The great Mistral showed up today. It’s the brisk cold wind that comes down into Provence and settles in, mysteriously, for 3, 6 or 9 days we are told. Even before I came, I heard, “oh the weather is lovely- except when the Mistral blows!”
This has been a shitty week anyway. We came back from our trip to Arles and Avingon with two sick kids. Then on Sunday night, as they say here “j’ai tombe;” I fell ill also. I was trying to make the best of it, but today with the bad weather, I started to feel sorry for myself.
We’ve been cooped up in the house all week, hardly speaking any French. Basically there hasn’t been anything we’ve done this week that we couldn’t have done in Norfolk. I’ve been feeling like I uprooted my kids and left my husband for nothing. Homeschool has been challenging this week too, as I’ve been trying to get the kids caught up while they don’t feel great either. And the clocks changed back Saturday, so they’ve been sleeping in. Their behavior was atrocious Sunday night at bedtime, so I had to invoke Mean Mommy. Mean Mommy takes away electronics of all kinds, doesn’t buy them anything (even gelato) and she does not go out of her way to do anything fun or special that the rotten kids want to do. It takes a lot of energy to be Mean Mommy and I really hate it.
So today is Thursday and I still feel crappy and two out of the three boys have eked their way back into good graces enough to watch videos, but still not play video games (I know, so Mean). After school today, I had to book our Italy lodging— you would not believe what a pain— so I let them watch videos for over an hour. At about 3pm, I said that’s it— we MUST get out of this house! Wind or no wind!! Sick or not! (well, we made it as far as the cupcakery around the corner- but anyway, we were out doggone it! The place was full of English speakers, by the way!).
On our way to drop Cooper off at Judo, the boys are chasing pigeons in the tiny streets when a moto came toward them. The boys were in a pack— all the better to attack the pigeons, of course— and they slowly broke up in time for the moto to get through. But the moto stops, then the driver, a woman in her 60s, with a lot of makeup on— over mascaraed lashes were brushing up on her frosted bangs that were sticking down from her helmet— and a little rotund with a large colorful coat on, shimmies the moto over toward a row of trashcans. She is picking through the trash— looking crazy as a loon.
I took Cooper into the dojo to help him with his gi and when I come out, I hear Samuel and Bennett cackling laughter with the crazy lady and another woman and they are exchanging hats- giant Mad Hatter looking hats. Turns out they were Guiness St. Patrick’s Day top hats that the other lady came to throw out while Samuel and the crazy lady were talking. She offered them to Samuel- who of course took them from her. They were all laughing when I came up and speaking French.
Well lo and behold, I found some people to speak French with today. As my typical conversation around here goes, I told them we were here to study French and history. They were very excited and told me all about what was so great about French and French history, and how many interesting stories there were here in this area, like how some geese chased away soldiers in WWII and how DaVinci crossed the alps and gave the Mona Lisa to France and how the hope diamond was here all of this time and no one knew it and how the Grimaldis of Monaco are cursed like the Kennedys and how someone in France foretold the tsunami… very interesting stuff. And all along Christine (formerly known as the crazy lady because now I love her and now she has a name) keeps saying well, I must leave you now because I have to run my errands and then she’d launch into another story. And apparently she knows everyone in the neighborhood because people kept stopping to say hi, but she kept saying, yes, I must go and run my errands— but she never did!!!
And the other lady- who I now know as Michelle lives nearly across the street from me and said she would be happy to speak French with me anytime —or she said she was happy to run out of time because she had to go across the street— ? I’m not really sure because she and Christine were talking so fast about conspiracy theories and astrological signs and strange but true stories of French history I was having a tough time keeping up. But I was so happy to be out of the house and speaking (listening to) French that I kinda didn’t even care.
Meanwhile, Samuel and Bennett are hovering around- “mom, I thought you had to go to the bakery, mom, when are we going home,” etc etc. I finally gave them the key (which Mean Mommy would NEVER have done, but I wanted to stay in the street and talk to Christine and Michelle).
Of course, when I went back to the house, I had to tell the kids that they missed out on the best history lessons they could have ever gotten in France!
When I planned this trip, I thought about calling it my “lemonade tour.” I felt like we had been given a big ol batch of lemons last spring and I was determined to make the most of it. We all want our kids to be resilient and that is a model that is hard to set, and keep. I want to be brave and resilient for my kids. And I want them to learn how to take disappointment and make something out of it.
This week was tough. We were sick, the weather is icky, but I can’t let it get me down. Our hostess came Sunday while we were on our hike and left us a batch of lemons— grown in her yard right here in Antibes. Her little note said, “I hope you like lemons. I have so many, I didn’t know what to do with them.”
Well we do.
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