Flashback

Today I had two visual stimuli for a flashback to France. The first came as I was shredding receipts. We keep our receipts for 6 months, then shred them. The only reason this system works is because we only have 6 folders for the year—each folder shares a month. I needed the January folder to stash a receipt in so I had to shred the July receipts today. In that folder I found our boarding passes to get home from France. Then I went to Costco and there, right by checkout—like a Costco-style impulse purchase—were glass vases with tulips blooming in them. Real, beautiful, bright tulips. When we arrived in France in April, tulips were everywhere. The weather was unseasonably cool and my mood was a little dark, but everywhere I went there were these tulips that challenged my inner-gloom just by standing up straight and tall. I can’t say I have felt “homesick” for France since we got back, but just for a second, I did.

I’m not sure I can re-create for you the feeling of setting out each day armed with only a map (laminated and overlaid with the Metro stops); a gigantic stroller which also doubled as a restraining device; some hygiene essentials—diapers, wipes, hand sanitizer; a cell phone that only had one number programmed in it—Andy’s; a few apples, some cheese and a knife to cut and spread it with; a few euros to buy bread with; 3 children aged 4 and under and a total reliance on the kindness of strangers. I can see myself in my mind’s eye pushing that behemoth up the sloped streets of our neighborhood to our Metro stop, with a few walking tour cards stashed in my stroller pockets as a guide for the day and I feel empowered. That’s how I felt looking at those tulips: they had defied the cold and the wind, I had defied common sense and taken my family to live in Paris in an apartment the size of our living room. We had something in common. (Too bad I still didn’t buy the tulips—I am so cheap.)

Unfortunately, looking at our boarding passes didn’t provoke similar feelings of sentimental warmth. Nope. They reminded me of the stress of getting anywhere in France with a family. I remembered I have never preserved for posterity the account of getting home—mainly because I was too busy sleeping and throwing up for several weeks once we got here. So I’m inserting it here into our family narrative here. Well, actually, tomorrow.