Wanting to see it

For a second time we have spent a vacation in the French countryside of the Dordogne region.  Small bastide towns, castles dating back centuries, caves, wine country and miles upon miles of beautiful scenery make this part of France a wonderful spot to be in.

Not to mention the food, the birthplace of Foie Gras and truffles as well as national French delights (croissants anyone) make Dordogne a feast for all the senses.

And don't even get me started on the wines.

Two years ago when we went I was all obsessed with the wines of Bordeaux and the creme de la creme, St. Emilion Grand Cru.  Good wines definitely but honestly a bit too heavy for my taste.  This time around we focused on wines produced in the Dordogne region itself which are lighter, Leo fell in love with Monbazilliac, a semi sweet white wine that the French drink as an aperitif or as a dessert wine.  And I developed a penchant for Pecharmant, a blend of cabernet, cab franc and Malbec wines.  I drank Malbec rose every day for lunch and it was heaven.  We decided not to go crazy buying wines this time so we brought back a modest two cases (12 bottles), considering two years ago we brought over 100 bottles back and we don't really have the proper room to store them (now I wish we had a basement), we were very restrained this time.

As I mentioned before, I love spending time in France but it also haunts me since it is the birthplace of my father, the country where he spent his most formative years, the majority of which being refugees, hiding in Vichy France, living with unimaginable fear.  That time and what he experienced in France shaped the man he was to become,  therefore I feel this strange longing to walk a little in his footsteps.

During our vacation we took a side trip to the city of Cahors in the midi-Pyrenees region, about 2.5 hours away from where we were staying.  My dad, aunt and grandparents spent 6 weeks in Cahors during the war.  When the Germans attacked France they lived in Cuise-la-Motte, a small town in the northern part of France.  They were bombed out of their house and spent a few days in the woods with other families and my grandparents decided to travel south and try to get out of France via the Pyrenees mountains, go into Spain, into Portugal and try to get a boat to the United States from Portugal.  They set off on bicycles, my dad riding on the back of my grandfather's bicycle and my aunt on the back of my grandmother's.  They rode mostly in the night when the roads were less crowded and my grandfather felt there was less danger, although it was still risky.  France is a hilly terrain and outside of the major cities there were not yet a lot of paved roads, so the riding must have been treacherous and with two small children in tow and heavy packs on their backs, the journey was slow going.  They had money and gold sent to them by my grandfather's brother who had a flourishing furniture business in Fredericktown, Pennsylvania.  They took shelter in small villages and unlike a lot of other refugees, were able to pay for meals and shelter along the way.  My dad, who was all of 6 years old told me that my grandfather taped his and my aunt's mouths shut on the bicycles so that in case they cried out in their sleep, they would not attract attention.

It took several weeks but they finally reached Cahors and there they stopped and they rented a one room apartment to rest and get their bearings.  My grandfather went out and started inquiring about the best route to Spain through the mountains and he learned that the trip was very dangerous, that many French refugees trying to escape France were killed by Spanish robbers for their valuables.  After discussing the situation with my grandmother, they decided it was too risky to try and escape and that they were better off trying to live quietly somewhere in Vichy, France which was, at least on paper, not directly controlled by the Germans.  My grandfather took some of the gold sent to him by his brother and bought false identity papers which protected them from immediately being identified as Jewish and he made arrangements to move out from the city.  My grandfather went to university in Toulouse, a larger city a few hours away from Cahors.  He traveled to Toulouse by train and met up with a former professor and friend to get some advice.  The professor agreed with him that their best chance was to live in obscurity somewhere, in a small village.  His friend offered him the use of his late parents home in Vacquiers, a small village outside of Toulouse.  So they ended up settling there and living out the war years and my grandfather donated gold to the Church in Vaquiers, next door to their home and the Priest, whom my grandfather befriended,  looked out for them and even hid them in the Church for a few days later in the war when the Nazis entered Vacquiers.

Cahors was an important stop on their journey, it was a turning point, had they not stopped there they  maybe would have been killed trying to get to Spain, so I wanted to go there.

Driving there and through the entire Dordogne valley I couldn't help but notice the similarities between this part of France and the part of Pennsylvania where I grew up.  Rivers creating winding, hilly country single lane roads, trees as far as the eye can see, a smattering of houses, mostly old, some beautifully maintained, others having seen their better days decades before.  Old tires and buckets being used as flower pots.  Small sheds and houses dotting the roadways with faded billboards advertising a nearby restaurant, grocery store or attraction.  The beauty of the rivers with people swimming or boating in small canoes.

I have to admit that I was lost in a reverie every time we got in the car.  I took in the scenery but in my mind's eye, I was driving along the Monongahela River of my youth and remembering the summers I spent on that river, boating with friends, swimming, laying in the sun.  The days, months and years spent in our furniture store in Fredericktown on the banks of the Monongahela, the beauty of Southwestern Pennsylvania, so similar to that of the French countryside.  I was imagining how my dad, aunt and grandparents must have felt as new immigrants to Fredericktown, in their rented house on the banks of the Mon.  They didn't speak the language and were in this strange place, with a strange culture (there were no pain-au-chocolates in Fredericktown), but part of them must have felt at home in this small town on the edge of a riverbank with trees and hills as far as the eye could see.

I have no idea where they stayed in Cahors so we just went to the center of town and walked around and took in the town square, it was market day so there was a lot of activity.  We spent a lot of time in the shade near the merry go round where Maya rode and rode and rode, switching from horse, to spinning car, to swing.  Maya, being young for her age still loves the merry go round and France is a haven for her since they have them in practically every town.

My dad was a lot of things, he was brilliant, charming, funny, engaging but he was also dark, angry and embittered.  Most of all he was mysterious.  My dad raised me and certainly was a profound influence on me, I spent a lot of time with him growing up and lived with him exclusively after my parents' divorce.  But in so many ways there is still a lot I didn't understand about him and I certainly wasn't able to help him.  I understand that and accept it but of course I wish I could have helped him.  

Eight years on from his suicide there are still questions that I will never be able to answer.  And I think maybe that is why I am drawn to France, that perhaps the simple act of walking in or even near his footsteps,  being submerged in the country, language and culture of his birth somehow makes me feel more connected to him and gives me peace in accepting all the unanswered questions he left behind.

My dad had loving, caring parents but his childhood was wrought with fear and that stayed with him for life.  I remember once finding a box of canned food under his bed in our house in California, PA.  I asked him what it was doing there, he told me that he couldn't sleep without it there.  When I asked him why, he got a faraway look in his eyes and he simply said, "I hope that you will never have to learn what fear is." It wasn't the answer I was looking for or an explanation, but I walked away from that conversation knowing that he knew something truly terrible.  

Seeing Maya on that merry go round in Cahors feels like some kind of full circle.  Here she was, my daughter, my dad's granddaughter, in the same city where he had been, not living in fear, but smiling and laughing, running, cavorting, and enjoying herself.

Free.

Something just feels right about that.

Mother (or Mama) Tongue

I've always wondered, how do you say the state of being bi-lingual?  Bi-lingualness or bi-lingualhood?

They say there's no such thing as a stupid question, well that one there is right on the borderline, I tell ya.

And who's they?
 
One of the benefits of having a family blended of different nationalities is that you have the possibility of having diversity within your own family and can expose your child to different cultures and languages.

I was raised in the US by a French immigrant father who was born of Russian-Polish immigrants and a 3rd generation American mother whose roots were in Ukraine.  My mother's family were well assimilated to the US and with the exception of a distinct fondness to serve sour cream with just about anything, my mom's family were as white-bread American as you could get, well actually they were more seeded rye, being Jews and all.

But my dad's family were definitely immigrants, they spoke with an accent, people used to swoon at my dad's French accent and I used to love to hear my dad, aunt and grandparents talk in French to one another, it was and is such a beautiful sounding language, it is so true what people say about French (French, not the French), even saying something completely disgusting like you have to take a dump sounds beautiful.

J'ai de la merde

Ooh, la-la!

I spent my entire childhood and young adulthood being exposed to the French language on a daily basis and while I could follow the gist of a conversation more or less, guess how much French I speak?

Zero.

Well except for things like je voudrais le croissant, le cafe, du vin but then again when it comes to ordering food or drink, I am a true citizen of the world and can manage in any language and if I can't I will just start waving and gesturing furiously (but I do tip well).

So if French was spoken all around me, how is it that I didn't pick it up in any kind of real way?

Well, because that is the way my dad and grandparents wanted it.

When they came to America in 1950 after surviving WWII in Vichy France, after the hardships and fear of the war years, after learning of the devastating losses of the Holocaust and the loss of most of their families (or in my grandmother's case her entire family), all they wanted to do was high tail it to the amber waves of grain and envelop themselves in America's promise.  They wanted a new life, one free of fear, deprivation, hunger, death.  They wanted to wrap the American flag and the American dream around them like a blanket and keep it forever close, to lose themselves in backyard barbecues, bridge games and the swimming club.  They wanted to BE Americans and even more than that, they wanted their kids to BE Americans.

They didn't want us to carry the old country with us, but instead be American kids with all the freedom and promise that provided in the America of our youth.

Unlike my own immigrant experience which involves two different countries, America is fraught with nostalgia, with family, with friends, lots of people that I love and treasure, and oh yeah, the good shopping.  Sephora and Nordstroms and Target, oh my!

Back to my dad and grandparents -- I think that they wanted to leave the pain of the past in the past And I think they viewed the language as too solid of a bridge to the past and although I don't think they exactly planned it this way, they did not encourage us to speak or pick up French.  Sure, once in a while my grandmother offered to teach us, but they never spoke to us in French, so we never learned how to speak the language and it didn't seem like something they ever regretted.

Plus, this way they had the added bonus of being able to talk about us in front of us and most of the time we didn't catch on.


And when I first moved to Israel, I told myself that even though my language skills sucked and I did most things in English, in cafes or restaurants I would always order in Hebrew and not ask for an English menu, so for the first year and a half I lived in Israel I ordered the first thing I could understand on the menu which meant that the mainstay of my diet was the dreaded bagel toast (a kind of grilled cheese sandwich (not a real bagel) with feta cheese, it really was yummy the first 2000 times I ate one.

After a while I wanted to try the Greek salad and not be hemmed in by my crappy language, so I had to expand my horizons a little.

But when Leo and I married the situation was very different.  For one I was moving to the Netherlands where English was not the first language of the country (although to be honest it is a very very close second - the Dutch love speaking and showing off their very good English skills).  I have met very few Dutch people who do not have at least a rudimentary command of the English language, and most are pretty well fluent as English is the language of international commerce and you hear English being spoken on the streets by Dutch people nearly as much as you hear Dutch.


So when I became pregnant with Maya of course we agreed that we would raise her bilingually.  We bought some books on the subject of how to do it and most of them agreed that the way to raise a bilingual child was to always ensure that you as a parent spoke only your own mother tongue with him or her and as the child gets older you stimulate them to speak your language with you.



In many ways it was an easy choice for us, when we had Maya I was only in the country for two years and I had put absolutely zero effort into learning the language.  I worked for an international company where the official language was English and what little vocabulary I could use was always blown to bits the second I opened my mouth and people heard my accent and immediately pegged me for an American (or sometimes a Brit - apparently to the Dutch all English speakers sound alike) and immediately started speaking English to me.  Being a native English speaker in a country where English is widely known and used by it's population (as is the case in both Israel and the Netherlands) is a real barrier for picking up the language.   It's very tough to learn the language because English is so readily used and the main reason why it takes English speakers much longer than other nationalities to learn the language (it's not just that we are lazy).




What I am getting at is that neither Hebrew or Dutch came easy to me but after many years in each country I absorbed enough to start speaking and people have always been kind about my mistakes.

I muddle through.



So when Maya was born, Leo and I stuck to the plan (as if I had any other choice) and I spoke only English and Leo spoke only Dutch to her.  It was easy to stick to this as well because Leo and I have always spoken English together so English is more often than not the language of the house.  Even after I could speak Dutch, we never really made the switch because it is unbelievably hard to switch languages after you are used to speaking in one language with someone, plus Leo is a Dutchie through and through, he'd much rather show off his great English skills than have to suffer through my mediocre Dutch ones.


We have many friends who have also raised bilingual kids using this method to varying degrees of success.  My husband's brother and sister both living in Israel and married to Israelis have tried to speak Dutch to their kids and although they understand some they have never really mastered speaking (except my nephew but he put a real effort into speaking).  It didn't just come naturally the way it did with Maya.  I do think the differentiating factor is that both of them speak Hebrew with their partners (and their partners do not speak Dutch) which means that Hebrew is the language of the house which means it was probably much more challenging for their kids to pick up and use Dutch since without thinking they roll into Hebrew).  I do think Leo and I sticking with English as our primary language has done wonders for Maya's ability to feel completely comfortable in both languages.  Our nieces do understand Dutch or at least most things but do not speak it at all.  With Leo's parents for many years there was a language barrier in that when the kids were toddlers it was tough for my inlaws to babysit at night for them as if they wanted something my inlaws couldn't really understand them and while they always found a way in the end, it was always kind of tough as there was always a quasi-language barrier.   As they got older and understood more Dutch it was easier and now they are starting to learn English in school so there is more commonality and between broken Dutch and broken Hebrew and English they all manage quite nicely.

But I didn't want that for Maya and my family.  I wanted there to be no language barrier with them.  It was hard enough being so far away from them and them only seeing Maya once or twice a year (if we are lucky), having a language barrier would guarantee no relationship prospects.  So Leo and I were much stricteer and put a concentrated effort into ensuring that Maya would grow up with two languages.

And I am very proud to say that Maya is absolutely 100% comfortable in both languages (although her Dutch is stronger than her English since she has more exposure to Dutch through school). She speaks to me in English and Leo in Dutch, always, always.  She has no problem moving back and forth in the language, if she asks me something and I tell her to ask Leo, off she runs and she spits out the same question in Dutch and then comes back and tells me the answer in English.  

With Maya we have not experienced any resistance at all to English at any time during her life.  Many bilingual kids at Maya's age flat out refuse to speak the second language and I have seen many a blended family struggle to keep their children speaking two languages.  Until 2 years ago Maya didn't even understand that she was speaking two different languages.  We never told her but just naturally followed our own mother tongues and she just naturally picked up both Dutch and English and figured out for herself completely intuitively what language she needed to speak with whom.  She just thought there were two ways to say everything for a long time and she just knew how to choose which one depending on who she was talking to.  Completely innate and intuitive.

The human equivalent of Apple.

To be perfectly honest Maya's Dutch is a lot better than her English, but that's natural because she is exposed to Dutch much more.  She has a richer vocabulary and speaks more grammatically correct Dutch and her pronunciation in English is not always great as the sounds your mouth makes in English are a lot different than Dutch and you have to train your mouth to do both.  And while I do correct her and she usually then will pick up the right pronunciation, sometimes unless you are used to hearing her talk her diction can sometimes be tough to understand.

Dutch and English both have Germanic roots which means there are a lot of words which are exactly the same just with a slightly different pronunciations but there are also a lot of words that are the same as English words but mean something slightly different.

For instance in Dutch the word of doesn't mean of, it means "or" and Maya often slips and says, "do you want this of that."  

It gets worse.  The word over in Dutch means about so Maya is constantly saying "I don't want to talk over school."

And it goes on and on, so it must be confusing to her, but still she is great in how she so easily goes back and forth, she can literally be talking to 4 different people and zip back and forth in lightening speed between the two languages without even thinking about it.  If I say, "Maya tell daddy dinner is ready", without missing a beat she says "Papa eten is klaar."


She is rigid about what language she will speak with what people.  If I speak Dutch to her, she immediately interrupts and scolds me by saying English, except she draws out the syllables so that I am absolutely sure to know she is not pleased with me, it goes ENG  ----LISH!  Leo doesn't often slip into English with her except when we are around other English speakers or in the US and then Maya doesn't scold, but gives him a blank stare.  She also gives that stare to Dutch people who don't know her very well who well meaningly speak English with her because they hear me speaking English to her.  She has perfected this glance so well, it could be bottled and sold.


She is even rigid about what she calls us if she is talking with us or about us depending on what language she is speaking.  Maya always calls me mommy rather than the Dutch mama and she calls Leo papa rather than daddy.  But if she is talking to me about Leo she will always call him daddy and if I say papa, because that is who he is to her, she will correct me tell me to say daddy.  Once in a while I refer to myself as mom rather than mommy and she corrects me then too.

I am mommy and daddy is papa but if she is speaking Dutch then I am mama and if she is speaking English then papa is daddy.

OK, I am confusing myself now.  But Maya is rigid in her thinking due to her autistic mind but I do think this has served her very well in being raised with two languages.  Mommy speaks English and Daddy speaks Dutch, that is HOW IT IS.  And there can be no alternative, because that is not how it is.

I find that rather ironic to be calling autism a blessing when talking about speaking since so many people on the spectrum have such struggles with the spoken word.

Not only is my autistic daughter verbal, she speaks, she expresses herself well verbally, in two languages!

At Odds with the Father Land

Over the last few years I have spent a fair amount of time in France.  It's proximity to the Netherlands makes it a natural vacation spot for Dutch people. France offers a much more diverse terrain and climate than the Netherlands, which is basically flat and wet. In France you have mountains, beaches, hills, valleys, rivers and of course Paris. For me though,  because France is where my dad was born and spent his first 16 years and although it has taken me many years to realize it,  France holds an added, but strange appeal for me.

I have never and still do not consider myself to be French.  And I can say that like many Americans, I enjoy disliking the French.  They are, at least to an American way of thinking rude and annoying and there have been many times when I must admit I enjoy being loud, obnoxious and gregarious in their presence.  Plus, the surrender jokes just come naturally.  Although my dad was born French, his parents emigrated to France from Poland and I was born in America, so I guess you could say France was a sort of rest stop in my ethnic origin. I did grow up hearing French spoken in my grandparents' home, as my dad, aunt and grandparents primarily spoke French to each other, although they did not push or encourage any of us in the next generation to speak French.

My grandparents really adored France and the French way of life or at least the pre-war French way of life.  They both fell in love with the French language, with French food, culture, music.  My grandfather was reasonably successful in their early years and it was much easier for them to assimilate in France and they both loved that.  They no longer lived in a shtetl and they took full advantage of the opportunities that assimilation offered them.  My aunt was born in 1933 and my dad, born at the end of 1934.  Life was good for them until the war started in 1939.  I am not going to go into their experiences during that time here, as I have done that in earlier posts, but these were difficult years.  I can still remember looking at old photos of my dad as a toddler in Paris, at the Eiffel tower or later at home and my grandmother talked often about the French way of life, it wasn't so much what she said, but how she said it.  I didn't grow up knowing a lot of details of their lives (the war left its mark and my grandparents were careful not to talk about that), but I definitely grew up with a sense that they loved France.

My dad is a different story.  His experience living in France was largely unpleasant.  Being only 5 when the war broke out, he spent a lot of his formative years living in difficult circumstances and it had it's effect on him.  Unlike his sister, my Aunt, who studied France at university and ended up being a French professor who traveled back to France often with her children and students.  My dad didn't end up going back to France for more than 30 years after he left.  He didn't embrace the land of his birth in any real way.  Sure, he loved wine and cheese and he would drive an hour each way to one of the few French bakeries in Pittsburgh on a Sunday morning to bring home croissants and pain au chocolat and he did speak French with my grandparents.  But when my grandparents or my aunt talked about France there was a certain longing in the way they talked about it.  My dad didn't have that in common with them.  Although in many ways my father remains an enigma to me and there are many things I can or will never fully understand, I do know that he did not have a lot of love or connection to France.  I am not sure exactly why that is, and to explore it here would make this post way long and probably not that coherent.  The short answer is that I think my dad was really too young when the war broke out and he just associated what must have been a terrifying time with France.  My dad firmly embraced being an American and I always had the feeling that he wanted to forget that he had ever been from anywhere else.   Being both a dutiful daughter but mostly afraid to press him on anything, we did not talk all that much about it. 

I went to France for the first time in 1995, to visit a good friend of mine who was living in Paris and I have been back to France more times than I can count ever since.  Being only a 3 hour train ride from Paris and having that same good friend living there, makes Paris an easy and somewhat frequent weekend jaunt for me.  The food and the shopping don't hurt either.   I have also spent time in the South of France, the Loire Valley and most recently in the Dordogne region in the southwestern part of France.

There is a lot about France to love.  The nature and terrain are diverse and beautiful.  The food and wine are fantastic and there is something inherently charming about both French city and country life.  In Paris, I love nothing more than to walk around, go shopping and drink coffee and eat pastry at one of many fabulous  salon du the in the city.  In the countryside, the small towns and villages have a unique charm and the simplicity of French country life (at least for a week or two) has a simplistic ease about it which is lovely, energizing and delightful.  I love waking up in the morning, heading into the nearest village, buying fresh croissants, pain au chocolat and baguette and fresh fruits and vegetables in weekly markets, which are still very much a way of life for the French.  I love seeing the French on market days, buying their food and placing it in little baskets which they use to carry home their purchases.  I love going into the bakeries where old people buy their daily bread probably in the same bakery and town where their families have for generations.  Outside of Paris the French are far away from the stereotype of rudeness which they are known for. Going for a walk in the French countryside often feels like being in a Monet painting.  Maybe it is because I am an American and not much in American life is quaint (since much of it has been whitewashed with stripmalls and Olive Gardens) but there is just something about being surrounded by houses and buildings which have been around for centuries which makes me feel relaxed, giddy and happy to be alive (I think the wine doesn't hurt).

And even though I never traveled to France with my dad or my grandparents, in some manner I see and feel them at every turn when I am there.  There are just little things I notice which are similar to things I have seen and grown up with.  For instance, when I was a kid I used to ask my grandmother why they went grocery shopping every day (actually every evening).  American stores, even in the 1970's were huge, as were refrigerators, kitchens, cupboards, etc. so it was easy enough to stalk up for the week.  Now in Paris or in small towns I see people go out each day with their shopping bags, baskets or little carts and go and buy food for the day.  This is because their kitchens, fridges, etc. are too small to hold more than a day or two of food, so they shop each day.  When I was a kid, one of my grandmother's standby meals (actually THE standby meal) was steak with french fries, green beans and salad.  My grandmother made her french fries in a very special way.  They were not the American kind that you dip in ketchup, but they were short, a little bit crispy on the outside and soft on the inside without being greasy.  They were almost slow cooked over a very low temperature for a long time.  My parents, brothers, cousins and I used to beg my grandmother to make them whenever we went over there.  When I am in France, particularly in the southern part of France, I can eat what are the closest thing to her French fries when I have a steak-frites.  When I was a kid my grandmother used to use dish towels which were not made of terrycloth, in the US they are called tea towels and my mother never used them.  Whenever I go to the markets I see only tea towels for sale, the same ones like she used to have, with little flowers or pieces of fruit on them.  I have pictures of my daughter playing at the park very close to the Eiffel Tower in Paris (it's a lovely park) and I can remember my grandmother having pictures of my dad and aunt playing there as young children when they went there during a family trip.  They have the same little cars and swings that my dad played in.  Even though my dad died before he could meet Maya and she will never get to know him, every time I look at those photos of Maya playing in that park I feel like I have completed a generational connect-the-dot drawing.  It's very little things and sometimes I feel like I am reaching, but still, even though France is not my home, there is a strange familiarity for me there.

Still, despite all the things to love about France, I have a hard time letting myself truly love the place.  Certainly my family experienced a lot of hardships in an unimaginable time and those left their scars, both on them, but by extension also on me.  My dad was certainly never able to make peace with what he experienced in those years and as he lived out the last decade or so of his life, it consumed him and caused him to lash out with unimaginable anger at those around him to the point where he had cut off or alienated himself from everyone and everything which had been important to him.  He, not France are accountable for that but while I find certain comfort and familiarity in France, there is also a very real sadness for me about the place.  Last week, while having an absolutely wonderful time, I was awakened suddenly in the middle of the night with an overwhelming feeling of sadness.  I got up and paced around our vacation house for a good 2-3 hours, much in the way my dad used to pace our house when I was growing up, unable to sleep, unable to do anything but just walk back and forth.  I just had this feeling of overwhelming sorrow for no reason, knowing that I was sleeping in the land where my dad was born and knowing that he probably never had experienced the joy of being in France, that he probably never felt the experience of being in a Monet painting but knowing that his experience in the same place was far from where mine was, his was full of uncertainty and terrifying at times and though he and his family survived the war, the experience greatly contributed to a lot of anger, unhappiness and sorrow for him which lasted his entire life and affected all who were close to him.  Finally after hours of pacing, I crawled into my daughter's bed, laid on my side and put my arms around her and it took a while, but next to her I was finally able to again let sleep wash over me.