Départ et Arrivée

I took the airport shuttle from Sonoma County Airport at 0945 Wednesday, left SF airport at 1450 flew through Frankfurt to Toulouse and arrived in the village of Soreze at 1900 (GMT, that's +9 hrs to CA time) on Thursday night. It was a very long day and one of the more grueling Lufthansa flights that I have taken to date.

I usually fly SF=>Munich=>Toulouse, but I thought I'd try this route through Frakfurt because it got me into Toulouse in the afternoon rather than at 8:50 pm -- too late to get the Arc en Ciel (Rainbow) bus to Revel (the town next to Soreze) where the car would be waiting for me.

I am here to report that Frankfurt is a much less organized/user friendly airport than Munich. And the plane SF=>Frankfurt is a Boeing 747, a world of difference from the Airbus Industrie A340, which has more leg room, individual, seat back video screens, 7 bathrooms downstairs at the back of the plane in Economy. The A340 has been designed in such a way that sitting in the cattle section is bearable.

The leg room on the Boeing 747 was crippling. I was in the window seat of a three combo. Next to me was a ! 97 year-old ! Turkish lady, in hijab with raisin eyes, and on the aisle her ~80 year-old son. Very nice people, but she did/could not move out of her seat during the whole 10.5 hour flight. And the three of seats in front of us were tilted back. Every time I had to get out to go to the bathroom it was a laughable contortion exercise.

Son and mother were both very decent about it, helpful even. By the end of the flight we were compatriots. But my knees were locking up. I don't think that has ever happened before. And, in my full time work period, I flew a Lot.

Speaking of good design, the snack on the commuter flight Frankfurt=>Toulouse was a model of thoughtful packaging. It was pasta salad with a mini sausage patty on top and a packet of good saltines. The two edibles and the eating implement all came stacked in what was essentially a drinking cup divided into compartments. The plastic fork, actually a spork, as you can see in the close-up, was tucked up into the "Be Invited" Lufthansa snack lid. Once you got it out of its wrapping you just snapped the handle flat and were ready to eat. The pasta salad and saltines were actually a decent, homestyle-German-type of snack.

When I arrived in my little house here, there were some supplies for breakfast waiting for me on the table. Monique had been over to turn on the heat and she left a note inviting me over for a bowl of soup and a warm up by their wood stove.

What would I do without the friends on either end of this journey?!

I woke up at 6 am quite jetlagged this morning, turned on the gas fireplace to warm the bathroom and drew a deep, hot bath in which to soak my travel weary knees, ankles and bones.


When I went around the corner at 11 to get milk from the Utile for my tea, I was surprised by the little Friday market. The vendors used to only come to our small village (Pop. 2500 including the outlying areas) in the summer, but it seems they have hung on through the winter this year. I was able to get farm fresh eggs (only 1.50€ for 6 here), spinach, green onions and a little cœur de chèvre (goat cheese) with which to make an omelet for my dinner tonight.

It is the heart in the journey that makes it all worthwhile.

Bisous from Soreze,

N2

Man Becoming Tree

We have had sunny, dry weather for the last week -- a good time to get the

tree trimming done in the yard, to ask the taller trees to give some air and

light to their smaller tree and plant brethren below.

A good friend, retired tree trimmer turned chiropractor, offered to lend a hand,

a chainsaw and to utilize his pair of tree climbing spurs.

Another friend recommended Francisco lo Fantástico and made sure that my smaller chain saw was sharp. My neighbor donated the community truck to carry away the brush. We gathered on Saturday at noon, and were off climbing in the air and chopping on the ground.

A satisfying day with hard working men. Light increased, space made

for the fruit trees to flourish, dead wood cleared away, trees more becoming.

I give thanks for a day of generosity and good company.

Gracias a todos!

Wishing you a week of the same.

x0

N2

Christmas & New Year. Passed.

Started this post some time ago and, though time has moved on, I didn't want to leave this one in the Draft bin. So here's a flash back to the season just past.

The California swag.

The festive window 'o' teddy bears, round the corner in San Francisco.

Decorating at the library for the children's Christmas story.

My mom's madonna, out of storage for Christmas.

Table and prezzies

at the ready.

Friends, charades, finger food, bubbly and a fire -- a great way to welcome in the New Year!

It looks like 2011 will bring transformation and completion that will be the result of an unusual perspective and require some sacrifice which I will have the courage to make given the support of my community. It will be interesting to see how this new year, and the new decade which it begins, unfolds.

Wishing you Health and Happiness as we move into 2011.

Bisous,

N2

Corn Tiger Update, Part I

I am back home in No California and recovered from the cold I picked up along the way. Past time to catch you up and, of course, I must start with the Dear Daughter and the Corn Tiger.

One of his favorite toys is the stuffed octopus rocking horse that plays five tunes that his Manny George gave him. It's the type of gift that the Mom and Dad look at and say "Huh...", but that turns out to be the child's chosen plaything. He can just about get on and get off by himself, and he likes to bounce along to the "Colors of the Rainbow" song while the whole family sings along.

The family - the Dear Daughter, the Dad, the Manny and the Grand Boy, made the trip over from Brooklyn to Manhattan for Thanksgiving and joined the family at Central Park West for dinner. Iris provided the beautiful setting, she, Asia and I collaborated on the feast.

I got to give Corn Tiger lot's 'o' keeses and his Mom got to introduce him to ginger ale...

"Wow! What was That?!"

He got to sit in the "big boy", Enzo's, high chair and play with his toys, and Enzo got to learn about sharing.

There was much to be Thankful for!

More soon, Love for now.

x0

N2

Thanks. Giving.

The Dear Daughter and the Corn Tiger, Williamsburg Brooklyn, November 2010.

Ancien Combattant Jour (Veteran's Day)

Yesterday was Veteran's Day here in France as well. It was a school

holiday and sunny, after a few days of chilly rain, so it had a festive air.

Monsieur le Maire, as we all call the mayor of our little village, loves to come to civic

and cultural events and he always gives a little speech. I love the fact that he wore a

tri-color ribbon across his chest for this one and that he had written a prepared speech.

The Utile, our little grocery store in the village, was closing at 12:30, so I dashed out door to pick up a couple of things for dinner and was surprised by the group that had gathered to

honor the veterans just around the corner from my house. Some had stopped in their

tracks on the way to the bakery or the Utile and stood respectfully listening to the mayor's speech in silence. The veteran's band played a short number afterwards and that was it.

A group flocked to the cafe for a coffee or a beer, others continued on to

the bakery for their baguette or to the Utile for butter.

Short, respectful and sweet.

Hugs from Here.

N2

La Danse des Branches (The Dance of Branches)

The road to Puylaurens from Soreze.

I wrote this poem a couple of years ago, but it kept coming to mind

as I drove along the country lanes in today's changeable weather.

Les Platanes

with thanks to Emily Dickinson

There’s a certain slant of light

falling through a tunnel of trees

that fills my soul with clear delight

as branches dance in rainy breeze.

The silver swirling beams of light

reach toward me filled with rain

as I drive home on Friday night

glad to be in France again.

Long corridors of les platanes

arms held high in salutation

swaying with the light and rain

bless me, move me to elation.

The music swells, I feel the beat

the car and I swing down the lane

no longer sitting in my seat

I’m light that’s rising in the rain.

Bisous,

N2

Because everyone needs...

...a little Corn Tiger in their life!

Been missing the boy so I had to consolidate some of the pictures the Dear Daughter sent by mail of our Boy's Life in Brooklyn. Just looking through them makes me ache to hold the boy.

Water play with Dad.

(She sent a video of him in the sink singing, but he's nekkid, so that one is for Nana's eyes only.)

Corn Tiger with his tiger...look at those chub rolls =o)

Enjoying the pull of gravity...

Sitting up like a big boy at 6 months.

Nearly standing in his new, cool mini-Vans, ~7 months.

And now, for my last trick...

Love that Funny Redheaded Boy!

Hugs from Here,

N2

Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived

The CCiiff Film Festival ended last night when the final film, Empire of Silver (Bai Yin Di Guo), VO Chinese with English subtitles, screened in Revel. The festival was truly a bringing together of many cultures, with films coming from China, Africa, Europe, South America, USA, ..., with many points of view and in many languages, subtitled in French or English.

Of the 13 films which I saw in the ten days of the festival, there was one which gave me some new perspective on my own country and where we are today: Virtual JFK: Vietnam if Kennedy Had Lived, which screened last week in Soreze at the Abbaye auditorium.

Virtual JFK focuses on "the way President Kennedy dealt with six important foreign policy crises (Cuba to Vietnam) without going to war. The film puts forth the argument that "critical decisions about the use of restraint and coercive diplomacy often require greater acts of courage than the use of force and that character matters greatly in Presidential leadership." Koji Masutani, Director of Virtual JFK

Masutani was born in Tokyo, Japan, in 1981. He spent most of his childhood in Hong Kong before attending a private boarding school in Massachusetts. He received a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from Brown University in 2005.

The six crises with which Kennedy dealt during his presidency that are the focus of this film are: Bay of Pigs (April 1961), Laos Crisis (1961), Berlin Wall Crisis (August-November 1961), Showdown over Vietnam (November 1961), Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) and, finally, the Vietnam Withdrawal (October 1963).

The movie uses archival footage to review the ups and downs of Kennedy's presidency and the public and staff/advisor pressures that were put on him at and after each of the crisis decision points.

In dealing with Vietnam shortly before he died, JFK agreed to a plan devised by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara to withdraw most Americans in South Vietnam by late 1965, with the first 1,000 to be withdrawn within three months.

JFK’s plans were reversed by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who decided to increase the American presence in Vietnam to 500,000 troops. The war stretched across several generations and killed more than three million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans.

You can read a more thorough synopsis of the film on this Virtual JFK site page under Press Material.

One of the things I liked about this film was that I did not find it polemical, but rather felt that it invited viewers to draw their own conclusions.

When Kennedy was elected in the Fall of 1959, I had just turned 11 years-old and was living with my family in a house out in the countryside in Hertfordshire, England. My father was a Lt Colonel in the US Air Force and was on assignment there. We did not have a television at home for our entire stay in England. Our main source of news and entertainment in the evening was the BBC on the big old radio in the living room. We did not return to the US until the summer of 1962, when we moved to our next posting at Langley AFB in Virginia.

As I remember it, my father felt connected to Kennedy and proud of his election to the presidency. They were both of Boston Irish Catholic stock, my father from Quincy, on south Boston Bay, and Kennedy originally from Brookline, some eight miles inland from Quincy; both had red hair and three brothers; both went to Catholic school and fought in WWII in the Pacific theater.

But after watching this movie, I suspect my father must have felt conflicted as the Kennedy presidency progressed, for Lt Col Wm J Norton, my father, was a committed, career Air Force man who, I discovered through recent research, was part of the support team (a weather group commander) for spy missions over central Europe and Russia. As Virtual JFK documents, Kennedy decided time and again, against the advice of his military advisers and to much scorn from hawkish Republicans, not to use military force.

A lot of the old film footage from the Kennedy years showed him fielding questions from an auditorium filled with reporters. He gave smart, powerful, informed answers often balanced with humor. In comparison, the presidential press conferences I have seen through much of my adulthood seem overly managed, the president often ill-informed or less than candid. Admittedly, I generally avoid broadcast television and have done for much of the past thirty years. But you cannot avoid seeing clips and I have watched my fair share.

I was a sheltered and naive 14 year-old and just starting the ninth grade when Kennedy was murdered. I remember being stunned and knowing in my gut that this was a very bad thing for the US. I had similar feelings, astonishment and dismay, after watching Virtual JFK.

That is what a strong, intelligent president who is willing to stand up for peace looks like, I thought. I wasn't old enough to realize that at fourteen.

What a loss.

"The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war...We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just."

Excerpt from John F Kennedy

commencement address at American University in Washington, D.C.,

June 10, 1963

Hugs from Afar,

N2

C&C Intercultural Film Festival

The Culture & Cultures Intercultural Film Festival has been making good use of the two theaters at the Abbaye Ecole in Soreze this week. Anne and I have been running around the corner and up the street to help out, selling and punching tickets.

Images from The Mountain Thief, the opening movie for the C&CIFF in Soreze.

The Mountain Thief is the first feature film by young director Gerry Balasta. In 2004, Gerry went back to the Philippines, where he was born and raised, and started an acting workshop open to the residents of the Philippine’s largest garbage-collecting town of Promised Land and Urban, Payatas. He used residents of the town who graduated from his workshop as the actors in The Mountain Thief when he shot it on location at the garbage-collecting town with a small crew.

In 2009, Gerry started THE MOUNT HOPE PROJECT, to assist the scavenger-actors who acted in his film. In late 2009, with money raised through the supporters and fans of the film, two of the children involved in the film received medical care, including surgery for one child with a club foot deformity.

Gerry Balasta was present at the screening to answer questions from the audience about the film and his ongoing work with the Mount Hope Project. It was a moving and inspiring start to this remarkable film festival, which, for the second year, is screening some of its films in our little village of Soreze.

More soon.

Love for now.

N2