George Sand and the Hotel Named After the Author

A NEW LEARNING
In the city of Loches in the Loire Valley, Christine and I stayed at the George Sand Hotel, the guest house that carries her name. Yes, George Sand was a woman. She was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin and she became the most famous female writer of 19th century France. She authored novels, stories, plays, essays and memoirs. She was the epitome of French romantic idealism and in her literature she questioned sexual identity and gender destinies in fiction. She demanded for women the daily freedom of life that men took for granted. She wrote "The world will know and understand me someday. But if that day does not arrive, it does not greatly matter. I shall have opened the way for other women."

As brilliant a writer as she was recognized to be, she was prominent as much for her lifestyle and personality. The time in which she lived, with its restrictions and conventions, drew notoriety to her way of life. Aurore was married to a baron, scandalously left him, taking her two children to live on her own. She became friends with many artists, writers, and musicians like Eugène Delacroix and Franz Liszt and had romantic relationships with others, most notably Frédéric Chopin. She was loud, lewd and shocking. She was anything but the typical Parisian lady of the 1800’s. Her protest of treatment of womankind was manifest in her dress, that is no dress. She wore men’s clothing, suits, pants (long before that was acceptable), ties and a top hat. She smoked cigars. She became iconic because of her fame as a writer.

And Christine and I stayed in a charming hotel named after her, an aged old building, with a tiny entrance off a seamy street, with rooms, on three levels to which you climbed with luggage round and round the tightest circular staircase with head bumping low spots in the ceiling. And of course, our room, because we chose to pay less, was up with the pigeons or whatever else requires less oxygen. It looked like the attic with the structural support beams serving as obstacles en route to our beds each night. Ours is the tiny gable window in the roof. It did have a great view over a waterfall and the sound of running water 24/7 and it had a fine restaurant with good food. Then we learned that Paris has a George Sand Hotel with an elegant environment and beautiful furnishings which would have set us back a few Euros. Oh yes, on the outskirts of the city there is another less elaborate one with the same name, Hotel George Sand, Courbevoie, France; and another at 26 rue des Mathurins

The pleasant French proprietors knew nothing about George Sand.

At Hofstra University in 1976 Friends of George Sand founded the George Sand Association as a literary society, the purpose of which is to encourage and foster research and scholarship on George Sand.

Sand's "Story of My Life" is available from Amazon

Hard Work in Hard Times and Buskers, Beggars and Bad People.

A NEW LEARNING
Tomorrow marks the date my parents were married. Both of them are gone now but we all remember that this would have been their 68th wedding anniversary. During the years of their working lives these people worked hard. It was the fabric of the prairie families in which they grew up, and it characterized their generation who went to war for freedom and filled the burgeoning factories when WWII was over. D-Day made heroes of those who came home and all those who remained in marked and unmarked graves. My brothers and I had high admiration for our parents’ work ethic and we learned from them.

Times are tough for many people once again in every country. People labour in customary jobs and others find ways of bringing home cash for necessities. During my trip in France I watched many people doing what they could to get by. Some of them I respected and with others I found fault.

I have esteem for Buskers who are making a living with a talent. We saw many while we lived in France and particularly in Paris. A busker is an English term referring to people who are street performers or street musicians. Actually a busker may also do acrobatics, juggling, comedy, contortions & escapes, dance, magic, mime, performance as a living statue, poetry or street art (sketching and painting.), and much more.

Excellent musicians filled the streets and the Metro (subway) system of Paris. A cellist sat in a Metro corridor at 9am and we saw her there at 9 at night playing astoundingly wonderful music. I dropped a coin into her open cello case. As we descended a flight of stairs to a Metro station far underground, we could hear the glorious sound of a group of eight men singing (Russian) and playing stringed and wind instruments. Sitting in an outdoor café or restaurant we were often serenaded by a busker who then invited a gift before moving to the next café. Street artists would offer to do a portrait on the spot. Sadly, some buskers were more like hustlers, hopping onto a waiting subway car with its captive audience and hitting the play button on a CD player and then rapping or singing or playing Sax, clarinet, guitar. These mobile buskers quickly moved with cup in hand to every rider and when the doors opened, hopped the next subway car. It was entertaining but I can understand how that could soon become annoying. I watched one scuffle between an on board busker and a rider that ended in a shoving match.

I had less appreciation for the peddlers of Eiffel towers that lit up, glowed, shone. They were like locusts everywhere. An institution of art peddling has developed along the Seine riverbank all with permanent locked storage boxes that open into display stands in the daytime, selling primarily cheap and trashy looking French paintings, and prints that looked like paintings.

Beggars were everywhere. I discriminated among these people. Some were clearly disadvantaged by disabilities. To some of these I gave a coin. There were old men who were unemployable in a down economy. There were women with children, destitute and compelled to try anything to feed their children. But there were also young men and women, often nicely dressed, cell phones or i-pods tucked not so discreetly in pockets and sitting on steps or against walls with a cup in front looking for donations. Each time I saw them I wished I knew how to say in French, “Get a job!”

I also saw too many people attempting to con unwary tourists. If you spoke English or carried a camera you were a target. One cute ploy was seeming to pick up a gold ring immediately in front of a tourist and offering as if having found something the tourist may have dropped. If the tourist held on to it, the con artist pressed for a reward.

Yesterday, we enjoyed a visit from some New Zealand friends who are staying in Vancouver for a few days and loving it. They told us that con artistry, begging and busking are alive and well downtown.

Mario Bruno is a friend living in Rome for years and when we visited him years ago we watched as he frequently gave a gift to a begging person believing that charity must not be abandoned because it is a Christian response to obvious need. I learned from that.

WE HAVE COME HOME

A NEW LEARNING
Christine and I arrived in Vancouver on Sunday afternoon following a two hour flight from Paris to Frankfurt and a ten hour flight from Frankfurt to Vancouver. Our family of children and grandchildren greeted us at Vancouver International. Oh, it was so good to be welcomed by the ones we love so much. I am pleased to be home. Seven weeks is a long time to be away from home. Christine could have happily remained in France. Small wonder since today she spent her waking hours washing clothes, drying and ironing. Home is equated with work for her. In fact, she returns this week almost immediately, to teaching music and babysitting two of five grandweeones. I am not useless. I did some early morning gardening, serious weeding, soil breaking, fertilizing and watering. I do mean early. Last evening, by the time we enjoyed our children and grandchildren, we hit the pillows at 9:30 pm which meant we had been awake for 24 hours. (Of course during the ten hour Lufthansa flight we each did a movie marathon with the monitors in the seats ahead of us. Four movies and two meals and our eyes were red and Advil hit the spot.) By 12am Monday I was up for a pit stop and then tried to find the sleep cycle once again, and woke once more at 3 am. That was enough. I made coffee and sat at the laptop to play catchup. By 6am I was in the yard with my gardening gloves and I worked my tail off, feeling I had put in a good morning, only to learn that it was still only 8 am. People were just leaving for work. We missed the leisurely Paris/Montmartre walks to to local boulangerie (bakery/cafe) so much, that we strolled this morning to the Wired Monk two blocks away and enjoyed sitting outside with coffee and a treat. We told ourselves we need to do this for ourselves at least once each week. I may share some photos and memories in the days ahead but I feel like I want to comment on some of the conclusions to which I came as I reflected upon my own life, our married life, the faiths that command the attention of the masses, the cruelty within our world, the cultures in different places, the sadness of some people and the generosity of others.

(One of my Photos of the Louvre Museum)

Lance Armstrong – Tour de France Comeback

A NEW LEARNING
I know something about retiring. I did it. I am inexperienced at making comebacks, successful ones. I am getting inspired as I write.

Comebacks among athletes are old news. Many good athletes couldn’t handle retirement and attempted comebacks. Only a few exceptional athletes have made successful comebacks, people like Gordie Howe, Mario Lemieux, George Foreman, Martina Navratilova and number 23 Michael Jordan. Now we have another one, a most unlikely one in a most unlikely sport.

I love sports and I have played a few. I have never been involved in bicycle racing but I admire the athlete who is dedicated to the rigors of this demanding team sport. And if you haven’t heard, one of professional bike racing’s elite athletes is making a comeback this year. LANCE ARMSTRONG IS BACK! Yeah! At least that’s my response. Well perhaps that’s premature. He has been training, and he has been greenlighted by the racing powers and he right now he is in Australia for the Tour Down Under. Clearly he was unable to handle retirement. Could 2009 be the year of the legend, a legendary year. The man is already of legendary proportion having won the Tour de France seven consecutive years beginning in 1999 and retiring after the seventh yellow jersey in 2005. Think about that, 2005-2009.

The Tour de France, oh what a race! Christine and I are devotees of the Tour, albeit in front of the TV. It’s how we start our mornings during Tour time, coffee in hand, faces turned south-west, the position of our TV screen. We watch the riders each day, up mountains, through villages, round steep curves, through rain and heat for hundreds of kilometres per race. In vain we cheer the breakaway riders as the peloton with alternating lead riders relentlessly overtakes the front group. And then as it has since 1975 the Tour de France finishes with 6.5 laps around the grand oval of the world’s most beautiful avenue, Paris’ Champs-Elysées. Christine and I will soon be walking the Champs-Elysées, sadly too soon for the Tour.

Armstrong is so fascinating a figure because by 1993 at age 22 he had won 10 titles in bike races and one stage of the Tour de France. For two more years he grew his skills and won more races including another stage in the Tour de France. He was America’s male cyclist of the year in 1995. Then at age 25 he withdrew in pain and tests revealed advanced testicular cancer had spread into his lungs and brain. His chances of recovery were 50/50 and while afraid, he was determined and began aggressive chemo. In May of 1998 Lance celebrated his victory over cancer and his "official" return to U.S. cycling by winning under the lights the Sprint 56K Criterium Austin. Following the Sprint Criterium, Lance went on to score stunning victories at the Tour de Luxembourg (June, 1998), the Rheinland in Germany (July, 1998), the Cascade Classic in Oregon (July, 1998), finished fourth in the Tour of Holland (September, 1998), and remarkable fourth in the grueling Tour of Spain (September, 1998), and concluded his 1998 season with an overall fourth place finish at the World Championships in Holland. Beating cancer he had already won the biggest contest of his life but the fairy tale was complete it seemed when in 1999 he won the Tour de France. Who could dream that he would do it six more times in successive years? And now he is returning.

I ask myself, “Am I ready for a comeback?” Perhaps I should be. Not a return to my former career necessarily. There are other things going on in my life. I am forty pounds heavier than I was at my wedding. I drink too much coffee. My teeth have worn with age. I require corrective lenses. I have only wisps of hair on top which my tiny granddaughter plays with. My eyelids are drooping like rain soaked canopies. Life purpose is a bit muddy. Spiritual slippage is a concern. Without deliberate attention romance becomes eroded after 41 years of marriage.

If Lance wins a stage of the Tour Down Under, I think he will be telling the world to watch for him in Paris.
I want to comeback in some areas. I want to win some early stages. I will tell you about them when they happen.

Lance Armstrong website
The Lance Armstrong Foundation
The Livestrong blog
On Tour with Lance