One Step Closer to a Crawl

I’ve been taking an adult swim class every Monday night since August 30. I literally signed up and immediately gave myself every excuse not to go – then changed the class from a one-week intensive course to a 12 week formation – and ran out of legit excuses not to attend.

I’ve wanted to be a better swimmer all my life. There is a memory of running through an apartment complex straight into the deep end of a pool and sinking that has played through my mind every time I’ve come near a diving board or any large swimming pool for that matter. And each time, I experience this memory as an outsider watching from underwater, as if I’m standing right behind myself: I calmly sink towards the bottom of the pool, and my cousin dives in to grab me. When I look back at photos of myself around this age, I see a determined little girl grasping the pool’s edge instead of being able to freely move about in the water as she desires. Is this why I put Nina in swimming lessons at age 4? Maybe. Maybe I didn’t want my child to not learn how to swim because I was a bad swimmer. But the funny thing is going to each swim class for Nina and watching her progress did something to stir up that little girl in me that keeps watching herself sink to the bottom of the pool.

I learned how to swim by watching my friends. There was no formal swim class offered through my school in small town Texas (kids in certain areas of France, at least here in Bretagne, take classes starting in elementary school), and we probably lived too far away from the city to even consider taking regular swim classes when I was a kid. Even with my MacGuyver swim moves that always got me (very slowly) where I needed to go, I’ve never jumped off a diving board. (And I recall Nina’s swim teacher saying that just because someone is a good diver, doesn’t mean they are a good swimmer and vice versa – so true!). I remember being in Greece in 2005 and just going for it to swim out to a rock from the shore. I wasn’t even thinking, so when I got to the rock, my pride turned into sheer terror when I realized that I would need to swim my way back to land. That was probably my biggest swim accomplishment until now.

So I signed up for les cours de natation perfectionnment pour adultes. That’s basically a swim class for adults who know how to swim but want to perfect their technique. I have absolutely no technique, but I can swim – meaning, I can swim out to a big rock and get myself back to shore. But let’s be honest: that was pure adrenaline.

On my first day of swim class, I gave myself pep talk after pep talk the whole way driving to the pool, blaring the Strokes for the 15-minute drive. So many awkward self to self conversations were taking place in my head. Swim cap or no swim cap? (Yes, I stretched out my child’s cap to fit it around my big ass head.) What if I don’t understand anything? What if I really can’t swim at all? Am I even in the right class? Maybe the secretary lied to me just to get me to enroll and take my money.

But Julian and the boys and that guitar and those words got me down the road, to the parking lot, staring at the path that led straight to the pool.

Please don’t slow me down if I’m going too fast.

Yes, Mr. Casablanca. Ironically, I would need all the speed I could get.

My class consisted of a handful of people. Here’s the cast (names have been changed):

  • Pierre, the maitre nageur. He owns the pool and has taught two of Nina’s classes. Quirky. Doesn’t take himself too seriously. Takes us all seriously. Has been playing the same CD for the past month on repeat.
  • Hugo. Teenager in that awkward “I can grow a beard” but really it’s fuzz phase. He’s fast and seems to be too good to be in this class. But his mom is in this class, too.
  • Hugo’s Mom. On day one she’s wearing socks. IN THE POOL. Something about being afraid of germs. After 2 minutes, she’s taken the socks off because she can’t stop sliding around in the water. I’m very confused.
  • Normal Guy. He’s about my age and seems like your average adult man who just wants to get better at swimming. No socks.
  • Madame. I don’t know her name, but she’s at least 65+ and the oldest woman in the class. Round. Seems nice.
  • Normal Woman. About my age. Shares a lane with me. Has absolutely no cardio (just like normal guy). When Pierre holds his hand up to make smoking gestures, she knows she’s guilty as charged and basically gives him a yeah you know it look.
  • Apnee Girl. She’s got some fuzz and a pink set of nose clips, and all she wants to do is hold her breath. Very sloth-like and slow.

Our very first task was to just show Pierre with what he was working, so we all made a go at the longeur. This is a small pool (only 10 meters) because it’s a night class, and the triathletes train outside in the big pool (20 meters).

I did my best go at what I thought the crawl should be. I thought well, it can’t be that bad – I DID make it across the pool and back. But when it was my turn for notes, Pierre looked at me like I really was from space and gave me a few oh la la la la’s, followed by a mais qu’est que c’est ca followed by a votre fille nage mieux que ca (your daughter swims better than you).

It was official. I was the worst in the class.

Over the course of the next three classes, we worked on our respiration: steadily exhaling through our nose and breathing in through our mouth when turning our head for air. This respiration process came very easily to me as this is how I’ve always breathed underwater; however, I was very surprised at how difficult it was for others to get this down. Many people, especially apnee girl, just held their breath the entire time. The problem with this when doing the crawl is that when you turn your head to get air, you need twice the amount of time to now exhale, then inhale. If you steadily release your air underwater, then you only need to spend time taking in air when it’s time to turn your head to breath.

Other exercises included suspending ourselves from elastic bands to work on rotating from side to side, using the pull buoy to work on our arms, using a small planche to work on our legs, working on our head position in the water, and so forth.

I was slowly really falling in love with swimming because I had nothing to lose and everything to gain each time I went to class. Yet, I realized that one class each week was not enough to really put into practice all that I was learning. I started watching swim videos and studying how people were kicking and rotating their arms. I’ve never kicked with my thighs, and this has actually been the most difficult part of learning the crawl for me. And then, I did something I never thought I would do.

I got a membership to a pool with a bassin sportif, and I started to swim laps.

This was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, but as Brene Brown says, I didn’t want to look back and think what if I had shown up…so I showed up. On my first visit, Romain and Nina came with me (it was a Sunday morning), and as they swam in the regular family pool, I went over to the sports pool and got into a lane. And I slowly, very slowly, swam from one end of that lane to the other. 25 meters. Awful form. I think I swam most of it on my back, BUT I did do it.

When I returned to that pool the next time, it was the following Thursday at noon. Just me. And I had to really pump myself up because the pool was packed. It’s a very vulnerable feeling to walk out, your head sucked into a swim cap, with everyone staring at you – only to then get into the pool alongside them and not really know what the hell you are doing. But I got in, picked a lane, and started swimming.

Four seconds in, I think three people had already passed me. I panicked and could not continue my crawl. When I turned on my back, I only slowed down more – what the hell was going on? Somehow I made it to the end of the lane, and instead of getting out, I turned around and swam back. I was lost and freaking out and just trying to save my last piece of dignity in this swim cap.

It turns out, each lane in the bassin sportif is marked with a sign to say what that lane is going to be used for that day.

  • Couloir Energique (Fast Lane)
  • Couloir Tranquille (Slow Lane)
  • Couloir Avec Materiaux (For people using materials, like pull buoys)
  • Couloir Palmes (For flippers)
  • Couloir Reserve Aux Cours (Flor classes, like aqua gym)

And, on this day, I completely did not read the signs and just got into the fast lane. And they slaughtered me.

Everyone saw. Everyone was probably like WTF is she doing. Then I opened my mouth, and they probably heard my extraterrestrial accent. You know, you get into these situations and start creating stories. And the story I created was this one. So when I finally got that last 25 meters over with, there was a man of about 70 years old standing in the lane. I pulled up next to him and reached for my thigh – and I said something like oh I got a cramp in my leg.

Yes, I faked a leg cramp. I don’t know why. He knew. I knew. They all knew. There was no leg cramp. But this man just went with it and told me that I needed to be drinking more water.

Thus began my friendship with Stephan, who has become my unoffical Thursday swim coach. On that day, he got me into the slow lane and pushed me to try some more. We would chat about the U.S. and the western part of the country, the Native Americans, etc. And then he’d give me another pointer on my swimming and send me back down the lane to practice. The next day, I came back for lunch, and I practiced everything I had learned along with all the tips Stephan had given me and all the mental notes I had made from the videos I had watched that week.

I’ve been repeating this routine ever since. Class Monday night. Videos all week. Practice on Thursday with coaching from Stephan (and most importantly, moral support – knowing that I’m not alone and feel a bit more like I’m supposed to be there as time goes on), and more practice on Friday. Along the way, I’ve improved my head position and my arms. I’ve met Chantal, who is now retired with her daughter in Australia, who comes to swim on Fridays. My Monday night class cast has changed. We lost a few people and gained Old Sam, a 70+ year old who practices with his palms and always smells. The smaller class size has also helped have more time to practice and be coached by Pierre. He’s been really helping me with my arms.

And that leads me to last night.

I went to practice, and Pierre had us put on snorkel masks and use a pull buoy. I thought oh, I don’t need this. I already have my breathing down, and this apnee goes against everything he taught us. And I didn’t want to focus on my arms, I wanted to work on my legs. But, I went with it, and after two laps, I had had enough. I asked Pierre if I could change my mask back to my goggles, and he said yes. And then, he taught me one last tip with my arms that really sealed the deal on everything I had been working on: I slid my thumb all the way up the side of my body until I got to my armpit, and then I extended my arm forward. This absolutely forced my elbow to always be higher than my hand, and as soon as I did this (instead of just touching my thumb to my thigh), it changed everything. When I turned my head to breathe, I wasn’t at an angle anymore, so I could get the breath I needed. And my legs started kicking at the right time in the right way. I got rid of the pull buoy, and I was free. And I was crawling.

Ten minutes before the end of class, I had heard Pierre congratulate me on the crawl. When I finished the lap I had started, he said that it was time for me to go outside to the big pool. I was absolutely terrified because that was the triathlete group, and I did not want to slow them down. But Pierre insisted, saying that my legs would come and get better and better – but that I had all the tools I needed.

And so, for yet another time in these past few weeks, I just said here we go – and I got in that 20 meter pool and crawled back and forth for the next 15 minutes. 15 glorious minutes where my childhood dream of swimming the longeur with ease, just as good as anyone else, was realized.

On the way home, I turned the radio down and literally told myself outloud that I was so proud. So proud of myself for not giving up, for going to that first class, for putting myself out there, for showing the fuck up. So proud of giving that little girl who used to cling to the side of the pool, who never jumped off the diving board, who never participated in pool races with friends the gift of knowing now how and doing it.

Mom Thoughts as My Daughter Turns Five

1. Awakening. I was at the beach this weekend. Apero-diner. That means you bring everything you can easily eat without needing to be around a dinner table and pick on this and munch on that and dip into tour after tour (do you see me going in for a fifth dive into the guac). With that early evening sun. That perfect mini-pool that the sea has created with the tide going out. A basin of water that is warm and calm. Nina is already pulling one leg into her combi. Papa lifts her up, the timing just right to catch her coming down from a jump to launch her like that tiger in Madagascar 3 that flies through a burning hoop full speed into that combi and zip her up tight. Sometimes you have a moment where you catch the eye of another woman who has a child. The moment where Mother Nature has your child in her hand. Where your partner is chilled out by the chillax vibe that Mother Nature provides. And you and the woman smile because it’s the same thought: in this moment, I’m just me. We talked for a long time. Too easy, like old friends with no barrier to guard oneself from sharing what’s actually real. Oh man, post partum! I had a thought once when she wouldn’t stop crying that was only a thought but…YES! And everyone just tries to say we’re so in love from the first second, but some of us are still thinking there’s a baby in my arms. Forever. And how do you explain? The sun starts coming down with my beach cup full of white wine. Half-eaten kid sandwiches (but they all eat the chips). The stories wind their way through interruptions of new friends arriving, wet combis that need to come off, a dog wandering too far away. And then we both have to pee. I keep a roll of toilet paper in the car. New mom friend and me are taking turns squatting beside my car, talking through pant drops about whatever it is that is that carries you from apero-diner party at the beach to the trailhead where all the camping cars are parked. Hours later, Nina is wrapped up in my arms, the beach fire sending it’s whiff of smoke up like extended arms into the sky as we, too, look up and reach for the stars. Little guitar with little tunes next to my little girl. And the woman with her tired child, cradling him as she says goodbye. We already exchanged numbers. Back to it being us: mama and child. Mama and child. Nina and me. If I could have carried her the whole way home with my heart beating against her sleepy face…

2. Faith. Cabrel was singing.

Y a sûrement quelqu’un qui écoute
Là -haut dans l’univers

I hear her voice say comme Patou (son papy).

3. Courage. Cours de natation adulte perfectionnment. Not really even sure what I signed up for, but I told myself just to go with it. And then I told myself no no no just get out of it. I was scared of not understanding what I needed to do or not being good enough of a swimmer to even be in the class. Somehow you get started on these conversations in your head, and then you’re talking to yourself outloud – and then you have to explain why you’re doing so with your child. And then Nina volunteers to come with me to the class to make sure she can explain everything. Because last week she ended her first week of level 2 swimming class. And at age 4 (nearly 5), she was the smallest and youngest in that class. And every day I watched her laugh and go for it, not caring if she couldn’t go as fast or keep her form as long as the others. And I watched on that final day as the teacher looked her over on purpose and skipped asking her to swim the 25 meters with waves being simulated in the pool. And I looked up in surprise with all the other parents when we heard her sweet voice say Marc, je veux essayer (I want to try). It was that face she makes. She exhales, drops her shoulders, and focuses her eyes out on that magical unicorn in the distance that only she can see. And whatever it is, she goes for it. I was clenching my left fingers in my right hand. If I squeezed hard enough, she would be okay. The universe would feel the pressure and send out angelic orbs to carry her through. No fear. Nothing to hold her back. All you have to do ma puce, tu fais ton mieux. You just try your best. I was so proud. So proud that she wasn’t afraid to try. That she wasn’t afraid to fail. She made it half way through that pool. She wasn’t ready to go to level 3, but something in her just said trust yourself. And something in me just said trust yourself when I put my goggles in my bag and headed out the door to class last night. Her sweet voice cheering me on.

4. Love.

I have to tell you something.

Oui, je sais maman.

Huh? What is it that you think I’m going to tell you?

Que tu m’aimes. (she smiles) Tu me dis tous les jours, maman.

July. August is Calling.

Somehow I’m here in July. 21 days in. June was an episode out of one of my modified late-night bedtime stories to Nina. Old Noah, who somehow built an entire ark, now has the strength to get two of every animal on it and manage 40 days and 40 nights of a shit storm. Torrential rain. No land in site. Well, Bretagne didn’t break apart like soggy cardboard. My uncovered tomato plants miraculously didn’t mold. But we got BEAT by rain and the weather nasties for weeks. It finally stopped, with our grass at our knees and radishes – a few the size of field mice – busting out of the soil. All to saturate us, spray the water hose on high with that one solid stream that stings your skin. Almost like a heckle. Because as the water receded, the sun came busting out to show us who really is the boss of July. And now I know. Because I’m tan as a saddle after two days.

July.

I don’t even like hot dogs, but we had a Fourth of July party. With a pinata. With Richie Valens belting out La Bamba. With my French Euro Cup decorations that passed for American party supplies. And a hot dog bar. I got really nostalgic for my family. Growing up with too many cousins to count, we always celebrated the Fourth of July at my parents house. And there were always a minimum of 90-100 people there. Dad would wake up at 4 AM and stare down his brisket. By 5 AM, he had a beer in hand and was heating up the pit. Mom always had yellow potato salad and all the tables she could find lined up and covered to support the feeding line that was to come. We cooked all day. We ran around without shoes and nearly blew our hands off with small fireworks and gave the dog too many scraps of sausage under the table. We had those grocery store cakes that dyed your hands the same blue and red as the piped flowers in the icing. Dad, who stopped going to church when I was 14, still always called everyone together to bow their heads before eating. (The need to have that faith never leaves us I believe. We find our way in the name of him, her, them, that spirit, this energy, the big universe before us.) We played dominoes and spades and told shitty jokes until we literally passed out in the backyard. And then we woke ourselves up to light up the entire forest around us with the brown paper bags filled with fireworks from the local stand. I had all of my cousins with me. Aunts and uncles. My grandfather and two grandmothers. Friends and neighbors. And we just were. We were present. We were dancing on the picnic table with our tia at midnight. We were winking at each other at how cute grandma was with her homemade American flag shirt. And I was waking up to see my dad outside, trash bag in hand, as he’d been up two hours already and had the whole yard cleaned up before breakfast. I’ve been in France now for 27 months. And sometimes, even though I hate hot dogs, I just need a hot dog bar and some oldies playing and a pinata and a yellow potato salad.

I lost my father in law a year ago this month. In the weeks leading up to him leaving this world, I knew what was coming. I had spent many nights awake at 3 AM under the blankets, reading quietly about how the body prepares for the end of life. So I knew, and I went to see him before he lost the strength to talk. This was only a few weeks after we brought Nina to see him. She wore a pink dress with a gold glitter belt. She went to him and jumped on the bed, sitting beside him and talking about everything she knew in life as always. And when he commented at how beautiful her dress was, she jumped off and twirled. When I went on that last visit where we both were really able to talk alone, I sat next to him on that same bed. Held his hand. Asked all the questions that perhaps no one else really could. And he gave all the answers that perhaps he couldn’t give anyone else. One of the last things he told me was that he was so proud to have me as a member of his family. And we cried. And I told him I’d always carry him in my heart. And he’d always carry us in his.

I wrote and gave the eulogy a few weeks later in a small country cemetary only a few miles from his home. If only he and i could have had an apero after so we could laugh at how this ended up to be: me, the Cherokee American from the wild west that he adored. Now a member of his family. Standing in front of all these French people talking about how we would go to the local bar in Vermont and play trivia with my mother in law and lose. Very badly! Because it was in English, and I had to translate everything. Or his love for blueberry muffins after he discovered them in a service station in East Middlebury of all places. And then I sang. For the love, I sang. And I could barely get the words out of my mouth, but he had heard them before. I spent the last few days holding his hand, and though he couldn’t speak, I would sing to him when no one else was in the room. What I said about faith above is real, at least for me. I don’t know what is true, but I know that something is bigger than me and that it has guided me. And those spiritual roots keep me from getting lost when the circumstance is such that I can’t understand what the hell is happening. So I sang at that little French cemetary in English in front of a group of French people who might not have understood. But sometimes you don’t need to know the words. You just feel it and get it and leave knowing he was loved.

In that sweet by and by, we shall meet on that beautiful shore.

I saw an old friend a few weeks ago. Julie and I both participated in the same Summer 2003 study abroad trip to France. We didn’t know each other before that trip, but it was an experience that made us sisters. Fake sisters, but still. She’s ma soeur. It was a time in our lives when we believed that anything was possible, and France was this brand new, beautiful place with PASTRIES and BREAD and FRENCH MEN and SALTED BUTTER. And it was a summer of meeting all kinds of people, challenging ourselves, immersing ourselves fully in a language and culture, and just living. We LIVED every day. That giant ass tour bus driven by good old French Bernard (with the giant bull tattoo on his arm) was filled with spirit, and it helped to literally transport us to moments that we would have never otherwise have had in that way.

We met up at an old chateau that Julie and some friends had rented for a few weeks in Basse Normandie. We all ironically work in tech in some form or fashion now, and that often allows for a bit of a nomadic lifestyle. So these nomads were set up like literal kings and queens – with wifi – and we dined outside in that country garden with rose bushes surrounding us and long-stemmed candles dripping wax onto the table cloth late until the sun went down.

In the morning, we drove out to Clecy to get our fill of the Swisse Normande River, a place Julie and I had been 18 years before on that summer study trip. I cried when I left to head home because the GPS took me through the most beautiful back roads. Sometimes the landscape is just too much for me. And I hope with all that is in me that Nina grows up to be able to experience similar moments.

July. I got my second COVID vaccination before France announced that having them would be obligatory if you wanted to enter certain establishments. For me, being vaccinated meant removing any barriers that might come up to me getting to travel to see my family. And for that, you can stick a mother fucking knife in my arm. A poison-tipped arrow that turns me green. But I will always do everything in my power to ensure I can always go home. So getting that second vaccination meant a lot of things to me. Have we really been living through a pandemic? Is this only the beginning – or will it end? Can I finally see mom and dad? The nurse reached for a cotton ball to dab my injection site of any blood, and I reached for my shirt to catch my tears before they rolled into my mask. And I grabbed her arm and explained why I was emotional. If she could have hugged me, she would have – and I would have sobbed on her shoulder and told her my life story of the past 27 months. But instead, I went to the waiting area and continued to cry, using an old mask in my purse as a tissue. And when I got out of that old gymnasium in Vannes, I went to my car and cried even more. It’s still not over. I have a lot of opinions about the mandatory health passport and QR codes in the app that uses bluetooth to note who you have been around in case there is an outbreak. My health is my health. My body is my body. I don’t ever want anyone to dictate what I can or cannot do with my body. And, I should never have to make public whatever is going on or has gone on in my body. At the same time, look at what we just lived through. What will get us past this? I’m tired of wearing a mask – because I’m tired of that lack of human connection in the expression that has been hidden for so long. But I wear it. And I stay cautious. But should I be confined a fourth time because others don’t. There’s just so much to it. I don’t know what the answer is, but I do know we have to get through this by working together.

The sun has gone down. I saw the house bats (that live in a teeny tiny crack in the roof’s tile) fly out about ten minutes ago to begin their night out eating all of the neighborhood bugs. You know what I miss seeing? Fire flies. We had so many in Vermont. They are living magic. When I don’t see them, it feels like the magic has gone.

In two days, July 23 will mark eleven years of being married. One of the girls staying at the chateau the other weekend said to me that my story was so wonderful. And I said yep, it’s sweet – but don’t let it fool you into thinking that a sweet story is all you need. I’ve made it this far with that man for two reasons: love. and work. What does it mean to love someone? How should that feel? How does that evolve? Love gives us space to explore all of those questions with someone while still being ourselves. Am I still myself? Yes. I am responsible for me, and my marriage is only a part of who I am. But besides being a mother, it is one of the most important parts of who I am because someone else is involved. And work. It is my most precious accomplishment. I still fail. We fail. But we work. And we win.

This is my last month to have a four year old. Nina has been the joy of my life. I have never seen something as beautiful as she is when she wakes up in the morning and wanders into my office with her blanket in one hand and stuffed animal in the other. Her long country girl hair falling across her face. Singing songs that exist only in her mind. She is her mama and her papa. She is brave – the bravest girl I know! A heart filled with rainbows and mermaids. A fist that can fait la bagarre with the rest of the boys just fine. If July has brought anything other than rain and a mini-canicule, it has given me more time with my sweet girl. Daily swimming lessons and sticker books and outdoor dinners and those giant ass radishes growing in the garden.

July. August is calling. Trying to fly on in and get past customs. Mom and dad are supposed to arrive the first week of August, and admittedly, with all the changes taking place and the fiasco of last year, I just can’t believe it. I won’t believe it until I see it. Until I’m in their arms crying like a baby in CDG.

Truth.

Truth: Friday will mark three months since my father-in-law passed away. I think about this day, about him, about the sounds and textures and feelings of July 9, 2020 every day, multiple times a day. I have so much to say about what he meant/means to me, about our collective loss, about how much of a void I feel. Of how he was the anchor of all that has come before me here in France and how that gave me comfort, almost a validation, of my right to be here as a member of his family. Of the experience as a parent having to have figured out how to talk to our then almost four-year old daughter about what was taking place. About how to support my husband. About how to still support my husband. About how to support my mother in law. About how to look ahead. How to re-imagine the holidays. About how bare the dinner table feels. About how I close my eyes to hear his “Coucou Joani”. About how much I don’t understand cancer and why so much bad happens to people who are so good.

Truth: I go to the woods and talk to him out loud. I’m a bit lost in some ways right now, and I take to the woods to share out with him. To get some kind of sign. The wind blows almost on cue, and I’d like to think that’s him. Shaking trees to mimic a shaking head to tell me to not give up.

So much to say. I’ve been holding it all in.

World on My Brain

It’s the last Sunday in March. A month that is usually a revival. A rebirth. A slow start to shed the hibernation fat if you’re in Vermont. The opening of pool season along the Strip if you’re in Vegas. This is our first March living in our home in Bretagne, and the flowers of someone else’s labor have sprung in pretty much every corner of our yard without warning. Little gifts of nature, from a cluster of mint lining the sidewalk next to pink tulips and a splash of jonquilles to the perfectly-formed, somewhat sensual calla lilies that remind me of our wedding day ten years ago. It’s this magic, this cycle-of-seasons uplift, that has kept my spirits high in what has otherwise been a month of unprecedented actions. Contamination. Closures. Confinement. Fear. Fatigue. Illness. Questions of what and why and for how long. Masks and gloves and a lack of masks and gloves. Risking health to grab eggs and meeting the eyes of strangers that all say the same thing: Is this really happening?

And in this, the real March Madness, the disparity of our privilege is something that keeps me up at night. Romain asks me if I’m okay when I’m tossing around at 3 AM, but the answer lately is always the same: I’ve got the world on my brain. Here in France, we have been ordered to at-home confinement since mid-March until at least April 15. This is not a lax shelter-in-place announcement but rather a strict command, the consequences of which are large fines. So imagine being in a small, urban apartment with multiple family members with no access to a terrace or green space – and the sounds of neighbors facing a similar reality stomping and thumping through paper-thin walls. Imagine being elderly or handicapped and having to figure out how the hell to get the services you need when the world outside has essentially been shut down. And to be homeless. To have no defined domicile, no safe, clean space from which you can ride this pandemic out. And here I am. I can’t imagine. Somehow a series of life decisions have placed us here in this moment with undeniable privilege. I’ve pulled the machete out a few times this week to spend time outside and blaze more trails in the thick grass of our backyard. I woke up last night as the wind howled to check on our tent pitched between the bay laurel tree and patio slab. I’m writing from the quiet of our bedroom where I can shut the door, rest in bed, and have a moment to myself. I retrace our decisions: what if we had taken the apartment in the center of Vannes? What if we were still living with my in laws? My parents? What if I had never changed jobs? What if we were back in Vermont and making a relentless go at trying to feed the financial needs of an outrageously expensive cost-of-living/healthcare/childcare machine that never seemed satiated? I have learned to live forward, but in a circumstance like this, I can’t help but to reflect and wonder and let this and that world on my brain simmer and stir.

This will be the week that the medical teams across France will be pushed past the breaking point. Because cities and global economies and government structures might come to a screeching halt for COVID-19, but pathogens will not. Our fallible nature and mortality will not. Nurse and doctors and emergency response teams continue to handle their pre-COVID-19 calls: accidental trauma, heart failure, overdose, amputation. Car crash, suicide, emergency birth by c-section. So how do you make room for a pandemic? How do you prep your team for non-stop hysteria? The hysteria: those not infected but who think they are (because of a cough or fever or other general symptom or paranoia – and rightfully so) flocking to the ER. The hysteria: those diagnosed who need to be treated and placed in quarantine flocking to the ER. The hysteria: those diagnosed who are succumbing who need a bed and a ventilator and other specialized treatment that an ICU provides. The hysteria: death. The dead. 2300+ and counting.

So I’ve got the world on my brain. My fellow humans in my heart, especially the caretakers and caregivers and medical magicians who give and give and sleep for 3 hours if lucky and give some more and make things “better” again. Their sense of duty and diligence, despite the need to perhaps care for family – and the need we all have to take care of ourselves. When did we become machines…

I pick up my coffee mug each morning, and the words of John Muir stare me down: The mountains are calling, and I must go. Here in Bretagne, c’est le Gulfe du Morbihan whose shores and changing tides and cold waters tug at the heart. We’re all aching to smell that ocean air and roll up our jeans to splash and laugh and take in a panoramic gaze at the beauty in front of us. But we wait. Those waters will be there. For now, we stay here.

Breton Gray Skies

The Breton gray skies were back yesterday, but it didn’t stop us from enjoying a morning outside. It is a privilege after all to slide open your kitchen door, step outside on a patio with bare feet, and breathe in fresh, floral garden air, especially during home confinement in the middle of a pandemic. A heavy awareness of this privilege sits with me – defined even by my ability to find 30 minutes of enough peace to reflect and record my thoughts in a blog whose name literally means the hideout. This is not representative of what most are dealing with right now. Romain and I spent some time getting into a similar topic after dinner tonight, how we’ve been fortunate, given the timing. If this were 12 to 18 months ago, we’d be screwed. And scrambling. And absolutely terrified.

So let’s be clear: Confinement by pandemic is not a glamping retreat. It’s not a springtime revival where the soul is replenished with all that’s been left parched from the dry winter air. It’s not sleeping in. It’s not finally getting to that to-do list. And it’s definitely not romanticizing la vie francaise. It’s job loss and dream loss and stress-induced toss and turns. It’s fear and isolation and long days of combating such fear and isolation in others when you are a caretaker charged with putting your fellow humans (the ones who are already sick or fragile or disabled) first. It’s being called from retirement to put on the white robe once more at a hospital in Vannes because there aren’t enough medical staff to meet the demand. It’s washing your hands in 20 minute intervals (which could mean 8+ transactions between each trip to the sink) because someone has to work the cash register. It’s mass layoffs. It’s the final few weeks of health insurance coverage before you’ve got to work out a new chemo treatment plan because Uncle Sam’s not going to buck up and pay. It’s the fuck you that sits in your stomach when the entire state of California has been ordered to stay home, yet scenes of crowded beaches along the Pacific continue to be the norm. It’s the way your shoulders sink when you exhale in disbelief at the related deaths at a Burlington, Vermont nursing home.

The list goes on. I’ve barely brushed the surface.

So yesterday’s Breton gray skies were a reminder (nature’s Bat signal of sorts) to shut down any whines about the weather and get outside. I put on an old pair of jeans, grabbed my machete from the garage, and spent the morning hacking away at our overgrown backyard on hands and knees. When I was eight months pregnant, I found myself home alone with two dogs for a few weeks in Vermont as Romain had an unexpected trip back to France. There were some deep trails behind our house that were perfect for the dogs, but they had become overgrown – and I wasn’t going to chance it with ticks. Since I slept with a machete under my bed (long story that has to do with a coyote), I grabbed it one day before a hike with the dogs, carried it with me to an overgrown area by a bridge, and got to hacking. And pretty much instantly, I fell in love with slicing a blade through tall, thick bands of weeds. Serrated or straight edge. It didn’t matter. I just loved to hack. Who knew.

As of lunchtime yesterday, we now have a trail cleared so that one can traverse the yard, from patio to compost bin and back, without the need for boots. There are also other random clearings where my machete meeting a mass of leaves and weeds went much further than I had anticipated, but, as expected, it brought me joy (and let’s be honest, I just couldn’t stop). I’m sure it brought the neighbors to the window with a few quips of mon dieu and qu’est ce qu’elle fait maintenant…and in doing so, took their minds off this confinement. This virus. This world turned upside down. Those Breton gray skies who, given the chance, are actually perfect.

Saturday on Sunday

It’s Sunday. But I’m back in bed, oddly repeating everything that happened on Saturday morning. This is the beginning of Groundhog’s Day, coronavirus version. Bill Murray, where are you?

So back to yesterday.

Waking up. It’s Saturday. Sleeping in to 8 AM is finally possible IF I can resist the urge to do something about the wails of our child calling for maman down the hall. That toddler crises is a hoax, one invented to test and try me. It’s the pire of all toddler whale songs. In the Bear Report, Olafur asks Sophie When did you learn to speak whale? after she plops her head underwater to call to the whales to lift them up to shore. Today she says. And that’s kind of like me. When did I learn to speak toddler? Who knows. Probably around the same time I started to get white hair along the front part of my hairline. But I know the whale songs of my child: when she’s hurt, there’s a long pause between her high-pitched shrieks. When she’s sick, it’s a lethargic SOS cry, low and run down. When she’s scared, it’s fast and pierces my heart – and I know I need to drop everything and run. But this morning’s wail was that of a cranky test. The worst toddler whale song of them all. It’s meant to be a coup, an innocent attempt to overtake my one extra hour of quiet morning time in bed all for the sake of better understanding her young, developmental exercises in cause and effect. Luckily Romain is patient. He’s been standing at her door, playing the role of mediator between a three year old and her mind on fire, on this, day five of full home confinement.

Though I have my permission slip, one thing I absolutely don’t want to do is leave the house to go anywhere other than the woods for a run. I constantly think about the grocery store clerks who are having to leave their families to go to work in a very public setting to aid in ensuring that basic needs are met. And I’m sure there’s more than a fair share of connards who have to have their cheese, thus risking infection to themselves, to the store clerks, to their families at home. If you’re thinking that you need to run to Lidl to fill your cart up with nothing but liters of Coca-Cola, please note: we will see you on the nightly news. I will throw my soapy sponge into the kitchen sink and gawk at your face on the television screen from across the room. There will be a few WHAT??s that escape our mouths followed by shame talk. And I will return to this blog and note your actions. Connards seeking cheese. And you with your soda addiction.

If you are reading this and live in a community that is on the verge of a total lock down, it’s time to get prepared if you haven’t already. Denial and mumbling on about your right to assemble is not going to feed you, nor will it help pass the time when there’s a child at your knees looking for a new activity to engage in every fifteen minutes. For my friends in the West, of the three main unalienable rights, LIFE is listed first. We all just want to live through this. So, in a rare exercise of my Aggie roots, hear this: it’s time to sit the fuck down bus driver. Get your house prepped, and then sit the fuck down. Really. It’s going to be awhile.

Prout Prout Prout

Last night’s home confinement excitement was the arrival of a very large John Deere tractor in our neighborhood around 18h. Those John Deere shades of mechanical green and yellow always make me think of Vermont and farms and lambing season. In another life, I would live in a oversized patchwork dress stained with red wine and full of quick hand-made repairs to loose threads and mysterious rips (like the one I bought in 2003 from a friperie in Paris). And I’d roam my garden of herbs and peonies, yellow roses and bougainvillea surrounding koi ponds – and a meadow where my lamb babies would roam and bounce and bleat. Unfortunately, this tractor wasn’t on duty to deliver anything small, furry, and cute. Rather, it was hauling a massive empty tank and a set of nasty pipes that would soon go to work pumping out all the sludge from a neighbor’s septic tank through a hole in their back yard.

Let me remind you: we’re in the middle of a pandemic. It’s complete home confinement and permission slip-controlled activity around here, which means everyone is home and looking for something to distract them. And you better believe that everyone was looking at this giant machine with great anticipation to see a late afternoon shit show. Literally.

The lone driver was a young guy who couldn’t have been more than 23. First came the noise – some kind of whirring that was probably a vacuum within the tank. Nina and I looked at each other, and I lifted her up to peek as far as we could over our fence without being too obvious that we needed entertainment. And then came the smell, one unmistakably of all things bathroom business. Prout Prout Prout we sang. A little pet here and another pet there. Here a pet, there a pet, everywhere a pet pet. (This is the kind of stuff we sing. I’m not proud. But I’m honest.) When we got to the upstairs bathroom to draw the water for Nina’s bath, I realized I had a direct shot at everything that little guy was doing in the neighbor’s yard. He was using that hose as a giant straw through which the vacuum in the tank was sucking up tons of shit sludge from a hole the size of a car tire to travel the distance of my neighbor’s house, up over a fence, and into that tank. And, who knows, maybe it’s because we are in the middle of a pandemic that this guy wasn’t wearing any gloves. It bothered me for a second. Bu then, do you care about fecal germs when this is our reality? Probably not.

I wish I could say the hose came loose and started whirling about like some Pecos Bill episode involving a lasso and a tornado. But there was none of that. Just your typical septic tank cleaning in the middle of a pandemic.

Since yesterday, a few updates have come down the line:

— No use of bicycles while exercising. Run – run with your child – but that’s it.

— The marché in Vannes is going to actually be open tomorrow. They’ve moved 40-50 food-only vendors to an open-air park and will only allow up to 100 visitors at at time. I feel for small businesses, but I don’t understand the logic here. We’re literally locked in for an indefinite period of time and need a permission slip to leave the house. But the market is okay to organize and attend? I’m confused.

Back to singing prout prout prout and wondering what’s next.

No Need to Argue

There is something about the voice of Dolores O’Riordan that makes me stop what I’m doing. That brings me to a halt yet makes my mind race. That transports me to age 17 to a time when my naive heart was lost and broken, and I thought any chance of waking up happy once again was over. I cried my eyes out on the plant green carpet of my teenage bedroom with No Need to Argue playing on repeat. I’ll get over you. I’ll get over you. Yes, Dolores. Sing it again. Dolores gave me hope that I’d push through. To what? I wasn’t sure. But I hung on in large part thanks to Dolores (an Irish treasure that ironically years later would leave this world too soon) and those words and that album.

I was lucky enough to see The Cranberries in concert one night long ago in a past Las Vegas life. It was likely sometime in 2009 after the band had gotten back together. From wall to wall, each of us in attendance was tuned in, mind, body, and spirit, almost as if we all had a story to reflect on in which Dolores and her talent saved us. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. I was subconsciously rowing through images and emotions from my past. Of every time someone close to me let me down. Put me last. Shut me out. Took me for granted. Tears slow rolled down my face from the first note Dolores sang through the encore. And I can’t say for sure, but I imagine that everyone in that concert hall was crying.

Day three of home confinement in France. The sun is blaring like it’s the month of May. I pulled our Quechua tent out of the garage and plopped it into the backyard amid the jungle of weeds that make me crazy because I actually think they’re edible makings for a nice salad (they’re not – we just need to mow). The inside tent lining was full of sand from one of last year’s beaches, so Nina and her posse of poupées had to patiently wait outside while I brushed and cleaned in preparation for a morning outside. After I got Nina her list of requests (two blankets, a wash cloth to clean baby Kiki who had peed all over herself, her bicycle, and a chair), I left the sliding door open and went inside. The remnants of an early morning in the kitchen were sprawled on each counter, the kitchen table, and floor. I had a mental list of work-related items I wanted to knock out before mid-morning Eastern time. A voice in my head was reminding me to get another run in, though my calves were singing another tune. I missed my parents. I missed the beach – but all Morbihan beaches have been closed during this unprecedented shutdown. I wanted a magic pause button to freeze everyone but myself. I’d sleep and read and drink and dance and run and repeat without worrying about any timeline or geographic restriction or attitude or audience. Any language or meeting or caprice or question after question after question. As I stared at the mess, as the exhaustion in me burned my eyes, as a wave of thoughts about this confinement and this virus and this buy-in-bulk bin of uncertainty (THIS UNCERTAINTY that was so palpable at that moment that it stood in the kitchen staring me down), I grabbed my phone. Made all the necessary clicks. Turned on the speakers and listened.

Understand the things I say. Don’t turn away from me.

I wonder what intention, if any, was behind Dolores making those lyrics and Ode to My Family the first track on No Need to Argue. Whatever the case, I hear you Dolores. Heard. Mother fucking HEARD.

Took the work day off. Tucked that peanut in for her nap. Thawing out a pack of beef to make burgers for dinner because that’s what Americans do when it’s nice outside. And going to put on my running tights (with my attestation in my pocket) and head back to the woods.

Livarot in the Time of Coronavirus

My office sits on the second floor of our home facing south into the garden. A few feet from my desk, a sliding glass door opens up to a balcony from which I can see the ocean when the sky is clear of clouds. Today I was in the middle of revising a set of technical documents when I saw Nina out of the corner of my eye. A small, smiling head growing out and upward from a polka dot-speckled mustard sweater seemingly suspended in air and peeking at me from the balcony’s exterior. I had to do a few takes before I realized she was sitting in her old hiking backpack (purchased off Craiglist when we lived in Vermont and put to so much good use) and strapped to Romain’s back as his head soon appeared, and the two could not stop laughing. Nina had a package in her hands from the mailbox, and Romain had strapped her into the hiking backpack in order to hoist the two of them up a 10-foot ladder to hand-deliver the envelope to me.

Thus begins the absurdity of day two of a 15-day confinement in France. Today’s digest of all things absurd includes the following:

— I hand-wrote my attestation de déplacement dérogatoire in pen in the hopes that I can simply use a pencil to make updates/erase/make updates again without having to recreate a new form each time I might need one. Today’s motif was for a déplacement bref, a proximite du domicile, liés a l’activite physique individuelle. This basically means I checked off a little box on my home-made permission slip to leave the house with the expressed purpose of going for exercise. The fine has gone up to 375 euros if you are caught without documentation. Though I doubt that I’m going to run into gendarmerie in the woods, I’ve had stranger things happen.

— The weather has been PHENOMENAL the past two days, yet we can’t leave the house to meet friends for a BBQ or have a picnic at the beach or take a walk along the port. You have to remember that it has literally rained every day since October here, so it’s almost a slap in the face that the sun starts to beam down on us when we can’t get very far.

— Romain’s week-old nub of livarot. Each time Romain has pulled his cheese box of livarot out after dinner this week, Nina’s ca sent mauvaise reaction has gotten more intense. Today the smell literally knocked her out of her chair, leaving one hand holding a spoon covered in chocolate pudding and another holding her chunk of bread that she dips into this pudding (this is my child) while she buried her head in my arm. The livarot looked like it had been in the package I received in the mail today and run over by the mail truck a few times before being put in a hamman to sweat out years of built-up impurities. Yes, a beat up, foul, sweaty piece of cheese. Put on our dinner table by choice. I watched Romain eat up every last bit as Nina fought every urge she had to shout out a disgusted BERK at her papa.

More confinement tales to come. I’m admittedly falling asleep every 5 seconds over here, so I’m going to go confine myself to bed.