gelukkige kerstmis

 Wishing you joy, peace & love!

party party party

It's that time of year again. While others have turkey in the oven or travel to see loved ones for a feast of giving thanks, we give thanks by staying home and celebrating the births of our babies. After last year's dual blow-outs, we swore it would be quiet family outings only going forward, but how do you resist throwing a party for your six-year-old who is at a new school in a new country? We couldn't.

 

  Invitations went out via Paperless Post to all the girls in her class and within a couple of days we had fourteen positive responses, leaving us with the question of what to do with fifteen six-year-old girls. Decorate cookies, pin-the-necklace-on-the-donkey, and open presents! Pictures do not capture the squeals reverberating from every surface in our home, but trust me, it was a rave.

Perhaps it was the residual memory of those supersonic sound levels that led Townsie to cry No! when we greeted him with smiles and Happy Birthday! as he woke the following Saturday. We kept it low-key. For the boy whose mealtime prayers of thanks go something like:

Heavenly Father

Thank you for pancakes

Bless Rich on his mission

Amen,

Steve arranged a birthday pancake feast. It was a quiet success.

 

And now, let the holiday festivities begin!

out + about, part ii

Okay, so Paris was a bust. I still had high hopes for the remaining two weeks of our vacation (unjustified after that final morning of dragging my loved ones around the Marche aux Puces, which yielded nothing but the certain knowledge that one day Violette will mention to someone that she used to go there as a child, with a casual smirk that will break her poor mother's heart). We made for Lyon, the only other firm destination in our plans. 

The legion of guide books we picked up on our way out of Paris promised us superior gastronomical delights in Lyon, and did it ever deliver. Yes, even with our constraints (a.k.a. Violette and Townes). Within walking distance of the Hotel Carlton we enjoyed a Japanese ramen bar, Spanish-French fusion in an industrial loft setting, a place serving nothing but bouchons (the gnocchi-like dumplings that are specific to the city), and a Brooklyn hipster-style burger joint where the French staff were super friendly and the burgers and fries were scrumptious. There were so many chocolate shops that we couldn't bring ourselves to go into a single one--we were in sugar shock from walking past the windows.

 

Lyon feels grittier than Paris, at least the parts of Paris we have been known to frequent, but it has a lot of the same shopping and is quite attractive in its way. Towering over the city is the Cathedral St-Jean, accessed by funicular metro. We went late in the day, thinking the kids would enjoy the train and not planning to see more of the church than the exterior. Once there, though, we couldn't resist a peek inside. It was stunning, especially the mosaics, which were some of the most beautiful I had ever seen. I wish the photo captured them. Violette, who had come inside with me, slid her hand into mine and became starry-eyed, the way she always does when she is lost in great beauty. I wondered what it would be like to grow up with marvels like this inhabiting her young memory. Will she build upon them?  Rebel against them? Outside, we found Townes playing with Pope John Paul II (in stone), with whom he was loth to part. He talks about him by name even now, weeks later. 

 

Our schedule was now wide open. Where to go next? What do you do with ten days, a car, and two kiddies in the middle of Europe? We considered Barcelona or Geneva, even northern Italy, but chickened out at the idea of a long drive and went to Provence instead. I was craving French antiques, and Isle-Sur-La-Sorgue has the largest collections of antiques dealers per capita in Europe, possibly the world (at least, according to Man Shops Globe). We had never spent time in Provence and figured it was oft-praised for a reason. 

It probably is, but not, we soon realized, by teetotaling couples with small children. The antiques were fantastic, though, and I did spend a lovely afternoon wandering around La Sorgue on my own. Beforehand we had lunch at Le Carré d’Herbes, seated in a garden surrounded by groups of dealers enjoying a long lunch. The weather was gorgeous and the conversations around us were lively, and it felt as though we were living a French film. Likewise, our b&b, Villa La Roque in the hamlet of Fuveau, was an idyllic Provencal setting, run by a sweet family with a nine-year-old girl who won Violette's heart, and offering the most beautiful breakfasts I think I have ever had in my life. There was a really cool aqueduct nearby.  We spent an afternoon wandering aimlessly around Aix. And that was it. After two days of trying to find attractions that would be amenable to us, a five-year-old girl, and an almost-two-year-old boy, we gave up. We were exhausted. We wanted to go home.

The road home took us through Nancy, a small-ish town with a grand town square that made a luxurious background for an evening stretch of the legs. We slept in Luxembourg, and waking to find ourselves in a land of castles and porcelain, we made a point of seeing a bit of each. It turns out that castles are perfectly suited to little boys. So many stairs and walls to climb, such nice echo chambers, and no one to mind. The land was beautiful, green and hilly in a way that was reminiscent to us of Vermont, and the fall colors made for a very pleasant day's drive.

Toward evening we stopped in Liege, Belgium for the sweet waffles which bear the town's name, and two hours later we were home, five days earlier than planned. Home and happy. We'll try again in a couple of months. Maybe not Paris again, not just yet, even if Townes has been waking up in the mornings insisting that we go to Paris TODAY!

out + about, part i

Birthday week starts this weekend, so I had better catch up on the past few weeks before we are into all of that.  Here's the thing about the French school system we are in, Violette has two weeks off every other month. Time for road trips galore, we mused as we looked at the schedule the first week of school. When the first break arrived at the end of October, Steve was on a work trip in the States and had to go directly to a meeting in Paris, so I gamely (okay, with some trepidation) packed two weeks' worth of odds and ends, threw the kids in the car, and drove on my own to Paris to meet him, stopping in Belgium overnight to break up the five hour drive. 

It was a bit surreal, standing outside an ancient hotel in the square of a tiny Belgian town at eleven at night, sleeping babe in my arms and an only slightly more awake one at my side, wondering if the hostess would wake up and let us in. Thankfully, after some minutes, she did. I quickly deposited the children in our room, leaving them entranced by cartoons on television, and ran out to the square again, where my car was waiting with its hazards on. It wasn't until I was walking from the parking lot a block away, rolling our small overnight bag behind me, that I wondered at the wisdom of walking through dark streets of an unfamiliar town completely alone.  Ah, well.  We not only survived but enjoyed our little sleepover. The hotel was very cool and gave us a good breakfast, and the town and surrounding countryside were beautiful. TTO and Violette even got a little playground time in our ten hours there. I almost wished we could stay, but Paris, and Steve, were waiting.

And, Paris. As I navigated the familiar streets I realized that it was the first time I had ever done so behind the wheel. I had always found the idea terrifying, impossible. After two months in The Hague sharing narrow streets with bicycles, trams, and electric wheelchairs, Paris seemed positively tame. Apparently, I am now a European driver.

We had promised Violette she could spend her sixth birthday in Paris if we moved to Europe, but once we got here and realized a party with the girls in her new class at school was probably a good idea, we finessed our already scheduled October trip into her "birthday trip." For months she dreamed of the Ferris wheel and miniature cars she had ridden in the Jardin des Tuileries on our last trip to Paris. We made very few plans, thinking that between the bakeries and the Tuileries we would need little else for the children.  We arrived to find the amusement park vanished.  The birthday girl accepted it more gracefully than we had any right to expect, and turning from the disappointingly empty promenade she grabbed my hand, entreating me to run through the garden's rows and rows of hedges with her in the dark. We were laughing and dodging in and out of the maze-like leafy configurations when a small creature scuttled by.

"A ground squirrel!" she beamed. "I saw another one a minute ago!" I stopped.  

Ahead of us another "ground squirrel" passed in front of a beam of light from the streetlamps surrounding the park.  Its pear-shaped figure and pointy head looked distinctly un-squirrel-like.  In fact, rat-like. Another passed by and this time the shape of the body was distinct, its long, very long, pointy tail perfectly back lit.  Around us, a chorus of squeaks became audible, rising from nearly every bush.  As quickly as I could I ushered Violette up a hill to the safety of sidewalk and street.  For the next thirty minutes she lay on her belly in the well-lit grass next to the promenade, watching as herds of rats roamed the hedges below. She emitted squeaks of her own, speaking to the rats in their own tongue, entranced by the sight of them. Groups of teenaged boys and girls dashed into and out of the bushes, daring each other to go on rat hunts, shrieking with laughter. We nearly had to drag the birthday girl away once we could take it no longer. Somehow the whole scene struck me as oh so Parisian.

That night, as she lay on my lap and I stroked her hair, Violette looked at me with bright eyes.

"Mommy, I love Paris," she sighed dreamily. "Today was the best day."

I nodded, thinking how like Paris it was to endear itself to a little girl even when things had not turned out as planned.  The beauty of it, the gorgeous clothes and displays in the windows, the frilly pastries.

"I especially loved seeing the rats," she whispered, and with a soft smile on her lips she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

p.s. In a book of the writer Nancy Mitford's letters I am reading, she recounts the experience of moving into a luxurious apartment in Paris, and a few nights later waking up to find an R-A-T sitting on her belly. She, too, said it just seemed so like Paris. We couldn't have been the only ones to think so, now, could we?

first impressions

It has taken me six weeks to wrap my mind around this new experience we are having enough to put it into words, and I will undoubtedly fall short even now. It is not an exaggeration to say that we wandered around for the first three weeks in a state of rapture, a golden haze. I had no idea that at thirty-six I could still feel like I did at seventeen when I stepped off of the airport bus onto Palace Court in London, as though the world was fresh and new, ready to be explored. Steve and I marvel to each other how suitable this place is in every way for our current stage of life. (More on "this place" in subsequent posts.)

Our new home is a 1906 row house in the Statenkwartier of The Hague, also referred to as the International Zone, due to its proximity to French and German schools, the International Criminal Tribunal and Shell's European headquarters. It was being gutted when we saw it in May and had been a looming mystery, with photos of a couple of questionably eclectic light fixtures being our only clues to its final state. We arrived straight from a red-eye flight for the "in-check" and found Henk and Lutien, she in a brightly-patterned jersey dress and intense blue eyeshadow, he in Euro-cut trousers and a black button-up shirt, eager to show us their pet project of the past six months. Both they and the house were more charming than we had dared hope. Antique tiles and chandeliers graced the pleasant entry and lofty rooms, and in the backyard a newly planted garden bloomed.  As they watched Violet and Townes thrill over every flower and fat furry bumblebee (which in subsequent days Townes would insist on petting, even after he developed a swollen red bump that we suspected of being a bee's angry retort), Lutien smiled and mentioned that they had left the tool shed empty so that the kids could use it as a playhouse when it rained.

Steve had wisely booked us into a nearby hotel for the first few nights, so we dropped into bed and met the movers bright and early the next morning, but not before wolfing down an enormous breakfast from the hotel spread.  On our first official night in the house three evenings later, we sat in a pleasantly arranged living room (it has since become the study/dining) and Steve looked around and said, "No matter what our lives will be like out there, within the walls of this house we will be happy and at home." Isn't that a nice thing for a husband to say.

Everything fell into place. My darling little sister, Danielle, with a conveniently-timed break between college terms, showed up to play with our kids while we unpacked, and we were out of boxes and feeling presentable when our friends Anne and Bill and their four kids showed up exactly a week after the movers. The day before they arrived was our tenth wedding anniversary, and as we loaded up the car again and again with a bed for the guest room, a television and appliances with European wiring, and various tables and doorstops, all temporarily discounted or otherwise absolute steals, we joked that it was an anniversary miracle. Even the gorgeous sunset behind an ancient windmill as we drove through brilliant emerald fields for our final visit to the big electronics store seemed as though it was just for our eyes. We started our marriage in Europe, with several miserable months in beautiful Paris, and as we reflected on the places we have lived and the things we have done between then and now, we felt so gratified to be able to use all of that experience, the good and the bad, to transition so easily into what might have, at one time, been a challenging new life. All of those missteps were good for something. Really and truly.

Feeling at home, having been favored with the warmth of friends and family and surrounded by our old familiar stuff, we could turn our attention to the first day of first grade in a new school, and being two hours late to pick her up, having forgotten that on Wednesdays schools in the Netherlands end at 11h30. Oops. We had packed her a lunch, though, so she didn't seem to mind too much. And here we are.

then + now

The summer has not quite been what I thought it would be. A cough with fever just after we arrived in Utah set off a chain reaction upon which I won't elaborate, except to say that it feels alternately comical and like something from the Book of Job. Nothing serious, just inconveniences enough to keep me humble and give me lots of time for escapist binge-watching of BBC offerings on Amazon while kind grandparents take my children canoeing and teach them the names of all the wildflowers and birds in the canyon.

Being in my adolescent home blurs space and time. I am fully in the present, a grown woman with a life and family of her own, just visiting. Then I find myself sitting at my grandmother's vanity, now in my parents' guestroom, drying my hair with Townsie, who so resembles my father, sitting on my lap. I wonder how often my grandmother sat in front of this very mirror with her baby, seeing an image so similar to the one I am looking at now. Or my car is in use and I find myself driving my dad's Toyota truck to fetch Steve from the airport. I pop an indie rock-chick cd into the player and relive being the twenty-year-old me for an hour as I drive through stunning mountains and suburban sprawl. 

Or I stand in my parents' backyard watching Violet ride a bicycle for the very first time, my dad holding onto the back to steady her, just as I remember his doing with me when I was exactly her age, or see my kids running through the sprinklers, once of my favorite summer activities when I was a kid. Later, as we lie on the grass at Sundance, watching a musical with our enthralled daughter, I am suddenly eighteen again, on a date with a boy I can't now remember. Even the British television is a throwback, reminding me of the semester I spent in London and how, upon my return, I would cuddle up in front of Miss Marple, Absolutely Fabulous, or Mapp & Lucia when I was pining for England.

And then there are the mental snapshots I take for the future. Townes charging about the house shouting out everything he sees for which he knows the words, even if they still emerge in forms that only his mother could understand. We laugh as he confuses grandparents' names, sure he has them down pat. Baba O! Dada Robba! My memory captures his delight in his newest cousin, gently stroking her tummy or kissing her cheek, begging Hold! Hold! Baby Lila! Violet running out onto on the deck of the cabin in pink Converse sneakers and white sundress, butterfly net in hand, calling to her grandfather that she just caught her first butterfly, her blonde hair loose and luminous in the sunlight. Townes plopping down next to me on the stairs and casually draping his fat little hand across my forearm before snuggling in. Violet poised to jump onto her daddy's back for a piggyback at bedtime, both of their faces bright with anticipation. They are glimpses of absolute purity that pass in an instant, moments of lucidity.

This morning, unable to sleep, I woke before dawn and wandered into the living room of the cabin. Outside, the aspens glowed so brightly against the darkness that they seemed unearthly, and I added them, too, to my mind's photo album. Two more weeks and these things, the beautiful as well as the frustrating, will melt into the past. We will be in a flurry of new experiences and places, completely emerged in a new life. Maybe I'll take it slow just a little longer. I still have a few more episodes of As Time Goes By, Ab Fab, and Good Neighbors on my playlist. Violet wouldn't mind a little more time on her borrowed pink bicycle, either...

 

family portrait

Vampire Weekend's Cousins has been playing non-stop in my head for the past week. Not only are my children's cousins smart and adorable, they love being together, and our two little ones are so doted on that it takes days for them to adjust to the quiet afterward. The joy is infectious.

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