Carnet de français
Carnet de français
I've been doing a significant amount of memoir and journal writing lately, and in fact a significant portion of that I have written directly in French. Partly as an exercise I'd be doing anyway, and partly on the explicit direction of one of my fantastic iTalki teachers. I've been posting some of it here. In honor of the fact that I'm leaving for Paris in a few days, I thought that perhaps for today's post I would translate some of my own entries into English and weave them into a kind of sequence.
There will be no post on August 25th. It's the day after my birthday and I'll be in Paris recovering from a boat ride down the Seine and a late night dinner. Life is hard. See you again in September.
This evening I came to my hometown to visit my sister and her son, my nephew. They have always lived here, but I left twenty-six years ago.
Twenty-six years. Imagine that.
On the eve of my departure, I was twenty years old and my nephew had not been born yet. This is a fact, among many facts that are only facts, which nevertheless always surprise me. In this case: at the time my nephew didn't exist yet, and both my parents still did. Today it's the opposite. They no longer exist, and he has entered into life, where I hope he will remain for decades after I leave all this behind.
Back then, I was twenty years old and full of plans to conquer the world. I planned to become a great cultural figure, somehow able to write both the Great American Novel and a great symphony at the same time.
It will come as no surprise that nothing of the sort happened. Surely my unwritten symphonies would have been better than my unpublished books. So I took the wrong road. Too bad. It happens.
In any case, I've done fine for myself. I'm happy with my journey so far, and the road ahead remains open.
One last day in my hometown. Or rather, one last morning. I got up half an hour early, took the opportunity to pack my bags right away, and then thanks to this decision, I had a full hour free to read while drinking coffee.
I chose a book by Arthur Brooks entitled From Strength to Strength. It's about aging, and how to stay happy despite the difficulties that old age brings us. By chance, I'd recently started reading a French book that deals with the same subject, L'aventure de vieillir (The Adventure of Aging) by Marie de Hennezel. I recommend both. It's certain that the first half of my life is behind me, at almost 46 years old, and it seems quite unlikely to me that I might survive to the age of 90. Anyway, I don’t want to. Anything is possible, but all the same, you don’t often hear about 90-year-olds who are in great shape. I cherish my good days and remain aware that they are, even if still numerous, brutally limited all the same.
The rest of the day passed quickly. I had a session with a French teacher in my car (on iTalki), and then, after driving to a gas station near the airport, I had another session with a colleague, a meeting about my music studio. After that, I returned the rented car, submitted to airport security, two drinks at the bar and boarded the plane, where I wrote these words on my phone...
"In forging, one becomes a blacksmith." Someone said this French proverb to me on iTalki, and I was struck by the relationship between this saying and the corresponding English one, “practice makes perfect”. The first saying is a cliché in French, of course, but to my foreign ear, it calls to mind a particular image, and the English version is much more abstract. In any case, as soon as I heard the French saying, my sessions on the piano, or those spent drawing, have been accompanied by the distant sound of a hammer hitting an anvil.
A rather boring day. It was good, but I had to finish my budget, do the accounting for my company, and I also had other jobs, other responsibilities. When the time came to teach, I was very happy to go to the school and see my students.
I only had one hour of the morning to spend according to whim, and I used it well. I studied a little bit of Latin, read a very famous history of European art, and continued with Arthur Brooks and Annie Ernaux. Two cups of coffee and a shower, and suddenly it was evening. As always.
Tonight my wife and I are at a bar celebrating our marriage "for real". In scare quotes because we’ve been married for five years. It’s just that the state is aware of it now. Too bad we had to tell them, but necessary in the end. All the same — something to drink to!
This morning it’s sunny, I'm having black coffee, and just listening to the cars in the street. And I'm writing in my journal. A very typical morning at home. I've been keeping a diary for 37 years almost, my first efforts when I was 9 years old, searching for words in English, my native language, in the same way that lately I search for words in French. The adventure of learning French has had a particular effect on me: a reminder of the romance of language. When I was young, I learned new words every day, noticed useful expressions and integrated them into my own pieces of writing, my own efforts. I had a sense of growing power — the power of expression.
It's almost the same today in French, except that I still have trouble expressing myself in speech. Yesterday I complained to a French teacher about my frustration with this. I had easily read a somewhat technical article and only needed to look up 3 unknown words. But when it comes to generating all that myself, not writing, but only speaking is much more difficult. He encouraged me. "It’s possible, you can do it, you just have to train, train, train." He's right, of course, but sometimes I lack both confidence and patience.
Anyway. In a few minutes a French class starts, 90 minutes every Friday on the subject of French poetry. Until now, we have studied Marie de France, Jean de la Fontaine, Rimbaud, Verlaine, Hugo, Baudelaire, Apollinaire, Césaire. I like the teacher, so I signed up for the next series that starts in the fall, but she told me that another will give the class. Too bad.
After that, a little work and the weekend begins, almost my vacation. Tuesday we leave. Paris is waiting for us!