The Wayfaring Wordhack

Those lovely, special summer-like days gave way to a spate of wintry weather (Les Saints de Glace this period is called in France, wikipedia article in English, and anecdotal or not, we have had snow the 26 of May where we live), forcing us to light fires in the wood stoves to stay warm. However, we had temperatures up to 30C/86F the last couple of days before we left France, so it was back to rowing on the pond and reading on the lawn and sitting in the garden to write poetry. And setting up an outdoor work station to make oil sticks for those of us with the particular procrastinatory bent that manifests itself in Creative Projects.





Aren't these colors so gorgeous? Can't wait to use them when we get back to France.







I say back to France because we arrived in Lebanon last night. More than an hour late, but safe and sound nonetheless.

We hit the ground running this morning with unpacking, playdate with friends for the kids, a visit to our favorite pizzeria, and the a consultation with my surgeon this afternoon, while the boys had a second playdate. My surgery for total knee replacement is scheduled for next Thursday, and the insurance is going to cover pretty much all of it. I was supposed to be in a shared room to keep down costs, but my surgeon asked that they put me in a private room for no extra cost. Score. Especially since I have to stay 3 days. In the meantime, I need to get a hold of a walker and a knee immobilizer, see the anethesiologist, arrange for a cleaning lady to come, get the kids prepped to take care of themselves, and pack up house... Or at least sort things to be packed up by movers. THIS is a part of our lifestyle I do NOT like. Settling in is one thing, but sorting, trying to sell, and packing it all up is the pits.

These days in France are so precious. I feel like we are outside of time, in a way, outside of various spheres of madness laying hold to the world at large.  Though my husband is in another country, through multiple video calls per day, the separation is not insurmountable or as difficult as it could otherwise be.

I don't know how--or if--they are being engraved in my children's memories, but I believe and like to think they are.  Life feels so, so good with an amazing confluence of circumstances that make it so: beautiful weather, good reading material, fine health, spring's beauty, children's joy in what we are doing, kind friends...*

There have been lots of hard conversations about life, what is next, how the kids feel about that, sibling squabbles, potentially stressful logistics and so on, but it is just normal life. which I feel so grateful for when "normal" should not be applied to what other people are having to live through these days.

We just finished Swallows and Amazons, which my kids loved.  Just ordered the 12 book series.  They are older books, and my kids thrilled to the independence the kids had, the kindness, the morality, the imagination, the lack of modern-day drama and strife.  Altogether wholesome.

While we don't have a sailboat or a giant lake at our disposal, we do have a kayak and lovely neighbors who let us have access to their pond.  So the other night, we headed out at sunset so the kids could paddle around.  I played around in a sketchbook with acrylics and colored pencils, enjoying the moment while the kids made believe and planned for life in a new locale where adventures seem highly possible. 


The kids continue to enjoy poemcrazy, and last night we created an "event" as suggested in the practice section of chapter 12.  While painting at the pond, I had the urge to make a found poem that I would release upon the waters.  I didn't end up doing it but decided to invite the kids to do it with me and make a party of it.  The Poem Launch Party was born, and shall--memory-willing--become an annual tradition.  Let everyone else celebrate Labor Day.  

Sprout and I made our poems using words clipped from the copious stash of The Guardian's "Review" journals left here by the previous homeowners.  Farmer Boy created his own poem, based on "texel" (a breed of sheep), one of his words from the wordpool he made using the dictionary.  Ti'Loup riffed off words found on the cover of poemcrazy itself.  We also wrote down five things we hate about the world or dislike in ourselves with plans to immolate them.

I made egg salad and baked a cake using some of the preserved gooseberries from last year. I gathered candles and the boys their jet lighters, while Sprout packed drinks and gathered the poems.  We went to a closer pond--one we don't have express permission to visit--for our party, so that we wouldn't run the chance of disturbing our neighbors if they had friends over for weekend fishing as they sometimes do.  On the way down, thanks to the lowering sun, Sprout glimpsed wondrously crimson baby cones of what I think must be a Norway Spruce. 
 

Our party was lowkey and fun, with one moment of hilarious excitement when we all hid in the tall grass after hearing a horn honking behind us (remember what I said about no express permission? 😜).  We ate and launched our poems and immolated all The Bad. 


I collected words for it all into my poem book while the boys played with wax and Sprout cloud gazed.   There were mountains and valleys of cloud-dappled sky to behold.


On the way home, we were followed by a crone or a dwarf.  One can never be sure in the gloaming. 


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* Don't get the wrong idea of some quiet, tranquil flow of ever-and-always peaceful days. As I type this, the kitchen/dining area is in chaos, Farmer Boy stands on a bar stool being a (VERY LOUD) clown, while sister and brother play a counterpoint to his comedy.  They are all a bit electric today, and sparks easily fly.  And my own tongue can be razor sharp.

 Now that the kids are a bit bigger (my youngest learned to walk at this house), we can finally take walks into more wild country along a local river, taking care, of course, of my knee.  Therefore, we have been heading out in the afternoons with buckets and nets for catching minnows and crawdads.  We also take along some cards and our book (Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome being the current one) so that we can enjoy our family game time along with a snack and read-aloud amidst starry carpets of anemones and primroses the color of fresh butter. 

For our writing hour, I have been sharing Susan Goldsmith Woolridge's book poemcrazy with the kids.  They absolute love it.  Yesterday they browsed dictionaries, botanical guides, and their own crazy-sweet minds and inventive imaginations to start their "wordpools."  

A glimpse of what they came up with:

fluctuous storm divine anger venomous life Britpop handbag zydeco withe
withering-floor smagle whip

strenuous sleep harmonious anarchy brown river babbler 

profound celestial century honeycomb listening oak aslant diagonal zizag slopglop
lamp gamble camp

Today they will cut up words and label things around the house or make their own stash of words to play with later, the cuttings being taken from newspapers and discarded books, aka fire fodder..

While we strolled along the river, balanced on moss-covered roots that made bridges over the eroded bank, straddled bramble tripwires, and avoided squashing violet oil beetles mating on the path  (not my video but here is an example, only the male in our instance was even smaller youtu.be/LLgvblsPY58, I captured the outing in blue ink, ink that fades and blooms at the least touch of water.  The words may blur, but capturing them, even for a little while, has written them in my brain ever deeper than the walk alone could have done.  Deeper than the otter tracks we spied on a tiny sandbar in the middle of the river.

For three days, I have been sorting books, books that were left to me by the previous owners of the house, books that have been taking up space both mental and physical here since 2017, and my task is not yet done.  I have come to the conclusion I will not read many of them--have zero desire to, in fact--and some of the many are not fit to pass on to others.  (rimturse   actually knows of what I speak in this regard. )   

Anyhow, they have burdened me for too long. Too, too long, and I am sick of it.  The unfit have been sorted into the basket of fire-starter for our wood stove, and I have packed boxes and boxes and boxes of the rest to send to their new home on Sunday.  A kind friend who likes to read has offered to take them off my hands and dispose of them herself if they don't interest her.  I will finally have room to put my OWN stuff and will not have to deal with book clutter everywhere.  

Of course it has been a horrendous job for my dust allergies, and my meds are not proving sufficient to the task.  Still, I cannot wait for Sunday and will carry on cleaning until then!  I can't load the car with them just yet, even though I badly want to, because my kids are in the south with their grandmother and I will pick them up on Saturday.

As of now, our plans are still to return to Lebanon on the 15th, but today was not a good day for that country, making our trip tenuous.  But look what I found today, as I cleaned, one of my world atlases with a colored pencil used as a bookmark (*winces*):



The pencil must have been in there since 2021 when we were showing the kids where Lebanon was (Liban, since it is in French).

I don't know what is going to happen to our life there. Will it just end like this, with the kids and I unable to go back?  Will I not be able to get my surgery?  Our traveling shoes are in limbo.  Too much to wonder and worry about, honestly.  Off to bed I go.  Tomorrow is another day, and I can only take them as they come.

 Got home safely just after midnight and woke to the news this morning that Air France has now suspended all flights to and from Lebanon.  I am really glad we made it out because the house is in need of some love before we move back this summer.  And it pleases me greatly to see my daffodils in bloom (I always miss my spring flowers because we don't typically come home during this season) and the grape hyacinths on the way.

I do hope we get to go back to Lebanon in three weeks time, though.

In the meantime, no rest for us; we head out tomorrow morning to visit J's family in the south for a couple of days.  We will celebrate Farmer Boy's birthday with his grandparents.  Already turning 12; my, how time flies.

 ...and we are supposed to paint two pictures from our own photographs.  I have been doing this for a while, of course, but it feels more weighty now because someone called it "our graduation" painting. 🤪. I have done two, but I think I will do another to replace the olive trees that perhaps highlights more of the things this course was specifically about.  I'll see if I have more time before the weekend.

I'll leave it to your imagination to picture what our living room looks like as I sort through books, games, puzzles, cables, bric-a-brac...  I wish I were the kind of person who could do this type of task neatly. But, no.  It seems I have to have it all spread out in order put it in appropriate piles of giving (so many different categories here), taking back to France now, taking back to France later... Even the trash is not always straightforward. 

I already threw away 4 sacks of art papers, things I had been hanging on to recycle, to use as collage, for nostalgia, but I have yet to go through all the supplies.  I am sure I will have do a second pass, too, on things to keep or toss as time to go draws near and reality becomes sharper, cutting away the sentimental with the restrictions of space and weight.  Many of my art supplies will go back this time in order to encourage me to finish what I have on hand and to paint things that are easily transportable.

I have hoarding tendencies which I excuse by spouting my philosophies of reuse and less waste.  But the truth is that I have a lot of things I will never use.  I was rather proud of myself yesterday and happy for a reason to get rid of a random object I had found and intended to keep, knowing full well I wouldn't actually do anything with: a discarded Lebanese license plate.

Out of the blue, a friend, who has returned to the States after many years of life in Lebanon, posted on one of our mutual WhatsApp groups that she was looking for a Lebanese license plate to put on her van.  Someone from here is traveling to see her in a couple of weeks and could take the plate back, so could anyone on the group tell her where she could buy one?  Voilà, I thought, perfect thing to do with my find.  Pass it along!  Now she is happy and I have less things to worry about and tote across the sea.

 I really should post more. I cannot count the times that I have thought it, intended it, started it, if only in my mind.  This is not an obligation I sense from anyone, not even myself, just a desire to have a better record of thoughts and happenings at this time in my life.  

When I finally sit down to do it, it all seems so big.  Too much to share, too much to sift through, which means I inevitably end up with the Bullet Point Post.

It is what it is.  Let's just do a big one for now, with visuals, and then I will perhaps do myself the honor of respecting my sense of Should in the future.

Pottery:
I have not been inclined to do pottery since before Christmas.  It just "weighs" too much in many senses of the term, and I literally set a mental block on wanting to do it because of the logistics of our move this summer.  I am ready to put the wheel and kiln up for sale (if we can get a good price, this will save us having to ship them back to France where we could probably buy new ones for cheaper than cost here plus the shipping); J, however, is going to do a terra sigilata training with an amazing ceramist come May, and he wants to keep the material to practice.  I have been thinking I could throw a few small vessels for him to practice on, too.  Just to keep my hands in the clay.  A couple of weeks ago, I did throw a tumbler for a friend to practice sgrafitto on, and it was humbling how much I felt like a debutant again.  Silly to say debutant when I did, indeed, start less than a year ago.  I do intend to get back to it, but when?  Too much uncertainty about the future to hazard a guess.

One of the last things I sold:

Kitty
Pearl is doing well, already an indispensable part of the family with her own quirky character.  She is, unbeknownst to her, getting ready to travel with all her shots and tests.   She does NOT like the carrier, so we have to get a good calming agent for her.  Picture of Pearl a the painting below.

Art
I have been painting a lot.  I am also retaking a course that I was trying to complete when the war broke out in 2023.  Aside from my classwork, I did a series of paintings of the kiddos.



Health
Ugh.  I have an appointment with a surgeon today to see if he thinks I need to have a High Tibial Osteotomy for my arthritic knee.  He had me do the x-rays last Friday to see how I bear the weight in my legs and proposed this surgery to correct it if it is what is causing the compression in the inside of my knee. I went into the appointment thinking he would say something totally different, so his prognosis was a bit of a shock.  I still don't know how I feel about the procedure.  I will get a second opinion. 

Move
J's contract ends in July, and the kids and I will move back to France in June.  Where we will go from there?  Who knows. So far, J has applied for jobs in various French Overseas Departments.  He can apply for another embassy post, but that will certainly mean waiting another year before he is assigned, whereas these other jobs could see him leaving as soon as September of this year.  We are once again in the uncomfortable position of "sitting between two chairs," to use the French expression.

We will see where we land!

Travel
We have prepaid tickets back to France at the end of the month. We'll stay for three weeks and get the house ready.  J's cousin will come back and take care of Pearl while we are gone.  We still don't have her rabies clearance, so she can't come with us this time.  Today we went to get our photos and fingerprints taken for our last Lebanese visa cards.  If we had left Lebanon in Dec as we were supposed to as per J's first contract, we would not have had to do this.  It was a painless experience*, so all is good.  The officials assured us the paperwork will be done before we fly out, which is going to save us 200USD in fines for expired visas.

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*This is my 5th time doing it, and I have had to wait an hour (instead of the five minutes it actually takes) before on two occasions because the lady taking care of my papers had to chat and chat and chat with friends, totally ignoring me in favor of her personal drama.  

 My latest art endeavor has been painting.  Oh, wait, I don't think I shared our last artful prompting challenge, did I?  I will rectify that later.

I painted this from a photo we* took when we lived in Egypt.  J has always loved the image and wanted me to paint it for him.  So, two years later from when I said I would do it, here it is, 80x80cm (31x31in) in acrylics (a medium I rarely use).




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*I say "we" because we can't precisely remember who took it.  I thought J did; he thought I did.  After further reflection, I think he is probably right because he is more careful when setting up his shots of people, whereas I panic and snap the photo as quickly as possible for fear of getting caught.  Since the image could have been framed better, etc., I am pretty sure it was on me.  To make up for my mistakes, in painted form, I took time to compose it a bit better.  The "props"--as in the obviously-indoor trashcan, the mop bucket, and mop--were already there, but there were at least 3 more squeegees, too; I moved them around a bit to give more focus to our napper.

 ...but following the advice of my pottery teacher, my husband and I created an instagram page to post our work on. We did it for the pottery fair that we attended this weekend--our first time showing our work to the public--and I think it paid off. We did not make a ton of sales (no one did, really; there is a lot of uncertainty in Lebanon right now), but it gave us a lot of exposure and nice validation that we aren't just clay hacks. 😜

Someone told me about cara, so I set up an account there, too, and will probably move the Instagram stuff over if I can get around to it.  In any case, it is a family account and you can find us here: https://www.instagram.com/wayfaring_makers/ and/or here: cara.app/wayfaringmakers

The fair was, overall, a very nice experience, and we are happy we went. We met a lot of fun, creative people.

This piece did not go to the fair because I intend to keep it as a souvenir of our time in this country.  I carved it all over with flowers found in Lebanon:



I had a lot of fun carving it and can't wait to try another form with a similar motif.
( and a montage of it outside so you can get the full experience: )