A word to explain my absence

T'is been a busy year. Somehow, somewhere, I trailed off and simply stopped writing. I wouldn't call it a writer's block in the true sense, more a time for meditation, reflection, and discretion (or the discovery of such). I am not naturally discrete, and I do benefit hugely from meditating and reflecting. As such, I've simply had more quiet moments, held my own counsel, and cultivated mon jardin secret, as we say here.

But I do like to share, and perhaps with a slightly different voice, perhaps less intently and frequently, I will continue to do so.

Thank you for following me.

Kids and Letters

Yesterday evening was a quiet one. Well, relatively. Once the game of hide and seek was over; once Leo had finally taken his shower and shaved (the once a month removal of very dark if minimal mustache); once Jonas had brushed his teeth, calm again reigned in the house. And to my bed crept a little boy, eager to work on his 'homework' with me. Can we call it homework when they're only 8?

Proudly, attentively, insistently, we read through (he read through!) sounds and syllables and simple phrases. He knows his French letters, and most of the combined sounds now -- ou, on, en, an... -- but we had some difficulty with 'ai' and 'au' and all those annoying silent letters. However, there he was pronouncing with the most lovely gutteral 'r's the most precise whistled 'u's. My little French boy. I resisted (and corrected myself as needed) from stating the alphabet in English... I kept wanting to say a and i with the English pronunciation, and then would repeat them a and i with the French. Some lapses just need to be accepted...

When Leo was little my mother and I worked on his reading in English alongside his reading in French. I don't know if this contributed to his current confusion when it comes to writing both languages, but it might have.

Jonas is another boy, growing up in a different time. I'm not in the kitchen teaching classes and cooking with clients. I'm in bed with him night after night open to whatever he brings to me. And, he's brought his joy at doing his school work. He's getting bigger and proud to be so, and I've convinced him he's not going to have half the difficulty his brother did. (positive mental reinforcement much?). Though this seems to be true from the get-go.

Gra gri gro gru grou groi gron; pla pli plo plu plou ploi plon; dra dri dro dru drou droi dron...

and on and on. We had about 30 lines, each one more difficult than the last, each presenting a similar rhythm and direction.

One of the scary aspects of the Waldorf education for many a driven parent (like myself) is that reading and writing are taught later than in the public school. The reasoning goes that until the physical body is ready (this moment of being ready is signaled by the loss of the first baby teeth) all the life forces in a child are needed to build himself, and it would be detrimental to occupy them in intellectual pursuits. This is not to say that creativity, play and many sorts of lessons aren't encouraged and done before this age, but, purely intellectual activities like reading and writing are put off till the first and second grade.

So, when you've a child like Leo who came to reading very very late and who still has horrid problems with spelling, you wonder if you made the right choice. When you've a child like Jonas who seems to jump at the chance to learn and who is delighted to share all his accomplishments and school projects with you, all seems right with the world.

By the way, while Jonas and I were working on letters and pronunciation, Leo was devouring the third in the series of Percy Johnson and the Olympiads. So, at least on this note, we can end my years of worry with delight and pride. Not bad to be 12 and reading as easily in one language as the other, n'est-ce pas? We'll see if the orthophoniste (speech and writing therapist) can help with his catastrophic grasp of basic verb conjugations, spellings, etc., One problem solved at a time.

Temporary Blogger's Block

To readers of my blog,

I'm not sure why, but I'm having a hard time getting onto the computer these days. Sorry! Perhaps it was the unavoidable addiction-breaking gesture of sending my computer to be repaired for a few days and thus not having it at hand at any moment of the day. Perhaps it's the shorter days and the lure of good books and my comfy bed. Perhaps it's kids over, around and under my feet/head/you name it. Perhaps it's the season. That old bearish urge to hibernate is hitting me hard. In any case, I've not been richly inspired recently.

However, I've a small stash of photos from the most recent visit to the Cévennes, some more images of goat cheese (nearing the end of the season, just two more weeks and we'll be done till February!).

I've been out and about -- salsa classes, a tango weekend, lots of walks, hanging with the kids, visiting friends. Just keeping busy if you will.

So, with patience, I trust some inspiration will come and I'll find more good subjects and/or recipes to write about. Not to mention add some good photos.

I shan't go dry for too long, I doubt, so till then, I wish you a good early December!

A day for me

I didn't need to leave home till late this afternoon. What a blessing. I spent all morning in bed with my cup of tea and the computer writing and editing away. The goal was and is to gather together 50 or so of my strongest pages, re-work, cut and slice, and aim towards what reads and feels like a foodie/frenchie/single mom coping on her own/cultural confusion memoir. Or something in that direction.

As you may have noticed, I'm not a single theme kind of person. I do the personal angst-ridden, life-decision stuff; recipes with a home-maker/kid/organic and provençale twist; raising kids; France vs. US; single woman in her 40s trying to cope; a wee bit of tourism; a few articles about my artisans (so far: the chocolatier, the potter, the goat cheese makers, the hat lady, the vintner, the beekeeper. Still to come: the baker, the pastry-maker, the olive oil mill, the truffle hunter and??? we'll see).

Going back through these, plus what I'd written before blogging is exhilirating, but also confusing. What to include? what to cut? And there I go again beating the dog with a stick... Yes, there are some issues I'm having a long haul with, and I see I'm repeating myself on occasion. Will there be an epiphany? Will I get to the other side? Will I achieve a moment of nirvana and inner peace? Or?

I'm not my own best editor, though I'm enjoying re-working phrases and my word choices. Once I wrote concisely... but I seem to have left that skill back in another life-time. Now, I'm holding too dearly, and need a bit of help with the scalpel.

Can I be funny? should I be? where and when have I been poignant? or struck a chord? What tantalizes? Which recipes have pleased the most? How much Frenchiness to include? How much mid-life crisis/decision stuff? And, should I go back to my personal journal and include anything more intimate? (which no, I'll not put here on the blog).

Once I finished a morning's full of contemplation, reading and typing, I got up off my sore butt and answered Filou's call for a nice long walk by the Rhône. The weather is still quite lovely, though muggy today. It's that inbetween time when I've still summer clothes hanging in my closet, but I'm pulling out the jeans, which are then too hot, but putting shorts on seems somehow wrong.

An hour of yoga nicely capped off my personal time (thank you pod casts off ITunes!) My choice of session today was a level 2/3 by Elsie Escobar http://elsiesyogakula.com, who, once you get past her boppy, babbling in the first couple of minutes of her pod cast, is truly a gifted and pleasant teacher to listen to and follow. I highly recommend her to anyone doing yoga from a somewhat beginner to a fully intermediate level.

With all this personal time, making a lasagna for dinner, urging the kids to talk over what happened Thursday last, reading, cleaning, what-have-you was far easier to manage this evening.

Nearly the end of June...

I'm having an extraordinarily hard time being creative while frantically and non-stoppingly cleaning my house, pool, garden, etc., Somehow creative writing, the flow of ideas, and yes, the time necessary to upload photos, and do said writing, just seem out of my grasp these days.

I'm sifting through toys: my house (renters can play with), my house (under the stairwell), Erick's house, and trash. I'm dusting shelf after shelf after shelf. I'm taking note that I need more wine glasses (where did they all go???); that the neighbor's septic system is not functioning well (not this again?); that the other neighbor's well pump must have a broken air balloon (water balloon?... whatever); that my office and papers haven't been put in order in a long while, and must be before I depart here on Saturday. Will they fit under the stairwell too?

So much is already done, but so much is yet to be done. Those last minute details always take vastly more time that you can imagine. How thoroughly will I do the oven this year? Will I try to unscrew the back wall screws and clean the fan??? Am I up for that? My new bathroom sink is in place (yippee!! photos will come soon), but there's just a wee thing yet to fix... Goodness I'm lucky to have a dear friend who's a plumber!

The boys and all of us are exhausted. My young Gaetan is taking naps upon returning to the house (my 8th grader, son of goat cheese makers); Jonas collapsed in a nap in the gym while Leo and his friends were yelling and running and sending balls kareening over our heads. Leo fell asleep before dinner the other day, and Lucille basically comes home and goes right to bed, emerging in time for dinner.

Yes, it is the end of the year. The sun goes down just before 10. The sky is light and the world is alive. The wind is non-stop, stimulating and enervating in the worst sense.

Still to be done -- getting the green garbage to the dump; everyone's sheets on Friday afternoon; vacuuming the pool (and figuring out how said vacuum works...); more vacuuming and mopping of the whole house (saturday morning). another scrub of the shower and tub; packing of last suit cases, removal of last clothes... almost there... another mow of the lawn (and I'll need to water it too! the wind is wreaking havoc on my lovely green carpet!).

I'll get there, but yes, creativity is taking a dive. Hopefully, next week, once this is all handled, I'll be able to let loose the creative juices. And then, where shall I let them take me?

Homework in a Bi-lingual Household

Unless otherwise noted, all materials on this blog are (c) 2009 by Madeleine Vedel

I spent my weekend reading with Leo, re-reading the book he was to have read and written twenty lines on for today. It was an intense span of at least ten hours, side by side (the book is 217 pages long, an early reader, but still ...). He's having a very difficult time actually absorbing what he reads. Vocabulary words he doesn't know, and a disconnect between nicely pronouncing a phrase and actually giving it sense; sense that sticks and comes to life as images in your brain. Normally, I read in English with Leo. We read nightly a chapter or so of Harry Potter, or a dragon book, or The Black Stallion, or the Squire books by one of the Monty Pythons. He prefers that I read in English with him, and truth be told, I've a better stash of youth literature in English than in French. In France, either you read English literature translated into French, or any number of an infinite array of cartoon novels (Tintin, Les Daltons, etc.,). I'm still looking for an equivalent collection of addictive kids' literature actually written in French.

When you raise a child bi-lingually, you are effectively doubling the vocabulary he needs to master at any given age. There are times it feels easy. Kids pick up so much with such facility. But, there are times when the difficulties (often unforseen) make you doubt your choice. Leo was always a very cerebral child. At an age when other children have words spilling out of their mouths in an unstoppable flow, he stuttered. I could hear him figuring out what language the person in front of him comprehended, and search for the appropriate word or phrase. He was already translating in his head, and thus language wasn't a simple element that you absorb and spit back out, but an intense struggle from day one. He still occasionally puts an adjective after a noun in English, simply translating verbatim from French.

I switched him to the Waldorf school precisely because the French public kindergarten director thought the fact that I was raising him bi-lingually was wrong. And there, yes, I found a multi-lingual, multi-cultural haven. It has certainly helped, at least for all of us to feel somewhat normal in what is undeniably becoming a very international and culturally mixed world.

I'm not the first in my family to live in a foreign country, and my children are just the next in a line of numerous bi-lingual kids (German-English, Greek-English, Spanish-English) in our extended family. So, I was just doing what I thought right for an American mom living abroad. I'm less emphatic with Jonas, my second, not unsurprisingly. And, as is often the case in a situation like ours, the language of the boys between themselves is French. But with me, the rule for both of them has always been that we communicate in English, no matter that my French is perfectly fluent and that I and Erick always spoke French together. My many au pairs were also amateur English assistants, helping me give the boys an English environment to grow up in. My thought was, with all their friends, their schooling, their father, their French cousins, etc., speaking to them in French, I had to do whatever was possible to make English a real and useful language for them.

With Leo, it's now at a point where his teacher reassures him when he writes poorly in French that it's ok, his maternal tongue being English, he too is like a foreigner in her class. I differ with her on this point, and wish she'd be a bit more demanding of him. But, point taken, he works far more on his English reading and writing skills with me than on his French. And yes, I wonder when and if it will all get sorted out for him. Spelling rules in both languages are horrid. And pure memorization as a way of learning them is not something he's willing to accept, yet. So, rather than 'mauvaise' it is 'movese'. A clear understanding of letters and their sounds, but a complete disconnect between what he reads and what he writes.

How much of this is having the two languages at once?

I picked up French in junior high and high school. I was a good student, and even now, I find myself correcting the usage of accents and such on many a French friend's papers. So, I learned the basic rules of this foreign language, got it, and then learned to speak it and communicate with it. I had no bad habits from a childhood of random spellings, etc., to undo, but nor did I have the automatic knowledge of whether a word was feminine or masculine (still one of my issues with French, no matter my apparent mastery). And still, I do not write well in French. My grammar is good, but not my phrasing, my 'syntax' as they say here. How will I improve it? I do read more in French as time goes on, but then, that messes up my English for the translating work I do. The head is easily tricked. Whereas I'm able to hold relatively easily to the spoken variations of the languages I speak, writing is a completely other art for me.

The summer I got up to speed with my Japanese -- my intensive nine-week third-year program at Middlebury -- I returned to university and proceeded to write the worst English of my life. Japanese is structured completely differently than English, and often has very long and heavy sentences. I wrote technically correct sentences. There was a subject and a verb in there somewhere, but then there were oodles of dependent clauses just cluttering up the text. I was temporarily under the influence of Japanese syntax and it took me all semester to get my English style back again.

So, I have given my children the joys and privileges of being bi-lingual from birth, and perhaps saddled them with the frustrations of never mastering either the one or the other? In any case, they have the untold pleasures of friendships and family on both sides of the Atlantic, and that outweighs a lot of the small stuff.