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The Constant Struggle Against Forgetting

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It started with chrysanthemums. I was looking for information about La Toussaint , All Saints’ Day in France, which is observed on November 1. French families traditionally visit cemeteries at this time, tending family graves and bringing flowers. And the flower most associated with Toussaint is the chrysanthemum. I knew chrysanthemums were everywhere in France around Toussaint , but I had not really thought about how exclusively they are associated with cemeteries and remembrance. In France, apparently, you don’t ordinarily show up at someone’s house with a lovely pot of mums as a hostess gift. Giving chrysanthemums to a living person can be quite a social faux pas. This was interesting information to acquire just after Travis had been given two beautiful pots of mums for his birthday. We also have large pots of mums outside the side entrance to the boutique. In Arkansas, of course, chrysanthemums have an entirely different job. They mean fall. They sit beside pumpkins and front...
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🌿The Joy of Not Knowing Everything (La joie de ne pas tout savoir)

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  Un café, s'il vous plaît. Some sentences I have mastered. I spent much of my life assuming that learning was supposed to lead, eventually, to knowing. Now I suspect it mostly helps me find the next thing I don't know. I spend a good deal of time trying to learn things. I have been studying French for years, and it is slightly humbling that I still can't speak as well as a three-year-old. A French toddler can ask for a biscuit without first considering the gender of the biscuit and whether the verb requires any special treatment. I would like to have that kind of confidence. There are words I recognize easily on a page that seem to vanish entirely when someone says them aloud. Then, just as I am wondering whether all this effort has accomplished anything, I understand a sentence. An actual sentence, spoken by an actual French person, at an actual French speed. That is usually enough to keep me going. Lately I have been collecting common expressions, the kind people really ...
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Sharing the Time with 84 Charing Cross Road

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🌿🌿🌿 Thoughts about watching 84 Charing Cross Road starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins.... I watched 84 Charing Cross Road expecting a pleasant movie about books and letters. It was that. But somewhere around 1951, I became aware that I was there too. I was three years old, living a very different life from Helene Hanff in New York or Frank Doel in London. I have no memory of their streets or their bookshop. Still, while Helene was writing letters across the ocean and Frank was hunting down books for her, I was somewhere in Louisiana and Arkansas, busy being three. We were sharing the same time. The film makes space for the ordinary things. Helene wants a particular book. Frank finds it, or can’t find it, and writes back. Helene sends parcels of food to the Marks & Co booksellers in London, where meat is still rationed years after the war. Someone passes along a bit of news. People go home to their families. Years go by, and another letter turns up. Nothing happens quickly...
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🌿Keeping the Streak, Letting Go of the Goal

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  I have been on Duolingo for 1,545 consecutive days. That sounds much more impressive than it is. It does not mean I have spent 1,545 days becoming fluent in French. Some days I have done several lessons. Some days I have only done enough to keep the flame from going out. At this point, I am not even sure why I maintain the streak.  Is it because I am devoted to French or because I refuse to be defeated by a cartoon owl. For a long time, learning French had the usual framework around it: lessons, levels, progress and the distant possibility of becoming fluent. Fluency is a fine goal, but it can turn an interest into another job. There is always more vocabulary to learn, another verb tense to master and another level showing how far I still have to go. Maybe, instead, I can simply be interested in French. I do not have to become fluent to justify the time I spend with it. I can like the sound of the language, enjoy recognizing a sentence and remain curious about how French peo...
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