But Slenderly. . .

Taking the blinders off

It is hard to believe we are only here (in Avignon) for another two weeks.  How is that possible?  Of course, I look at the girl who is so much more . . . everything than she was six weeks ago.  Her long strong legs and chunk-a-chunk thighs, her baby chick hair that now needs to be combed after a shower, her head swiveling around to see what’s over there, what’s over the other way, hey, what was that?  Her eyes gazing up at the canopy of rustling leaves during a picnic.  Her grumpy eye-rubbing and mouth grimace when I open up the window shade to let in the light in the morning, followed by an enormous grin when she realizes it’s me and it’s up-time (read: breakfast).  And she’s started flipping from her belly to her back, much to her and my continued amazement.  So, yes, this three and half month old is not the same baby who flew out six weeks ago.  But by any other measure, I am dumbfounded that the time has flown by so quickly. 

Avignon is a gorgeous medieval city (really, a large town, particularly in just the walled old-city section), with narrow, cobblestoned streets and Romanesque churches around every bend.  Unlike Paris or Nimes, it hasn’t really been Haussmann-ized, so there are few wide, grand boulevards for promenading, and only a handful of large public squares (Palais de Papes, Place de Horologe etc.) that can get a little overrun with the day tourists and the ubiquitous accordion players.  Instead, it is a city of meandering, for letting your whim dictate your walk – turning left down a little side alley to look more closely at a painted door, then an immediate right to look at that church, then over there to see a small hidden courtyard.  The Rhone runs immediately outside the city walls, and there is a small island (Ile Piot) between Avignon and the adorable village of Villeneuve with a path along the water that we run along in a four mile loop and picnic with Eme at least once a week.  The market is in an enclosed building, but once inside, is full of treasures with some of the kindest smiles we’ve encountered: from the guy who sells the world’s best olives and roasted nuts, to our favorite grocer and his wife who slipped us two perfect figs and some purple potatoes this week, to the slightly crusty woman at the fish market who melted at the sight of Eme in her sun hat and offered to clean the mess of calamare we had bought (THANK GOD).  Every side street and bend offers a small restaurant, a boulangerie, an antique bookstore. It is a city to get lost in. 

But there are really some total asshats that live in it.  No surprise, Avignon is a real city, not some tourist’s picture perfect Provencal village out of Peter Mayle’s books.  But wow, French tools are some of the biggest peacocks you can imagine.  Without any trace of irony, the guys wear these ridiculous oversized glasses and gold chains and all white Adidas tracksuits with these haircuts . . . oh man, these haircuts.  Think faux cheesy mohawks or the 1988 slow fade.  They all seem to belong to the “Club Prive” that is happily located directly across from our apartment.  For a while, I was convinced Club Prive was a strip club, as only these trying-to-hard young men would knock at the door (mirrored, bien sur) to be quickly ushered in while pounding French rap spilled out.  Few, if any women, ever entered; most of the girlfriends in tragic black getups hung around outside talking on their phones and chain smoking. But we heard them on Saturday nights, around 3 am when the club let out, squealing the high pitched yelps of the very drunk.  And they weren’t the worst, not by a long shot.  The worst is the jerk who lives in the building next door.  For the first few weeks, we heard nothing, but then, suddenly, three weeks into our stay, during lunch out on our balcony, we were confronted with pounding loud music, bad, bad music, music so loud the whole narrow street seemed to pulsate.  Hair band of the 80s bad.  French rap bad.  French DISCO bad. 

So, we moved lunch indoors that day and I contented myself with a few glares at the third floor apartment when we walked by.  But then Friday night hit and the music started up around midnight, a loud party with people literally screaming off the balcony, fistfights breaking out.  I got so upset (Eme having woken up a third time) I called the woman who rented us the apartment and she called the police. They came, we heard arguing and the music abated . . . for an hour.  Then started blaring again.  DK got out of bed, went out to the street and shouted up in French for him to shut up, to turn down the music.  Through the walls, I heard the guy start running down the stairwell to the street.  DK was already back inside our building, but for the next three hours, this maniac roamed up and down, screaming diatribes of obscenities at DK, threatening him, challenging him to come out and fight.  It was terrifying, actually.  It was beyond reason; it went on for hours.  I finally called the police directly again at 4 am and when they came, I tearfully explained in haltering French what was happening, that our little baby was asleep upstairs, that we were frightened.  They went next door to talk to him and things quieted down.  Until the next weekend.  And we called the police again.  And again.  The violence is what shocked me – we’d hear these fights, bodies bashing against the buildings, screaming.  One night, DK went out to the balcony and saw four guys carry out another guy and start kicking him. 

We went away last week into the countryside and it was so blissful.  Up in a hill town called Crillon Le Brave, we settled into one of the nicest hotels I know and tootled around in our rental car from gorgeous vista to gorgeous vista.  We drove up Mont Ventoux, we took Eme for her first swim, we got a babysitter for our seventh wedding anniversary and ate dinner looking out over the valley and drinking lots of delicious wine.

  
I wondered what it would have been like if we’d decided to rent a house out there, perched up in a village and sighed at the “next time” promises.  But now that we’re back in Avignon, writing this on a Saturday night, I’m glad we’re here.  This is real.  This is not sugar-coated living.  This is the good and the bad.  Overall, living in Provence for two months has been pretty magical, but it’s good to remember to scratch the surface of a place, to feel our expectations challenged.  I cooked dinner tonight: stuffed ripe tomatoes with a mixture of shallots, garlic, parmesan, bread crumbs, lemon zest and topped with a slice of the most awesome, stinkiest goat cheese imaginable that browned and bubbled under the broiler.  I sautéed fresh turkey breasts in butter and parsley and ground mustard.  A salad of crisp, spicy arugula and haricot verte with tomato dressing.  Some cheap sparkly Vouvray.  A chocolate cake I baked this afternoon with some coconut glace.  Candles.

Magical, yes, but it’s a Saturday night, and I hear the sounds of the city, of the people who live here.    

La Vie en Rose

When I was about 17 and DK was about 21, we were flirting on the phone during a humid summer day in Kansas City (I was in KC; he was in San Francisco, or maybe DC still, I can’t remember).  I was sitting on my bed, likely listening to the Cocteau Twins, and feeling the usual stomach knot of excitement I felt every time I talked to this wonderful, cute cute cute, boy I’d met the summer before at Choate.  [Gosh, I was so gob-smacked in love with him then.  Sometimes now when I look at Eme, I hope someday when she is too young to fake cynicism, she has a boy read her Tennyson late in the night, or open a letter bursting full of spring flowers he gathered on a walk for her.  Young love, man, nothing like it.].  ANYWAY, we were talking on the phone and daydreaming about The Future Someday when we could be together.  I solemnly promised to support his art habit if he promised to be responsible for balancing the checkbook.  And we started talking about how we’d live, how’d it would be when I could come and visit him, once I was in college.  “Let’s live abroad together,” he said.  “Yes, really, yes, we will.”  “Promise?”  “Promise.” 

So it has always been with us, this idea.  Then I went to college, he went to graduate school.  I went abroad my junior year while he worked in California.  Then San Francisco together before I left for Boston for law school.  Then Dallas.  Then New York.  Then his PhD program and my legal career.  Then a cat.  Then a mortgage.  The older we got, the harder it was to see how it would ever be possible. Maternity leave always beckoned in the future.  Maybe?  Maybe then?  So when I was about four months pregnant, we decided to go for it.  When else could it happen?  I would have 5 months off, DK could come and work on his thesis abroad, the girly was small enough to be portable.  So, after talking to my doctor about whether it was an insane idea or not (he said, “DO IT”), I spent upteen hours searching for the right place.  City or country?  Europe?  South America?  Paris?  Buenos Aires?  We settled on the south of France (pace of life, weather, medical facilities, god forbid, DK’s idyllic memories of visiting his best friend in college at Montpellier) and I made spreadsheets of possible venues, pros/cons of various towns and small cities.  And finally found after lots of email correspondence and hand-wringing, a great looking apartment in the center of Avignon. 

It all seemed incredibly awesome throughout pregnancy and I was only a little nervous by the “REALLY?!” reaction we got from other, more seasoned parents.  One guy I worked for scoffed and told me to make sure we put down money now, before she was born, otherwise we’d never go.  “That’s ridiculous,” I frumped, “that will not make a difference in the world.”  But I sent in the signed contract and down payment of ½ the rent anyway.  And you know what, thank god, because that old curmudgeon co-worker was 100% right.  As soon as Emerson was born, we looked at each other dubiously about this grand plan.  The Rosetta Stone CDs I was sure I’d listen to in all my free time (“I’ll do it while I’m nursing!”) (HA HA HA!) sat gathering dust.  The books on Provence sat unread.  We looked at our tiny needy pea who forswore any and all naps except in our arms and frowned. 

But she got bigger and we got better.  We got her a passport and vaccinations, confirmed the details with the photographer who owned the apartment, and I read a old French grammar book to make sure I could do important things like order food and a glass of wine.  And then we just did it, we left, we got on the plane as scheduled with a eleventy billion bags of crap, for two months in Provence.  And have not regretted it a single second.  The place has high ceilings and a large balcony where we eat lunch everyday.  The kitchen is perfectly serviceable and I have cooked up a storm.  This produce! Holy smokes.  I’ve made calamari and ratatouille and crepes and delicate pink trout.  Salads with endive and arugula and frissee and haricot vert and goat cheese and walnuts.  Roasted chicken and broiled huge shrimp basted with butter and even half a turkey.  We buy a baguette every morning and I mix in a spoonful of cherry preserves into my Greek yogurt and drink a steaming nespresso while I pump in the mornings (after feeding the missy her breakfast).  We’ve befriended a grocer and his wife at Les Halles and he always slips us a “petite cadeau” in our bag: half a watermelon, a handful of cherries, a stem of fragrant tomatoes.  And the wine is cheaper than water! 

 

I don’t mean to paint this totally idyllic picture (though the FOOD, oh my god).  It is sometimes hard being away from friends and family and DK and I can get annoyed with each other over the stupidest things.  But I am so so happy we did this.  We caught a train to Nimes last week and while we ate overlooking the Maison Carree, Eme snoozing in her pousette, I thought, “I am so lucky, so so lucky in this life.”  When else will I get to run along the Rhone in the mornings or have a glass of wine with DK at noon on a Tuesday under a tree in Villeneuve or dance with my daughter in our little kitchen to “Blackbird” while DK laughs, filming us?  I mean, probably that last one, yes.  But I am so happy to have a slower life right now, a pace that allows for long meandering walks while our baby girl is still so small.  She fills our days, that one, and I could not love her silly goose self more. 

 
 
 
 

 

And 17 year old self?  Good call.  On both the boy and the promise. 

[Coming up: It’s not all wine and roses – in which I have to call LA POLICE twice about the asshole idiot who lives next door.]

The Emerson Chronicles Continued

 
At a rosy ten weeks, our girl Eme is curious and cooing and full of smiles and even (she said very very quietly) sleeping pretty consistently through the night, with one five minute soothe needed from mama around 3 am.  While it takes us twenty years to get out the door in the morning – read early afternoon – our worst fears are slowly dissipating.  You know, the fears that she’ll break at any moment or that our relationship is ruined forever or that we are doing it all wrong.  Please note, by we, I really mean me (DK had his own set of despairing moments, but he tends not to hyperbolize those moments into Definitive Titles of Failure.).

I’m very glad to have read Tej’s post about how trying those first few weeks can be, because my expectations were slightly more grounded in reality and not a soft-focus montage of sun-dappled days of mother and baby bonding.  Nor was I a baby neophyte, having started to babysit for newborns starting at age 12 (which . . over my dead body) and changed upteen diapers of nieces and nephews and rocked screaming babies to sleep.  And I knew that DK and I would both be at home with Eme, throwing the not-inconsiderable energy of two semi-competent adults at this endeavor.  And yet, for all this, for all the good moments (and these far, far outweighed the bad ones), I found myself sobbing hysterically in that first week or so at different times in the bathroom, in the closet, in the shower, feeling as hopeless and worthless as I ever have in my life. 

And this with a baby that was doing great: Emerson was a champion nurser from the get-go, she snoozed in my arms happily, she pooped and peed with startling alacrity.  She was beautiful and healthy, with a lovely head and rosebud lips and she smelled like a dream.  And DK’s whole family was in town to help however they could (and given his mom was a RN in pediatric surgery for 30+ years at Stanford, not a bad lady to help put things like meconium in perspective).  But there were still moments.  As I tried to explain to DK at the time, I felt like there was a total schism in my brain between the emotional and the logical – and while I could hear the logical brain whisper its two cents, the emotional brain was turned up to 11, blaring out everything else.

So, for example, I was convinced Eme was going to die or be hurt and it would be our stupid fault because we weren’t following the dictates of the Generally Accepted Wisdom.  Did we wait three weeks to take her out in public?  Non.  Try during the first week we took her (1) to the post office; (2) to a restaurant; (3) to the Met.  I found myself nursing my six day old baby in the bathroom off the American wing trying to twitch the receiving blanket into place to preserve some form of modesty and thinking, “huh, this is kind of awkward.” 

 

But all that was fine – it was, of all things, the first trip to the pediatrician that did me in.  Because the doctor’s office was only a five minute walk away and we had yet to purchase a stroller, DK plunked our little rag doll into the Baby Bjorn to carry her.  It was a freezing cold day in February so we had the hood over her head and her little face was mushed up against his chest and . . . well, I had a full on panic attack on a Tribeca street corner, tears streaming down my face, hyperventilating and hating DK with every fiber of my being because I was sure, absolutely certain, she was suffocating and he was just walking all chirpy and happily across the street.  (Note: she was 100% fine). Then there was the woman on the subway next to DK who dared cough near my baby.  Cough! On the subway! As if she was the jerk who decided to take a newborn onto the train.  I slipped on big Jackie-O sunglasses (in February.) to hide my tears and walked a few yards away, but started hiccupping until DK came over and held my hand and showed  me Eme’s face.  Her breathing little face. 

Then there was the lesser, vanity-driven episodes.  I loved being pregnant, I loved my baby belly, I felt strong and healthy and felt proud walking through the gym doing my little low-key stairmaster and hand weights, sharing smiles with the female trainers as I took the stairs down to the street level one at a time.  And then I had the baby and suddenly I was just . . . poochy.  My butt suddenly seemed much larger without the enormous baby bump to set it off, and my stomach was no longer a firm balloon, but a deflated sac and my boobs --  my god.  The day my milk came in, I made the mistake of peeking at myself in the mirror on the way to the shower. My painfully engorged breasts made Heidi Montag’s latest surgery look tasteful and restrained.  So, hormone crazed, I cried, snuffling wetly on DK’s neck that I was so . . . so hideous!  That I’d never look normal again, ever, never, ever.    

I wish I could tell myself of two months ago to chill the f*** out, to be easier on myself, to get some perspective – but I’m sure she wouldn’t have listened anymore than she listened to DK or her logical brain telling her exactly that (“Self: You JUST HAD A BABY, relax!”).  But things got better, and better quickly.  Having DK in the apartment with me all day, every day was a luxury (even during the moments we both wanted to kill each other after two straight rainy days in a row because, GOD, can we GET A LITTLE SPACE IN THIS HERE JOINT?) (also: we are both stubborn and bossy and I maybe had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to not being the only parent and maybe DK had a little bit of a hard time adjusting to me being 100% baby obsessed and occasionally looking at him like, “and you are . . .?”).  But when Eme had a little bout of crying two hours straight between 6-8pm every night for about two weeks, I could pass her to him and take a walk.  And I could shower everyday.  And cook dinner.  And go meet a friend for lunch in high heeled boots and lipstick.  Our life contracted, it shifted, but I felt most of the time like we were doing pretty good.  Lots of friends came by and visited, hanging out for hours talking and laughing and drinking wine.  We went out at least once a day, a few times out to dinner at a local favorite restaurant with Eme snoozing on my lap in a nest of coats, and once we got a stroller, I toodled around solo mio through the city while DK worked at home, stopping in cafes and doing little shops and just . . . walking around, enjoying not being at work on a Tuesday afternoon or using my blackberry except to snap quick photos of our girl to send around.   

And our girl.  Oh our girl.  She is something else. 

  

I'm happy we survied those first few weeks and I hope when we do this again, I'll remember better, be smarter, be gentler with myself and with DK, be less defensive.  I was so afraid of failing her in some inexplicable way, of not doing a good job, I made mountains out of molehills on too many occassions.  Keep her safe, keep her fed, keep her happy -- and keep living your life.  Simple, right?  Maybe more so than I thought.