I’ve had a couple of subscribers sign up for email alerts since my final post here at An Alien Parisienne, so I wanted to create a “top post” that reiterates I will no longer be posting at this site. This blog is now closed.

To read about why An Alien Parisienne is finished, please read this post.

To join me at my new blog, Do-Overs in Denver, please go and subscribe here.

Thank you.

Adieu.

Karin

I know — it’s a little dramatic.
From November 7, 2010

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again

“The End” by The Doors

Greetings, Readers.

This coming week marks one year from the date I last posted on An Alien Parisienne. This month marks the fifth anniversary from my very first visit to Paris, France in 2008. Today marks the end of An Alien Parisienne.

On August 1, 2012, I arrived at Denver International Airport at about one in the morning. Disoriented, and arriving late having been placed on an alternate flight because the customs line in Detroit, Michigan was too slow and several on route to Denver missed their plane, including me, my first ex-husband (“UnEx”) picked me up and drove me to the place that had been my home from 1995 to 2000 and which has since become my home again, temporarily, until I get on my feet again. (No, UnEx does not live here now, but it is a three-bedroom condo we owned together and which he still owns, renting out a room to a guy who has lived here for 10 years as well as the place where our son — my oldest —  lives since it is only a short distance from his high school.)

It’s taking me a while to find my feet. They have gone somewhat comfortably numb. I’m figuring it out, though.

I had decided in February after a couple of months of rumination that at last I would need to write a closing post for this blog, and I started composing in my head what such a post would say. I still get quite a few subscribers to the blog and also quite a bit of daily traffic to the blog — I don’t want to entirely shut it down as it still seems to have a readership. But it was realizing the significance that the month of March has played in my Paris Journey that made me think, “Hey, I need to bring some closure to this thing” and do so at this meaningful time. Interestingly, this March also marks other endings as well, and it is now wholly appropriate to write this post.

Please read on if you are interested in knowing the rest of the story, and also find out about a new blog I am starting: Do-Overs in Denver.

Père Lachaise Cemetery, March 24, 2008

I’m having to work a little from memory as most of my journals and pocket calenders chronicling this time are still in Paris, but I can reconstruct most of it. I don’t know if any of this stuff is what you care to read, but I know I need to write it.

March 2008

Besides the Charles de Gaulle Airport, the RER B, Métro Line 5 and Paul’s apartment, the first place I saw in Paris was Père Lachaise Cemetery. It was on my “must-see” list. This was in part because of Mr. James Douglas Morrison’s grave-site, but also because in 2007 I had seen the film “Paris, je t’aime” in a Dallas movie theater, and I loved the segment entitled “Père Lachaise” with Emily Mortimer and Rufus Sewell and directed by Wes Craven, who also plays the ghost of Oscar Wilde in the film short.

Easter Week 2008, Paul and I were due to visit our mutual friend (and my best friend) Janet in Antibes — in southern France on the Côte d’Azur — on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. I had arrived on Easter Sunday, the 23rd, with a flight back to Denver on Saturday the 29th as I had to be ready to jump back into the classroom on Monday morning, March 31st. I was on my Spring Break.

This left only Monday and Friday to “see Paris sights” and therefore I could only choose just a few. Besides Père Lachaise, I picked the Sacré Coeur Basilica and Shakespeare and Company. I chose the Sacré Coeur because I think it is so funny-looking that it is beautiful — I admire the fact that it looks not only like a wedding cake but also like a set of three breasts pointing high into the Parisian sky up on the hill of Montmartre. In addition, some of the coolest bands have filmed videos or set their music to videos where the Basilica is featured, but it is also the site around which the movie “Amélie” (Le fabuleaux déstin d’Amélie Poulain) takes place. Shakespeare and Company seemed like a natural place to visit because it is so fabled in the literary world, and I had heard of it long before I ever thought I might see Paris. I am a book lover, and going there was a no-brainer for me.

I remember quite clearly I did not want to see the Eiffel Tower because I thought it a little trite and clichéd. It was not until much later in May of 2009 that I at last saw the Iron Lady in all her glory, and laughed at my own silliness facing that magnificent and beautiful structure.

But it is true that my main goal was to visit Paul, confirm the love that I already felt for him in letters via email, and see the home of my best friend in the South of France.

Antibes, March 2008
The Mediterranean Sea

I remember thinking that the blue of the sea was so remarkable.

Antibes, March 2008
Sights around the town, and Paul and Karin (Janet, too, on the left)

My last day in Paris, Paul took me to the Sacré Coeur, Shakespeare and Company, and many places I did not know the names of until much, much later.

Sacré Coeur and Shakespeare and Company

Places I did not know in Paris until much later…

At the end of my visit, we parted reluctantly, and in the next two months we made plans for me to have another visit during the summer of 2008. (You can re-read this post if you would like another variation of this story.)

Paul and Karin
March 29, 2008

May 2012

Fast-forward four years.

It is May 24, 2012, five days after my 44th birthday, and I had gotten a phone call a couple of days earlier from the US Consulate in Paris, saying that they needed to see me in person at the Consulate regarding my passport.

I figured perhaps there was something I had forgotten to fill out or something along those lines.

When I arrived, the head passport officer asked me to pick up the interphone so we could speak privately through the security glass separating us.

He said, “Are you aware you owe child support in the State of Colorado?”

I nodded and said yes.

He proceeded to tell me that not only could my name change to “Prescott” not be processed, but that the State Department was keeping my passport until I had resolved the child support arrearage in full, and that I had a limited time to do so. The passport would be denied and deactivated/revoked after 90 days without payment. If I could not resolve the debt, I would be issued a temporary passport for direct return to the United States, and then would have no passport until the debt was paid.

(If you would like to know more about this Federal Law, you can read about it here. I sure wish I would have seen this information back in 2008. I had no idea.)

And now for the missing bits of the story…

There are many things to which I have referred obliquely in this blog in part because of privacy and in part because I was worried about being direct about them (with legal repercussions and so on).

Now that I am back in the U.S., and permanently (more on that in a moment), I can now open up about those issues.

First, one of the reasons I came to Paris to stay with Paul was because my second-ex (“DeuxEx”) had removed our then almost-two year old son from our home on Sunday, October 7, 2007 after he saw me once again reading Paul’s blog (I had not been in contact with Paul since a year prior on October 6, 2006). I knew in that moment that I needed to tell DeuxEx the truth that I had been keeping from him: I was not in love with him anymore, at least that was how I felt in that moment, after months of trying to be fully back in a relationship with him. There were many things he had done that provoked my falling out of love with him and things that had happened inside of me as well, and I realized that I needed to speak the truth.

His reaction was to state, “Well then I am taking our son and going to my mother’s [more than an hour by car outside of Denver].”

I did not argue with him at the time because I was afraid of him. I was afraid of what he would do, and I thought, “I will deal with this later.”

About two weeks later, I was served with divorce papers.

The winter months of 2007-2008 were an increasingly entrenched legal tennis match, my lawyer was not really helpful to me except to say, “This guy seems really angry,” and I was so upset at the entire situation (plus working full-time in a school that later imploded with personnel and leadership divisions) that I was not able to take adequate care of myself. I was disintegrating with inner conflict, not knowing what my life held next, and feeling increasingly confused, disempowered, and afraid. In addition, my job was at risk. I was teaching at school where the reading ability of many of the freshman and sophomores was at about the 6th grade level and where gang activity (often with the parents of the students) and low family incomes made for a challenging school atmosphere. I did the best that I could in that teaching setting with these other stresses happening, but at last when there was a conflict between the school principal and vice principal who hired me and other staff and the board of directors, I was caught up in the middle of the mess.

On the wonderful side, there must have been something I did right, as I have a couple of dozen former students with whom I am in touch on Facebook, and we still comment on one another’s posts and lives. I have letters of recommendation from them and we still communicate quite a lot. I really did love the students there, and they loved me back. It was a difficult but rewarding time, and I am grateful because those students made the entire situation not only bearable but enjoyable.

However, because of the conflict among the school leadership, when that leadership resigned I knew by April of that year I would no longer have a job in Denver. I was barely affording rent and food as it was, and legal fees made a huge dent in my income. Plus, I felt my youngest son was being kept from me, purposely and in retribution, for my not wanting to be with my second husband any longer. I felt demoralized and mentally beaten down by the entire situation.

In June of 2008, when the school year was finished, I went to Paris for the summer, and thought I would try to get a job while I was there, pay child support if required (the divorce still was not final at that time), and get a hold of myself. I also felt deeply in love with Paul in that time.

I discovered after I had been in France a couple of months after returning from a trip to Canada with Paul in August that it was not possible for Americans without a special visa to live and work in France to have a job. Getting precious permission to legally live and work in France is notoriously difficult — many of the “Paris Bloggers” have written of their difficulties in doing to. This was very unfortunate as my Master’s degree is in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and I could have had my pick of jobs if I had had paperwork to do so!

So, for the next four years, I lived illegally in France (NOW do you understand an “alien parisienne”?? ), supported by Paul, who was — still is — legal to live and work there, and has been doing so for 20+ years. He did not make enough income to help me pay the child support (we barely paid the rent, in fact), and I could not work. Because I did not have a job, I could not afford to save money to re-establish myself in the U.S. either. There were many, many other complicating factors, as there often are in life, and one of them was this increasing child support debt.

Paul and I married in September 2011 not only because we wanted to keep our relationship going, but also it would have given me the right to work as of September 9, 2012. I was changing my name on my passport so I could begin the process of getting my Carte de Séjour, and at long last get a legal job in France and begin to pay off the child support as required.

And then I lost my passport.

The Past Seven Months

Fitting four years into two suitcases.

I guess I can sum up the past seven-and-a-half months as complicated but empowering.

I have had to represent myself pro se in a courtroom hearing, stand up for my rights as a mother in a mediation session (which was successfully negotiated!), try to reintegrate into American culture by going through reverse culture shock, and meanwhile search for jobs in a really strange hiring climate (one where no one human seems to take a résumé anymore — it is all processed through online third-party agencies who screen for “key words” and assess based only on those features). Not to mention that the U.S. economy is still a recovering one.

On the wonderful side, on February 22, 2013, I was at last reunited with my youngest son in his therapist’s office — we are undergoing court-ordered reunification therapy because I have been away from my son for so long. The one silver lining in all of this is that he is an amazing young boy, there is still a mother-son connection (which I fostered as best I could while I was away, and which has helped a lot in the reunification), and I look forward to a normalized relationship with him in the coming months.

March 11, 2013

The clouds have gathered around my relationship with Paul, however.

Because of the conditions around the amount of child support owed, I do not have a hope of having a passport again for a very long time. In addition, if I ever chose to leave Colorado and the relationship with my youngest son again, I would certainly be charged with child abandonment and my parental rights would be stripped.

I have to stay here in Colorado.

Not wanting to make any premature decisions, Paul and I have waited to have conversations about what to do until the dust settled. At last, however, I asked the question.

Paul let me know this past Monday that he does not want to live in Denver. His life is in Paris.

And so, along with this blog, five years after my initial visit to Paris and one year after my previous post, my marriage (for all intents and purposes) also ends.

The story of Paris, Paul, and myself has come to an end.

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end
It hurts to set you free
But you’ll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end.

(Thank you, Mr. Mojo Risin’.)

Do-Overs in Denver

But, life goes on. Still jobless in Denver (and I don’t exactly know if this blog post will help me, either, haha. But you know what? Either someone is going to appreciate my authenticity and writing ability or they are not. And I think that not only this post, but this entire blog is replete with both. If someone cannot recognize these two amazing qualities I have, then I don’t need to be working for that person/those people anyway).

Just like the creation of this blog happened because I needed to find a life in Paris, I now need to re-discover myself in Denver. I need to grieve my losses and then move on to better things.

I have decided to start a blog on just what this means to me, and how it is that I will have Do-Overs in Denver.

I invite you to follow me there to see just how I plan to do it.

Over and out.

Yours truly,

An Alien Parisienne, now trying to do things over in Denver

Books in a book market in June 2009, near Saint Sulpice

“… for some of us, books are as important as almost anything on earth.

What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid, squares of paper

unfolds world after world after world,

worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you.

Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave.

They show us what community and friendship mean;

they show us how to live and how to die….

An author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift.”

(Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, pages 14-15)

Hello Readers!

I wanted to let you know about something special going on on Paris this coming weekend.

WHAT: a book sale where one can buy paperbacks for only a euro and hardcovers for 2€

WHEN: Sunday, March 25, 2012, noon to 4 pm

WHERE: Orrick Law Offices, 31, avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie, 75016, Paris

WHY: The semi-annual book sale is one of the main fundraisers for the volunteer organization SOS Help, an English-language emotional support line for the international community in France.

Since 1974, SOS Help has been “listen[ing] to callers speaking about issues as wide-ranging as loneliness, depression, health concerns, bereavement, money problems, unemployment, difficulties with friends or family, or substance abuse.” Anonymous and confidential, the listening line is staffed from 3 pm to 11 pm every day of the year by volunteers who are trained by professionals “to provide empathetic, supportive, and non-judgmental listening to anyone going through a difficult or painful life experience.” (quotes from the SOS Help Facebook Info page linked above. For more information, also see their website: SOS Help)

I can’t imagine a more fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon than to shop for inexpensive books and help out a very worthy organization at the same time. In fact, to inspire you, just check out this haul that Sion of Paris (Im)perfect came away with last October during the fall sale in her post Books, Glorious Books!

I am going this year with a really big bag and some babysitting cash in pocket. In fact, one wee one I watch has parents that volunteer for this organization, and they are really swell people. I’m happy to put some of my earnings back to an organization they support. Full circle, pay-it-forward, All That Jazz. Result? I get to read more in the process. Also, if you have books you would like to donate, you can take them with you! Lighten your load!

Can’t come to Paris to participate? Well, find something you can do in your community this weekend to support a worthy cause.

So, how am I seizing the day of late? How am I taking care of myself? Read on to find out what I have been up to in trying to accomplish these two goals.

175 pages of the "shitty first draft," as Anne Lamott calls it

Maybe some of you remember that last November I was once more “NaNo-ing” and writing a novel in 30 days (see here). My goal was to write 50,000 words of a fictional work, and my personal goal this year was to have a clear beginning, middle, and end to the story (aka “a plot”). I did it! I wound up writing 52,389 words, which translates to 175 pages of creative fiction.

I took the month of December off, although I was doing things to further my creative process. I had a chance to meet up with Cynthia Morris of  Original Impulse. She lives in Denver, my hometown, and she was in town for a few weeks. We had a chance to connect a couple of times while she was here, and I was so inspired talking to her. If you don’t already follow her blog, and you are a creative type who would like to get your creative juices flowing, please check out her posts. She also creates really fun videos and has a newsletter you can sign up for, too. If you are really serious about getting a creative kick in the pants, she is a writing and creative coach, and you can hire her for her services. Her workshops also look terrific. Check her stuff out.

In January and February I read a few more Young Adult novels to remember what things I liked about some of my favorite books when I was 11 to 14 years old.

I downloaded to my Kindle and read Anne Lamott’s book I quoted up there. Yes! I got a Kindle for Christmas! I find there is some irony with the quote I posted and the fact that I read her work on writing on an eReader. I did not know how I would feel about having one, but my best friend got me one and so of course I accepted it and have been reading on it. I honestly have to say it’s great. I appreciate so much being able to carry several books in my handbag, as well as English/French French/English dictionaries. Since I don’t have a Smartphone (yet), having the Kindle has made my reading experience much more portable. I can also download articles from the web using a web application called Kindle It. Someone’s blog too long to read while you are at the computer? (*ahem*) Use Kindle It to download and read it when you can on your Kindle (or other readers, too. See the site for more info).

just a small portion of the collection

I will never give up “real books” (obviously — what you see pictured is a fraction of the books I have accumulated in the 3 years and 9 months I have lived here — the ones in that stack are mostly ones I still have to read. And a couple of DVDs to watch, too). I have discovered that for doing research and studying, it is a lot better for me to have an actual text in front of me. Patterns of learning are hard to change at my age and stage. And then there are books that seem worthy to me of having in either paperback or hardcover. I like colored pens and underlining in my books. I like dog-earing pages and the feel of paper in my hands. But, more than anything I LOVE TO READ so I think an eReader is for me, too. I am a READER first, and a book lover second. Heck, I will read almost anything that has print on it and don’t really care what format it is in, as long as I am inspired, educated, transported, entertained…

So what about my “book”? This month I decided to start Martha Alderson’s program (she has a 30-day follow up program called “PlotWriMo” that I am trying out from her blog The Plot Whisperer). It’s to help me revise what I wrote for NaNoWriMo this past year.

So far, I have worked on five days’ worth of her material. I’m about two weeks behind schedule from the daily work I thought I might do.  I kind of got a little discouraged when in the first week of work I realized that I really did not have a “CRISIS” nor an adequate “CLIMAX” to my tale. Sure, I have a crisis and climax — I know that they are a part of a good plot and I did write a crisis and climax of sorts. But they suck royally. Honestly, I followed Martha’s advice and still have not even read through my draft. Doing that comes in the third week of work, I think (which will be the third month of work at the rate I am going). I just know from my memory of what I wrote that my novel is void of an interesting and gripping crisis and climax, and has really, really sucky aspects to it.

I want to get back to revising and CARPE DIEM with regards to the novel, but… I dunno.

To be more honest, spring is arriving, and it is really pretty. And it makes me want to be outside, enjoying life instead of writing stories about imaginary people.

The tulips in my planters which I put in the Ghetto Garden are starting to sprout/grow/do their thing.

tulips

And check out what was going on across the Seine from the tip of the Île-de-Saint-Louis on Friday (on the Quai Saint Bernard in the open-air Musée de la Sculpture en Plein Air):

the flowers & leaves are starting to come out on the flowering trees & willows

For some other lovely spring photos, and a helluva fantastic post on the Île-de-la-Cité (sister island of the Île-de-Saint-Louis in the Seine), please hop over to Peter’s Paris March 15 post “Close to Notre Dame.”

In fact, it is officially changing into the Vernal Equinox as I type and post this. Well, I think it is something like 5 am GMT on the 20th (so the 19th for those of you in North and South America). HAPPY SPRING!

I have many things on my To Do List. Many of them go undone. I am trying to keep a balance between caring for myself (my health and well-being are still a little precarious these days. Maybe a post on that in the future…) and seizing life day by day. I have not found the answer to achieving that balance, and honestly don’t know what I am going to do with my draft.

another view of the "shitty first draft"

I’m really proud of doing what I did. It’s not easy to create a world on paper. Authors, even the crappy ones, have my utmost respect because it is, in fact, REALLY HARD to get a decent novel on paper, and for very little reward except knowing you did it. Or, if you are one of the Stephen Kings of the world, then perhaps a nice house or car. But those kinds of authors are relatively rare. I’m not in it for that kind of glory. I’d just really like to write a book I might have read and liked when I was a kid. I’d like some kid to read it and be inspired by the characters and world I create. I’d like them to be able to escape into the story and get lost in it for a few hours or a few days (or maybe weeks, I guess, if the kid is an über-slow reader).

I am not sure what I owe it or myself in continuing to revise it at this point, though. I’m discouraged by the hard work, and distracted by the many, many things that grab my attention in a given day. I’m also not sure if this is the story that really grabs me and makes me want to write it. Any of you know what I mean?

How do you grapple with the things you need or want to do? How do you try to keep balance in ordering your life and your To Do List? Any great time management tips you have? Please share them below. I’d appreciate it. Or, if you have advice about revising a work. I could use that, too.

Well, speaking of time, and making time for me, taking care of myself, and achieving things on the To Do List, I need to wrap this up and go read my book club book. We’re meeting on Thursday and I still have a LOT to read. It’s The Lemon Tree. I really like it, but I have not been keeping up with reading it over the past month.  So it’s off to bed with me, and into the book.

Have a great first day of Spring and see you here again soon!

Over & out.

Paris Karin

(an alien parisienne)

P.S. I have a very busy week after today & through the rest of the week. Please pardon me if I don’t reply to your comments right away or post them quickly if they have gone into moderation. Also FYI, there is a lovely blog I read and, for some weird reason, my comments always go to her spam folder! I send her a note on Twitter and she checks her Spam folder and posts my comment. If you ever comment and it does not post, please feel free to send me a note via the Contact page to let me know. It may have inadvertently gone to the Spam folder here on WordPress! I can fish it out and make sure it posts.

P.P.S. Here is another cute photo I took on Friday that I wanted to share:

ahhhh, Paris in the Springtime!

March 1 daffodils on the balcony of an apartment near the Quai Branly Museum

John Keating: [talking to his students while looking at photos of school alumni] They’re not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they’re destined for great things, just like many of you, their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because, you see gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it? – - Carpe – - hear it? – - Carpe, carpe diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary. (Source: IMDB)

"... the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?" ~ Dead Poets Society. (Click pic for image source.)

I first saw Dead Poets Society in late 1989 in a Fort Collins, Colorado movie theater when I was 21, a senior at Colorado State University, and contemplating going to China to teach English. After watching I was inspired to “seize the day,” take life by the reigns, and go. (And I did. From 1990 to 1991, I taught English at a university in a southeast province of the PRC.)

DPS is one of my most favorite films. Over and over I have watched this movie for inspiration, and each time I am encouraged to write the verse of my life in the actions I take each day.

I’m more than twice the age as when I first saw the film, but I am not yet fertilizing daffodils and I have not heard any fat ladies singing, so I take it that I still have more to write in my life (literally and figuratively).

What is this post about?

For the past couple of months I have had a post stewing in my head, and it was a comment on the blog JenX/Generation X (this post specifically) that prompted me to go ahead and write it.

It’s been on my mind to write about blogging — what it is to me, why it is that I have felt drawn to it all these many years, and where the future of this blog is going. It’s really one of my favorite topics: blogging about blogging. I know — how “Meta” of me! Annoying, probably, to some. But it’s how my brain works and often I need to write through these things to be able to figure them out. In addition, I have not been able to get away from the questions, “WHY AM I DOING THIS?” and “WHERE IS THIS GOING?” Those two questions have been obsessing me so much that I have had a kind of “blogger’s block” and not been able to move forward past those two questions to just create and write for this blog. I have had a bad case of “What’s the point?” and not been able to really find a good enough answer to the question, nor my groove with the blog for many months now.

So in the post I referenced, Jen replied to my comment, “Thanks so much for your thoughtful reply. I enjoy your comments Karin! I always click on your blog to see if you’ve written. You should write more!”

It’s always really nice to receive feedback that comments are appreciated — and I love reading and leaving comments on blogs, maybe even more than I love writing blog posts themselves. I love the conversation that ensues because of thoughtful posts; I love the dialogue internal to posts that carry the ideas and conversation further. I love supporting other people and their writing efforts. Maybe it is the former English teacher in me that makes me feel this way: I kind of view people’s posts as expressions to be encouraged and supported. I like to read and find the things to write that will encourage and support people in their creativity.

I was glad to know that Jen has visited here and been checking in to see if I have written, although she finds nothing much that is new. I appreciate her encouragement to write more. It’s true: these days I do not write as much as I did in the first year of this blog (2009-2010). Since January of 2011 I have only averaged about a  post a month, a far cry from bloggers I know who post at least once a week, if not once a day. There was a time when I used to love writing on my blog(s) a lot, too. At various times in my blogging life I have posted daily, or nearly so.

My workspace in the Ghetto Pad (aka my apartment)

Blogging Past

I’ve written before here and there about my blogging history (I’m not even going to try to link up past posts as it would be a very time-consuming chore and I would rather just write, but I think I tagged the posts with “blogs” or “blogging” and have a category here called “Blogging“). Here’s a little recap of my blogging history for the people who may be new to this blog and may not have read past posts nor know very much about who I am and what I write about.

The very first blog post I wrote on a blog of my own was back in 2004 on a now-defunct Blogger blog. I hit a blogging peak in 2006-2008 on the social networking and blogging site Yahoo!360 (also now closed), and then I moved to Paris in June of 2008.

I spent a year floundering in Paris, with agoraphobia (fear of going out of one’s living space), and knowing almost no one except for a wonderful co-worker of Paul’s with whom I started to attend yoga classes and my friend Tess (who appears in several early posts here on AAP), whom I happened to meet on an Internet bulletin board. It was by total coincidence that we both had signed up and been commenting on this bulletin board, and she had just moved back up to Paris from the South of France in December of 2008. I received encouragement from my best friend in near-daily phone calls, and with my “Imaginary Blog Friends” (as my imaginary blogging friend Daisy calls the Internet friends with whom we are very close, but may never have met face-to-face). These IBFs were “living” in various internet neighborhoods after Yahoo!360 closed and were keeping me sane as I wrote interactive journal posts. From them, I received encouragement to start An Alien Parisienne back in July of 2009.

Why is my blogging past important information to know?

Well, it seems that I have been having a lot of conversations with people about this blog — the topic comes up at blogger meetups and with other friends I know and meet with because of this blog. Questions like, “What do you blog about?” are asked, and I have to have a fairly tidy answer at the ready in these meetup situations. Then there’s the fact that I’m relatively silent on my blog these days, especially in terms of writing the personal, newsy and/or introspective tomes I used to write in the past. Not really having a neat and concise answer to the “What do you blog about?” question, and the fact that I have slowed down so much in writing has led me to question yet again, “Why am I even doing this?” It’s a question that has come up for me a lot in the past 15 months or so.

I think that one of the factors in my writing slow-down is that I have been doing this “blogging thing” for a really long time now and that perhaps I am evolving out of the need to blog and especially the need to blog about Paris and my life in Paris.

Yet, I am not ready to fully close the door on this blog, either, and say, “I’m done with it,” although there are days when I have thought about making such a declaration.

In trying to decide what to do and figure things out, I have thought back on my reasons for beginning AAP.

Why did I start this blog in the first place?

It’s pretty simple.  I needed to seize the day. I needed to take care of myself.

My oldest son, Sam, and I, May 2009 at the Arènes du Lutèce in Paris

My son (pictured above) visited me at the end of May, 2009 and stayed with Paul and me through the month of June. His visit forced me to get out of the house, face my fears, and show him a good time in Paris. I had gotten some help along these lines (someone visiting to force me out of my shell) when six months earlier, my good friend Michelle had come to visit for a week. She helped a lot. But my son visiting me helped more because in his case, my “mother lion” had come out to care for him and in so doing I was caring for myself more, too. My needing to be there for my son had allowed me to be there for me as well.

On the day he left, June 25, 2009, on the way back from dropping him off at Charles de Gaulle airport, instead of getting off at Gare du Nord and going straight back home, I took the RER B to Saint Michel instead and went on a walking adventure.  I came upon a book market at Saint Sulpice and went on to visit the Chapelle Notre-Dame de la Médaille Miraculeuse.

Saint Sulpice Book Market, June 2009

The Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medallion, 140 rue du Bac, in the 7th arrondissement

A few days later on the 4th of July weekend, I went to lunch with Tess, then out by myself to the Jardin des Plantes in the 5th arrondissement to walk around and take photos, and on Sunday, July 5, 2009, I started this blog.

Kissing in the Jardin des Plantes, July 5, 2009

Seizing the Day and Taking Care of Myself

September 2011, I was asked to write a guest post on outdoor activities in Paris (it’s linked from my blog here.) I was asked to include a byline/author description, and I wrote the following:

Karin Bates Prescott, resident of Paris for over three years, writes on her blog, An Alien Parisienne, about feeling like an “outsider” in Paris. Gluten and dairy intolerant and often ambivalent about the city everyone seems to adore, she is learning to love and appreciate Paris on her terms one day at a time.

Not long after, in trying to get at this question, “But what is my blog ABOUT?” I came back to this byline and the last sentence: “she is learning to love and appreciate Paris on her terms one day at a time.”

As a result of creating this byline, I changed my Twitter description from “Chick in Paris” to “I’m parisienne by location but americaine by birth. I am alien, regardless of location. I have multiple food intolerances, love books & try to Carpe Diem” and this led to my changing my blog description, too: “Trying to put the “carpe” in “diem” in Paris”

A dawning realization…

A few weeks ago when thinking about “What’s the point of my blog?” I suddenly saw what had been before me all along: my blog has always been about seizing the day and taking care of myself. It was the original mandate from my Imaginary Blog Friends, “You’re living in PARIS! Seize the opportunity! Don’t just sit on your ass and fester there! So Paul is not interested in going out with you to see Paris? Then DO IT YOURSELF.” (At the time, Paul, having lived here for almost 20 years, had cooled in his excitement about seeing and doing things in the city. I wrote about some of this in this post here, “Paris is Often Not My Kind of Girl.” I just skimmed it, and hilariously enough, I address many of the same things I do in this post. I guess I have a need to continue to ruminate about what the hell this “blogging thing” is, haha.)

Maybe some of you have read the classic self-help title Codependent No More by Melodie Beattie. In a nutshell, Beattie’s book is for people (“codependents”) who have developed a pattern of letting “another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior” (p. 34, second edition, the one I linked in the title there). Beattie goes on to write on the same page that:

the other person might be a child, an adult, a lover, a spouse, a brother, a sister, a client, or a best friend. He or she could be an alcoholic, a drug addict, a mentally or physically ill person, a normal person who occasionally has sad feelings, or one of the people mentioned earlier [i.e., having a relationship, personally or professionally, with compulsive, troubled, needy, or dependent people, page 33] .

But the heart of the definition and recovery lies not in the other person — no matter how much we believe it does. It lies in ourselves, in the ways we have let other people’s behavior affect us and in the ways we try to affect them…

Beattie’s book suggests many ways to get oneself out of a codependent vicious circle and one of the best things one can do is detach and take care of oneself.

Detachment involves “present moment living” [emphasis mine] — living in the here and now. We allow life to happen instead of forcing and trying to control it. We relinquish regrets over the past and fears about the future. We make the most of each day (p. 61).

Beattie teaches that “undependence” — to learn to be independent of others and dependent on ourselves — is how we move forward to focus on our own needs, wants, feelings, and life, not to be wrapped up in and controlled by the needs, wants, feelings, and life of another (p. 107).

Basically, it comes down to seizing the day and taking care of oneself.

That, my dear blog reading friends, is what this blog boils down to. It’s taken me two-and-a-half years to figure it out and see the obvious, but this is indeed the emphasis of this blog.

This blog is not really about Paris, it is about how I, Karin Bates Prescott, choose to seize the day, and how I try to take care of myself in the process. Writing blogs here has kept me accountable in this process of trying to seize the day and take care of myself. Some of the ways I most love to seize the day is by getting out there and seeing stuff and taking photos of it all. A lot of how I take care of myself is by coming to my blog and writing introspectively about how it is that I do these two things: seize the day and take care of myself.

In the past 15 months, part of seizing the day and taking care of myself has actually been to NOT post on this blog! Part of my life is that I now do quite a bit of babysitting and a little tutoring, as well as going out and meeting up with people I know because of having started this blog. Part of seizing the day and taking care of myself has been about getting AWAY from the computer and living life — stepping away from social media activity and reading books for the book club I go to, or writing a draft of a novel (one that I have started working on the revision process this month).

It has meant reading some of your blogs less, and spending time doing things like going grocery shopping to buy special foods and cook them from scratch, because I still have a lot of troubles with digesting food and experiencing side-effects from food sensitivities (sometimes the side-effects appear as incapacitating fatigue, which also means stepping away from the computer, resting, and going to bed).

Conclusions

So there you go. That’s where I am at these days. Part of me wants to write more for this blog. I still take a lot of photos with the intent of  writing posts about them. But time gets away from me, I get busy with the process of living life, and pretty much blow off this blog. It’s the main reason I don’t write more here: I am busy seizing the day and living life.

Sometimes it’s because I am spending more time over on Facebook, Google+, or in reading up on things people link in those two places. Sometimes that’s all I can handle in a day: vegging out on social media sites and going on auto-pilot. Sometimes I need to be offline altogether. I’m blowing off the blog because the influx of emails, articles, blog posts of others to read, and so on is overwhelming. I’m not alone in my need to “unplug” from blogging and social media and set about doing other things.

There are several articles and blog posts I have read which have contributed to my thoughts in this post. I hope that you will take the time to read through some of them and do your own introspection about the things I address in this post like, “Why do I blog?”, “What is my blog about?”, “Is my blogging helping me or hurting me in terms of seizing the day and taking care of myself?”

• Beth Arnold addresses the need to unplug in her insightful post LETTER FROM PARIS: 28 days (without the internet)
• Blogger Jennyphoria a few weeks ago on Facebook linked me into an article that really got me thinking about what it means to take care of myself and spend less time online The American Scholar: Solitude and Leadership.
• This from the Lantern Hollow Press blog, as seen on WordPress’ “Freshly Pressed” page, Losing Yourself and Finding Some Chocolate: Beating the Writer’s Block.
• Pugly Pixel and the post Sustainable Blogging. I loved the ending to the post:
  “I realize that consistency is a requirement for blog success (whatever success means to you), but consistency doesn’t just mean posting regularly every day. It can mean posting with consistent quality. It can mean posting with consistent excitement and enthusiasm. And it can mean being consistently true to yourself and posting only when you feel like it.” [emphasis added by me -- I claim not consistency in frequency, but certainly in being true to myself!]
• In Over Your head [dot] net and 100 Tips About Life, People, and Happiness. A GREAT list at suggesting some ways to seize the day.
• Exposing the Truth [dot] info and Top Five Regrets of The Dying. HINT: Wishing they had posted more blogs was not one of the top regrets.
• The Wikipedia article for Blog. I came to realize from reading this entry that I truly do have an “old school” personal journal, and this is exactly what I want my blog to be. I am not trying to educate or inform you, I am not trying to be an amateur journalist, I am not trying to sell something. I am not trying to show you fancy photos of typical Paris nor make you drool over the plentiful pastries, and so on. There are plenty of those blogs out there and each of them has a unique beauty and creativity to them, too. What I really am trying to do here is share part of my journey in life with you. This particular personal journal of mine is focused on my experiences and adventures in Paris. Sometimes I have been in situations where I have chosen to write about what other people are doing to help make their (and others’) lives more satisfactory, too (ergo the “Special Reports” on this blog).
• Last, but not least, this post by The Fearful Adventurer called The Trouble with Blogging. This line says it all: “It’s better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you are not.”

I want to leave you with a final image, photos from the pages of dearly-loved book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish by Dr. Seuss. These pages from his book remind me that it ain’t over until the fat lady sings, and if I have never walked with ten cats on my head, well maybe I should. I have a lot to live for and accomplish still, here in Paris. So do you, wherever you are. Carpe Diem.

"If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good."

“Live long and prosper!”

says

Paris Karin (an alien parisienne)

Hi, faithful Readers. Thank you for coming back to my blog. I kind of feel like I have bailed on you of late, not even giving decent responses to comments on the previous two blogs. I apologize for not following up better. It’s not because I did not appreciate what you had to say! I did. Thank you to everyone who read and commented.

My only excuse is that with my motto of “Life first, blog later!” I have indeed been out, living life! This is a good thing. This is not to say I have abandoned you, entirely. In fact, you may notice I have made some changes around the Alien Parisienne home. I’ve got a new WordPress theme, and behind-the-scenes I have been working on revamping my links page (turning it into pages, plural), with more information for you. I am taking pictures for posts and have plenty of ideas of things to write about that are fermenting in the giant Blog Vat, aka My Brain. One thing I could use is a wee bit more time, or, rather, the ability to better manage what time I do have. *sigh* Can I get a holla from anyone else who struggles with that?!

I’m here today, though, as I have a Special Report where time is of the essence, and where my presence at the press event today means I need to get on the stick and actually post about it quickly to generate that “Internet Buzz” that is hoped-for by the people who invited me. By getting to go to these things (usually courtesy of Paris Paul who is the one who gets the invites – I am usually the +1), it means I have to be on the ball enough to go ahead and write about them tout de suite!

So, here you go. This is a write-up about a new exhibition opening Tuesday, February 28, 2012 at the Musée des Arts et Métiers:

RADIO – OUVREZ GRAND VOS OREILLES! / RADIO – OPEN YOUR EARS!

Continue reading to find out more about this exhibition.

In brief:

RADIO – OUVREZ GRAND VOS OREILLES! / RADIO – OPEN YOUR EARS!

What is it?

The Musée des Arts et Métiers – the Museum of Arts and Crafts, with Radio France and the National Audiovisual Institute, presents its new temporary exhibition “Radio: Open Your Ears!” (Fr: Radio: Ouvrez grand vos oreilles!) devoted to the history of radio broadcasting in France.

Where is it?

The Musée des Arts et Métiers

60 rue Réamur, Paris 75003

Radio from the 1920s and 1930s

When is it?

From February 28, 2012 to September 2, 2012

Tuesdays to Sundays, 10 am to 6 pm; Thursday evenings until 9:30 pm.

(closed Mondays, May 1,  and December 25)

Radio of the 1940s

How much does it cost?

Full price (exhibition only): € 5.50, Reduced price: € 3.50
Combined ticket, Permanent and temporary exhibitions:
Full price: € 7.50, Reduced price: € 5.50; Under 18: € 3.50

Métro Arts-et-Métiers

How can I get there?

Métro Arts-et-Métiers (lines 3 & 11) or Réamur Sébastopol (line 4)

Buses: 20, 38, 39, or 47

Map (and other practical information)

Radio 1960-1995

Why should I go?

Have you ever stopped to consider the integral role that radio has played in our lives? At the “Radio: Open Your Ears!” exhibition, you can learn about not only the history of radio in France, but its impact on the sociopolitical and cultural landscape of France as well, and correspondingly, the world. The exhibit is creatively designed around an interactive timeline that brings the history of radio to life.

So, who will enjoy this exhibition?

• People whose French is reasonably good. I’m still a beginner, yet can read quite a bit of French and get the gist. The exhibition is text and, naturally, audio-heavy, and is only in French. It is great practice for listening and reading in French, though!
• People who are interested in the history of France. The development of radio in France is a really interesting point-of-view for examining critical points in modern French history, such as World War II and the uprising of May 1968 and the role radio played in each.
• People who enjoy the development of technology and mass media. This is pretty much a given: if you are someone who is interested in seeing the actual radios used in the past, starting from the earliest of radios up to the present-day digital versions, you will enjoy this. If you are someone who has reasonable French and would like to learn more about the role of mass media in France, you will also find this exhibition of value.
• People who like really cool museum exhibition design. I thought the exhibition was really creatively made and well-lit. I’d say for this alone, if you are planning on a trip to the Musée des Arts et Métiers while in Paris anyway, why not go ahead and buy a combined ticket and check out the exhibition? I really liked all of the giant radio designs which doubled as exhibit rooms as I traveled through time in the history of radio.

More information: Go to the Musée des Arts et Métiers website — http://www.arts-et-metiers.net

Radio from 2000 to the present

What did I think about it?

I got a kick out of seeing all the historic radios and appreciated learning more about French history via the development of the radio waves (“les ondes”). I think the exhibit is worth checking out! In fact, I have been meaning to go to the permanent collection at the Musée des Arts et Métiers for quite a while now – I have heard there are quite a lot of interesting technological and scientific/engineering marvels to learn about there. I should go back and check the radio exhibition out once more while I am at it. If you are in Paris, I recommend that you check out the museum’s permanent collection – and for just a couple of euros extra, learn something about the history of radio in France until September 2012.

Over and out.

Paris Karin

(an alien parisienne)

"2011 - Each day, 81.8% of French listen to the radio"