100 things...

I made a list just over a month into our 'new life' in France...a wish list of sorts. Tired of the almost constant nagging ache for the familiar I made a list of things I wished I could do in hopes to process some of it out.  Maybe putting it out on paper would provide some kind of cathartic release...it was worth a try. I pulled out a notebook and began the list:

1. Go meet a friend for coffee.
2. Go to a bookstore.
3. Drive my car (alone).
4. Go to the grocery store (alone.)

As you can see, the start of the list revolved around my newly lost independence.  If you know me well at all you know that I am (was) always fiercely independent--I like to run my own time, I am a planner...and I hate to rely on others.

The list continued:

24. Run into someone I know.  
28. Make small talk with a stranger.
33. Answer the phone.

A handful of wishes involve the struggle with the native language and the ability to communicate.

The list goes on with some things specifically related to what I used to do at 'home':

42. Take my morning run on Rockaway Beach Road.
46. Jump in the car and drive to Walmart. (Yes, I must shamefully admit.)

Then from specific to more vague:


52. Write with passion.
55. Be inspired.
56. Help someone/make a difference.
57. Create something.
61. Be spontaneous.

And the heartbreaking:

76. Have a 'Mommy and Leo' day.
77. Have a date-night with Maxim (sushi, bookstore, and then a movie...)
78. Conversations with Leo in the car while we do errands. (backseat philosophy lessons).
80. Making choices for myself.
95. Having a routine, daily purpose.

Finally as I neared item 100 and realized that the list was not only what I wished I could do but also had morphed more into a "100 Things I didn't realize I was giving up by moving to France" list......the last item on the list:

100.  ME.

It's not that I never took into account that things would be different when you pack up and move to a foreign country.  I thought about the boys missing their friends, favorite TV shows and favorite foods.  I thought about missing my friends and favorite places.  What I didn't realize was the extremely weighty value of the routines, the ease of living with the familiar, the daily rituals...the fragments of the pieces that had made me who I was over the past forty-something years.

At the time I was making this list, which took less than an hour, I found a song by a favorite Seattle band, Pearl Jam, called 'Wish List".  I coincidentantly stumbled upon it on You Tube while surfing for music (as French radio stations seem to be lacking and my play lists on my Ipod had 'accidentally' been deleted since arriving in France...).  It's a short little song about wishes...some absurd, some nonsensical, but all having one thing in common---futility.  That's why it stuck with me, as much as it was supposed to be a casual little diddy probably written by Eddie Vedder on a scrap of cocktail napkin and made into a short song never intended to be recorded...the futility of the wish list branded itself in my heart.

Some of my wishes were things that in time will work their way out--I am already driving my car on my own, going to the grocery store in the next town without assistance (except my cell phone and pocket dictionary) while other items on my wish list will remain terminally futile--running on Rockaway Beach Road, going to Pike Place Market or shopping at U-Village....date nights with Maxim will never be the exact same as they were.  Someday we will have friends over for dinner again (# 60)  and I like to think I am close to returning to cooking creatively (#39) and writing with passion (#52).

Taking on this new life in France has been viewed by many as an adventure, and it goes without saying, no adventure comes sans sacrifice....some things given up will never be found in the same way again, other things will return as new. Seeking those things is the true adventure.

In the meantime--as Eddie Vedder would say..." I wish, I wish, I wish, I wish.....I guess it never ends."