A Small Death

Moving is like a small death. You know it's coming sooner or later. Then, when you know the actual moving date, you start planning, but not really, because you know it's all still far away.

Suddenly, as you find yourself walking with your family in the Tuileries, the lovely gardens next to the Louvre, it hits you. This is the last time in a possibly long time, or perhaps ever, that you will be walking here at sunset.

And so, you breathe in the warm summer air deeply into your lungs and feel the dusty limestone staining your feet, as you walk up to the ledge that leaves you breathless with the Eiffel Tower, the obelisk in Place de la Concorde and the Arc de Triomphe.

Today I learned...

that a good way to clean a potato is with the scrubby-green part of a sponge.

Today I learned...

(thanks to the fact that I ran out of butter and needed to "wet" the dough)
...that a little bit of plain yogurt makes a cake more moist.

Artiste

It hasn't always been easy living in Paris these last three years. I've had to learn to negotiate my fear of asking for help at the BHV (department store), learn to shrug it off when someone yelled at me when they bumped into me, be insistent in asking a waiter for service, and calm my nerves when I panicked with the quagmire of bureaucracy surrounding working as a free-agent.

I should have known that when something so scared the yoga pants of me that something else was cooking. It took a while, but I finally realized what was going on.

Falling in love with the esthetics of this city, feeling the flow of the Seine in calm and storm, walking the streets until I flowed through them like the blood in my veins, has led me to my true calling.

As of May 16, 2008, the French government has declared me an "Artiste". I am now officially a member of La Maison des Artistes, which gives me tax breaks for being in the arts.

It is much easier being an artist in France than, say, a yoga teacher.

As I write this with the deepest gratitude for this city, for its challenges and its beauty, I thank Paris for showing me my true nature.

Merci Paris. You gave me the courage to walk this path that I have been tiptoeing down for many years.

Now I walk, with a sure foot, and of course, as always, camera in hand, to my first photo exhibit.

Painted Sky

Walking home from the playground with my toddler, I had to stop on the island in the middle of the street to take this picture. The only clouds in the sky just happened to be so perfectly aligned with the angle of the rooftops.

That's Paris for you, even the clouds look like they've been put there by an artist.

Time Flies...

FRENCH VERSION:

Monsieur/madame,

You shouldn't be reading these blogs so frequently and then getting on my case about not writing. And you should also know that those geniuses at Blogger did something so that I couldn't get into my blogs for at least a month. What service they provide for an account that is free, pffffffffffffff.

Anyway, I have to go eat some cheese now and maybe a coffee eclair to calm my nerves.

I send you my deepest regrets, and sincere cordial wishes for a lovely day,

Dya

AMERICAN VERSION:

Dear Readers,

I apologize for not posting for many months. I'm getting flack about it, and rightly so! Thank you for keeping on me to write. I've been remiss, and I also haven't been able to get into my Blogger accounts. It seems to be working now, but it did take me a while to log in again today, so please bear with me. Hopefully, we'll work the technical challenges out.

Blessings,

Dya

It's a New Year!

As I wrote on my Mama Dya's World blog, I'm really glad the year 2007 is almost over. I've had major postpartum depression due to chronic lack of sleep for the past six months and living in Paris hasn't helped matters.

On this blog, I've written mostly about the side of Paris that I love. I've perhaps been remiss in sharing a fuller picture of what it is like for me to live here. This will change.

I love this city, there are no and, buts, or anything else about that. It's not the city I have a hard time with, it's a lot of the people who live in it. Not all of them, and certainly there are many lovely people around me, especially in our building and the shops around us.

But boy, some days are tough. For example, I'm not used to having to apologize when someone else runs into me. My husband is from Normandy, and he doesn't necessarily have an easier time living here than I do.

But Paris is where I live, for now. It's my village and this is what I will write about. Paris: the good, the bad and the Parisians.

Bonne Annee and here's to blogging more frequently in this new year of 2008!