A LOVE AFFAIR WITH FRANCE

A series of essays.....



MY FIRST VIEW OF MONT SAINT-MICHEL ~ TAKEN IN 2003
I FINALLY MADE IT!

.....as seen through my eyes!



By: Jacqueline E. Hughes

This is not a 'simple' love affair. No. However, it is one that is destined to withstand the test of time......and so much more.

Through the eyes of a small child, his Princely ways light-up her world; they charge it with the electricity of a foreign language so strange to her yet beautiful, at the same time. Today, many years later, she forgets who introduced "The Little Prince," written by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry, to her.....she is forever grateful. "There are a few stories which in some way, in some degree, change the world forever for their readers. This is one," claims Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc. They are correct.

 

THE LITTLE PRINCE ON
ASTEROID B-612

The little girl had changed her way of thinking, forever! Her life was filled with visions of the Eiffel Tower looming large just beyond the window of her imagined, Paris walk-up. She shared this flat with a 'million possibilities' and not another living soul. Not yet, anyway. Life was young; she was young.

She was going to become a writer and she just knew this to be true. Instinct, desire, love of words all factored into her equation of life and she began writing in her very own journal. It really was just a lined notebook held together with thin, spiral metal at its spine. It was a 'blank canvas' waiting to be filled with childhood memories, hopes and desires. She decorated the pink cover by adding sleek stickers marking the continuum of experience in which events pass from the future through the present to the past.....time. Life for her was coming around full cycle for she truly believed that her past was soon to collide, in a good way, with her future.

 

The 1960's brought new ideas and high expectations for so many young, vulnerable 'ones.' After all, early into the decade, a handsome man named Kennedy became her Prince and Knight in Shining Armor. She remembers how Jack would bend his arm in a princely manner and his beautiful, young wife would slip her delicate arm through his. Her name was Jacqueline. Jacqueline Bouvier. The girl was ecstatic to be sharing her moniker.

Ultimately.....her prince was only human. And, when his smile was taken away, his spirit remained for all of those who truly believed. The girl did believe that 'man' was innately good and life goes on and we would travel to the moon and back! She understood so much more than she even thought she did at such an early age.

Rhinie, Hoosier, "The Abominables," all a feast for the creative mind of Eva Ibbotson. Imagination ruled her days now and the growing stack of journals were kept safely hidden from her brother's prying eyes. "French 8" and Ms. Clementz became her new heroes as the words she had always known began to blend into sweeter versions studded with accents and gravelly beginnings! Irregular verbs danced in her head like sugarplums at Christmastime and year after year after year she studied and memorized their conjugation by voice, tense, number, and person.

 

CHATEAU DE CHENONCEAU IN THE LOIRE VALLEY

 

Ms. Clementz introduced the girl to possibilities!

Paris, of course, but, also,....the island of Mont Saint-Michel....surrounded by the cold, clear sea at the mouth of Le Couesnon.  Sipping a pastis in Marseille while waiting for the bouillabaisse (de fruits de mer) to finally arrive at the table. Roaming freely through the ancient castles majestically dotting the Loire Valley knowing a crisp Vouvray is chilling to accompany the evening meal. Museum after museum awaiting perusal and each guaranteed to enlighten the senses and open the mind to the past. The history that encompasses every fiber of human consciousness while walking in the footsteps of the Greeks, Romans and Carthaginians who established themselves deep into the rich soil eons ago.

The young girl can hardly wait to feel this soil beneath her own feet.

France becomes her 'comfort zone.' She envisions thriving among the gaiety and richness of the French way of life, the people and culture, while fluently speaking their romantic language. Learning so much more about their habits, desires and expectations. Understanding the blending of old and new, past and present, and how this culture plays into one's every day life. Whether it's Boules or Pétanque in France or Bocce in Italy....the game is the same. She knows how it is played. It's not just a man's world anymore and she will learn to make her way among the skeptics and naysayers as best she can.

 

LA PARTIE DE PETANQUE
BY CHARLES HOMUALK DE LILLE

The little girl has grown into a young woman. She owns her own copy of "Le Petit Prince" printed in French and waits to place it on the bookshelf in her first apartment. She digs deeply trying to remember who first read this book to her. She still cannot.

Sadly, she has not maintained communications with Ms. Clementz throughout the years. She does recall the young teaching associate that enlivened her French studies at Michigan State University by inviting her small, French Language class to her apartment for a wine tasting experience. Everyone was to speak only in French. They did.

 

THE CITY OF HONFLEUR
AT THE MOUTH OF THE RIVER SEINE

As she slides the slim volume into position on the shelf, she knows that the box of journals on the floor, kept neat and alive, will feed her soul and take flight someday as the basis for stories yet to be told.

She could still remember conversations between the author and the Little Prince:

"Indeed, as I learned, there were on the planet where the little prince lived....as on all planets....good plants and bad plants. In consequence, there were good seeds and bad seeds from each. But seeds are invisible. They sleep deep in the heart of the earth's darkness....

Now there were some terrible seeds on the planet that was the home of the little prince; and these were the seeds of the baobab.

And one day he said to me: 'You ought to make a beautiful drawing, so that the children where you live can see exactly how all this is. That would be very useful to them if they were to travel some day.' "

In the back of her mind, she knew she would always be aware of the baobab tree and its seeds sleeping deep within the earth's darkness. But, this was her time to shine and.....the good prospects before her seemed endless.....indeed!

 

 

ALONG THE COAST OF NORMANDY

 

 

 

Copyright © 2015 by Jacqueline E. Hughes
All rights reserved