Ta Maman vs. Yo Momma

I have a theory, and as far as I'm concerned it was confirmed beyond reasonable doubt last night at the bar, and the glory of pursuing writing, rather than a PhD in linguistics (which I've considered at length before) is that as a layperson I can use bar conversations as evidence and you can all just understand what I mean, whereas as an academic I have to spend three paragraphs describing what I mean by my name, which is even then apt to be questioned at some point.

I can also write really long sentences, Dickens-sytle.

So here's my theory. Having learned English, Spanish, some Tibetan, and some French, and having read some snatches of Italian and discussed this very question last night with a Phillipino man, I have realized that in every single one of these languages, the word that people use to call their mothers starts with an "m" sound. And the word that people use to call their papa starts with a "p" sound, or, in our case a "d."

With deference to Daddies, though, I will start with the "m" sound in mother-words. The "m" sound, present in all these languages, is formed by putting the lips together and breathing out while you open them. That's it. Closing, opening, breathing. It's an incredibly simple sound to make.

The "p" sound, similarly, requires closing, opening, breathing. And so the words we use to call our first people, the pillars of our infant world, the only people we really need to call out to in those first months of life, all begin with those simple sounds. Close, open, breathe.

Compare to, say, the "scra" sound. Or the "thra" sound, or even just the "na" sound, which requires a little more coordination - putting the tongue behind the front teeth and humming through it.

And also the way life wouldn't seem much worth living if our first words were "Scrotum" or "Thoracic."

And then, for the sake of general interest, you could just run through all the sounds you happen to know how to make and dwell on how basically fascinating it is that we've mastered some specific sets of sounds based on where we grew up, and that we use these sets of sounds - this closing, opening, breathing, humming and throating - to express anger. And love. And exasperation with customer service professionals.

It's that same set of sounds that we use to say things like, "No, I'm not stoned. I just think it's interesting."

That being said, it's incredibly easy to say "Mama" in French. And spanish. And Tibetan, and Tagala (the indigenous language of Phillipino/as). It's a basic and necessary enough sound that any of us could do it in any language. Sadly, if I go on to say ANYTHING else it becomes painfully clear that I am not French.

Because, of course, I didn't grow up hearing "r" pronounced through the back of the throat, as if with disgust. And I didn't grow up only half-pronouncing the few letters of words that aren't purely decorative. So its hard. It's easier in Spanish, for me, because pronunciation is so purely phonetic. If a letter is there, you say it. Not so much in French.

Sometimes the best way to describe French pronunciation is to place some set of letters at the end of the word in parenthesis, as though they are an afterthought. Like the "n" in vin (wine) & copain (friend). It's as if the n was there, hanging out with the rest of the letters, but it left when it saw you coming and now only its smell remains.

The good news is, if you get completely confused, and feel like a total ugly American with big, angular speech, you can always buy un boteille de vin for about 1 euro and drink it in anywhere you please. Then you can drink another, curl up in the fetal position, babble incoherently, and beg for your Maman. This, at least, they'll understand. They might even think you're French.

Housepet vs. A Four-Legged Instruement of Torture

I wrestled with so many different titles for this post. Northern Ireland vs. Ireland. The UK vs. Ireland. The chemist vs. the pharmacist.

I've spent all week at Ben and Lisa's friends' country house in Loughbrickland, a tiny village just north of the border between the Republic of Ireland and the UK (Northern Ireland). One main way to tell the difference is the speed limit signs; in Northern Ireland they use mph, in Ireland proper, kph. Which is to say, as our host William did, that you can't suddenly go twice as fast just south of Newry.

William said some other interesting things, too. He caught me up on the IRA, Irish Nationalism, the Protestant/Catholic thing, etc. Apparently it was a big deal for some 350 years, but for the first 340 years I was not yet in existence, and for the last 10 I was a child. So you can forgive me for not knowing the whole story.

William said, in conclusion, that the time between the point where everyone realized fighting was pointless, and the point where they actually signed a treaty was about 15 years because "The dead bully you. 'Specially your own dead."

Belfast, which is about 40 minutes north of Loughbrickland, is palpably trying to become a tourist town. For so long, nobody in their right mind wanted to go there, but now that's changing a bit, and the Belfastians are milking everything they can out of the fact that the Titanic was constructed in their great shipyards.

Anyway, back to Loughbrickland. We stayed in a house that has been in William's family since the 17th century, complete with hanging portraits of the ancestors from that time, and situated on 100 idyllic acres of Irish countryside. Just behind the house is a fort that dates back to 800 or 1000 ad. All that remains is the dramatic way in which they restructured the land, digging one deep, circular ditch between two steep circular banks.

I photographed it but, alas, you'll just have to wait.

I actually took quite a few pictures in Ireland. The quality of the color and light here is so compelling that not only did I photograph it, but I was also motivated to actually adjust the settings on my camera (something I haven't ventured to do since i purchased it five years ago) in order to more accurately capture the scenes. We'll see what luck I had.

All would be completely well - the countryside, the first pilgrimage to the motherland (Kelly Jean is an Irish name if there ever was one), the tea, the BBC - if it weren't for the fact that, unbeknownst to me, this particular well-meaning family is in possession of two housecats. For those of you lucky enough to not be allergic, you'll think: "Oh, how nice. Country cats in country house. What could be sweeter?"

But if, like me, the presence of cat dander causes your lungs to seize up, and your chest to close, and general misery to ensue, you'll probably think: "Why do people insist upon keeping four-legged instruments of torture as pets? It's like having a beehive in the living room. It's like giving loaded guns to children as toys."

I took a trip to the chemist earlier this week to get drugs for my affliction, and he showed me no sympathy. I guess I expected him to hold me in his arms and stroke my hair, and tell me it would be alright, and if I did have a life-threatening asthma attack I could call him in the middle of the night and he'd rush over with an inhaler. But no, he simply gave me an antihistamine and went back to his chemist-ing. The most I can say for him is that his Irish accent was much better than John Wayne's in that classic movie The Quiet Man.

Cats aside, if I ever have children and do not return with them to this place when they are between 6 and 10 years old, I will be doing them a great disservice. The woods, the horses, the climbing trees, the trampoline. So plans are underway. I've made a reservation for four for 15 years from now, God willing.

(If you make a reservation and include "God Willing," in the contract, then you cannot be held financially responsible for your absence. If God did not will it, then how can they charge your credit card with a clear conscience?)

We return home tomorrow. Well, not home in the grand sense of the world, but Paris. And maybe it is home, if it's true, what they say: "Home is where you hang your cat. With a shoelace."

That may have been a bit gruesome. Instead, I offer you a line in perhaps the most quintessential Irish movie of the past year: The Departed. Leonardo DiCaprio remarks to Vera Farmiga: "You don't have a cat. I like that." It is important to note that Leo was playing the good guy.

In conclusion, sadly, most of my homes have a cat in or near them. Shit. I guess nobody feels sorry for me. Not my boyfriend. Not my mother. Not the Irish chemist. I'm completely alone in the world.

I don't know, CAN you?

I discovered a writing group here in Paris, held in English at the revered and aforementioned Shakespeare & Co. The group has been good motivation to write, although my long story needs so much work that I think that maybe I will just give up and go to law school after all.

NO! Faith, good soldier. The war has not been lost yet.

Besides motivation, the writing group also provides merry company. (Get it? Shakespeare & ...) Sorry, terrible. The French are obsessed with bad puns and it's rubbing off. I went with them to a lesbian bar called Les Jacasses last night - easily the best bar in Paris so far. I learned, first by watching and then by asking, how to actually ask for something politely in French. "Est-ce que je peux...?" is how one would say, basically, "May I..." But I have just been saying, "Je peux?"

I think we all know that the little words are sometimes the hardest to learn. So, it turns out that I have been going around Paris just making simple, declarative sentences, but using the tone of voice of a question. "I can have glass of water?" "I can use chair?" "I can use toilet?"

This mixup has added new importance to the constant refrains of my grammatically-correct family. "Mommy, can I have some water?" "I don't know, can you?" Blah, blah, blah. But I see now that she was right. Adam and Meyer have this endearing way of saying things like, "Kelly, may you get the toaster down for me?" Or, "Kelly, may you clean up my mess?" Something about it makes it seem that even though they're asking me to do something for them, that somehow they're affording me a great honor. I haven't corrected them as I think they may find it useful later in the never-ending lifelong battle to get what it is you want.

So that's a short entry, but I'm offering, in place of the usual blog, a piece of microfiction I wrote on the metro. Microfiction is defined as very very very small fiction. You can read story?

What the Cars Missed: A True Story

On the way to the Belleville stop, past the church with the mass in Creole, I pass a woman selling corn which she roasts over coals set up in a shopping cart. Necessity must be so proud of her daughter! The corn costs 2 Euro. 13 Francs. 2 dollars and seventy-point-something cents.

On the metro, I am lost in my book. I only glance up to check the outside stops against the inside maps. Even when I know where I’m going, I am the type to keep careful track of my passage.

A man boards at Madeleine Concord. He is laden with a backpack, a sleeping pad, and other accoutrements of travel. Travel, but not poverty. His sleeping bag swings and almost hits me in the face. When the door closes, he spreads his arms wide against it, rests his head on the glass, and sobs.

He is so sad that I want to reach out and touch his arm, ask if he’s okay, but of course I don’t. I just steal furtive glances at him and force my eyes to rest elsewhere – on my book, on the map. I see a tear poised on the tip of his nose, but I don't have time to see it fall without staring, which is rude.

At La Tour-Maubourg, he gets off.

I notice the other passengers now, fellow witnesses. There is a group of nuns. I can’t discern their ethnicity. They look South American but they’re not speaking Spanish. They wear blue habits and bright green sashes and chatter rapidly.

The man beside me is handsome. He is reading a book in French, and he has shoes with sparkles on them. We both get off at Ecole Militaire but I lose sight of him in an upscale food shop. The kind where a sandwich costs 13 euro. (85 Francs. 17 dollars and fifty cents.)

On the return trip I am tired. I get out again at Belleville and watch a man sprint down the walkway that runs through the middle of the Blvd. de la Villete. Another man chases him, and at first I think they’re just having fun, but then the first man trips. I see his reflection in a parked car as he falls forward. The second man catches him, and I understand now that they’re not playing. The first man pleads, in high, frantic tones, as if for his very life.

It occurs to me, as I keep walking, worried for the pleading man but knowing that I’m completely unequipped to do anything about it, that I haven’t driven a car or ridden in a car for months now. And I don’t miss it. Not at all. And I think: maybe this is why so many middle-class Americans are so ignorant. They just never use public transportation.

I walk home, marking each cross street along the way. Once I’m in bed, I open up my book again to read myself to sleep. My book is in English. It’s thick and very informative. It is a new, highly celebrated, history of Paris.

The Grown-Up World, The Kid World, and Le Monde

Firstly, let me apologize again for the lack of pictures. Sigh. You must continue to be patient with me, as my camera is apparently so special, so unique, so ethereally wonderful that it can only transfer digital information through an equally rare and special cable which can only be found in a gilded box, guarded by a three-headed fire-breathing dragon, lying at the center of the Fountain of Youth.

On August 4th, we celebrated the boys' third birthday. (Worthy of note is the fact that they received Fisher Price digital cameras, so even they can take and transfer pictures, even if it's thirty-five pictures of the floor.)

We took them to the Open Air Sculpture museum, right on the Seine, which is free to the public and allows interaction with the sculptures. One can climb on them, touch them, photograph them (which the boys did adamantly, with varied results) and even (if you are French) put out cigarettes into their recesses. What a mix of man and art! I have a daydream of playing hide-and-go-seek there when Michael (happy now?), Justin and Kat are all here.

Adam particularly loved the sculptures, and he is an avid photographer. He also captured many zoo creatures in the nearby menagerie we visited, part of the [also free] Jardin de Plantes.

The menagerie is the oldest in the world, and is the one featured in Madeline books. This very spot held the tigers in the zoo (to whom Madeline simply said, Pooh-pooh).

As they grow, so does their love of books. I read much Madeline, which is why I always want to start emails with: I am in Paris and feeling fine...

For their birthday, then, I went to the famous English-language bookstore across from Notre Dame called Shakespeare & Company. This spot is a must for any future visitors - an expat eccentric started it about 50 years ago, and it has been host to many writers, visitors and wanderers. One can even stay there for free, in exchange for a couple hours of work a day.

While there, I bought The Wind in the Willows for them, an old favorite of mine, and Hugo's Notre Dame de Paris for me. More on that later. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading WITW to them; so much so that I've decided the main reason to procreate is to read the books you loved to your children. Or, in the case of my friend Mike Hurewitz, to show them Star Wars.

While reading WITW the other day, I came to the part where Toad says to Rat and Mole, "I want to show you the world!" And Meyer, well into his "Why" phase, asked me, "Kelly? What is the world?"

And I, faced with perhaps the most poetic & beautiful opportunity of my life, replied: "Ummm, well....."

And now the blog really starts. Because watching children grow in their comprehension of language, I am struck by how much it mirrors my own comprehension of any new language. In fact, I often say that the best way to learn a language is to do exactly what young children do: Listen. Pick up a few things. Practice them. Master them. Listen more. Ask. And then, of course, employ your grown-up meta-logic & memory to put things in context.

The mistakes Adam and Meyer make when they speak English are the same sorts of mistakes I make in French. Adam says "his" or "him" or "he" for everyone. ("When is he coming?" referring to my mother.) In French, I am constantly confused about which words are masculine and which are feminine. I may have implied that my mother's husband is in some way female.

Poor Mommy. There's really a lot of miscommunication about her these days. I assure you there is nothing alternative about her lifestyle.

But I digress. So I set out to answer Meyer's question. "The world," I said (in that slow, stupefied voice employed by adults to answer these exact sort of questions) "is everything. Everything you can see, and everything you can't. More or less."

Meyer and Adam began pointing to various objects. Windows, sheets, cars, bicycles, people, floors, etc. Asking about each, in turn, "Kelly? Is that the world?" And I would say, "Yes." We even went on a walk, Meyer and I, pointing out things that were the world. Umbrellas. Coffee. Signs. Until Meyer said, "Kelly? I'm tired of pointing out things that are the world. Can we talk about something else?"

I said yes. But you, dear reader, will not be so lucky.

The english "world" comes from the old english woruld, meaning "human existence, the affairs of life," from the literal "Age of Man" ("wer," man + "ald," age). It has, of course, also taken on a geopolitical connotation, but we should try to stick to the basics with a topic like this, else the following conversation occur:

Meyer: "Kelly? What's geopolitical?"
Me: It means physical places and nation-states.
Meyer: Kelly? What's a nation-state?
Me: It's a group of people united under one government, and I think one sort of common identity? I don't know, exactly.
Meyer: Kelly? Why don't you know exactly?
Me: Because I don't know everything, Meyer.
Meyer: Why don't you?

And so forth. Parents, teachers: You know.

In French, the word for world is "le monde." Just as in Spanish (el mundo) it is masculine. It comes from the Latin "mundus," used to indicate "world" and meaning, literally, "clean, elegant." Interesting, non?

"Clean, elegant," came to be used to describe the physical world, expressed by Pythagorus, and was a translation from the Greek "khosmos," meaning "orderly arrangement." In Latin, "mundus" is also used to refer to women's clothing.

So the world is masculine, but clothing is not. But both are clean and elegant, ideally.

Anyway, the Latin languages used an approach to world which came from an inherent sense of order and the germanic languages used an approach which came from the affairs of man.

In the context that I am trying to elucidate for Meyer and Adam, I like the germanic root better; it encompasses the incredible disarray that constitutes so much of le monde. Things like babies, big kids, restaurants, sausage, mothers, fathers, books and nannies - and other things that largely compromise Adam & Meyer's world.

It is gratifying to see Meyer's face light up, when he points to a sewer, and says (with great excitement), "Kelly! Sewers! Those are part of the world, too!"

A world which they are avidly photographing, alas, while I am not.