A Short Trip de la Folie: The drunks love us in this town.

It's five o'clock somewhere!

Our daily schedule goes like this (so far, it’s been just a week): homeschool 9-12:30, then we go out for lunch and walking around, perhaps an activity planned by me. Play at the park around 4-5 (the locals get there around 4:30pm after school). Gelato at 5. Dinner at home around 7 and bed by 9.

Homeschool math lesson:
measuring in metric!

As Americans, we have an early evening schedule compared to the rest of the city. I know when my kids ability to behave wears off and it’s usually about 9pm- peak of the dinner hour here, so no thank you.

We end up wondering around all afternoon. You may think that with all of the kids in school and the adults at work, we’d have the place to ourselves, much like Sancerre. Not so. There are lots of tourists here, including families, and lots of adults who don’t work. And drunk people.

Seems whenever we go to a restaurant or park, or even yesterday at the beach, we get approached by very friendly drunk people. On our first Sunday afternoon here, we went to a pizza place (that has since become “our place,” thanks to nice waitresses and giant nutella crepes)— we were approached by someone who was trying to communicate with us, but he wasn’t even speaking French. I have a tiny bit of Italian and it wasn’t that either.

This leads me to the same question that comes up when I go out with a group of girlfriends and I am the only one who gets hit on- even when pregnant—— what is it about me that is so approachable by drunk people? Was I a bartender in a previous life?

This one guy from England was trying to adopt Samuel on the beach yesterday. Not sure if he was drunk, but he was obviously crazy.

OK- so just so my mom doesn’t worry, there aren’t a lot of drunk people roaming the town like OV after the parade or anything.

My kids are getting better at wandering. It’s hard to discern where their discomfort comes from. Is is that American sense of urgency in everything? No they are total slowpokes most of the time. Is it fear that we’ll get lost— very valid when traveling with me, but not based in reality thus far. Do they think they are missing something else? Well, I may have passed that down to them, but for them they often would rather be at the house watching TV and playing video games.

I am so glad that I had the chance to do this with my kids— to leave the mini-van and the crazy schedules and the millions of toys and all of the stuff— and get away.

In spiritual circles, this is known as dehabituation— an aesthetic practice that is grounded in the idea that when you are out of your habits, you can be open to the presence of the holy. When everything that you know and are comfortable with is gone, what will you encounter?

My kids are clinging to the familiar, and of course they are just kids. But I am really hopeful that this experience- drunks and all— will open them up to new things.

Today I plan to take them on a very long walk to the16th century fort on the edge of the harbor.