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Posts tagged ‘Colorado’

Mar 1

5 Comments

Finding Color: Paris’ Most Painted Street

Now that I have one foot in Colorado and one foot in France, I am able to appreciate things about both places that I previously took for granted. For example, back in the States I have come to realize how much I have missed color while I was living in Paris full time. Paris can be pretty dark, from the weather to the clothing to the mood. There are some days when I feel like the City of Light is the original 50 Shades of Grey, and that a sea of black has tempestuously wet washed the entire metropolis.

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On the other hand, Golden, Denver and Boulder my tri-city community is awash in color.

Colorado Welcome Sign

Three hundred days of the year, the weather comes in three flavors: sunny and cold, sunny and warm, and sunny and hot. The rest of the days we may have snow or some cloud cover, but mostly we get a lot of blue sky. And under those blue skies, the people are dressed in rainbows. I live in the fittest state in the union where people mindfully reside because outdoor recreation is their number one priority, so you can image that the workout-clothes alone are a kaleidoscope of color. Sunshine and physical activity, like the smell of baking bread, inspires happy and contented people. Residents are friendly and courteous, and quick with a greeting. Jewel-toned moods glimmer and gleam.

Strolling through the Marais last weekend, being nudged and knocked by Parisians cloaked in black and eager to play sidewalk games of “chicken”, I found myself shoulders squared and tense (dressed in black!) and ready to stare down the on-coming traffic. While in Colorado you purposely catch someone’s eye to smile and say “hello”, in Paris I find eye contact to be a territorial marker, a penetrating moment of snap judgments or criticism. You very rarely catch a twinkling eye or friendly wink.

photo: news-ninja.com

photo: news-ninja.com

With the eternally sunshiny Kitcat in town, and the weather steely and dull, we decide to search for the tints and hues and blushes hidden among the gloom. We were delighted to find them in Belleville on Paris’s most painted street, rue Dénoyez, an original alfresco art gallery. Here’s a glimpse of some blazing graffiti and mosaics. Profitez!

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photo credit: timeoutfrance

Feb 19

59 Comments

I’m back…je rentre

Salut!

Nearly 6 months gone, but I have made my way back to Paris and decided that it is high time for me to start blogging again. I have missed my cyber friends and the challenge of writing (almost) daily. And I have missed my France.

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Repatriation is never easy, and mine has been no exception. Truth be told, this is my second trip back to Paris since we moved back “home”. The first time I didn’t feel settled enough in either of my two worlds to share my observations and thoughts, and I felt I might be too critical of my new, but old, life in the U.S. of A.

These days, I am feeling like I am in a good place, although I am still struggling to figure out how to find my balance with one foot in Colorado and the other foot in France. I am grateful for Superman’s continued patience with me, as it just might take a man (and woman) of steel to sort out this new chapter of our lives together.

I have found a good handful or two of things I love about Colorado: easy and genuine smiles, lovely neighbors, siblings who only seem to be getting nicer the older we get, sensible shoes, colorful clothing, turbocharged clothes dryers, effortless banking transactions, clean and free public toilets, cheerful customer service, simple access to health and fitness facilities, the great outdoors, and 300-days-of-sunshine a year. In fact, there are some days I even find it easy to agree that everything is “AWESOME!”…as we Americans like to say.

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But as I step back into the City of Light, I am crushed with reminders of the many things I love (and miss) about France, and filled with gratitude for my circle of Paris girlfriends who nurture me, inspire me and make me laugh out loud.

So, I’ve decided to restart the blog and add a minor change to the title. The next weeks will focus mostly on Paris with a sprinkling of antidotes and happenings from my small-town western life. Maybe the very act of writing will help me figure out how to mesh my two worlds together. I am excited to be back in the blogosphere and very much look forward to writing, photographing and posting.

Back to blogging

Thank you to all of you who have sent me personal notes over the last few months and encouraged me to keep writing, and also to those of you in Cyberland who have continued to visit and comment on my blog and kept my stats growing.

Alors, on y va, here we go again…

Vocabulaire

on y va: let’s go

Sep 15

49 Comments

Epilogue: 14 days gone…and it is Groundhog Day again

Golden_Colorado_Howdy.jppI have been staring at my computer all afternoon knowing that I have to write, but not knowing what to say. We have now been back in Colorado for 14 days. It could be 14 years. It is amazing how quickly one can fall back into old habits and routines and how easily a former life seems to slip away. Some days I feel like my life in France never was.

Coming back to Colorado has been like being Bill Murray’s weatherman in the great existential film Groundhog Day. While I have changed immensely, I have been dropped into a life that hasn’t changed at all and I feel like I am living in a sort of Nietzschesque state of eternal recurrence. It is as if I am residing in an alternate universe on a parallel train track never scheduled to intersect the French life I left behind. What bothers me the most is that while I can intellectualize my former life in France, I am having a really hard time feeling what that life felt like, and I am slightly terrified that I will lose that happy girl who lived in that stunning city and felt like she could do anything.

last night in Paris
our Paris doorbell
last day in Paris
turning in the keys

Don’t get me wrong; being back in America is easy on so many levels. I am having a ball chatting up everyone on every subject. It is great to be back in a friendly land where the customer is always right, service is given with a smile and wink and everything is AWESOME. People are so nice here, and you can quickly become BFFs with your waitress over a 90-minute meal, or be ready to exchange Christmas cards with your Verizon/iPhone sales rep after a couple of days battling the “home office” and their quirky rules.

I no longer have to look up vocabulary and practice phrases before I go to the doctor or vet or hardware store. If the shopkeepers dare to give me lip, or sneer or roll their eyes (not likely) when I order or have a question, I can easily give it right back to them using adult words, not toddleresque French or tears. If I order a vegetarian meal, no one looks at me like I am an alien with two heads. Everyone here knows what quinoa and chia seeds are and how to pronounce them correctly, and I have found mean-lean-green juice on offer on more than one menu.

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The postwoman is super pleasant and super efficient. There are even these nutty grocery workers called baggers, who are actually trained to carefully bag your precious food items instead of throwing them down the conveyor belt as if they were bowling for bucks. Xcel, the Colorado version of EDF, will cheerfully let you and your family light up and heat your house after a simple 2-minute phone call without even considering asking you for proof that you have a bank account or a signed lease. The water meter man is free to stop by whenever he likes and doesn’t need you to stay by the door all morning long, meter reading in hand.

Yep. Life is easy peasy, nice and breezy in the U.S. of A.

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So why do I miss France so much?

Would it be masochistic to say I miss the challenge? That I miss not knowing what to expect? That I miss being kept on my toes and discovering new people, places and things every day? There is something to be said for being the odd-(wo)man-out, and for the strong friendships forged as you struggle together against the tide.

I do miss the myriad of cultural offerings, the artisanal bakeries, the Seine, my vélib and feet as my sole source of transportation and our cozy apartment life where it was harder to hide behind closed doors. I miss the architecture and human-made splendor, the tiny cars, my Pilates studio and the French dedication to esthetics, beauty and perfection. I miss fantastic window displays and spending the afternoons licking them. I miss being around people from all over the globe with different ideas and realities. I do NOT miss being from the “greatest country in the world”.

I do miss making mistakes and being forced to learn new things and being forced to live. I miss the tiny triumphs of simply making it through the day or even just making it through an hour. Am I crazy to miss the bustling city vibe of that big, but small foreign town that I called home for three years? Maybe I am crazy, but still, I miss the smells, the sounds, the days, the nights, the tastes and textures, the language, the laughs, and those yummy French leeks. Of course I miss my sparkling tower. Mostly I miss my friends.

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I have gone from a humming city of 2.34 million, to a teeny town of 19,186 folks, living their straightforward lives and cowboy dreams.

I suspect that this transition will continue to be tough, but it is a First World problem, and I am determined to spin it in a positive direction. We all have our Punxsutawney Phils and never-ending Groundhog Days, and I have promised myself to try to see my old life with fresh eyes and not fall into a rut or take the easy path.
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Please check in as I figure out small town life and empty nesting, try to come to grips with American values and politics and hopefully find a little bit of la belle France in Colorado.

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Jul 16

7 Comments

No. 309: The Herbs on my Windowsill

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To understand how much I love the herbs growing right outside my kitchen window, you have to understand the climate, weather patterns and wildlife from where I use to live. It is a big misnomer to think of Colorado as the freezing cold, snowy state in the U.S. While we do get our fair share of snow (much less nowadays with global warming), Colorado is the state that boast 300-days of sunshine every year. I’m not even sure Florida can say that.

So you would think that with that much sunshine, I would be able to have a pretty awesome herb and vegetable garden. Mais, non. Where I live in Colorado is known for the wild Chinook winds that howl through the foothills and end in rowdy microbursts in my backyard.

…our backyard...

…our backyard…

To give you an idea of what that means, we once lost a 2-ton industrial play structure one evening while out to dinner. The wind funnel simply picked it up and tossed it a hundred feet into my neighbor’s yard. We have lost several barbecue grills, wrought iron chairs, swimming pools filled with water, too many trash bins to count, a slide, and a couple of windows. A neighbor had the terracotta tiles completely stripped from her roof and rain down all over our lawns. Quite different from the kind of showers we have in Paris.

In Colorado, we constantly have to rework our dinner parties and meals based on the blazing sunshine and the wind. I’ve learned always to have a backup plan when it comes to parties that involve outside grilling. Fun fact: a grill will not stay lit in 60-100 mph winds…for that matter it won’t even stay on your deck. On really windy nights, our iron bed with both of us in it jiggles on the carpeted floor and the water is sucked from all the toilets.

So imagine a pitiable petite stalk of basil or tarragon trying desperately to beat the elements. Almost always my much-wanted herbs cry “Uncle” a week or two after I plant them, succumbing to those tenacious gusts and the stifling temperature.

If they do manage to get a foothold and green up, the elk and the deer are more than happy to stroll through the cul-de-sac and boldly have a light snack at dawn and dusk. If the big brown quadrupeds don’t happen to be hungry, the greedingl and antagonistic squirrels are delighted to add some seasoning to their nuts. And then of course there are the mini, but mighty, grey voles and our crazy neighbor’s skeletal hound that pees a fountain on everything, herbs and my own dog included…

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…so this is why j’adore my hardy and healthy herbs à Paris. To me, my four window boxes of herbs are nothing short of a miracle….

…Thai basil chicken tonight, lamb with tarragon and thyme tomorrow, and fresh mint tea daily. Yippee!

Mar 3

2 Comments

No. 158-159: Better than the Stock Show & Martinique Revisited

I know I have some diehard rodeo and cowboy/girl readers in Colorado and the West, so please don’t be offended, but I have to say, I enjoyed my day at the Salon l’Argiculture this past weekend more than I have ever enjoyed the Great Western Stock Show in Denver. Please don’t throw any rotten tomatoes my way, but I had a heck of a time standing slack-jawed eyeing the fine bovine, porcine, and ovine of France, in, of all places, the Paris exposition hall.

I don’t know what I was thinking it would be like. I tried not to read any blogs or adverts ahead of time so I would be surprised by the French interpretation of a Stock Show. And surprised I was—mostly by the fact that these huge, prize-winning animals were holed up in gay Par-ee. I know France is a country in love with their food, and their high quality ingredients, so it makes sense to showcase them all in their capital city. It’s just that I don’t normally associate the City of Light with livestock.

Now, in a state with a blazing-eyed, 32-foot high (9,000-pound) electric blue, anatomically correct, wild mustang welcoming visitors as they land at their airport (i.e. Denver, Colorado), I find it much easier to make that association. Denver and livestock, they go hand-in-hand.

source: DIA-promo.com

source: DIA-promo.com

So I was very surprised to see this “little” guy, when I walked into the first expo hall at Porte de Versailles…

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…along with all his friends and competitors.

There were of course the adorable intertwined piglets and baby goats…

…and a few lessons on where our cuts of beef come from…perhaps I should become a vegetarian?

A whole hall dedicated to cats and dogs…hmmm…I don’t want to be eating those.

….hmmm…don't want to eat those...

….hmmm…don’t want to eat those…

And of course, my favorite part, the halls full of artisanal and farm fresh agricultural products.

There were some lunch options you most definitely would NOT find in Denver…

…and I’ve never seen olive oil being pressed or liqueur made from cèpes (mushrooms) in my hometown either.

Nor the cheese, glorious chèvre! There were even milk bars serving both cow’s and goat’s milk.

Et enfin, we were able to revisit Martinique, the French department in the Caribbean where we were lucky enough to create some very happy Christmas memories.

Alors, Yippee-Ki-Yay! Or as we say back in Colorado, “Howdy Folks! Welcome to Golden Paris. Where the West Lives.”

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Nov 14

3 Comments

No. 49: Crisp Fall Days

I promise this will be my last post about fall…at least this fall. But I just can’t resist the colors of these crisp fall days in France. This desert-dry-climate-Colorado girl has never met a deciduous tree she doesn’t love.

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Even the cars have changed colors this autumn!

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