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…

Share

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…

Share

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…

Share

Transforming Apples and Oranges

Wherein all our hero wants is a phone number. Theseus was a hero who would not take bull from anyone. To save the Athenians from Cretan tyranny, he had to navigate a labyrinth and slay the ferocious minotaur – then, worst of all, he had to find his way back out again. Of course, a…

Share

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…

Share