Les lettres

In my novel, the protagonist and her boyfriend (for now, I’ll call them by les pronoms français, Elle and Il*) exchange a lot of letters.

Elle has to wait weeks before she receives her first letter from Il — even though he writes to her the day she leaves the U.S. for France, his letter takes that long to arrive. She answers it, but the two don’t wait for the next letter from the other in order to write. In fact, during the year, Il writes to Elle at least once a week, and she writes to him almost as often. They talk on the telephone less than once a month, because phone calls are very expensive, and difficult to make.

How things have changed!

Neither Elle nor Il could imagine writing letters (emails), texts, tweets or updates (let alone posting photos) that the other would be able to view immediately. And if they were able to Skype or Facetime, I dare say their story might have turned out quite a bit differently. Might have.

But they don’t even imagine doing those things. The fact that their handwritten letters have to travel over an ocean by U.S. airmail makes each piece of mail from the other treasured and special. That’s why Elle, at least, keeps all of Il’s letters. That, and also because Elle is the more sentimental.

The fact is (or, the story is), Elle and Il deal with being apart while in love without the ease and speed of today’s communication methods. They wait, hope, and long to hear from each other. They think about what they write down on paper, in ink — especially when using those blue 22 cent aerogrammes. They read between the lines. They (at least, Elle) analyze. They pour their hearts out to each other. Their letters are private.

They do talk on the telephone occasionally: when drama arises, and on Christmas, of course. But their letters continue.

Today, most of us don’t write letters like theirs. We still send cards (though I believe that’s declining) and sometimes we write “formal” handwritten notes. When we write on a device or a computer, do we write differently? I think we do. When responding to an email, we may still read between the lines, but we almost have TMI — we even know the time it was written. We know our messages can be forwarded and shared and therefore, public. We are careful in what we say as a result.

Remember the letter that Elizabeth receives from Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, the one that he hand-delivers? Maybe the methods lovers use to express themselves in writing have changed. But I’m not sure that what they say has. . .

* names will be revealed later this year when the novel is released.

May 22, 2012 0

Chez Nous: Cameron Manor

“In my mind, I’m going to Carolina…” — James Taylor

Located on West Cameron Avenue in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, this house was known as Cameron Manor when I lived there during my senior year at UNC, il y a longtemps. A short walk from campus and Franklin Street and next to the “smart” fraternity house (Chi Psi), the Manor was in an ideal location for me and five other girls, all students at the university. It was also close to the Carolina Inn, Granville Towers and UNC’s co-ed fraternity, St. Anthony Hall (St. A’s), a popular spot for parties.

This photo wasn’t taken in those days, but almost two years ago, when I was in the area with my husband and my 19-year-old son Jack, a student at UGA, who had just had surgery at Duke.

Has the Manor changed? You bet it has.

I know this because when I knocked on the door one morning in July 2010, a Carolina student named Stephanie greeted me and Jack, showed us in and gave us a tour.

It was the first time I’d been inside since the day I graduated. Since then, I had visited UNC many times for one reason or another (go Heels) and had walked or driven past the six-bedroom, two-bath house, wondering if the owner still rented it to girls. When Stephanie opened the door, Jack and I introduced ourselves and I hurriedly explained my history with the Manor. One of her housemates was also home, and both the girls welcomed us in, telling us that, indeed, they had four roommates and attended UNC.

The living room looked smaller, but much, much nicer. So did the dining room, where I attended a Political Science seminar that met once a week. But the kitchen was incredible. A nook that used to contain a vinyl booth we never used had been converted into a big pantry. The rest of the kitchen had also undergone a transformation and seemed larger than I remembered. We had had a full-size refrigerator, cupboards and a sink, but no dishwasher. These girls had built-in modern applicances like the ones I have at home. For my housemates and me, a primary purpose of the room was to serve as a bar and a place for kegs when we hosted parties in the winter; during good weather, we’d put them just outside the back door. It looked to me like these girls actually cooked.

Then Stephanie showed us into her room, the same one I had lived in, one of the two ground floor bedrooms and located in the back. I was amazed. Her desk was in the same place mine had been, and so was her double bed. Her furniture was much nicer, however — I’d slept on a mattress on the floor. Her room was adorably decorated. When she took us upstairs, I pointed out the bedroom where my housemates and I had watched a famous presidential debate on television (it had been the only TV in the house). Across the hall was the bedroom where one of my roommates from my junior year in France had lived.

Overwhelmed with memories, it was hard to say goodbye a few minutes later and leave Cameron Manor again. As Jack and I walked to campus and stopped at the Old Well for a photo op, I was struck by what hadn’t changed: kids still went to class, wrote papers, studied for finals, went to parties and formed lifelong friendships. Jack loves it in Athens, but my favorite college town is still Chapel Hill. There’s just something about North Carolina…

May 17, 2012 0

La photographie

Now there’s something that has changed.

If you’re older than my teenage daughter, you may remember when taking photos was a very different process than it is today. Like so many people now, I enjoy the convenience of taking pictures with my phone or my camera (which has many features I haven’t taken the time to learn). I’m happy that I can view my photos immediately, delete the ones I don’t like, and crop lots of others. I love not having to print (or pay for) them unless they have a physical destination. And I’m grateful to be able to send pictures so easily to friends and family.

It wasn’t always this way. During my time in France many years ago, my girlfriends and I took very few photos, the main reason being that it was expensive. Taking pictures was reserved for important moments and unusual, beautiful scenes. Of course, the whole year was full of both, but, being young, we didn’t realize that. However, one day, Alison took a snapshot of me in a presque everyday moment, looking out over our 4e à droit (is it à droit, or just droit?) apartment terrace at the beach and the Mediterranean Sea.

“Look at me, Jules,” she might have said. “If this comes out, I’ll give it to you and you can send it to your boyfriend back home.”
Which I did — in an envelope, through the mail.

He kept it, and what you see above is a scan of that photo — something neither of us could imagine at the time.

Technology has changed the way we take pictures and our ability to share them, and I wonder if, in the process, it’s made them somewhat less important. A picture captures a moment in time. With so many pictures being taken now, are we mélanger-ing the moments into one big blur that might be better recorded in a video? Or are we losing those moments in a sea of other, less important ones?

What hasn’t changed about la photographie are the moments. I have boxes containing hundreds of photos of my family, the best ones preserved in scrapbooks and albums, chronicling the years and telling a story. Now I keep them on a “device” — able to be modified or deleted.

I’m glad the moments they record can never be lost or changed.

May 14, 2012 4

En attendant — Waiting

I’ve been waiting to do this for a long time.

I don’t mean, waiting to write a blog — although I hope I haven’t waited too long to do that. (About ten years ago, someone close to me suggested I start blogging. I didn’t take her very good advice, but a zillion other people did.)

No, I mean waiting to go back to France.

Like many others, I spent a year of college as an exchange student. (See stuffwhitepeoplelike.com #72 Study Abroad.) This year my husband and I will be celebrating a milestone anniversary, so we decided to take a trip to France. We’ll spend a week in the south, the weekend in Lyon, and the next week in Paris. My husband has been to France only once, going to Paris for a few days on business. So, over the last several months, I’ve been planning our trip and working on my French (my fluency has waned due to lack of practice) by attending weekly tutoring sessions with Madame Marie-Hélène.

Alors, back to the subject of waiting: I waited a long time to write a novel, and then I did it. I waited a long time to re-learn to speak French, and then I did it. I’m not waiting any longer to write this blog. Because of some of the things I rediscovered while writing my first novel and while working on the next, this blog will focus on the following theme:

The more things change, the more they remain the same. En francais: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

And one thing that doesn’t change is the necessity of waiting. Sometimes we have to wait, but sometimes we choose to wait. Since I’m starting this blog in the midst of the graduation season, some favorite lines from Dr. Seuss’ Oh, The Places You’ll Go! come to mind, about “The Waiting Place:”

“…for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go, or the mail to come, or the rain to go, or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow, or waiting around for a Yes or a No, or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

Waiting for the fish to bite, or waiting for wind to fly a kite, or waiting around for Friday night, or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake, or a pot to boil, or a Better Break, or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants, or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.

Everyone is just waiting….”

I’m not staying in The Waiting Place anymore. Are you?

May 10, 2012 4