Rolling up the sidewalks

We still get questions from friends who ask about the differences that we note between life in Lansing and life in Vaison la Romaine. We still get questions about how long it takes to readjust to one environment or the other. 

Since we have been living our schizophrenic lives for the last eight years, I usually explain that we now have a routine of how we handle the changes in location and life style. For the most part, once we have put the clothes away and returned things to where they belong, we are pretty much settled. 

Even though our life in France follows the beat of a different drummer than our life here, we have come to enjoy the differences in tempo and thus enjoy wherever we are. After so many years, it is rare that we encounter a situation that surprises us. Sometimes it takes a visitor to the US or a visitor to France to ask a question that surprises us and makes us think about the contrasts. For example, a French person asking about why we permit pharmaceutical companies to advertise on television (not permitted in France) or an American visiting France who asked what stores are open on Sunday afternoon (none!).

Friday evening however, I surprised myself in my incorrect assumptions about our life in Lansing. We had gone to a concert and invited other concert-goers to join us for a drink after the performance. We chose a restaurant in the heart of downtown Lansing and went to wait for our friends there. We walked through the door at 9:36 and the hostess announced that the kitchen had closed at 9:30. We had eaten before the concert so food was not the objective in going there but nonetheless...

• If we had been in France - even in our little village - the dinner service would have continued until 11:00 PM. In Paris, people often arrive at restaurants after 9:00. (In Spain, it seems that the most popular dinner hour is 10:00.)

• The waiter brought our bill shortly after 10:30. To me it was a clear suggestion that we drink up and leave.

To tell the truth, we may have picked the one restaurant in downtown Lansing that closed early. I just never expected that the well-known restaurant that we picked would operate on such a schedule. The restaurant across the street appeared to be open and seemed to have a lot of people in it. I know I am using broad strokes to paint this picture but really... I never expected the restaurant that we chose to have such a roll-up-the-sidewalks schedule. I had believed that Lansing was more cosmopolitan. 

PS: We drove through downtown Lansing again last night and confirmed that I had chosen the only restaurant to close early; every other food-beverage place seemed to be filled with customers. I guess my skill at picking restaurants matches my skill at choosing the slowest line when going through customs. I have a knack at picking the wrong one.

Summertime and the livin is easy… (George Gershwin)

We have been back in the states for two months now. I have stopped interjecting French words into conversations. (I find that most people just look at me strangely when I say “voila” instead of “see” or “there you are”.) I try to remember to say “yoo-hoo” instead of “coucou” when I’m trying to get a neighbor’s attention.

We have acclimated fairly well to our state-side lives. Even though we have been living our schizophrenic lives for seven years now, I find that I still get surprised when we make the transition.

·         I lament the fact that I cannot walk to a grocery from our Lansing home. (The City Market is a little over two miles from here – but there remains only one produce stand (and the good cheese shop). There are neighborhood weekly farmer markets but nothing quite like market day in any village in Provence.

·         Americans dress far more casually than the French. Sweat pants and T-shirts seem closer to the norm than the aberration. We seem to have forgotten Jerry Seinfeld’s comment that ‘people who wear sweats in public are announcing that they have given up’.

·         Dining out in the states usually includes taking home a doggy-bag – more accurately, a styrofoam container – for the second portion that was served as part of your meal. The size of the portion served here is much larger than what we expect in France. (There are now some French restaurants which have begun offering take-away containers.)

·         For a long time, we have thought that food in France was more expensive and wine in France was less expensive than here but my perceptions are changing. Meats, cheeses and local vegetables seem to be equal to or less than American prices. For instance, a log of goat cheese that costs almost $10 in the states sells for about ¼ th that amount in France. ‘Exotic’ meats, e.g., duck, quail, rabbit, even lamb, are far less expensive in France and more often locally produced. Eggs are more expensive but bread – a baguette – is about a third of the US price. (Clothing is more expensive in France.)

·         We are fortunate to have a home with a backyard large enough for my vegetable garden. Many fewer houses in our village have enough land for a garden and at our apartment, we can manage only a few herbs grown on the balcony.

·         It seems easier to find a good craftsman/mason/carpenter in the states. We have heard horror stories about craftsmen and their work here but not nearly as often as we hear the stories of poorly done work in our village. not sure whether Angie’s List covers France…

This past weekend, we went to the christening of our godson’s first child. While the baptism was the main event, driving to North Carolina permitted me to reconnect with a high school friend and to see my sister and beau frère who drove from Wilmington to meet us in Raleigh for lunch. The events and gatherings were all fun: what beats family and friends?

Belle Provence or Beautiful Michigan?

We’ve been in Lansing for two weeks. The vegetable garden is planted, most of the home maintenance chores are finished and I am back on my volunteer schedule at the two nearby child care centers. Clearly, we are settling into our state-side routines.

As we encounter people we have not seen for six or more months, we are often asked about what we missed while we were away or what strikes us as a source of differences between Lansing life and life in Vaison la Romaine.

From the get-go, I turn around the first question and reply that I miss living in the center of a village where a car is not necessary. I miss the walking to – everywhere! Not just in steps logged but in people encountered who smile or stop to talk or simply offer “Bonjour Monsieur” as I pass. (At some point in time though it must have been recently, I stopped being middle-aged and became old. People say “Bonjour Monsieur” as a respectful way of greeting someone older – and to most of the world, the someone older is I.) In France, I averaged 12,000 steps a day. In Lansing, I may get to 12,000 steps once a week. In Lansing, one can’t walk to any grocery or butcher shop or bakery… - did I say ‘butcher shop’? I am not sure where there is a butcher shop outside of a grocery.

I have missed the camaraderie of people with whom we have forged friendships over the past 30 years. I have missed our neighborhood and the special connections/supports that our neighbors offer.

I have missed NPR and the Sunday word puzzle with Will Short on Weekend Edition. And John Stewart, and Steve Colbert and John Oliver. (I have missed understanding subtle humor and political comedy.)

In general, people speak louder here than in France and we Americans laugh louder than the French.

I like the pervasiveness of “the customer is always right” attitude in stores here. It may also be true in France but you might have to do penance before your shopping error is absolved and the item is taken back…

I miss good, cheap wine. In the US, food is less expensive – even though the produce in the grocery stores comes from three different continents – but wine here is more expensive. Similarly, a baguette in France is only a dollar. In Lansing, a baguette costs three to five times as much.

On balance, there are so many things to make each “home” attractive. We are fortunate to have such wonderful options.

Why fuss? Take the bus!

One big difference between Lansing and Vaison la Romaine is the distance one must go to obtain goods and services. When one compares a town of 7,000 to a small city of 120,000, it is clear that Lansing is 17 times larger than Vaison. All other factors aside, that suggests that the goods and services available four blocks from our apartment in Vaison are likely to be 68 blocks away in Lansing.

In a country where the automobile is sacred – pretty much to the detriment of all other forms of public transportation – one must have a car to get around to cover the 68 blocks one has to go to get whatever. If you don’t have a car, you can walk, ride a bike or take a CATA bus. Today, for instance, Ellen was off delivering Meals on Wheels at the same time I needed to go to the dentist in the neighboring town of Holt. I couldn’t walk there – I would have been several days late for my appointment. I could have ridden my bicycle but decided that I did not want to be all sweaty while I sat in a vinyl coated dentist chair. I took the bus.

Lansing has an excellent bus system. You can get to most destinations easily and with a minimal amount of effort or cost. I left the child care center where I had spent the morning volunteering, walked three blocks, got the bus exactly on time and headed to “Bus Central” in downtown Lansing where I transferred to the Holt bus. Since the trip is about a half hour, I brought a book to read.

I must have read the same 10 paragraphs a dozen times as I looked up every time we stopped to watch as new riders climbed into the bus. I love watching people. There have been times when Ellen has said “Close your mouth, Mark” as I sit in awe watching the threads and patches of the American fabric pass by me. The bus is about the same as when it was my transportation to MSU thirty years ago. There are the regulars – all of whom know the bus drivers and each other and seem to share a sort of mobile community as they move from location to location. There are the ubiquitous students going to Lansing Community College, Davenport, Cooley Law School, MSU or some other learning location. There are the infrequent riders (like me) who slow the line of would be riders by not knowing the procedures for bus entry ("You don’t have change for $20?") there are parents with young children and elderly (older than I) folks who have difficulty standing erect as the bus lurches forward. I think I have a good sense of balance, but I ended up getting a lot closer to a rider than she – or I – wanted as a result of a quick start.

On the way back from the dentist, I decided to get off the bus at the city market so that I could buy a baguette and get an espresso from Neva at Aggie Mae’s and then walk home.

Walking is a sensual experience in that it engages the senses in ways that car travel excludes. There are the sounds, the differences in temperature as you walk under a large tree, the smells (city restaurant grills, flowers, cedar mulch and a neighbor making stuffed peppers for dinner.) The biggest difference is having time to see the “sights.” Walking from the market, I went down the street that has most of the restaurants that serve the Monday-Friday denizens their lunch. In front of one shop was a sandwich board that had three lines: “Cherry Salad” “Panty Hose” and something on the third line that I frankly cannot remember because I was so intrigued with the questions: “What kind of restaurant sells cherry salad and panty hose? Who would be enticed to stop there and eat? I was guessing that most people would order “panty hose” to go when I looked at the front of the shop again only to discover that it was NOT a restaurant but “A General Store.” Thank goodness.

Tomorrow I will walk downtown again to have Brenda cut my hair. After getting my hair cut, maybe I will see if I can get panty hose on pita bread. To go, of course.

The Sound of Silence

It was a beautiful Saturday, so I rode my bike to the City Market. Just as two Saturdays ago when I walked there, I was surprised that in the 15 or so blocks to the market, I saw very few people thus no voices, no cars, no motorbikes, no dogs. Just the breeze and me. I was struck by the silence. Downtown Lansing was pretty much uninhabited. Once at the market, I found a throng of people but it appears that most of them had arrived via automobile. We had a similar experience in PA when we visited Ellen’s brother and sister-in-law. Ever wonder why a relative by marriage has a “legal” designation (in-law) in America whereas the designation in French is “beautiful brother” or “beautiful sister” (beau-frère, belle-sœur)?Isn’t the French a whole lot friendlier?  After seeing the renovations that their son is making to his house, we decided to stop at a local restaurant or café for lunch. We stopped at or drove past five cafés before we found one that was open on a Saturday.  Conclusion: “downtown” small-city America is dying. It seems impossible for downtowns to compete with the large parking-lot destinations located in every direction – except downtown. This is not news. It just makes me wonder what it will take to rejuvenate our cities.

Contrast the “no one in sight” in Lansing with the village of Vaison la Romaine, where the downtown is open for business from 7:00 in the morning until the last café closes in the evening and filled with people throughout the day sitting in the cafés, walking or shopping for their daily baguette.

I love sitting on our veranda in Vaison and watching the day go by. Even though we do not live “downtown,” it is amazing to me how many people walk past our apartment building every day. cWhen I leave the apartment to go shopping or to go for a coffee or for a pichet de vin, I encounter people every step of the way.

I see Jacqueline who walks her dogs twice daily. There is the elderly woman who lives down the alley, and there is the mother of one of the kids at the crèche who has a shop. Once in “centre-ville,” there are folks everywhere. There are parents whom I have met when they come to the crèche to pick up their children. There are the merchants and shop keepers whom I see on a daily basis and who recognize me. There are the few “street people” – clean and quiet but always present. On sunny days, there are older men and women occupying every bench that has a southern exposure (and there are a lot of benches in town.)

One of the advantages of small-town Vaison la Romaine (population 7,000) vs. small-city Lansing (population 120,000) is that I see more people that know me or that I recognize or know in Vaison la Romaine than I do in Lansing. – and we have lived in Lansing almost 35 years!

Centre-ville Vaison is the destination of most residents. The stores are there and they provide the services and products that we need for daily life. When I walk through downtown Lansing, there are few businesses that could help me meet day-to-day living needs. There is a very good men’s store, a nut shop, a souvenir shop and a number of restaurants/cafés/bars several of which are not open on Saturday and most of which are closed Sunday.

Is a downtown vibrant because of the critical mass of people who live in the area or come to visit the shops or do people move to an area because of the products and services available (a.k.a., What came first, the chicken or the egg?) If I knew the answer, I could be a highly paid urban planning consultant. Maybe that was the role the pope played when he ordained the “market days” throughout Provence (Tuesday was ordained Vaison’s market day by the pope in the 16^th century.) The Tuesday market in Vaison remains one of the best markets in Provence.