sick, she sees the blessings that life has given her and does not wallow.

The photos of her friends and family make me want in on her life.  They beg me to have her in my life somehow, more.  I dream of her taking photos of my life and my family so that we can remember and I can recall that we did live a charmed life and we were beautiful and life was good.  Each morning when I just cannot imagine how I will exercise and write and maybe draw and clean and get the kids to their lessons and endure my suffering on a tropic island (said tongue in cheek), I consider her drive in to work (where there is always traffic and often snow or rain), her really doing it alone, her finding the silver lining, her patience, her love, her commitment , her spirit and think, you need to count your blessings, fool.  Seize it, live it, love it.  Crazy kids, wacky French husband and all.  This is life. 

In the unlikeliest places, one can find inspiration.  One can see the signs.  Now that is not to say that I don't have any complaints in me or that overnight I have become Mary Sunshine.  That things don't somehow wear me down.  That a bad night of sleep cannot leave me groggy and bitchy and tired.  But I can learn and I am learning.  We have teachers all around us if we choose to see them.  And on this monstrously addictive social foolishness called Facebook, I have been inspired.  Thanks, Denise.  I look forward to your next post.


(c)  Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.