Just when I was prepared to send a happy times missive off into the blogosphere, the one where I tell you about being back on my feet again, inexplicably excited about my data gathering, and feeling fashionable in my new gigantic petit bateau t-shirts (t as in tent), the moment has passed. I’m still processing the last few days, but to save you any suspense,
everything’s okay.
I felt a little strange Tuesday morning. My belly was unusually tight, as if the creature had outgrown her bubble and the skin hadn’t stretched enough to accommodate her yet, but it felt like one of those pregnancy things, not anything alarming. I went off to meet someone for coffee and then go to yoga, with the plan to check out my just! unearthed! data! cd! at the library in the afternoon. Walking to the metro felt different, not the new post-sciatic lightness I’d welcomed, more of a “this 5 ton beach ball isn’t feeling very portable today” sensation. Still, the morning went, yoga was relaxing, and then I went home, googled around a bit and decided I’d see how things felt after a nap. I couldn’t have been more mellow, relaxed and calm, yet still had this hard bulge messing with my appetite, my ability to sit, and displaying two signs that were a little too reminiscent of a certain day in May 2006: I could not wear pants (nothing could touch the bulge) and I suddenly felt like someone had migrated a little lower down than she was before.
I skipped the library and called my midwife, figuring if I needed to see her, it was easier to do while T was still at school. She wasn’t alarmed but couldn’t really give any feedback without seeing me so I set off for the clinic. I put on pants, packed a few magazines, a couple of snacks and nothing else, hoping I’d have no need for more supplies. That was Tuesday afternoon. I came home today.
It turns out that I was having contractions every three minutes. Three minutes. Not all of them were that strong and the ones I did feel, I wouldn’t necessarily have described as such. Tightness, some pressure. I don’t know. It’s all a bit of a blur. C came home early to pick up T and as I was getting information little by little, I told him not to come. The first proposal was that I go home, rest, and take this contraction reducing pill, but by the time the monitor was off, I was being admitted, on an IV, and run through a bunch of tests. Overall everyone was calm. One line of reasoning was very simple: this is normal, not a big deal, we’ll give you this stuff intravenously for 24 hours, stop the contractions and you’ll go home. The other line was in a sense pure protocol, but more alarming, as in, with situations like this we also measure the baby to see what we’ll be dealing with should she need to come out, we inject you with a steroid to start maturing her lungs, and we tell you about the special neo-natal hospital where you’ll be transferred.
Juggling these two extremes, all the while with no cause attributed to the contractions in the first place, was a lot. The baby is fine and healthy and sealed in tight, but the worry was that if the contractions didn’t stop, they’d keep pushing her further and further down, and well, out, a 31 week old creature who should really wait until the flowers are blooming but instead was threatening to open her eyes to Paris in the snow.
But. The drugs stopped the contractions and now we’re home. Petite’s inside, wiggling around in a much more supple, squishy space than she had on a Tuesday. My French has been tested in new ways and I’m looking at a long, shortest month of the year…in bed. Weird times these.
C brought me home this afternoon and T greeted me with a lavish application of smooches all over the belly. By all accounts she was a real trooper. She was off her schedule, spending time at her old creche and with friends so C could be at the hospital (no kids allowed right now), but managed everything really well. She might be the only one to be a little disappointed that the baby didn’t come out yet, but I think she understands that this outcome is the best one.
Look forward to hearing your podcast/book/movie/knitting suggestions as there is a lot of time to fill all of a sudden.
We reviewed all of the times we’ve been wished a “bonne continuation,” one of those phrases that sounds really funny to American ears. There was the successful renewal of our identity cards, the farewell to our first landlord, at least one or two other times I’ve forgotten, and now this, the assurance that all is well with little sister’s heart. It’s as if to say, yes we will never see each other again, but in this case, that’s a good thing.
T, your half-birthday passed us by, but the switch from 3 to 3.5 must have sunken in because you’ve already moved on from the endless discussion of the events that took place on the three candle day to the upcoming four. You’ve been falling back on this trope a lot lately: I need three cookies because I am three, three stories because I am three. I myself prefer the balance of two: one cookie for each hand, one short story and one long, etc., but it’s all fine for now.
On our way out of the restaurant last night, in an attempt to avoid the very nice waitress who offered you a treat for the road, you performed some kind of maneuver–part tantrum, part gymnastic–that left you on the floor and then made your arm hang limp by your side. I couldn’t tell if I had twisted your arm or pulled it as I was holding your hand at the time. It was all unclear, but you were really upset, and what I first took as a post-chocolate crepe crash turned into a huge overnight drama. You were up all night, complaining about your arm, searching for your ice, and causing more of my hairs to turn gray.
Your dad is out of town, but after consulting with him and considering that it’s a holiday here, I decided to take you to the hospital. I did a quick vocabulary study and we headed out the door. You comported yourself well in that I saw them note that you were calm, face content and rosy. At the same time, you would not say a word to them, even when they let on that they had some English. You wouldn’t talk about it or point to where it hurt. Since you didn’t talk, they could only assume the worst and sent us for an x-ray. Radio. It has been added to our dossier, I assume along with a note that your mother is a worrier and the fact that once again you’ve outed as a coquine (read: rascal). At least the nurse didn’t chastise me for using the services of the urgences unnecessarily as she did the mother who followed me. Nothing was broken, just a little unspecified trauma in the end.
We had a long chat yesterday about being finished with the stroller. I told you that I can’t carry it down the stairs anymore, that it’s too hard for me to push right now. You were fine with it as you’re always on me to “not break your baby” anyway. You were so fine that you seemed ready to walk the mile to the hospital before I assured you that this morning was certainly an exception. It’s an interesting time, T. As you like to say, you’re “big and little” and that seems to be the heart of 3.5 at our house. You have this whole world apart from us, you speak better French than we do–in fact, today was that day, the first day you corrected my French–and I can still carry you home when you fall down and cry. Big and little’s not a bad place to be.
…and thanks for that extremely rare and refreshingly long nap today.
I’ve hit a blogging wall. This post will not come. I feel the need to produce some sort of “year in france” summary, but it. won’t. come. And so, someone who says better than I ever could.
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I am glad we did this. I am glad I won’t wonder what it’s like to pick up and move to Paris. I am glad to have had the opportunity to step outside myself, my world, my familiars to feel discomfort and anxiety and longing. Why? Because along with the general unease brought about by those feelings, there is also the creativity that strangeness brings, the new friends, the adventures, the rewards of stepping out of the system (or at least sliding into a new one) for a while.
I’m still amazed at how much of this city I saw in one week back in the 1990s on a trip with my parents. Perhaps I’ve had a handful of days as ambitious as those were, but there hasn’t been any urgency. And that’s the point to one year abroad, right? One takes it slow, embeds in the neighborhood, meets the corner baker and rarely leaves the little quarter like the locals? Yet we are far from being locals and that is apparent everyday.
There’s the way I thought it would be, the way it is, the way it still might be. I have high hopes for year 2, but they come with a dose of nostalgia. We have been pulling off the industrial sized bandage that is home millimeter by millimeter all year long, and it feels like this upcoming trip to San Francisco will be the final tug–wrenching yet freeing all at once. We will pull some treasures out of the heap in the basement, pack the rest away, eat burritos and give lots of hugs. Then will we fly back on T’s silver airplane and give Paris one more chance.
I would not wish a Paris housing search on anyone. We knew when we arrived that we’d need to find another place, but my shitty French and fear of the telephone postponed the search for a while. Now the search has entered deadline mode and after suffering some of the most ridiculous rejections you can imagine (”no you can’t come see the apartment as I don’t think the staircase is safe for a three year old), we have honed in on two possibilities. I present them to you now, in no particular order.
Apartment F:
This is our connect. Our current landlord really wants to free up our place so that her son can move in. Somehow she has a lead on a place around the corner (perhaps she also owns this one? it’s not clear). If we don’t leave in time, her son will move there. She has proposed a swap.
The apartment is 1 bedroom, half the size of our current one, modern building, same neighborhood, same school assignment for next year. Key features include: storage, secured parking for velo or stroller. Huge savings on rent.
Apartment B:
Also 1 bedroom and half the size. Also big savings, though slightly more expensive than the other one. Small old building with “charm”. In this case there is also an alcove, essentially a room without a door that could be T’s room. This one is in a different neighborhood, different arrondissement, so new school assignment for the fall. The drawbacks here are the lack of storage (no real closets or basement storage), and lack of oven. The oven was key for me, but since so many apartments here don’t have one, that I don’t care so much anymore. At least there are four burners on the stove.
Comparison:
Both places are furnished. We haven’t actually been inside “F” yet, but will see it over the weekend. My sense is that it will have a more amenity-filled kitchen, but we will either have to share a bedroom with T or sleep out in the living room. I’m a little hesitant to leave our neighborhood, but the other one seems nice too. So, bottomline: B has essentially two bedrooms, but no place to put a suitcase and a potentially limited kitchen. F gives us the pleasure of having a connect and using it. It has storage, probably a better kitchen (tbd), almost definitely less squeaky floors, but only one bedroom.
Maybe you’ve heard about the free bicycle program here? For the most part, it’s super-easy to do and a fun way to get around town. I haven’t used it too often because: I’m lazy, the weather blows, or I have my kid in tow and there’s no kid-carrying option. But, today was different. What do you call a perfect storm when the various factors don’t conspire, but cooperate (other than a fucking great time)? This was today.
Dropped T off, had coffee with a friend, launched my afternoon en Velib. I passed this pretty house:
It was located on a round-about, so I went around and then back to have another look. Then I came to these houses which reminded me of San Francisco:
And I saw this bike in the window of a shop that was closed for lunch:
Can you make out the lettering? Bicycle frame font, a new obsession.
This path seemed promising, but then it wasn’t:
Eventually I made it to my destination. I looked for a parking spot, remembered one over by the National Library, but was totally shut out. All the spots were full except for these:
The orange things are blocking the lock mechanism that allows you to park the bike and walk away. I watched a velib’er ahead of me wait for someone else to fetch a bike so he could park. This seemed silly so I started circling the neighborhood looking for a spot. They were all full. I came back to the first stand just as someone was leaving and soon after a guy pulled up behind me. He wanted to cut me. He spoke French. I didn’t understand him so I answered with something that seemed relevant. Then he said this was his fourth parking attempt. I said it was mine too. We swapped stories. We had tried completely different stations and they were all full. The guy I was waiting for left. I didn’t let the chatty guy cut me. I locked my bike and then went, um, bicycle shopping.
No purchases. I made my way home on foot/train. I attempted to position my phone to take a picture of myself in front of the library. There was this one:
And this one:
And in this one, you can see my new stockholm dress:
Somehow I thought we’d chosen our fork in the road last year, but still it feels like we’re stuck in an endless series of roundabouts giving us too many opportunities to rethink past moves and to over-think current and future choices. I’ve been making some attempts to rejoin the workforce of late, but it’s not easy. Today I was asked to describe my dream job and as I stumbled along with my answer, I had to summon great force to squash the “can a job be a dream?” thought bubble. The response I offered was a legitimate and intellectually stimulating way of contributing to my profession and society at large, but a dream…no.
On the way home, some more shimmery, iridescent thought bubbles floated above. “You are already living the dream…the dream…the dream,” they chanted. Sometimes that dream puts me face to face with an angry toddler (not my own) who screams “C’est interdit!” as she belts me in the playground, but more often, the dream streams across an endless series of afternoons spent sewing as I please and engaged in interviews of a different sort, filled with questions from my favorite three foot tall interrogator, this afternoon’s including: why does the rhinoceros have a horn, why does the crocodile have big teeth, and, mama, why are you here? The first two, for defense and for eating, were easy, and as I started to get all philosophical on the last one, she interjected, “no why are you standing over there, not next to me?”
And to top it off, in a few weeks I’m told I’ll be almost 4. Dreamy times, these.
Almost everyday I encounter a situation that disconcerts, something that is not better or worse in France, just different. Take today. When I arrived to pick up T, the kids were rocking out to Pink Martini’s Sympathique (and here). It was on the heavy rotation about 10 years ago, no? They were dancing and screeching, and as the song came to a close, a good many two year olds, my daughter included, belted out the final chorus:
Je ne veux pas travailler
Non, je ne veux pas déjeuner
Je veux seulement t’oublier
Et puis je fume…*
This is what you sing when you’re procrastinating on a term paper, but what worries do these squeaks have? Sometimes even toddlers need a smoke, hm? It may sound like the blades of my helicopter are a-whirl, but in fact I’m not too stressed about it–it’s just different, possibly a strange choice, but hardly a catastrophe, another word T learned today. All the way home, again and again, she belted, “c’est une catastrophe.”
Me: Do you know what a catastrophe is?
T: C’est une catastrophe! catastrophe! cah-tah-strof!
Me: Do you know what it means?
T: What is means?
Me: (Searching for example that illustrates but isn’t actually too catastrophic). It might be a catastrophe if we arrived at the airport late and the plane left without us.
T: (Looking up at me, eyes wide open). Yes. Catastrophe.
I tried…
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* Forgive the translation: I don’t want to work; I don’t want to eat, I only want to forget and then I smoke.
There’s a reason why many people in this town spend a large amount of February en vacances–Paris does many things well, but not February. The same applies to me. I’m happy to see this month end and fortunately, this last week is much better than the previous. Here’s why:
A friend who owns a beautiful teahouse where I go to a weekly knitting group agreed to display my wares. I brought some of the clothes, bags and ‘puters by today. Just a few hours later, a little bag sold.
I now have a list of people to contact for potential jobs, housing, and general life-in-Paris tips. Nothing like complete desparation to force me out of my introversion.
I agreed to edit a little magazine for my mother’s group back in the fall. I procrastinated as long as I could, but now that I’m finally working on it, it’s coming together really nicely. I’ve worried that all the required pieces would make it too bland, but some great expats.in.Paris/moms/writers have joined up and my vision of a local, mini-Brain, Child might just come to pass.
There’s a kid at school who is every parent’s idea of trouble and it’s not my kid.
My kid sings endless rounds of French songs as she falls asleep. For those of you linked into the family blog, you can hear her latest, “C’est mon hérisson” which I initially heard as “Simon Hérisson” aka Simon Porcupine. When I learned the real words, I was a little saddened as I preferred the latter. The plates of the earth shifted every so slightly as they did when I realized that that Men at Work song spoke of something called Vegemite.
My favorite LA blogger is back online and seems to have directed several people to my etsy shop. I know this because I now run stats on my shop. The stats are not impressive, but they’re not zero. In the fall, I had the goal of earning enough through the shop to buy one of our plane tickets home. Um, no, so I am adjusting my expectations–T needs a new pair of shoes.
