WHEN IT’S NOW OR NEVER

At 68, I Was at a Crossroads Moment in My Life — Take an Easy & Familiar Route, Or Head Off into The Unknown

I chose the latter and moved to France. Deciding what to bring with me was surprisingly difficult

My mother had died that November, four months after her 100th birthday. By January, still feeling the emotional aftermath, I was at one of those crossroads where life could spin off in any direction. I wanted mine to spin off towards France, something I’d been thinking about for years, but couldn’t do while my mother still needed me.

Now the time had come, but while dreams of life in France once lulled me to sleep, the prospect of finally turning those dreams into reality quickly took on a nightmarish quality. Instead of excitement and anticipation, I felt only fear and uncertainty.

Everything about the move seemed difficult, even a little foolish. Something for twenty-year-olds to do before they settle down to real life. Or couples, affluent and with each other to depend upon. Not something for a woman approaching seventy, alone and with limited finances.

I kept reminding myself this wasn’t something I had to do. No one was pushing me to pack up and move to France. If I’d solicited advice, which I only did half-heartedly, I suspect I’d have been encouraged not to go. So why do it? Why not just consign the dream to one of those things you talk about, but never do? Who doesn’t have a few of those?

Since I’d temporarily moved down to California to take care of my mother, the most appealing option was to return to Washington state where my family lived — and take some time to think things over. My daughter and I could go out for chips and beer again, something we’d both missed while I was down south. We’d sit at the window of our favorite restaurant overlooking the Strait of Juan da Fuca, catch up and watch the ferries on their way to Victoria.

Maybe I’d return to the little cabin at the foot of the Olympic mountains, a peaceful tranquil place where I used to write and gaze out of the window.

It all sounded pleasant, familiar, and unthreatening — essentially why I resisted it. I’d enjoyed that life for several years and I feared that at 68, I’d settle comfortably back into it and my dream of moving to France would eventually recede into the mists of time.

I wasn’t ready for that to happen.

Fear and uncertainty about starting a new life in France gave way to a sense of urgency. If I was ever going to do it, it had to be right away. In early January, I booked a flight from Los Angeles to Paris for the end of March thus giving myself a deadline. Unless you thrive on stress, it’s not a tactic I’d recommend.

The next six weeks were a mad scramble of packing up my California apartment, moving pieces of furniture to a friend’s garage, putting other stuff in storage and endless online searches for somewhere to live in France.

I didn’t care where, although Brittany and Normandy, which I’d visited a few years earlier appealed. I consulted ex-pat sites for advice and Googled cheap apartments to rent in France. Some of the places I could afford were attractive, but too rural and not even within walking distance of a grocery store — an important consideration since I’d decided not to buy a car.

Meanwhile, as my California apartment emptied, I made do with less and less, eventually sleeping on an air mattress that kept deflating during the night, microwaving potatoes, eating take-out and gratefully accepting culinary offerings from my upstairs neighbors.

By March I’d settled on a place to rent in the Languedoc region of southern France and started to think about what to take with me. Then the emotional exhaustion of the past few months set in along with the reality of what I’d put in motion.

Maybe my stress level had just maxed out, but of all the decisions I’d made about moving to France, the question of what to take with me was the hardest Whatever I packed in California, I’d be unpacking in an entirely different place. A strange and unfamiliar foreign country where I barely spoke the language and knew no one.

If I’d allowed these thoughts three months earlier, would I have convinced myself not to go?

Who knows? The more pressing question was what to pack in the three big, soft-sided suitcases on the floor of my otherwise empty apartment. I had a plan — sort out the clothes and various other items I wasn’t taking to France, pack those in a fourth suitcase that I’d load into my car and leave in a friend’s garage with my pieces of furniture. Sound easy enough, but it wasn’t.

Ex-pat sites were full of information about shipping entire households from the US to France, my situation couldn’t have been more different. I wanted to take as little as possible — my laptop, medications, some clothes and a few books. I’d buy whatever else I needed in France. I just couldn’t decide what went where.

The simplest decisions created a flurry of second-guessing. I’d tuck a few travel-sized toiletries — shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste — into a pocket, then remove them. Handy for vacation travel, but I was packing for a move. True, I could buy that sort of thing once I got to France. But where? What if the village shop didn’t carry what I needed? Was there a village shop? I couldn’t remember. If there was, could I walk to it? I couldn’t remember the answer to that either. Frustrated, I’d replace the toiletries and shoot off yet another e-mail to the landlady who eventually stopped responding.

Nine years on, I can see now that my final decisions about what to bring were, aside from my laptop, largely emotional. A few books, photos and an orange duvet cover and deep purple pillowcases my daughter had given me that almost filled one suitcase. I’d talked her into the color combo, but her husband hated it. The memory of that shopping trip together in Seattle still makes me smile.

Fortunately, because I needed a reason to smile almost the minute I stepped into my new French abode. It would be an understatement to say the place didn’t quite live up to its description; I wasn’t even sure I could stay. Angry and disappointed, I sought comfort from the familiar. From one of the still unpacked suitcases, I removed the duvet and spread it over the bed. The photo above shows one unpacked suitcase on the floor, another probably under the lump by the pillows. Unfortunately, it didn’t do much to improve the situation — although that night, I wrapped in it to sleep.

You can read further details in the link below.

I’ve never regretted taking the less familiar path and moving to France. If made a little hastily, it remains one of my best decisions. I wouldn’t want to relive those hectic weeks leading up to my departure — perhaps I should have taken more time to think about what I’d need for my new life, but somehow things worked out.

Over the years, I’ve returned to the States several time and brought back a few things that didn’t make that first flight — a glass fruit bowl my mother received as an engagement present, a green Le Creuset au gratin dish that my kids gave me years ago for my birthday. Both are far more emotional than practical, but if I had to do it all over again, I’d have room for them both in my suitcase. Along with the duvet.

A couple of stories about my life in France . . .

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