the end

I've put my readers through a lot. This blog has been in a four-month state of unrest.

This has been my playground. I've used it to play with Illustrator, Photoshop and creative writing. I've been trying to figure out what makes blogs work: what drives followers, what is absolutely essential. I've tried to find my "topic," my hook, my theme. This was what felt necessary.

In the process, I lost focus and was distracted from why this blog was originally started: For my life, I've felt like what is really necessary is simply writing. I need it. I've tried to bend it around things and find what I should be writing about, which is never how this whole thing should work.

So this is what's happening. I am ending this blog. I am continuing lafrancofile, because that is where I feel at home. When I realized that was the direction I wanted to take (and needed to take if I wanted to develop a blog that people truly enjoy following), I also realized that it was where I was really writing.

La Francofile addresses what's most important to me right now: figuring out how to be married and be a woman in today's world, what it means to balance domesticity with gender equality, how to separate learning things for myself and learning them because it is what is expected.

Joe and I will be married and in Nancy in only three months. We will be living our environmentalist tendencies at full speed, learning how to keep things alive (working our way up to children), figuring out who does the laundry & who does the home repairs, communicating in another language and spending every day together... something that we haven't done. Ever.

So, as you can see, I don't need to find a theme. I don't need to find my shtick or hobby. I don't need to sound like a "nesting" couple or a vegan cooking experiment. I just need to continue doing the things that I'm passionate about: being with my (soon-to-be) husband, cooking (now mostly French) food, learning how to do all things on my own, looking at how feminism plays out in modern society and above (almost) all writing.

Thanks for reading. Please keep doing so, and please follow lafrancofile.

all kinds of green

Today marks an important day in my family history: the first time I have voluntarily pulled the weeds from our brick sidewalk and patio; the first time I, of my own accord, offered to help mom cut back flowers. The first time I was excited to be in the flower beds, have dirt under my fingernails and feel plant juice drying in a sweet shine on my arms.

As I started becoming more actively involved in environmental efforts, I realized how connected these themes were, and home crucial they are, to our own lawns, flower beds or gardens. I became a hater of grass, for its lack of use or purpose (other than the competition for the greenest lawn) and high demand for chemicals. I became interested in creating a backyard ecosystem, a sustainable lawn and property. I became embarrassed about my lack of gardening (or general plant) knowledge.

I planted the milkweed today. Mom still calls it a weed. I still insist that everyone defines "a weed" for themselves. The two stalks are nestled in by the honeysuckle, behind garden statue. I'm pretty sure Mom's trying to hide it. I'm also pretty sure that the Monarchs and lack of aphids will be appreciated when the milkweed starts blooming.

From the milkweed, I moved on to the weed-pulling. With each pull, I thought of the garden that Joe and I will start. What our children will want to plant. How we'll learn when and where to plant which vegetables to have decent harvests. How we'll handle weeds. How we'll learn to keep them alive.How big lilacs will get if I just let them go. What a house would look like if the yard was full of lilac bushes. Obviously, things started getting out of hand.

When I helped Mom cut back the tulips and daffodils, she casually mentioned that she needed to dig up the irises. The bulbs were too deep, preventing them from blooming. How'd you know that? Your grandma, she replied. I wondered how many generations have been able to say this, at what point the mother became the authority on gardening.

I am usually stubborn, anxious to figure things out my own way. I refuse help and will fail on my own in order to teach myself. This summer, however, I'm so excited to spend weekend afternoons annoying my mom as she waters flowers. I want to know why she planted things, how you cut them back, how you figure that out, what you do with bulbs, how you shape bushes without killing the whole plant. I want to soak it all in during this last summer at home, so that when I'm launched into a world of caring for my home and children, I can piece together the knowledge to say without thinking, "If I do this, the flower will straighten out again. If we plant this here, these pests will stay away." I want to start gaining that infinite Mom Knowledge.

small town

After my first year of college, before I even understood what “journalism” really meant, my hometown newspaper editor trusted me enough to let me take on a big summer project. I wrote roughly 40 feature articles, finding my own stories and finding my way through journalistic writing. He was patient, forgiving and much better paying than I could have imagined for my first job.

That same summer, a man my dad knew let me paint the new Chamber of Commerce. Despite my fear of heights and my inexperience, I was left in a room with gallon buckets of purple paint and a scaffold. I tilted my head back, climbed the metal frame and used a four-inch roller to paint a tin ceiling the size of a basketball court. I love the work, because I felt respected and responsible. My work would be seen by the key players of the town, the small business owners.

This is what I love most about coming from a small town, this sense of trust and integrity in your work. It leads to such a feeling of reciprocity: they expect you to work hard; you work hard because they know you can. 

I thank my small town for the opportunities and the trust employers are willing to put in you: trust that your parents raised you with a strong work ethic and an honest face. Doors open for you, and then those that opened them leave you to do your work. They pop through the door, check your progress, offer you a snack or a paid break, then leave you again.

Today, I went back to the Wapakoneta Daily News and spoke to my editor. He told me I’d be a bit all over the place: writing senior profiles, stepping back into the series of features I did three years ago, typing up reality information and even stepping into the layout office.

When I was leaving the office, I found my mom talking to Mr. Graff, who was still raving about the painting I did for him at Chamber of Commerce. He turned to the newspaper editor and said that I was a great worker, that the newspaper would be lucky to have me. I get incredibly uncomfortable when I’m the center of attention, but it felt great to have someone other than my parents speak to my integrity.

Then I remembered how many of my dad's customers do this for me when I work with him, and for Dad on a daily basis. My dad started his own handyman business. Our biggest difference is our patience with and dedication to the elderly. I run away in fear. Dad started a business because he wanted to help them. They appreciate it so much that we often come home with gifts: homemade salsa, miscellaneous beer or wine, a sandwich grill, a juicer and most recently, a moon flower.

This is a guess at the species of flower Mom just planted outside the living room window. It's nestled between the deck and the windows so that the "fragrant blooms," as every gardening site calls them, will fill our evenings with calming floral tones. What better way to spend a night on the deck than watching these flowers open, enjoying their scent, sharing a bottle of wine and laughing with my family?

new family member: milkweed

I picked up a common milkweed after a town of the Schlafly brewery on my last full day in St. Louis. They were selling them as part of a fundraiser for a women's shelter. How could I say no? I'd had a feeew samples of free beer and a beer for lunch. How could I say no to anything?

I was excited about the selling features of the plant. It attracts butterflies, particularly Monarchs, which feed off of it. It attracts aphids, which are then eaten by all of the other, much cooler bugs that hang out on the milkweed. I thought this was great, since my mom's honeysuckle had a case of plant lice (another term for aphids--fun, right?) earlier this season.

My mom did not think it was great. Milkweed is, well, a weed according to some people. These people are mainly farmers who have had their fields attacked by a large milkweed population surprise or people that do not like to eat odd plants.

That's right. The milkweed is some odd form of vegetable. I don't know how you would classify this, but I'm sure it would belong in the same category as my grandma's fried pumpkin blossoms.

Pause: If you haven't had fried pumpkin blossoms, I'm so, so sorry. Find some. Resume.

The milkweed buds, found in early summer, are similar to broccoli ,and their seedpods that appear in late summer share the shape and flavor of okra. I'm getting pumped about growing this little guy, since Countryside Mag promises a decent yield from even a small section of the crop. Isn't it funny? One man's crop is another man's weed...

Since I don't feel like taking over my parents' yard with milkweed or drowning out the honeysuckle, I'm trying to figure out how to prevent growth without killing the little guy. For now, he's living in the garage. I'm going to do some more research, but I feel good about it. I'm slowly learning how to keep plants alive (hello, 4-inch basil and chive), and Joe and I keep searching for the perfect members of our future urban garden.

90/90, here we are

How fitting that the end of this challenge, which ended up taking 102 days, should come when the next Life Phase is beginning. I love it when life fills in its own transitions, and I don't have to create a scene break or artificitial transition statement in the narrative of my life.

So here we are: sitting in Joe's office at the St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley while he grades students' finals. Outside, it is summer. Officially. It is 80 degrees, sunny with a chance of rain and a 100 percent chance of beer-drinking and Rome-watching this evening. We are nearly done with our educations; Joe graduates on Friday. We are nearly done with wedding plans; we're addressing invitations tonight (BEFORE drinking).

I have an endlessly growing summer reading list, starting with the rest of Main Street this week to get myself back in the Lost Generation mindset. Through these 90 (or 102, depending on your outlook) days, I've realized what I'm writing to and where my reading focuses, fiction- and nonfiction-wise. Now, I'm dedicating myself to those causes. I'm generating more creative writing. I'm readying myself for real life as a Writer, because unless I'm willing to put that label on myself, I won't be willing to do the work to get myself there.

So. We're at the start of summer, after Saturday's graduation. I have this week to brace myself and hold down some quick jobs: a reporter at the Wapakoneta Daily News, possibly doing some freelance work and definitely working for my dad's handyman business... including starting his Web site. I'm utilizing the summer to gain real skills. I'm pushing past the student of the classroom mindset and moving onto being a Student of the World.

Joe and I have been doing a lot of talking to this topic. We're both seriously considering PhD's in some sort of literature, trying to figure out our focus and when we'd be be ready for that kind of workload while still managing to hold down jobs. We're deciding what kind of people we'll be together, how to hold each other accountable for writing and submitting and publishing and working and then living outside of these things.

So what I'm saying here is that when I reached the end, I felt anything but sad. I felt relieved, invigorated, anxious for this next phase: to have a week of ironing out wedding details, budget details, summer visit details and writing schedules with Joe; to have a week of relaxation before really beginning a 30 Day Shred; then to get working and writing for real. Because it is real now, isn't it? This is that moment they tell you about, when you enter the Real World. And away we go.

I'm off to spend my night writing letters, figuring out how much food I can buy each week, buying champagne flutes, drinking strawberry smoothies, creating a pre-France shopping list and sitting with my future husband. La vie, je t'aime.

89/90, from roses to peonies

This weekend, a lot changed (leading to some slacking in the blogging department). Most remarkably, a memory that I hold close and recall often was corrected.

My mother and her mother, the grandma who's yard I ran around half naked for the first four years of my life, have been elbow deep in flowers for every early Spring I can remember. On Mother's Day, my sister, dad and I took Mom to a local flower shop to stock up the beds for the summer. Instead of the usual hanging basket, my sister and I sponsored a replacement bleeding heart (my favorite) and hosta.

Walking between the rows, I kept asking questions. I'm always amazed by Mom's ability to look at the plant, pick a name and tell me if I could (mostly like not) keep it alive. Dad decided we could each pick a plant. Chloe and I paced back and forth, crossing off impatiens, violets and pansies; anything that didn't bloom; anything that was white; anything that resulted in a vegetable. (We don't have a garden.)

I got caught up in a three-colored dahlia with petals unlike any I'd ever seen. I was never a dahlia lover, but that may be changing. I added it to the wagon Dad was pulling, next to my sister's Johnny Jump-up. After a week in St. Louis for me and a week in the garage for the dahlia, they'll join the four sprouts I've got going. They'll be transplanted, prayed for and watched meticulously on the hot, wooden deck. I wonder how I'll handle their inevitable death at the end of summer. (Why is anything an annual?)

While Dad pushed the wagon, I touched every plant we passed, asking questions and having them answered by Mom or added to a list to "ask Grandma." I can't wait to ask Grandma, to start my flower-planting and garden growing by calling Grandma with every question and each new bug I find crawling on the leaves.

When I stopped in front of a rose bush, I asked Mom if she ever missed the roses that used to line the length of yard that touched the alley. I often thought about the roses: smelling them, touching them, being afraid of the bees around them, feeling small standing by them, picking off petals that didn't look perfect.

"What roses?" she asked. I was a bit startled. "The roses. By the alley. When I was really little." How could she have forgotten these blooms that meant so much to me?

They were peonies. They were never roses, she explained. They were a line of huge, fragrant peonies that neighbors had (accidentally?) killed with a chemical spray. I felt robbed of a memory. I felt like I had a lot of backtracking to do. I'd built up the roses to Joe, explained that I wanted to recreate the wall of flowers for our little kids in the future. Now what? Stick with roses?

Then I remembered (correctly this time) that I don't even really like roses, not the long-stemmed ones, not the wedding and holiday staples. I love the roses climbing outside my parent's bedroom window, and I love peonies. I love, love peonies. I love the idea of recreating a wall of peonies for my children, with my mom's help.

More gardening to come. More growing, failing and replanting. For now, I'm going to clean all of the plant dirt and rabbit food out of the inside of my car.

88/90

I tried really hard to react to something this morning. To feel something, connect to anything that would lend itself to a bit of nonfiction narrative.

All I felt was the burn of my thigh muscles as I entered Day 3 at Level 1 of the 30 Day Shred. After a shower, I walked into the kitchen to make some breakfast. I realized that I had no bread to make toast, so  I stole some. I then realized there was nothing for me to put my coffee or toast on but my own hands.

The burning muscles were drown out by the rising annoyance. I washed the rest of my belongings and removed them from the kitchen. I realized I had to pee and remembered that we don't have any toilet paper. I took all pieces of my life out of the kitchen, with the exception of about two meals still hanging out in the fridge, next to a mold-speckled cucumber and seven jars of mayo/nayo/Smart Balance creamy spread/Miracle Whip.

I walk out of the kitchen. Forever. Basically. I'll only reenter to grab the contents of the fridge and freezer, toss them to my parents before they leave town and gag feeling my feet stick to the floor one more time. Just one more.

I thought that there was a lot in this moment. I'm leaving my first house, if you can call a college rental that. My main tangible bit of independence (even though a loan signed by my parent paid this semester's rent) is only in my life for one more day, and that's including the extra time we're stealing from our landlord.

Rachel and I spent some time in front of the house yesterday, scribbling with chalk. That was the moment when I felt like I said goodbye. When I colored in my last squiggly shape, I felt done with Muncie, removed. Not wanting to go out and celebrate, not wanting to see everyone and share farewells. I want to hide from all of it, be in my room and remember what it's like to have no obligations and no work.

That's not exactly true, since my actual work, the stuff I get paid for by the Archives, got held over. I skipped it this week for lack of endurance when it comes to looking at a computer screen. Twenty hours of translating was impossible. Period. I spent so much time flopped on the futon mattress, eyes closed, no music, this week for lack of eye power. And I don't feel bad about it. I loved it. I remember what it is like to be myself, be alone with myself.


Joe gets here this evening. We're spending some time with my family, who will be in Muncie and staying the night for graduation tomorrow. I've begged him to hide away with me. I know that his graduation will have us bopping about from get-together to get-together and party to party. And I have to go. I have to let him have that time. It's "his day," like the wedding is supposed to be my day, like my own graduation is supposed to be my day.

Maybe it's all selfish, keeping us off by ourselves. I can't stand the bar crawls or the loud, drunken reveling. I want to be quiet, with a drink in my hand and people I care about; I want to notice the minutes passing until their aren't any more of them; then, I want to move on. I want to take it slow, since we have so few days together this summer before we leap into a marriage and fly away. I want to hold onto him, literally, and continue to just be.