home again jiggety jig

Those of you who've followed my journey will know what this moment means: it's a warm, sunny afternoon, last day of August 2009, and I am sitting on my deck looking at the overgrown garden. There's much weeding to be done; the buddleia are falling over, the rose of Sharon has taken over the mid part, the end is a disaster and the wasp infestation has never been worse. It's glorious, and it's all mine.

Well, mine and the Royal Bank of Canada's.

I had a wonderful visit with my mother over the weekend, many stories, much laughter, time not only with her, just before her 86th birthday, but with her sister Do who'll be 90 next year, and my brother, his wife and their energetic two-year old Jake, who was almost too big already for the size 36 month clothes I brought him from France. Family - the people who, when you have to go to there, they have to take you in, as some poet famously said. Even though my mum drives me crazy at some points, and I her, we adore each other. The best was going over, again, the pictures from Potterspury, where she and Do were born, and revisiting my day there. "Look, that's where Carry Cousins lived!" they cried, looking at shots of a village they haven't seen for more than 50 decades.

Home yesterday, woozy with emotional exhaustion and jet lag (still waking at 5.30 a.m.), to stay at my daughter's once again; she made a steak dinner and then we went out for a beer at her local dive. I had to laugh - the least French place imaginable, baseball and football playing on the giant screen and hockey memorabilia on the walls, giant plates of nachos going by and huge pitches of cold beer. It was casual and friendly, but my French friends would have been bewildered.

This morning, my friend Lynn took me to Fiesta Farms, our favourite grocery store, to stock up before my move back. How I appreciated that my first food shop was at this place, which has the best fresh local produce, bread and cheese. And then, in the early afternoon, back to the house, just vacated by the family who'd rented it. My key in my own front door - and inside. My house. My home. Where my children grew up.

The family had left it spotless, with a bottle of white and another of sparkling wine, some cheese and milk in the fridge. They'd left a small suitcase behind and I've since discovered more things around, so a family member of theirs will come by and pick up what they've left. But my house is in great shape. How lucky that we found each other - they loved their time in the house and were perfect tenants.

My French next-door-neighbour has just come by for a quick hello hug.

So now - to begin. I've already chased a raccoon from the second-floor deck where they like to sleep. Now to launch the work on the basement, unpack the stuff from the trip, and then begin the arduous process of unearthing all the stuff I crammed into corners and cupboards before leaving, and to try to get rid of a great deal of it. The list of things-to-do grows. Though the weekend was wet and really cold, the sun is hot today. There's a bottle of rosé in the fridge for tonight and I'm determined to throw together a real meal, not just something easy. Because, for the next while at least, France and French ways still command my soul.

I am home. I'll unpack that loathesome giant heavy suitcase and throw it away. (Actually, it'll probably be useful to store summer clothes.) There's limitless internet access and I can come and go as I please. I understand the language and am surrounded by familiar people who know me. Everything is familiar.

I am different.

she's cute but oh, so dumb

I'm staying with my mama who's taking care of me - and up at 6, as I have been since landing. So, time to tell you the story of my last night in Paris. You bloggees may remember my dilemma - how to get to Charles de Gaulle airport as cheaply as possible early in the morning with two heavy suitcases, computer etc. A sensible person would have simply given in and called a cab, which would have cost about 60 euros. But not your faithful correspondent. Not the simple way for her.

No, she accepted an offer from Denis, a young acquaintance who said, "I'll take you." Wonderful, I thought - a drive! He told me it'd cost 20 euros for gas. No problem. Then he said, it'd be better if you came to my place the night before, it'd make it easier in the morning. I knew he still lived with his family, though he's 27. Do you have room? I asked. Yes, they're away, he wrote back. Okay, I thought. It'll be good to just get out of here and have a night in a picturesque French home.

Denis is a computer geek who worked wonders with the internet in the Paris apartment, a family friend of my landlady, an odd duck and someone I hardly know. I happily packed up and left with him on Monday night, noticing that we were driving away from the airport - it's north east of the city, we were driving south west. It turned out that he lives past Versailles, in a suburb way, way on the complete opposite side of Paris.

In the French version of a gated subdivision - cute, ye olde row houses on streets named for artists - rue Renoir, rue Corot, rows of identical houses. Oh well, I thought. I'd offered to take him for a simple meal somewhere for my last night, a little local bistro, so the plan was a nice meal and a quiet night in the empty house.

Inside the house was the worst jumble of mess - bottles, a hookah, mattresses on the floor, old food, DVD's and dirty dishes - I've ever seen, in the middle of which were 3 young men. His 19-year old brother and his 2 best friends had been living there for a month in the absence of parents. I stood in the living room, knee deep in chaos, calling myself names. And then Denis suggested that instead of going out, we order pizza. Okay, I said, thinking, well, that'll be cheap, a nice artisanal pizza.

My final dinner in France was the Pizza Hut special - a pepperoni pizza and chicken wings, shared with 3 hungry 19-year olds. Denis had his own. It cost me 30 euros.

Then Denis told me that in order to get to work on time, he'd have to get me to the airport by 7.30, which meant getting up around 6 because, of course, we were so far away. I didn't have to be at the airport till 8.30. And, he said, the cost for gas would be 40 euros.

My clever ruse had me at the airport three hours before the flight after not much sleep, 70 euros lighter. Just to complete my idiocy marathon, I went to the duty free store and found Chanel Cristalle Eau Verte at 18 euros less than I'd paid for it in Paris.

What to say but - ah well. I will never forget that last night. In fact, the three boys were fun, and once they'd cleared some of the mouldy food and empty bottles from the table, we had a good time as we ate our tasteless appalling Pizza Hut special. Whereas a tranquil last night in my beautiful Latin Quarter apartment, a special, delicious meal, a cab on time and relatively cheap, would not have made a good story.

I do these stupid things just for you.

Re RYERSON REGISTRATION

Last month the Ryerson website was attacked, and havoc ensued. People had a lot of trouble registering on-line, and so phoned and the phones were jammed. Apparently all is well now. However, they have also set up an alternative website at ca@ryerson.ca. Or else call 416-979-5035.

I hope you get through, so we can meet in a few weeks.

Home

Before takeoff, I was pushing the wrong way down the crowded aisle in the airplane, and the young woman trying to get past me to her seat said, "Excuse me. I'm sorry," though I was at fault. There's a Canadian, I thought. I'M GOING HOME!

We flew over the whole of England, countless tiny crowded plots of land, villages and towns, and then the ocean, and then, at last, many hours later, the first glimpse of Canada - a thousand miles of nothing but trees. Labrador. Nothing except trees and an occasional road or lake - after five months in Europe, an incomprehensible expanse of uninhabited land and wilderness.

I was concerned going through customs that they'd smell the Camembert and chèvre I smuggled in, but they let me though, and there waiting at the gate was my son, my very tall, handsome, kind, funny son. A long, joyful hug, my face pressed to his breastbone, the moment we've both been waiting so long for.

Yet, thrilled as I was to see him, I couldn't help but notice the new, very noticeable, long tattoo all down his arm, joining the five or six others; the new circle thingie in his ear. Even as I melted with love for my child, it hurt to see what he is doing to his body. He is coming through the worst year of his life, during which, among other things, a good friend died of an accidental overdose. He's still traumatised. The new tattoo was a favourite expression of his friend's, scrolled down his arm in the dead boy's handwriting.

An hour after landing, I was overwhelmed by the essence of parenthood - the greatest love imaginable, mixed with pain and fear. Regret and guilt. Empathy and acceptance. Pain. Fear. Love. And then he told me about trying to defend a friend of his who'd been jumped, and now he has a fractured rib and three staples in his head.

Let it go, Beth. Let it go. He's alive, he's wonderful, he'll get through.

He brought me to the house, which is rented out till Sept. 1 but where I have access to the basement suite that flooded last month, to leave my suitcases in the subterranean disaster area - the once cosy suite dirty, furniture piled up, the floor peeling, a small lake in the drainage area outside the door. The garden is an overgrown jungle. Rooting through my bags, I couldn't seem to find anything, including the most important notebook of the trip, that contains all the names and addresses - did I leave it on the plane? Where was everything? Waiting, a giant pile of mail, including angry notices about bills that inadvertently have not been paid. Ryerson has had a computer melt-down and registration for the courses has been difficult and delayed.

Etc.

The family renting upstairs, an extremely nice couple with a small daughter, were welcoming and helpful, allowing me to borrow the phone - call my daughter, my bank manager, a few close friends. But for a bit there, something of a slump. I think I'll go back to Paris. Life is simpler there.

It's the oddest thing, being home but not home. I get my house back Monday night or Tuesday and in the meantime, spent my first night at my daughter's, where we too had a joyful reunion and a dinner of Thai takeout. I have to remember that I often won't understand my children's choices; that they are their own people. I've just published an article in More magazine saying exactly that. And yet I want the best for them, and what "the best" means is what I think is the best; the right way to live life is my way. Not their way. A hard lesson to learn over and over again.

Spent last night at my friend and neighbour Jane's where I am now. She made spare ribs for supper - mmm, one thing you don't get in France. In a few minutes, back to the basement, to sort through the bills, try to put some order in the chaos and begin to chop down the garden. Later today I'll go to Ottawa to visit my mother, aunt and brother, partly because I am anxious to see them and partly to be fed and have somewhere, for the next few nights, to sleep.

If this sounds like self-pitying complaint, it's not. It's good, very very good, to be home. Outside Jane's window right now, someone is talking in English. Canadian English. What a beautiful sound.

Riding in the streetcar, I look out at Toronto. Extremely casual in comparison with Paris. The streetscape often a mind-bogglingly ugly jumble - stores allowed to put up whatever they want, no matter how hideous it is. I think about my friend in Paris talking about the city's "architectural unity." The idea is meaningless here, unfortunately. And why is everyone carrying paper cups of coffee in their hands as they walk? When you want to drink coffee, you should sit down at a cafe with your friends, not stroll about.

There'll be a lot of comparisons like this, the next while.

But I went back to the Y, to receive a whole bunch of hugs: "Welcome back!" The most marvellous reunion, after the one with my kids, was at one of my favourite haunts - Doubletake, the second-hand store around the corner. When I walked in, Jasmine and the other East-Indian women who work there came over to greet me. "We have been wondering when you'd be back. We've missed you." I was floored.

Imagine - I was deeply missed at the second-hand store. Maybe I should think about what that means, but not right now.

derniers mots de France

This au revoir will be like the Rolling Stones farewell tour - never-ending. The day is, as the weatherman said, lourd - heavy, breathless, raining sporadically - a perfect farewell day. A last stroll down the Boul Mich, a last jaunt to the Jardin des Plantes, which is dessicated now, these last days of summer.

I saw lots of the plants I hope to see tomorrow in my own jardin des plantes - buddleia, rudbekia, cosmos, leggy petunias. Importantly for me, there was an exhibition of very large close-up photographs of the faces and backs of insects - grasshoppers, moths, dragonflies, beetles - by the photographer Philippe Blanchot. I forced myself to look closely and admire these extraordinary creatures with their carapaces, their amazing eyes, their camouflage, their long proboscises. They look like monsters from outer space, truly, but they're miraculously well-adapted creatures. I hope to come to appreciate them more, having left a trail of massacred beetles and grasshoppers in Gordes.

And couldn't resist - one last trip to the same bakery that nearly made me faint with anticipation, my first days here, to buy a little lemon tart and a tarte tatin - eating them now with a cup of tea.

Since I leave tomorrow morning, I guess I can safely say now that not one of the disasters I feared most about this trip occurred. I did not get sick, my mother or children did not get sick, I did not lose the keys to a place I was staying in (which was my great terror because the keys are often so old, oddly sized and impossible to replace.) MacZine my beloved computer did not break. During the weeks I had left open and unplanned, I did not end up wandering the face of the earth, homeless and alone.

I did not worry beforehand about leaving my handbag on a train, or about the death of dear friends. So there you go - as I always say to my kids, it's the things you don't worry about that happen. No use worrying, then, is there?

Easy for you to say.

I have learned that another old friend, a woman exactly my age whom I've known all my life though she has always lived on the other side of the country, has cancer. I wrote her a letter this morning and mailed it from here, because I think it'll get there faster across the ocean, thanks to the efficient French postal service, than from home. How unpatriotic is that?

A final farewell, then, to this sublime city, that has sheltered and inspired artists for centuries and sheltered me for seven glorious weeks. Merci mille fois.

A bientot.