You miss the strangest things. When Michael's Mum visited us recently, I asked for a collection of a few stray items from the house on Muriel Avenue in Toronto. They were silly things, really, things that I could find in Narbonne, replaceable. But, you can't imagine how happy I felt when I pulled out our stainless steel coffee measuring spoon from the bag. Suddenly, our habits and life in Toronto were being replicated in a small yet concrete way. 20 Muriel was with us. Our daily life is full of routines and patterns, facilitated by the tools that we use to get by: the veggie peeler that our friends gave us after expressing their disgust at our non-functioning one, the crazy pastry brush that always reminds me of my Mom. I guess if the objects of our former lives are with us, it means that the memories and people they are tied to are closer too.
Some thoughts on belonging
As the boys integrate into their new school and activities, we've been privy to interesting reactions and discourse about how you fit in. When Maxime wanted to wear a Toronto, Canada t-shirt to his sports activity yesterday, Benjamin pointed out that you don't wear something "from away" here, just like you don't wear a t-shirt that says "hockey" since no one plays hockey here. The reality is that everyone knows we're "from away" the second we open our mouths. Our accents give us away. Never mind how much you slow your speech, lose the joual, and strive for verbs & expressions that are French, not québécois. As predicted, the boys are slowly starting to pick up some of the Narbonne articulation, getting all those syllables out and using their lovely lips to linguistic effect.
p.s.: Maxime decided he didn't care, and wore the Toronto shirt.
You know you're not in Kansas anymore
Maxime's CP class (1st grade) begins its first sports activity next week. It's weekly skating lessons at Narbonne's only skating rink, Espace liberté. When Mme. Feniou explained to the students that they needed to get their permissions signed to go to the patinoire (skating rink), one little girl piped up: "C'est quoi une patinoire?" AKA: What's a skating rink?
I suspect our boys might be the only two students at Ecole Lakanal with their own hockey equipment, although we've an urgent need for hockey sticks as we left them behind and no sports stores here carry them.
