2 posts tagged “france”
Tonight was a big night for me. I got to wear the Paris dress.
The Paris dress was a welcome-home gift to me from my mother in July 2004 when I moved back from France. It's a red dress with scenes of Paris like the Eiffel Tower & Sacre Coeur and various French words on it. It's lovely and very me. But it has hung in my closet (three different closets, now, actually) without ever being worn for the past 3 1/2 years, price tag still attached and everything.
Not for lack of want-to, mind you, just for lack of occasion. My life in Oregon over the past 3 1/2 years has been decidedly casual. Except for the occasional wedding, but for propriety's sake, I try not to wear red dresses to weddings, as red tends to stand out, and no one is supposed to upstage the bride that day :).
Several times my mother has brought up the Paris dress, wondering when I would wear it, why I hadn't yet. No occasion to. Just too darn dressy. Co-workers, fellow church goers, grocery store patrons, family members would all eye me more than a little suspiciously if I showed up in it to any one of the normal events of my life, and there have not been many limo rides, symphonies, cocktail parties, or galas on my schedule of late. With good reason, too, since those are events at which one has to behave themself & carry on as if the excess is not driving them crazy, and I don't do too well at that.
But tonight was the night. I was invited by a pastor friend of mine to be the hostess for a formal French dinner being served to his youth group of 100 kids. They wanted someone to speak in French to the kids as they entered, as they were served each course, as they struggled to eat cornish game hens with a fork and knife, he said. I'm your mademoiselle, I said. And they will be dressed in suits and ball gowns, he said. And I will wear the Paris dress, I said to myself, with glee unimaginable.
Pour la soirée, j’étais française à nouveau.
For the evening, I was French again.
Ma langue trouvait les mots comme si elle n’avait jamais
cessé de les utiliser.
My tongue found the words as if it
had never stopped using them.
J’étais complètement ébahie. J’ai retrouvé une partie de moi-même qui a
été cachée.
I was in my element, reawakening
this part of me that had been hiding.
C’était merveilleux...et difficile...d'entendre ces chuchotements du passé...
It was wonderful...and difficult...to hear these whispers of my past...
et je souris/j'ai mal toujours.
and I’m still
smiling/aching.
La robe, par contre, est très contente.
The dress, on the other hand, is quite content.
It is a strange week that starts out with the news of the death of a friend.
I'm still trying to sort out the feelings involved.
Pictured here is my late friend Huguette who lived in Montauban, France. She died on July 22, but I just found out this week through the monthly newsletter sent out by my church back in France.
When I left France, I knew that most likely Huguette, who was severely physically handicapped and was then in her mid-60s, would not live much longer. And I imagined even then that most likely, I would be in Oregon and one day I'd open up the church newsletter, and there'd be an obituary for her in it. And that very thing happened earlier this week.
But knowing all of that--having such foresight, as it were--didn't make the news any easier to take. It made me angrier, actually. And I'm still angry.
Her story is not a pretty one. And I so like pretty stories. I like stories that are easily blogged. This one is not.
The easily blogged version would be an eloquent eulogy to this woman who struggled with severe physical limitations yet overcame the hardship with her great faith in GOD and her ever-present hope in a day when she'd be free from this body and flying in Heaven. I would tell of the joy of watching my church be the Church to such a one in need, of my own valiant ability as a missionary to comfort, guide, and help...
But those things are not true. Well, if they are, they are barely true. So instead, this week I've been re-living the painful, maddening, not-at-all-easily-blogged reality of her story.
And I'm still trying to figure out what to do with all that and what it means for life and godliness. Very little has come of my trying yet. So until something better comes along, I'm going to keep being mad for awhile, which, in a weird way, perfectly demonstrates my love for her. That's my best tribute at this point.
