lille
Je Me Souviens
Despite now having an extremely busy jammed into the gap that separates my present self from my sabbatical self, France remains with me in powerful, often disconcerting ways. Some days, it washes over my mind in rich colours and textures, like a quilt that’s both exotic and familiar all at once. At other moments, it…
Transforming Wistfulness
I recently wrote about the regret I feel over France. The eight months we spent there felt wasted to me, because of the cultural whiplash I inflicted upon our daughter; because of the resulting need to homeschool her for half our time in Lille; and because that homeshooling robbed me of the chance to write…
Transforming Estaminets
As our time abroad comes to be measured in weeks instead of months, our planning becomes precious; we feel we must choose wisely if we are to snatch up a few final, essential experiences. For who knows when we will be back this way? Sometimes this involves seeking out enriching cultural events, like this week’s…
Transforming Hermitage
Transforming Jeux de Rôles
One thing I knew I’d need for sure once I got settled in to France: a tabletop role-playing group. Role-playing is probably my longest-lived hobby, and although it has recently graduated to part of my professional freelance repertoire, I still place it somewhere on the spectrum between pastime and obsession. It’s social and creative, it…
Transforming Puerility
Transforming Apples and Oranges
Transforming Thresholds
Transforming Cannonboobs
We’re sitting in a terrace outside Moulin D’Or, a restaurant in the Place du Théâtre, one of Lille’s many town squares. Actually we’re in the second-class terrace – the covered tables are for customers ordering food, mostly mussels or meat pies; mere coffee drinkers like ourselves sit on the outside of the fenced-in patio, closer…