The Bold Soul: A Writer's Life in Paris

Garage Sale: And the curtain rises on Act I

Day 1 at the Big Sale. Weather agreeable, hoping for more of THAT for Day 2. Up at 5:15 to finish setting up and pricing. The first customer showed up at 7am - although the official start time was 9am. But I can't say I minded as he bought a piece of my furniture and some other things and dropped about $80! The night before, I fizzled out early after having made approximately 128 trips and up and down the basement stairs to bring up items for the sale. Then, had a small freak accident while trying to innocently turn on an air conditioner - I'm too short to reach the controls and was using a small, cheap plastic stool (that my 72 year old mother uses all the time for the same purpose) and just as my finger tips grazed the "on" switch, CRACK! My left foot went THROUGH the middle of the stool (must've been a Dollar Store purchase) and not only did it puncture a hole in the top of my foot with a sharp pointy edge, but I sprained and bruised the OTHER foot, not to mention bruising parts of my back and right arm when... Read more →

Lightning Up

No, that's not a misspelling in the title. In stark contrast to my mood of earlier today, and despite the fact I am physically exhausted from moving heavy stuff out of storage (in a torrential downpour and lightning storm) and up and down stairs (and I am so glad I had my nephew around to help with all of this, he was my hero today), tonight I got a little message from God that has shifted my energy for the better. There's a full DOUBLE rainbow outside my house right this minute. I can see both arcs, the inner one more brilliant than the outer, from end to end. It's unbelievable, and so beautiful. If I had the right kind of digital camera I would take a photo of it and post it, because I don't know that I've ever seen a double rainbow. I can't help but smile as I look at it through my window (I keep stopping as I write this to check if it's still there - and it is!) I even saw some neighbors with their kids out in the middle of the street, staring at it in wonderment. I'm taking this as God's way... Read more →

Garage Sale Hell

I didn't used to believe that Hell existed... but now I have decided that "Hell" is what happens to you when you are stupid enough to have a garage sale (or yard sale, or moving sale). Since I moved back in with my mother last fall (the idea being to save money for moving to Paris), it was always my intention to hold a moving/garage sale to dispose of at least 50% of what I currently have in storage. After all, why continue to pay for a large storage unit if I can shrink it down to a smaller and less expensive one. And I had a fair number of things I can no longer use or no longer want, so they should go to someone who can make use of them. That time has finally arrived although I did the best I could to procrastinate about it (really, I did.) I am having a moving/yard sale this coming weekend. Somebody just kill me. Kill me now. Make it quick and painless. Forgive me for my stupidity in wanting to do this idiotic thing. Having to pull all my stuff out of storage (which I have been doing off and... Read more →

Kindred Spirits Reconnected

One of the most fun parts of last week's presentation in NYC for Bastille Day was the opportunity to reconnect with a long-lost friend, Lisa A. Lisa A. and I knew each other about 23 or 24 years ago. She was 16 and I was 20, and we met while doing a little theatre production of "Grease". She was energetic, fun, and for a little tiny girl, she packed a really big singing voice. We both played the group of simpering cheerleaders, and she was the head cheerleader, Patty Simcox. (In the photo, I'm the one in the front row, center and Lisa A. is the one on the far right. My God, were we really EVER that young?) We had the time of our lives - both of us loved performing. I remember that Lisa had a very big challenge during that play. A few weeks into rehearsals, she was a passenger in a car accident that happened on the icy winter roads, and she broke her jaw, which had to be wired shut. She, and the rest of us, wondered how she would be able to continue in the play since she not only had lines to speak,... Read more →

Creating a 4-Star Life™, in Paris and Beyond

This past week, I was delighted to be an invited speaker at a small cross-cultural gathering in New York City, held at the Asian Cultural Club and sponsored by a local cross-cultural group called Women Beyond Borders (not, as far as I know, affiliated with an art exhibit by the same name). The group was meeting to celebrate Bastille Day (14th juillet/July) and the speakers (I was one of 3) would be talking about different aspects of French culture and language. My topic was Creating a 4-Star Life™, in Paris and Beyond. Since the format of the evening was "casual cocktail party/round table discussion", I was prepared for pretty much anything. In the end, because the discussion portion was so fascinating and lively, we were running out of time for my presentation and I needed to abbreviate what I had originally planned. (This was not a problem for me, as I was really enjoying what the first two presenters had to offer!) But never wanting to waste a good bit of writing/speaking, I decided to post the original speech here as an article. Hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed putting it together! Creating a 4-Star Life™, in... Read more →

Much Ado About... Something

Tonight, I spent an enchanted evening with a soulmate, Will. Will is a fellow writer and a true genius at his craft. He has the ability to tantalize and delight me with his words. (I always was a sucker for a man who can communicate both his wit and his emotions through the power of the pen; and I've been known to be turned off by men who can't spell and who can't express themselves well in writing, as unfair as that may seem to some.) I've known Will for nearly 30 years, but we weren't always as close as we are now. We first met in the late 1970's - '77, I think, when I was high school - and my first impression of him was that he was intriguing, but also overbearing, irritating, a bit patronizing and rather full of himself. Older men can be like that, sometimes... and I wasn't a very patient girl in those days. In a lot of ways, it felt like we were worlds apart. We had an on-again-off-again relationship in those early years... thrown together whether I liked it or not, sometimes friends, sometimes enemies. Then, we went our separate ways, and... Read more →

We're with you, London!

I awoke this morning to the news that London has been attacked by terrorists, not once, but four times, and presumably by a European-based cell of al Qaeda. This, on the heels of the great celebration yesterday when London was awarded the 2012 Olympics, and while the G8 Summit takes place in Scotland. I haven't yet had the opportunity to visit London, or anywhere in the U.K. for that matter, although I know I will be there some day, and probably not all that far off in the future, either (it's just a short train ride through the Chunnel on the Eurostar from Paris these days). I do have a number of British friends, clients and colleagues, all of whom I am ardently praying for at this very moment, for their safety and the safety of their loved ones, hoping none of them were on that bus or in the Tube at the time of the bombings. For someone, like me, who is a pacifist and a collaborative person by nature, it's a very difficult concept to grasp -- that we live in a world where one group of people can so hate another group of people and... Read more →

Independence and the Single Girl

We've just past this year's Independence Day, and next week I'll be celebrating Bastille Day in New York City as a guest speaker for a group of francophones (I promise I am not attempting to speak in French. If you're interested, see the announcement in France-Amerique under "Gatherings"). Bastille Day, for those who don't know, is the French day of Independence, July 14th. So, it feels appropriate to talk about Independence - from the Single Girl's point of view. It's all too easy for the unattached woman - or people who mistakenly pity her single status - to get very focused on "Why, oh WHY am I still single?!?" We remind ourselves of how fabulous we are, of what a catch we are, of what a total package we are, and how some man should count himself lucky to have us. At bridal showers, baby showers, and family holiday gatherings, we try to dodge Aunt Millie's inevitable, "So, dear, are you seeing anyone special? What are you waiting for; you're not getting any younger, you know." In a culture that claims to prize "family values", marriage and parenthood above all else, a single woman, especially after a "certain age" can... Read more →