21
193 STEPS TO BECOMING A GRANDMA
"The white regime handed over power in South Africa. Twenty-eight million black Africans voted in the first non-racially divided elections. Nelson Mandela was installed as president of South Africa."
On New Year's Day we called Elizabeth, then living in Colorado. A bicycle trip (her idea) in New Zealand (which I had suggested) wasn't what she really wanted to do, so she had cashed in her ticket and bought one for France instead. It's amazing how parents influence their children and how, unknowingly, we interfere with their plans.
Three weeks later Elizabeth landed in Paris, the city of her dreams. She had sent us a postcard from Chicago's O'Hare airport telling us she had sold her Bug and she and her girlfriend Helen were waiting to board their flight.
Our wilderness existence was truly like living in the pioneer days. No sooner did I finish one thing, there was something else to do that couldn't be put off or avoided. If we didn't cut kindling, we got cold during the night. If we didn't keep the kerosene lamps filled, we didn't have light. The bathroom floor I had built so hurriedly wasn't level, and I was having trouble balancing the new composting toilet. I couldn't use my electric typewriter to edit my cookbook because the solar was too low. I kept getting threats of having our telephone in Wyoming cut off, our answering service and only tie to the world, because forwarded mail took so long to get to Canada that my checks always arrived late. The cabin felt smaller than it was because of the long hours of darkness. My hands were always dirty from stoking the fire, carrying and stacking firewood, and handling sooty pots. And Elizabeth was far away, farther than she had been in a long time. Other than that everything was fine.
Elizabeth wrote:
I love Paris. I could live here, at least for a while. My French is coming back. The Parisians are warm and friendly - I am surprised. The rude ones work in the stores, mostly in tourist places like Arc de Triomphe - but the people on the streets stop and ask if we need help when they see two blondes hunched over a map. I've never tasted such good 1read and cheese. Ooh la la. Our hostel is close to a boulangerie, l'agriculture biologique (organic produce) and the metro - so easy and cheap. We go everywhere on it. This morning we sat in Notre Dame and I sketched the stained glass mandala window. Students sat in a line, drawing. They dress dark: black, brown, deep reds and greens. The shoes are modern and all black, so chic. I understand Picasso now. The French faces are angular: cheekbones uneven (mostly men), deep furrowed brows, thick bottom lips, curved uppers. We walked to the top of the Pantheon across from Notre Dame near the Sorbonne and went inside. Below in the basement is the crypt where Victor Hugo, Monet, Rousseau and Emile Zola are buried. Some names are etched on the wall and I put a piece of paper up and with a pencil, rubbed Hugo's name in my journal. I didn't think I would like perfume but the stuff here is like roses, vineyards and essences of grapes and oranges. I tried some from a bottle shaped like a naked lady for 800 francs ($120 U.S.)! “Oooff," as the French murmur. Paris is expensive … though I am doing well. We'll move on soon. I know I will be back and back and back.
The long hours of a northern Canadian winter were shortening. Elizabeth was happy and that made me feel good. Then why did I have this listless blue feeling? Maybe my iron was low. Butterflies tugging at my lashes reminded me my eyes were changing. I hadn't done my exercises for months although my mercury-saturated parotid glands, supposedly causing my blurred vision, should have kicked in after taking proto-morphogens for so long. I couldn't carve Chief Seattle, my Indian stone, because my wrist bones had locked after pounding on the bathroom addition and the chiropractor couldn't fix them. Attempts to deal with my adoption seemed futile.
Another letter from Elizabeth:
On my birthday I caught the metro, then walked to an outdoor market of l' agriculture biologique filled with fruits, vegetables, goat and sheep cheese, fruit- sweetened jams and cookies. I bought a potato pancake to eat on the way home and some lettuce, endive and cauliflower. The pate is out of this world. A young man at the hostel told me about a tour he does for young people to see the city other than tourist spots. Helen wasn't interested so I met Florent and three others. The tour was fabulous. I'm not one to go on tours, hut Paris is so big and so much. We walked down narrow streets into courtyards to the palace where Victor Hugo lived, to Descartes' home where he discovered his thought, “I think, therefore I am,'" and saw where Jim Morrison lived. Went to Mouffetard Street where students from the universities hung out. I learned about the left and right hanks and why Parisian cars have yellow lights instead of white. Later we all (Helen too) went to Sacre Coeur up on Montmartre, checked out the sexy Moulin Rouge and drank wine with Camemhert and grapes. Then Florent invited us to a party at his apartment. What a day! Friday we head to St. Tropez where we hope to find a place to rent.
A postcard of Picasso's "Etudes," and another from atop the Eiffel Tower took eight days and I was happy to hear from her.
J'aime Paris. Museums … ooh la la. Picasso was my favorite. We are leaving for Avignon. You might have thought it was you who made me change my mind to go to New Zealand instead of Europe hut it wasn't. In the end I make my own decisions. I've been to the Louvre, stood under the Arc de Triomphe; ate pate and rye bread near the Tuileries Gardens, in the distance the Eiffel Tower, Trocadero - it's the center of Paris; sat in the bottom level of the Musee de l'Orangerie on a soft round- cushioned couch and gazed in awe at Monet's lilies, then walked up to them so that I was two inches away. It was mesmerizing.
I had a revelation. While studying my birth certificate, which I do quite often thinking that its secrets might be revealed, the penciled notes I never paid much attention to, which I now refer to as the "Norton Notes," came clea