May 18, Villard-de-Lans.

My boys in the woods (we gathered pieces of bark, from spruce trees and elm trees, fallen, their texture like art, hollered at lucky cows, smelled the grass.)

May 17, Saint-Ismier.

Today is a holiday in France (another one of those Christianity-based holiday religiously honored as a day off in the most non-religious country in the world) and we drove to the Vercors mountains and to the town of Villard-de-Lans, where I spent most my childhood summers.  It was the last stop for my brother Patrick, who died there another summer almost twenty years ago.
We hiked a short trail, had lunch at the café we always went to, walked the streets we always walked and where I remember a perfect childhood bliss, and everything looked exactly the same, the same shops, the same atmosphere, and not even a new building around to spoil the scenery, breathtaking, the town looks as pastoral and postcard-perfect as it did thirty years ago, and it was resplendent in the spring light.

It's Hollande.

May 6, Saint-Ismier.

Joy then, in spite of all the years gone by, in spite of time, and doubts.
Memories of so long ago, 1981 and the arrival of Mitterand, a breath of fresh air, and I was improbably young then, and we moved to Paris shortly after, out of the miasma of decrepit sun-seekers to the electric youth of Paris, in time with what felt like the much-needed renewal of the country, so long in the hands of the right, so stagnant and old, a breath of fresh air with the first Socialist president, thirty years later and in spite of all the disillusions and the distance, in spite of such a different world and such a different life, joy still, and pride in this country that is not quite my own anymore now, pride for electing a new Socialist president and choosing a new hope.
And I can almost taste that vibrancy again, the youth, the electric hope, on the eve of going back to the U.S. and starting life anew on my own.

 April 22, Saint-Ismier.

Gourmand: one who loves to eat, for the sheer pleasure of eating (there is no exact translation in English, a word to be invented.)
Each day I encourage Dylan to write a new word, then illustrate it.  Small, giant steps.

Cold skies.

April 19, Paris.

There'll always be Paris.

April 19, Paris.

Paris holiday, with kids and Mom, five days filled to the brim with wonders, the Eiffel Tower, a so-French puppet called Guignol, the science discoveries at Parc de la Villette, crossing the city by boat, five days almost marred by the cold and rain but not quite.

Things left in the park (Easter stroll.)

April 9, Saint-Ismier.

Nicolas turned five and we had a party with Jules and Augustin et les autres, since Gaspard couldn't make it.
Easter came and went and we had an egg hunt in the house, the first in an actual house, maybe the reason gilded memories of my childhood came rushing back. I didn't grow up in a circus, but maybe I wished I did. The long Easter week end came and went and we headed for a park and threw stones in a pond.

The sky over Belledonne (feeling melancholy.)

March 23, Saint-Ismier.

Fanny's gone.

March 23, Saint-Ismier.

Today was Fanny's last with us.
Fanny was Nicolas' teacher and I loved her as much as he did. She had been substituting for six months and was supposed to come back each Friday to provide a crucial continuity for the kids, but was yanked at the last minute, this afternoon, because the French Education Ministry lacks replacement teachers after years of cutbacks in hiring. She has endured twelve years of this and still remains a great teacher. I'll miss her.

Waiting for spring.

March 18, Saint-Ismier.

It has turned summery, all of a sudden, and it has made life easier, but time still yawns and the days are long, sometimes, even when the kids make them fly, and I long for the companion of my road, and for the road.
We go for walks in the sunny breeze, and Dylan adopts a beetle and sets it down gently back in its post after taking it for a ride, time to listen to a dreadlocked donkey bray, and Nicolas says he's too loud.