April 5, Malvern, Arkansas (91 miles, Elk Lodge.)
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
Morning drives.
April 3, Idabel.
The morning drives, alone with the road and the coming day, how I missed them I suddenly discover, incredulous.
The morning drives, alone with the road and the coming day, how I missed them I suddenly discover, incredulous.
A circus tribe and a party.
April 2, Hugo.
Last chance to get stuff out of the trailer; Fridman came over and we worked all morning. Then laundry, errands, and Argio's birthday party after the shows.
Everybody was there, invited by the Loyal and Fusco families, a world-spanning circus tribe. The youngest of the Loyals turned two.
Moving.
April 1, Kingston.
We jumped to Hugo one day ahead so I can have more time to move from the trailer into the motor home.
I worked til after midnight, trying to fit into a smaller space ten years of my life, while the kids played with the toys we had left behind. The trailer seemed huge, a palace.
Our friend Marcos came over for dinner with his son and we had leftover pizza and veggies from Nicolas' birthday. A familiar face, and this strange place feels a little bit more like home.
We jumped to Hugo one day ahead so I can have more time to move from the trailer into the motor home.
I worked til after midnight, trying to fit into a smaller space ten years of my life, while the kids played with the toys we had left behind. The trailer seemed huge, a palace.
Our friend Marcos came over for dinner with his son and we had leftover pizza and veggies from Nicolas' birthday. A familiar face, and this strange place feels a little bit more like home.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
School.
March 31, Tishomingo.
Dee Dee's back at the circus this year, she lost seventy-six pounds and she looks awesome. Liam is doing good.
Today she had school at the park so she could have Sam play while she taught. The kids worked under a tree canopy, next to the playground. It was breezy and warm, lovely after the winter weather of the last few days.
I've decided to bring Dylan to school; even though I won't have him study with the other kids in English, for I'm afraid he'll get confused after starting school in France, it will give us a chance to have a set schedule.
Four.
March 31, Tishomingo.
We had a party for Nicolas' birthday today, rushing, as always, to get everything ready.
Mingo turned four in Tishomingo.
We had a party for Nicolas' birthday today, rushing, as always, to get everything ready.
Mingo turned four in Tishomingo.
Anguish.
March 30, Wynnewood.
Dylan had another asthma attack today, or maybe it wasn't but I treated it as such, just in case. Feeling cold then a fever and the heavy breathing, the wheezing, and the nebulizer is in the old trailer but Sara lets me borrow Gigi's, and thank heavens I have all the medicine and instructions I brought from France.
But I'll never get used to this.
The fear is overwhelming, it spins everything in its wake and leaves me bloodless, the world stops and I am just a raging heart of anguish.
Dylan had another asthma attack today, or maybe it wasn't but I treated it as such, just in case. Feeling cold then a fever and the heavy breathing, the wheezing, and the nebulizer is in the old trailer but Sara lets me borrow Gigi's, and thank heavens I have all the medicine and instructions I brought from France.
But I'll never get used to this.
The fear is overwhelming, it spins everything in its wake and leaves me bloodless, the world stops and I am just a raging heart of anguish.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
The incredible story of Brian's burn.
March 26, Frisco.
Our yearly three-day stay in Frisco, and we're back on the other side of the plazza.
Brian could be dead by now.
Three weeks ago he burnt himself practicing with a new fuel. He didn't want to go to the hospital but Tavana found him in the circus kitchen trying to cool his hand with cold water and made him go. He had second degree burns on his hand and face. Once in the hospital he was found to have alarmingly low blood pressure; they sent him off to a bigger facility, in Corpus Christy, where the next day he was outfitted with a pacemaker. His heart was failing, and would most likely have stopped within days.
If he hadn't burnt himself.
At first he thought they had the wrong guy; he was feeling fine, no chest pains, nothing out of the ordinary. His pressure was under twenty. He was released from the hospital the day after being fitted with the pacemaker and was back at work two days later.
When we were in France Nicolas went about the house armed with kitchen utensils saying he was going to cook, like Brian. When we were invited for dinner Dylan would inevitably say that the cooking was delicious, like Brian's.
To think we could have lost him.
If he hadn't burnt himself he may have been dead by the time we arrived at the circus.
Our yearly three-day stay in Frisco, and we're back on the other side of the plazza.
Brian could be dead by now.
Three weeks ago he burnt himself practicing with a new fuel. He didn't want to go to the hospital but Tavana found him in the circus kitchen trying to cool his hand with cold water and made him go. He had second degree burns on his hand and face. Once in the hospital he was found to have alarmingly low blood pressure; they sent him off to a bigger facility, in Corpus Christy, where the next day he was outfitted with a pacemaker. His heart was failing, and would most likely have stopped within days.
If he hadn't burnt himself.
At first he thought they had the wrong guy; he was feeling fine, no chest pains, nothing out of the ordinary. His pressure was under twenty. He was released from the hospital the day after being fitted with the pacemaker and was back at work two days later.
When we were in France Nicolas went about the house armed with kitchen utensils saying he was going to cook, like Brian. When we were invited for dinner Dylan would inevitably say that the cooking was delicious, like Brian's.
To think we could have lost him.
If he hadn't burnt himself he may have been dead by the time we arrived at the circus.
I want my trailer back.
March 24, Royse City.
Tavana and John Moss and Nikki and Carolyn and Mike have new digs, and so do we. We've got a new home and I hate it.
Well, not hate exactly, more like feeling adrift and missing my home, my trailer, and all the nooks and crannies that have made my life for almost ten years. Fridman wanted a motor home for the kids, so that we wouldn't have to take them out in the cold in the morning to sit them in the truck. We had seen one of don Sandro's used ones and liked it, so here we are.
It is a small class B motor home (it's much smaller than the trailer) that Fridman has been spicing up, building beds for the kids, painting, taking carpet out and curtains in, but all the goodies in the world won't make it home unless I want to and so far I don't, it's too new, too soon, away from home and then it's gone, I need time, time and maybe a lot of Dylan's art on the walls to anchor me in.
But there isn't any counter space in the kitchen, on top of it all. Not to mention the Trailer with a view series ("Motor home with a view"?)
I want my trailer back.
Tavana and John Moss and Nikki and Carolyn and Mike have new digs, and so do we. We've got a new home and I hate it.
Well, not hate exactly, more like feeling adrift and missing my home, my trailer, and all the nooks and crannies that have made my life for almost ten years. Fridman wanted a motor home for the kids, so that we wouldn't have to take them out in the cold in the morning to sit them in the truck. We had seen one of don Sandro's used ones and liked it, so here we are.
It is a small class B motor home (it's much smaller than the trailer) that Fridman has been spicing up, building beds for the kids, painting, taking carpet out and curtains in, but all the goodies in the world won't make it home unless I want to and so far I don't, it's too new, too soon, away from home and then it's gone, I need time, time and maybe a lot of Dylan's art on the walls to anchor me in.
But there isn't any counter space in the kitchen, on top of it all. Not to mention the Trailer with a view series ("Motor home with a view"?)
I want my trailer back.
We're back.
March 23, Van.
We flew back yesterday.
It was a good trip, if a ten-hour flight with two kids and a twenty-four-hour traveling day can be called a good trip. But it was good, for the kids were angels. I woke them up at six for the taxi call after we all went to bed around midnight, and they were fine, fell asleep shortly after take-off, leaving me to browse magazines by my quiet self, and watched cartoons for the rest of the flight.
Dylan fell asleep again on the way back to the circus and didn't wake up til this morning. Then he went chirping around to anybody that would listen - in French. Both he and Nicolas ran wild with Flaco and Gigi and the gang of Kelly Miller Circus kids, all the familiar faces fro; last year and years back, Nathan and Gordo and Renzo and Luis and more.
A day, and we're back at the circus, a language and a world away.
That, and we went straight from winter to summer.
We flew back yesterday.
It was a good trip, if a ten-hour flight with two kids and a twenty-four-hour traveling day can be called a good trip. But it was good, for the kids were angels. I woke them up at six for the taxi call after we all went to bed around midnight, and they were fine, fell asleep shortly after take-off, leaving me to browse magazines by my quiet self, and watched cartoons for the rest of the flight.
Dylan fell asleep again on the way back to the circus and didn't wake up til this morning. Then he went chirping around to anybody that would listen - in French. Both he and Nicolas ran wild with Flaco and Gigi and the gang of Kelly Miller Circus kids, all the familiar faces fro; last year and years back, Nathan and Gordo and Renzo and Luis and more.
A day, and we're back at the circus, a language and a world away.
That, and we went straight from winter to summer.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
On the side.
March 20, Saint-Ismier.
A recent comment threw me into introspection, into the way I write and what I write and why.
Ellyn Rose said what I wrote reminded her of the Portuguese word "saudade," a word I love. It is a word that evades translation in either of the languages of my awaken life; it means nostalgia, regretful love and sadness intertwined but it is also beyond all these notions, as elusive as the feeling it represents.
Reading back it is obvious that my writing has increasingly been infused with saudade, the obsessive return to nostalgia even as the moment is being lived, the fear of forgetfulness (another word falling short, "l'oubli" in French so much more beautiful, even the sound of it,) pervading everything, life passing by to be recorded against oblivion and in the process transformed into a pervading museum of memories to come. It has to do with the fear of death, of course, this obsession of time passing, of recording, remembering life in its most mundane expressions above all, its minute unfolding, and in its scathing ebb.
A recent comment threw me into introspection, into the way I write and what I write and why.
Ellyn Rose said what I wrote reminded her of the Portuguese word "saudade," a word I love. It is a word that evades translation in either of the languages of my awaken life; it means nostalgia, regretful love and sadness intertwined but it is also beyond all these notions, as elusive as the feeling it represents.
Reading back it is obvious that my writing has increasingly been infused with saudade, the obsessive return to nostalgia even as the moment is being lived, the fear of forgetfulness (another word falling short, "l'oubli" in French so much more beautiful, even the sound of it,) pervading everything, life passing by to be recorded against oblivion and in the process transformed into a pervading museum of memories to come. It has to do with the fear of death, of course, this obsession of time passing, of recording, remembering life in its most mundane expressions above all, its minute unfolding, and in its scathing ebb.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Twist.
March 15, Saint-Ismier.
Encounters is a word to which I much prefer the French version, les rencontres.
This one came about by a twist of fate. Saving Dylan on Saturday, and tonight we met, the physician and I, as I was sitting in the same room, literally in Dylan's shoes - inhaling the same asthma medicine, for just as long (it was all quite strange, also sweet, I following him for a change.)
Lives crossing, windows unfolding, possibilities, the valleys of destinies, affinities, rencontres.
Encounters is a word to which I much prefer the French version, les rencontres.
This one came about by a twist of fate. Saving Dylan on Saturday, and tonight we met, the physician and I, as I was sitting in the same room, literally in Dylan's shoes - inhaling the same asthma medicine, for just as long (it was all quite strange, also sweet, I following him for a change.)
Lives crossing, windows unfolding, possibilities, the valleys of destinies, affinities, rencontres.
Clos Marchand.
March 15, Saint-Ismier.
It our last week here and so time is slipping away vertiginously.
Today after school I took pictures of Dylan and Nicolas' classrooms and teachers, Brigitte and Mélanie.
Clos Marchand, the elementary school they attended, is a small school, with only three classes, one for each of the sections, as grades are called, that make up early elementary school in France. Small, medium and high sections serve three to five year olds, as kids start school at three here, a big help for working mothers.
Such a small school was perfect for my babies, catapulted as they were far from everything they knew, their world wildly upturned, like their Dad on the upside-down loop. They did so well, a tribute to their teachers as much as to them, soothing my fears. Nicolas even came out of his bubble today, his teacher told me, happily interacting with the rest of his classmates.
Better late than never, only two days left of school
Monday, March 14, 2011
Out-take (the castle of Vizille.)
March 14, Saint-Ismier.
Last week we also went to the castle of Vizille, a small town outside of Grenoble, with my mother's friend, Monique, and the kids. Monique had brought several bags full of old bread for the kids to feed the ducks, swans and fish that live in the park.
The castle figures prominently in the history of the French Revolution as its owner at that time, Claude Perrier, a rich businessman, opened it in 1788 to one of the first Estates-General convocations in the country. The original castle dates back to the year 996, when it belonged to the bishop of Grenoble, and became a royal residence in 1349.
To the kids none of that mattered, only the swan biting at Dylan's hand as he tried to feed him, only the fat carps darting for the pieces of bread thrown their way.
Out-take (out in the woods.)
March 14, Saint-Ismier.
This morning it looks like someone took away a dirty film from our view of the mountains all around, leaving me dazed with the brilliance of their outlines. For almost a week there had been a pinkish-grey fog masking them, engulfing everything. Such pollution peaks are unfortunately common in this region where three mountain chains form a natural barrier around the city nestled in the valley.
Twice last week we went walking in the woods, along our beloved paths, because the kids were so eager and soon there'll be no more mountain trails to walk within a stone throw of our house, and I can't help but wonder now whether breathing that foul air, however lovely the walk seemed, however much we rejoiced in it, didn't contribute to Dylan's asthma attack the next day.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
A doctor's visit.
March 13, Saint-Ismier.
An asthma attack that I don't detect, until it is very late. One of my worst nightmares come true.
The kids and I have been sick almost continually since we've arrived here, but yesterday Dylan woke up coughing and went on coughing all day, until I finally woke up and ran to a doctor's office open on week ends (one we'd already visited.) A massive dose of steroids and an inhaler for an hour straight and when we drove home night had fallen for a long time already.
I didn't see it.
I should have known.
Last May's emergency room nightmare all over again.
And I can't shake the panick, the gripping pressure in the chest; the proximity of reliable, low-cost care doesn't seem to alleviate the fear. But it does help; nothing is worse than rushing your child to a health care facility you don't know, you don't know where, the only thing that you know being that it will cost you hundreds of dollars at a minimum (we were charged just under three thousand dollars for Dylan's five-hour ER visit at a hospital near Indianapolis last year.)
Yesterday the physician sent us home with antibiotics to clear the looming lung infection, but also a life changer for me: the knowledge that I can call her from anywhere, any time our time zones let us, and get help over the phone from someone I trust.
She also sent us home without making me pay, as we've agreed to go back on Thursday for a checkup before we head back to the U.S. How I'll miss the blessing that is the health care system in France: the double bill will be less than sixty dollars, and that only because I am not covered here, as I don't contribute to the health care system through taxes; otherwise it would have been free, as any other health care bill for my kids until they're eighteen.
All through those months of constant doctors' visits, each of them looked at me with alarm every time I announced that I wasn't covered, and each time too, when they told me how much the bill was, I wanted to laugh, although it would have been a bitter laugh. A family practice physician charges around twenty-six euros for a consultation, or about thirty-five dollars; no specialist has charged me more than fifty dollars.
No, physicians certainly don't get as rich here as they can in the U.S. They don't have huge student loans to pay back either, and no impossibly high insurance bill to pay to cover their back.
For the rest of us, what a difference.
An asthma attack that I don't detect, until it is very late. One of my worst nightmares come true.
The kids and I have been sick almost continually since we've arrived here, but yesterday Dylan woke up coughing and went on coughing all day, until I finally woke up and ran to a doctor's office open on week ends (one we'd already visited.) A massive dose of steroids and an inhaler for an hour straight and when we drove home night had fallen for a long time already.
I didn't see it.
I should have known.
Last May's emergency room nightmare all over again.
And I can't shake the panick, the gripping pressure in the chest; the proximity of reliable, low-cost care doesn't seem to alleviate the fear. But it does help; nothing is worse than rushing your child to a health care facility you don't know, you don't know where, the only thing that you know being that it will cost you hundreds of dollars at a minimum (we were charged just under three thousand dollars for Dylan's five-hour ER visit at a hospital near Indianapolis last year.)
Yesterday the physician sent us home with antibiotics to clear the looming lung infection, but also a life changer for me: the knowledge that I can call her from anywhere, any time our time zones let us, and get help over the phone from someone I trust.
She also sent us home without making me pay, as we've agreed to go back on Thursday for a checkup before we head back to the U.S. How I'll miss the blessing that is the health care system in France: the double bill will be less than sixty dollars, and that only because I am not covered here, as I don't contribute to the health care system through taxes; otherwise it would have been free, as any other health care bill for my kids until they're eighteen.
All through those months of constant doctors' visits, each of them looked at me with alarm every time I announced that I wasn't covered, and each time too, when they told me how much the bill was, I wanted to laugh, although it would have been a bitter laugh. A family practice physician charges around twenty-six euros for a consultation, or about thirty-five dollars; no specialist has charged me more than fifty dollars.
No, physicians certainly don't get as rich here as they can in the U.S. They don't have huge student loans to pay back either, and no impossibly high insurance bill to pay to cover their back.
For the rest of us, what a difference.
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
A hidden garden of magical secrets.
March 8, Saint-Ismier.
Isabelle and I could be sisters, we share a childhood that was lucky enough to sometimes be full of hidden wonders.
We grew up together, she a year older than I, our parents close friends, in Vence. Now settled in Nice she hosted us, the kids and I, and with her four-year-old son, Amssane, they made a killing trio.
Isabelle, her older sister Sophie and I were a girls' trio growing up, in each other's stuff and each other's lives, secretly in love with hero of our favorite TV series, and later, in our adolescent years, a summer in the coolness of Isabelle's room listening to a radio program, the life of Elvis unfolding each afternoon and I can still hear the melody of the announcer's voice, listening to the same records too, vinyl back then, up to our shared years in Paris.
With Sophie the ties had grown looser, and I have never met any of her two kids, now teens themselves.
Their parents in the same house, still, cavernous spaces of art collectors, the dark staircase, treacherous, the tight rooms, the smell of waxed wood, the posters on Zaza's wall, the sunshine outside. Our house was airy and light, and they never visited, a pattern that has continued through the years, and even now, with this visit.
In the small village garden of her parents' house there is a tiny stone building below the patio with on one side a workshop and on the other a room where we dreamed up our magical universe as little girls, a room of our own, a room that is magic itself. It is a room you do not enter if you've outgrown it, or the loss of its wonders would scrape you raw and leave you bereft of all that's cherished about childhood.
Returns.
March 8, Saint-Ismier.
I went home.
I went home to the south and found everything different, and loved it, found the pebbles on the beach, smooth and round and comfortingly heavy, the mimosa flowering, covering the hills bright and spreading the soft fuzziness of their scent, the olive trees and orange trees, I found the school smells of my childhood in the old bookstore, the friends of another age old and same, I went home and I'm bound to go again.
I went home.
I went home to the south and found everything different, and loved it, found the pebbles on the beach, smooth and round and comfortingly heavy, the mimosa flowering, covering the hills bright and spreading the soft fuzziness of their scent, the olive trees and orange trees, I found the school smells of my childhood in the old bookstore, the friends of another age old and same, I went home and I'm bound to go again.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
Carnival.
February 25, Saint-Ismier.
It's carnival time, kids at school wore disguises today, and made masks; we made some at home too, and there were clouds on the mountains, but that was the other day.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
A writer.
February 20, Saint-Ismier.
I am in love.
His name is Philippe Claudel. He's a writer and there is nothing else to say but the poetry of the words and their slashing at my throat, or is it my heart.
I am in love.
His name is Philippe Claudel. He's a writer and there is nothing else to say but the poetry of the words and their slashing at my throat, or is it my heart.
Routines.
February 20, Saint-Ismier.
So many days of illness, the memories of a fresh routine already nostalgia, the routine of school days, the first school days and soon the days filled to the brink and the routine marching in, Wednesdays there is no school but going to hear stories and songs at the library, storming the bookstore, finding one more children's book to savor in its delicacy and enchantment, having lunch at the children's café, our haven, rushing home to enjoy the youth of the afternoon and go walk in the woods, slowly they go first then they're runaway kids and I running behind them, jumping on logs, collecting leaves, breathing in the wonder of the simple wilderness just beyond our house, just within our days, then coming home and the brink of the day, hot bath and a dinner and off to bed, I with them, bedtime stories, one more book, kicking and laughing and not ready for bed, and soon it's the weekend and two days filled with this and the painting and the Legos and the routine of school days freshly found, already lost.
Days going by and I wanted to write about all this, the wonder of days so full there was no time to even think of turning on the television, and I wanted to write but didn't find the words to convey the wonder, days going by and I didn't write at all, the routine of school days just that, a routine, what's there to write, but the wonder, the days, and then illness sets in and there is no more routine but that of doctors' offices and the wishing for what's already lost.
Lessons never to be learned.
So many days of illness, the memories of a fresh routine already nostalgia, the routine of school days, the first school days and soon the days filled to the brink and the routine marching in, Wednesdays there is no school but going to hear stories and songs at the library, storming the bookstore, finding one more children's book to savor in its delicacy and enchantment, having lunch at the children's café, our haven, rushing home to enjoy the youth of the afternoon and go walk in the woods, slowly they go first then they're runaway kids and I running behind them, jumping on logs, collecting leaves, breathing in the wonder of the simple wilderness just beyond our house, just within our days, then coming home and the brink of the day, hot bath and a dinner and off to bed, I with them, bedtime stories, one more book, kicking and laughing and not ready for bed, and soon it's the weekend and two days filled with this and the painting and the Legos and the routine of school days freshly found, already lost.
Days going by and I wanted to write about all this, the wonder of days so full there was no time to even think of turning on the television, and I wanted to write but didn't find the words to convey the wonder, days going by and I didn't write at all, the routine of school days just that, a routine, what's there to write, but the wonder, the days, and then illness sets in and there is no more routine but that of doctors' offices and the wishing for what's already lost.
Lessons never to be learned.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Out-takes (Paris early morning.)
February 15, Saint-Ismier.
It is only now I can open the pictures I took arriving in Paris in November, early one morning as the weekly fresh market workers were unloading their stuff onto the wet melancholy streets.
My camera ran out of battery the day I settled here and I hadn't brought the charger; Fridman just sent it.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Joy and fear.
February 14, Saint-Ismier.
The news from Egypt, so awaited, so very good, fell on a night when something wrong about Dylan or Nicolas was again at the center of my universe, and so the joy went, swallowed by my little world of worry, little world of primal fear, sickness and death against the joy of my children's very life and against the joy of a revolution prevailing, finally, in relative, miraculous peace.
And so it is, of the world of mothers, and that of people, condemned between joy and fear.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
A morning.
February 8, Saint-Ismier.
We are all sick, the kids and I, a virus or another, nothing to be done except wait and try not to worry too much, and sleep at night.
It is hard to work even when nobody's sick and the kids go to school; Nicolas stays home in the afternoon, there is the buying and the cooking, the getting them to and from school, there are the errands, the humdrum of life as a mother, between homes and countries, and so precious little time to work, work at trying to get The Mud Show Diaries published, by anyone, anywhere, in any form, at trying to get started online, proofreading, editing, writing - just to write these miserly words has taken me more than an hour, Mom can I get an apple, Mom can I get more apple, Mom I need help with my painting, drink your juice, Dylan, you need to drink more, Nicolas don't throw that, where was I, yes, an email from that publisher telling me they do not accept manuscript submissions anymore due to budget conditions, yes, but there are still N, O, P all the way to Z in the list of independent publishers, yes, but Dylan wants me to help him with his puzzle, full of dragons and furious unicorns, and I think Nicolas needs a nap.
Me too.
Three emails sent, call it a morning.
We are all sick, the kids and I, a virus or another, nothing to be done except wait and try not to worry too much, and sleep at night.
It is hard to work even when nobody's sick and the kids go to school; Nicolas stays home in the afternoon, there is the buying and the cooking, the getting them to and from school, there are the errands, the humdrum of life as a mother, between homes and countries, and so precious little time to work, work at trying to get The Mud Show Diaries published, by anyone, anywhere, in any form, at trying to get started online, proofreading, editing, writing - just to write these miserly words has taken me more than an hour, Mom can I get an apple, Mom can I get more apple, Mom I need help with my painting, drink your juice, Dylan, you need to drink more, Nicolas don't throw that, where was I, yes, an email from that publisher telling me they do not accept manuscript submissions anymore due to budget conditions, yes, but there are still N, O, P all the way to Z in the list of independent publishers, yes, but Dylan wants me to help him with his puzzle, full of dragons and furious unicorns, and I think Nicolas needs a nap.
Me too.
Three emails sent, call it a morning.
Friday, February 04, 2011
Such grace.
February 4, Saint-Ismier.
The other day I almost wrote "We are all Egyptians" but stopped, balking at the comparison such a phrase would immediately call with such eminent journalists as those from the French venerable daily, Le Monde, who wrote "We are all Americans" after 9/11. Today it was Nicolas Kristoff's privilege to write it in his column from Tahir Square.
He is the best a journalist can be and an honor to our profession; his daily reporting from Cairo has kept me abreast of the situation in Egypt, and added a needed perspective to otherwise confusing reporting.
Exhilaration ceded to anger these past two days as I watched and read about armed thugs that showed many obvious signs of having been sent by the government to attack their brothers, along with journalists of all nationalities trying to do their job and give the world a window into what is really happening on the streets of the Egyptian capital. It is an act of treachery coming from a desperate regime clinging to its power in the face of an overwhelming popular revolt, and I have no doubt that it is the last gasp of a dying beast and for all the barbarity and screeching injustice of its unfolding will only hasten the demise of that regime.
By this last measure of his indignity Mubarak has signed his end, and the Egyptian's population's unfaltering heroism, again and again, as reported by Mr. Kristoff and others, will be remembered all the more fiercely.
I'll keep waiting for his notes from Cairo, the exhilaration I felt already surfacing again in the midst of my dismay - what else in the face of such grace and strength against barbary?
The other day I almost wrote "We are all Egyptians" but stopped, balking at the comparison such a phrase would immediately call with such eminent journalists as those from the French venerable daily, Le Monde, who wrote "We are all Americans" after 9/11. Today it was Nicolas Kristoff's privilege to write it in his column from Tahir Square.
He is the best a journalist can be and an honor to our profession; his daily reporting from Cairo has kept me abreast of the situation in Egypt, and added a needed perspective to otherwise confusing reporting.
Exhilaration ceded to anger these past two days as I watched and read about armed thugs that showed many obvious signs of having been sent by the government to attack their brothers, along with journalists of all nationalities trying to do their job and give the world a window into what is really happening on the streets of the Egyptian capital. It is an act of treachery coming from a desperate regime clinging to its power in the face of an overwhelming popular revolt, and I have no doubt that it is the last gasp of a dying beast and for all the barbarity and screeching injustice of its unfolding will only hasten the demise of that regime.
By this last measure of his indignity Mubarak has signed his end, and the Egyptian's population's unfaltering heroism, again and again, as reported by Mr. Kristoff and others, will be remembered all the more fiercely.
I'll keep waiting for his notes from Cairo, the exhilaration I felt already surfacing again in the midst of my dismay - what else in the face of such grace and strength against barbary?
Tuesday, February 01, 2011
The warm winds of freedom.
February 1, Saint-Ismier.
It is cold here in the French Alps; the mountains in front of my mother's house have disappeared in a mass of grey clouds.
But there is a warm wind blowing on the other side of the Mediterranean.
It is a wind of liberation so sudden and so new that it feels like the dream of a drunken ship. It is a wind so powerful that it sweeps away fear, a fear so old it had become like fate.
Today Egyptians of all walks of life are demonstrating en masse in the streets of Cairo one week after protests started on the wings of the wind of revolution.
It is a warm wind, it was born in Tunisia last month on the ashes of a young man who died in December after setting himself on fire. Mohamed Bouazizi's gesture in a small town lost in central Tunisia ignited what has come to be called the Jasmine Revolution, a revolution that toppled longtime strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power in only a few days. Ben Ali came to power in 1987 promising democracy and only strengthened the corruption and despotism that had marked the later years of the first president of the Tunisian republic, Habib Bourguiba.
In 1987 my best friend was Zohra Fetiti, she was a petite young woman who fascinated me with her wild streak, her mystery, and the sweet obscurity of her eyes. She was Tunisian. Ben Ali's ascension then meant a renewed hope for a country she barely knew, she was a child of emigration, the legacy of French colonialism, and I remember her divided between hope and disappointment, there had been no elections, but maybe this was for the best, and anyway it was far away, she was a Tunisian but she did her best to escape her country and her family's assumption of what that meant for a woman.
I wonder what she is thinking today, as the warm winds of freedom are suddenly, fiercely, thanks to her compatriots, spreading all over the Middle East and its assortment of West-backed dictators. The Jasmine Revolution was unthinkable a month ago, the Egyptian uprising even less so. Hosni Mubarak has been in power for longer than most protesters in the streets have been on earth, seated on a bed of fear, the population's fear of his police and his jails, the West's fear of radical Islamism.
It is exhilarating to see what is happening under the world's eyes, the media blackout imposed by the Egyptian regime in a desperate move to try to contain the wave not working in this age of defyingly fast communication technology advances; it is exhilarating to hear people in the Arab world finally speaking up, facing death - and many have died since the wind of revolution began blowing - for a hope they didn't know they could have, proud of shedding that fear; it is simply incredible to hear them voicing their love of country, democracy and freedom in a collective cry that can be felt all around the world - and the cold cold breeze of fear is suddenly in the other camp.
Mubarak could be out before the day is over. I wish I were an Egyptian today, just to feel that wind in my face - but I do.
The winds of my cold winter are warmed by a whole people's awakening, and the gift of dreaming the unthinkable.
It is cold here in the French Alps; the mountains in front of my mother's house have disappeared in a mass of grey clouds.
But there is a warm wind blowing on the other side of the Mediterranean.
It is a wind of liberation so sudden and so new that it feels like the dream of a drunken ship. It is a wind so powerful that it sweeps away fear, a fear so old it had become like fate.
Today Egyptians of all walks of life are demonstrating en masse in the streets of Cairo one week after protests started on the wings of the wind of revolution.
It is a warm wind, it was born in Tunisia last month on the ashes of a young man who died in December after setting himself on fire. Mohamed Bouazizi's gesture in a small town lost in central Tunisia ignited what has come to be called the Jasmine Revolution, a revolution that toppled longtime strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power in only a few days. Ben Ali came to power in 1987 promising democracy and only strengthened the corruption and despotism that had marked the later years of the first president of the Tunisian republic, Habib Bourguiba.
In 1987 my best friend was Zohra Fetiti, she was a petite young woman who fascinated me with her wild streak, her mystery, and the sweet obscurity of her eyes. She was Tunisian. Ben Ali's ascension then meant a renewed hope for a country she barely knew, she was a child of emigration, the legacy of French colonialism, and I remember her divided between hope and disappointment, there had been no elections, but maybe this was for the best, and anyway it was far away, she was a Tunisian but she did her best to escape her country and her family's assumption of what that meant for a woman.
I wonder what she is thinking today, as the warm winds of freedom are suddenly, fiercely, thanks to her compatriots, spreading all over the Middle East and its assortment of West-backed dictators. The Jasmine Revolution was unthinkable a month ago, the Egyptian uprising even less so. Hosni Mubarak has been in power for longer than most protesters in the streets have been on earth, seated on a bed of fear, the population's fear of his police and his jails, the West's fear of radical Islamism.
It is exhilarating to see what is happening under the world's eyes, the media blackout imposed by the Egyptian regime in a desperate move to try to contain the wave not working in this age of defyingly fast communication technology advances; it is exhilarating to hear people in the Arab world finally speaking up, facing death - and many have died since the wind of revolution began blowing - for a hope they didn't know they could have, proud of shedding that fear; it is simply incredible to hear them voicing their love of country, democracy and freedom in a collective cry that can be felt all around the world - and the cold cold breeze of fear is suddenly in the other camp.
Mubarak could be out before the day is over. I wish I were an Egyptian today, just to feel that wind in my face - but I do.
The winds of my cold winter are warmed by a whole people's awakening, and the gift of dreaming the unthinkable.
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