Commandments

Commandments (Eng.)/ Commandments (Fr.): a divine rule; a set of rules to be observed as strictly as the ten commandments.

I wonder if he actually stuck to this.

Vers la bas

Downswing (Eng.) Vers la bas (Fr.) n. : a downturn; downwards

For a young lady, Gabourey Sidibe sure is wise. Watching this short interview with her on the definition of friendship caused me to take pause. To recognize that there are friends who are the first to show up when you are in crisis, but those same friends are the last to offer you a congratulations. I imagine that the same in true in reverse. And that is okay to have these two types of friends as long as you know what to expect from that friendship.

But, is it possible to have, or to be, a friend that swings both ways? I suppose that is what a best friend is. And something I am being extra conscious of these days in terms of the type of friend I strive to be.
 

Surprise

Surprise (Fr.)/ Surprise (Fr.) v. : To cause to feel wonder, astonishment or amazement at something unanticipated.

The word surprise is the same in French as it is in English. It's just pronounced differently. No matter how you say it, surprise was exactly what happened to my newly 40-year old friend earlier this summer.

His partner had covertly arranged to have his friends from all of the world come to their house in Bourgogne for a surprise birthday weekend bash. Lucky for them that their house can sleep upwards of 14 people because remarkably his friends arrived from all over the world-- from the west coast of the US to New Zealand.

Getting him away from the house for the day on Friday proved challenging, but nothing an all day wine tasting couldn't resolve.

While he was out the guests began showing up, complete with various versions of jet lag. Everyone then proceeded to take the element of surprise up a notch by wearing disguises. George Washington wigs, masks, scarves, etc. were put to task. The fact that we all began our own "wine tasting" helped in the costume creativity department.

When he arrived, we were all huddled into the candlelit wine cave out in the backyard.

He was instructed to "go pick an evening bottle of wine from the cave" (like ya do when you live in Bourgogne, France). He opened the wine cave door and BAM! I think his suprise was actually a blend of overwhelming joy and sheer terror, as he could not make out a single person. Alas the big reveal unfolded over the next hour-- one by one their identities were revealed.

The entire weekend was non stop laughter, story telling, impromptu cabaret performances, bonding, and wine tastings. Perfection!

Déborder

Déborder (Fr.) / Overflow (Eng.) v.: to fill beyond capacity; to have boundless supply; to flow or run over the top.

This has definitely been one of the most memorable summers of my life.

I have given myself permission to lean into it and to get lost in the non-stop joyful experiences that it has produced. It was the epitome of the work hard/ play hard philosophy. Sure, there were times when I thought "Good grief, I should hop off this ride and catch my breath. This is too much for one girl to take in." But instead of listening to that voice of lack, I did the opposite and am now able to take a step back and reflect on everything that has been happening.

So bear with me as I begin to recap this summer's incredible journey filled with surprise birthday parties in Bourgogne, jet skiing in Cannes, dining alfresco in Aix en Provence, Gay Pride weekend in Paris, first class train trips to Amsterdam, world horticultural exhibition in Venlo, and the trip of a lifetime through Italy. All to be captured somehow over the next few posts.

My cup runneth over.

Séduction

Seduction (Eng.)/ Séduction (Fr.) vb.: To lead or draw away as from principles, faith, or allegiance. To win over, attract or entice.

It should comes as no surprise that the timing of this exhibition in Paris and the recent outbreak of popularity of the 50 Shades of Grey books in the United states is auspicious.

"My job as a portrait photographer is to seduce, amuse and entertain."

- Helmut Newton

(Helmut Newton Exhibition, Grand Palais, Paris, Juillet 29, 2012)

"There must be a certain look of availability in the women I photograph... I think the woman who gives the appearance of being available is sexually much more exciting than a woman who is completely distant. The sense of availability I find erotic."

- Helmut Newton

(Charlotte Rampling, hotel Nord-Pinus, Arles, 1973 by Helmut Newton)

"Photography was always his mistress, and I was his wife. Let's say it was an open marriage."

June Newton (aka Alice Springs), Helmut's model, muse and wife.

(Helmut Newton, Monte Carlo, 1987 by June Newton, aka Alice Springs)

"Look, I'm not an intellectual. I just take pictures."

- Helmut Newton

(Catherine Deneuve, Paris, 1976, by Helmut Newton)

Juin

Juin (Fr.)/ June (Eng.) noun: The sixth month of the year, in the northern hemisphere usually considered the first month of summer.

Smack dab in the middle of the year I find myself traveling more, with more social  and business engagements than all of last year. In addition, I have been house hunting in a medieval village in Bourgogne, France. And in July I will be going to The Netherlands for the first time and then Munich. Amidst all of this movement there has been a whole lot of reflection. Yet it is not the type of reflection that I am used to. You see, in the past I have induced my own reflective periods and conversed and pondered them intentionally. But now it seems to be happening under the surface, without any prompting from me. I am not even sure what it is all about.

"We cannot see our reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see."
- Taoist proverb

So does that mean I won't find out until August when things become still again?

Contemporains

Contemporaries (Eng.)/ Contemporains (Fr.) noun: a person or thing living or existing at the same time as another. A person at roughly the same age as another.

What I am reading now...

While my American contemporaries are reading 50 Shades of Grey I seem to be heading in an opposite direction.

What's new.

Mode

Mode (Fr.)/ Fashion (Eng.) noun: The prevailing style or custom, as in dress or behavior.

"Can fashion be art?" Colbert

"Fashion can be something that you simply wear... or something truly creative to change how we think of culture and the time.... Fashion is self expression"
- Anna Wintour, The Colbert Report

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Destin

Destin (Fr., masc.)/ Destinée (Fr. Fem.)/Destiny (Eng) noun: The events that will happen to a particular person or thing in the future. The hidden power believed to control what will happen in the future. Fate.

"Any little desire, so long as you truly feel it, will get you started on the path toward your destiny."
- Martha Beck, The Joy Diet

In my mind

Alternative

Alternative (Fr.)/ Alternative (Eng.): one of two or more available possibilities. A situation presenting a choice. (it is the same word in French as it is in English)

Last weekend I went to the Keep Portland Weird festival/exhibition at Gaîté Lyrique. It was incredible to watch all of the Parisians marvel over the things that I considered a normal way of life. Portland's coffee shop culture, the outdoors, the environmentally sustainable mindset, creativity bursting at the seams, the foodie mecca, and healthy lifestyles.

 I was proud to call it my other home. And it found me a little homesick. At one point, my friend commented that we should leave the festival immediately for fear that I become emotional and decide to leave Paris to make my way back to the other city that I love.

 Rather than take such drastic measures, I pondered about the things that I miss the most, aside from my peeps. It was the healthy lifestyle, particularly Barre3, vegetarian culinary possibilities, and alternatives that are available no matter what sort of food preferences you have. So I have decided to make a concentrated effort to recreate that bit of Portland here in Paris. First up? Not just cutting out the gluten and grains whenever possible, but making my own delicious alternative recipes since Paris doesn't have a Back to Eden or Proper Eats (that I am aware of). So I went to the market to find alternatives to flour and sugar in order to make peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

(Organic honey, crunchy peanut butter, mini dark chocolate chips and baking soda)

Here is a recipe that I have made several times over the last week (yeah, I better keep this in check) which is super easy and uses ingredients that I usually have on hand:

Flourless peanut butter chocolate chip cookies 
1 c. peanut butter (prefereably organic)
1/3 c. honey (preferably local and organic)
1 egg (preferably local and organic)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 c. dark chocolate chips (mini's are preferred)

Mix it all together (add the chips last). It will be much stickier than regualr cookie dough but don't worry, it will totally turn out.

Scoop them onto a cookie tray that is lined with parchment paper and cook them at 350 F (175 C) for ten minutes.

Then you must let them cool for at least ten minutes so that they can firm up.

Et voila!

Just as good as any cookie I have had in Paris or Portland for that matter. In fact, better!

Tout

Tout (Fr.)/ Everything (Eng.) pronoun: All things of importance; a great deal. All of the things of a group or class.

Last week I was lucky enough to experience Lauryn Hil live in Paris. It wasn't advertised and I found out about it by sheer luck. Seeing her perform live has been on my bucket list since The Fugees hit the scene in the 90's. Seeing her perform after such a long hiatus from the public eye, in Paris, was everything to me. Like a dream come true.

There are lots of rumors that have circulated in the wake of her hiatus, and I found myself having to get caught up on all of them right before the show. Not because I really care about what everyone thinks about her and her departure from the public eye, but so that I could connect the dots in case she made any reference during the show.

What I found during my search were a couple of quotes from her that struck a cord with me:

"The less I have, the freer I am to do whatever I want."

(Ms. Lauryn Hill performing Everything is Everything in L'Olympia, Paris, April 16, 2012)

"I don't need anybody to market or promote me. If people don't want to hear this music, then it's not for them. You cannot please everybody."

Hear, hear. I think these tidbits of wisdom apply to life in general and especially resonate with me as I continue my journey of life in Paris.  I don't know about you, but this music is definitely for me.

Rêves

(An image from my inspiration board)

Rêves (Fr.)/ Dreams (Eng.) Noun: A series of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind. A condition or achievement that is longed for, an aspiration. 

I have the good fortune to receive daily email notes from the Universe. Here is a recent one that made an impression:


Good morning darling, 


Here's a question for you:
If you could take a daily pill that would profoundly speed-up the manifestation of all your dreams, would you take it without fail? 

I thought so. 

What if it was a big, ugly pill that took 5 minutes to dissolve on your tongue, and it tasted like medicine. Would you still do it?

Yes, all of your dreams... 

Thought so. 

But what if during those 5 minutes each day you couldn't watch TV, or talk with friends, or distract yourself in any way from your chore?

Wow, you must really want a fabulous direction and clarity in career path, and all those other awesome life changes! 

OK, what if you could skip the pill bit entirely, but instead you had to set aside 5 minutes a day to visualize, in a dark and quiet room, seeing your life unfold as if all your dreams were coming true, and for good measure you had to say or do something, each day, that implied the same? 

No, you can't go back to the pill idea. 

Yours, The Universe

Chou-fluer

(Cauliflower crust, with a dollop os tomato sauce because I forgot to take a photo before I enthusiastically began adding my toppings)

Chou-fluer (Fr.)/ Cauliflower (Eng.) noun: a garden plant related to the cabbage and grown for its compact edible head of usually white undeveloped flowers.

In an attempt to prove that there is something as seemingly complicated as navigating the French government, or even removing French wall paper from my apartment's walls, I decided to embark on this recipe:

Cauliflower Pizza Crust

It seemed impossible, although on paper it shouldn't be. You should know that I made this in Paris' smallest kitchen, using just one burner and a toaster oven. And when the recipe called for a food processor, I had only a hand blender, and when it suggested a fine mesh strainer, I got crafty and used my coffee filters to line the inside of my large holed strainer.

The good news is that I did have a thin clean towel to strain out the excess water*, and also had the foresight to buy parchment paper during yesterday's trip to the market.

The bad news is that I forgot to switch the setting on the toaster oven from broil to bake. So the bottom of the crust didn't fare as well as I would have liked.

Since this is not a cooking blog, you may be asking yourself "why is this significant?"

You see, just as I was trying to blend up the cauliflower in my Bodum Coffee Press (don't ask) using the hand blender and not having any luck whatsoever, I paused and thought "this is going to turn out horribly, make a huge mess, piss off my crazy bi polar neighbor with all the blending sounds, and waste 1+ hours of my evening, so I should cut my losses and go for sushi takeout."

But the thought of actually eating the cauliflower crust pizza that I had been craving all week, was somehow giving me some much needed hope. And when it didn't work out I certainly would have been very disappointed.  Yet while the thought of takeout was a surefire way to eat successfully before midnight, the thought of it  gave me a blah sensation.  Not too mention it would have been a denial of the inspired challenge I had scheduled for myself yesterday when I purchased three heads of cauliflower. I took these two opposing sensations as my intuition saying that I should go for the thing that gave me energy (the prospect of cauliflower pizza) even though it would almost definitely fail, and turn away from the option that drained my energy (sushi takeout) which would be an easy sure thing.

I am happy to say that in spite of my sketchy kitchen tool improvisation, my pizza was everything that I had hoped for. It reminded me that I can still eat the way that I enjoy even in my teeny tiny Paris kitchen. And it gives me a good reminder of what it feels like to let my inner voice be my guide.

(toppings: tomato sauce, arugula, mushrooms, and buffalo mozzarella)

I am going to consciously look for these types of inner voice signals over the course of the next week and see where that guides me.


 *Alas I should have let it cool first before scalding my hands by squeezing it tightly.

Pratiquer

Pratiquer (Fr.)/ Practice (Eng.) verb: to do or preform something repeatedly in order to acquire or polish a skill. Repetition or exercise of an activity in order to achieve mastery or fluency.

Last night I met a very cool woman who was here in Paris for Fashion Week. She is a Parisienne, although she lives in Madrid for her work as the Studio Coordinator for Loewe (pronounced Low-ev-ay). She is fluent in French, Spanish and English (without any trace of an accent).

She joined our table as she was the friend of a friend. And during introductions, she asked if I spoke French.

"Non, Je ne parle pas très bien le français." I said, with my head hung in shame.

"How long have you lived in Paris?" she asked.

"One year" I whispered.

Embarrassed by my answer, I explained that I didn't speak it very well because I spend all day working in English. And when I do go out, I always end up speaking English everywhere I go, because I am too tired to bumble around like a cow, and just want to be able to communicate effectively.

"Zat eez bullshit!" She barked. "You MUST practice! Over and over and over. Or you will never get any better."

This was the same advice given to me by my taxi driver last weekend. He tried to soften it by encouraging me that my accent, or lack thereof, and my errors are charming. "Talk to yourself and repeat everything you hear on the radio. I learned how to speak English from Larry King" he told me. "I would watch CNN and repeat everything that Larry said. It taught me pronunciation, phrases and sometimes I learned something more than just English" he said.

I really need to get over my fear of looking like a fool. I really really really want to speak better French.

Thanks to this little guy for some inspiring words of wisdom:

Succès

Success (Eng.)/Succès (Fr.) noun: The favorable or prosperous termination or attempts of endeavors.

I have been absent from the blog for a variety of reasons:

1. I have been trying to rent my house back in the states, and fielding inquiries keeps me plenty busy.

2. I am about to launch a large project for my client that I have been working on since May 2011.

3. I have been in house buying negotiations for an adorable (dare I say it, my "dream house") in Bourgogne.

4. I have been dealing with the French banks to open a mortgage in France. (The answer is "Yes", I may be completely insane).

5. I have been trying to find out where in the world my France Residency Permit renewal is within a governmental system that makes no sense.

And while all of these items in and of themselves had been riddled with road blocks, challenges, fearfulness, self doubts and second thoughts, I know that they really just represent a whole lot of messy squiggles on the road to success.

Thank God for a diagram that shows how this process actually works.

Je t'aime

I am all for a good ole self affirmation, especially when it comes to self love.

Yet, there is something quite magical to hearing these three precious words uttered from the mouth of babes.

Voyages

Voyages (Fr.)/ Traveling (Eng.): to go, move or journey from one place to another; as if on a trip.

I have been conspicuously absent from my blog for the past couple of months. So allow me to explain where I been...

Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace, like thoughts inside a dream...

"It was an amazing piece of music to write to, and an incredible challenge for me ... Because of the time signature, the whole deal of the song is… not grandiose, but powerful: it required some kind of epithet, or abstract lyrical setting about the whole idea of life being an adventure and being a series of illuminated moments. But everything is not what you see. It was quite a task, ’cause I couldn’t sing it. It was like the song was bigger than me. It’s true: I was petrified, it’s true. It was painful; I was virtually in tears."
-Robert Plant, interviewed by Cameron Crowe in Rolling Stone, March 13, 1975, when describing the process of writing the music/ lyrics to Kashmir

That quote seems to be the only way to sum up the past two months for me. It was spent traveling, taking care of personal business, working, spending time with people that I adore, visiting new faraway lands, staying on task, yet letting things unfold in the direction of my dreams.

It was equal parts terrifying and joyful; attaching and detaching; painstakingly hard work, yet effortlessly fabulous all at the same time.

As if that is even possible.

Portland

(note: this post was never published due to my unpredictable wifi connections over the past month. But now that I am in Paris and gearing up to fill you in on what is up with my current journey, I felt it fitting to begin the catch up with this post)

Yesterday, in Portland Oregon I experienced Reiki for the first time.

I have been dealing with a lot of uncertainty due to my transition between Portland and Paris. When I moved to Paris last year, I had renters lined up for my house. This time, after tending to my stateside business, I am returning to Paris without having new renters in place.  My property manager says it is a difficult time of the year to rent, but he assures me that it will eventually work out. I am continuing with my plan to go back to Paris in spite of this missing piece of the puzzle. I am holding onto faith that it will all work out for my highest good and the highest good of others.

I can't help but contemplate if I am being foolish or if this is an example of taking a leap of faith and trusting that the universe is going to work it all out. At what point to we accept our challenges as signs from the universe that we should or should not so something? Is the lack of renters a sign that I should not return to Paris, but rather stay put and play it safe?

I am not sure what I should be doing in order to properly address my uncertainty and bizarre space that I am in. But since a dear friend of mine has expanded her massage practice to include Reiki, I made sure to have an appointment on the books.

The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words - Rei which means "God's Wisdom or the Higher Power" and Ki which is "life force energy". So Reiki is actually "spiritually guided life force energy."


After a very deep relaxing treatment I have affirmed by decision to continue onward on the path of faith.