In Love with France, At Home In Italy

This was the year of my 50th high school reunion. A milestone? Maybe. But nothing compared to what I found waiting for me in my Italy sock drawer. I admit to getting in a total dither whenever a transition looms, and this departure was worse than usual, since we were, for the first time, hoping to rent our house. This required clearing drawers and closets, as well as the usual packing frenzy. To soothe myself and have the illusion of being prepared to leave, well in advance, I set out my travel uniform: Magic flying shirt that keeps the plane aloft? Check! My No-Jet-Lag homeopathic remedy that keeps me copacetic even in the face of my suspicion that, given all that we are bringing, no airplane could ever get off the ground? Check! Perhaps I should explain. Airplanes, even without my stuff, are very heavy, and it's beyond me how they stay up. I recall in 7th grade General Science class making a diagram of an airplane wing with little arrows going ov...

A TWO-QUESTION QUIZ: HOW OLD IS "OLD"? HOW OLD IS TOO OLD FOR "GOODNIGHT MOON"?   The answer to the first question is "5 years older than you." The answer to the second about when you're too old for the children's classic, "Goodnight Moon," is NEVER. While painfully packing everything up to head back to my other country and life, I started thinking about "Goodnight Moon." I recall the first time I heard about that book. A neighbor, the wife of a minister who was moving to a new location was having a tag sale. And unlike yours truly, she was not a hoarder. Although my son was only about nine months old at the time, I was drawn to the children's books that she was selling. Among them was this odd little paperback that was not in very good condition. "Goodnight Moon?" "Never heard of it. Looks a bit boring.  I'm not sure I want that one." "Oh...

So what's all this? Read on and you'll see. The "tee-hee/boohoo" souvenir tissues from our Virgin Atlantic flight of many moons ago aptly describes my emotions during this painful rite-of-passage. Now who in her right mind would consider all this stuff inessential to everyday life and thus unworthy of taking up valuable real estate in her pocketbook? So many treasures here that are about to be exiled! Some people are "born" shoppers. They love the thrill of a new purchase. That would NOT be me. My favorite clothes--the soft, preowned, cozy ones I love to wear--all came from the recycling room at the Meredith, New Hampshire town dump. This was no ordinary dump. It was a state-of-the-art, model establishment of which even a summer resident could be proud. Way ahead of its time, the pristine Meredith dump had separate sections for each type of garbage. But for me, the highlight was the recycling room where the clothes bin had a special allure. It...

I'm looking at where I left off at the end of the past summer here in Umbria. A year of teaching French and helping others write has intervened. I had a large number of pieces pretty much ready to go, but they have been hibernating in my "Notes" Box awaiting the time I could actually finalize and post them. I think this is what can happen to anyone who writes but who also tries to deal with the business of everyday life. Further, maybe others are able to look on transitions as opportunities for excitement, whereas I tend to view them with anxiety and dread. Now who could complain about having the luxury of getting to live in an Italian-style paradise for a good chunk of the year? Non è logico in any language! Yet to write in fits and starts like this makes it hard to decide where to pick up the thread. One thing that's for sure: it's time to stop hoarding these pieces and stop obsessing about the order in which they will go. As an aside, I have to admire my friend...

The Dean of my residential college is a man of many parts--adviser, psychologist, teacher, wordsmith, disciplinarian, but mostly philosopher. During any given year, four hundred students look to him for whatever they are missing from home. Every Sunday night, he sends something he modestly calls "Notes and News," whose ostensible purpose is to forecast events and opportunities. But the highlight is always a thoughtful essay about how to live. On the cusp of returning to my academic home, I am thinking about an idea he brought up in last week's message:the concept of the liminal zone--the place where both expats and college students dwell, perhaps without even realizing it. "Liminal zone" is a fancy term for being poised on a threshold--neither here, nor there. As someone who has given her heart to more than one country, I like to think I know something about that. France started off as the love of my life. I teach her language and literat...