LIVING IN FRANCE — How to Capture Ephemera . . .

20 January 2022 — I joined Medium not quite three months ago. My only thought was to somehow get my writing back on track after a discouraging year of rejected manuscripts and queries that seemed to disappear into the ether.

I decided that I’d just write about the small daily moments. I’ve been doing that for years in a private journal, but this would be a public account — although I’d been warned that no one was likely to read it.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot more about Medium and refined my focus a bit. I’ve also written about thirty stories — mostly about my life here in France, especially the early years.

I wrote the following piece on my third day of Medium —while still trying to capture the small moments.

Somehow I managed not to capture any moments yesterday and was on the verge of doing so again today, then, accidentally I clicked on the bell thing at the top of the page — I’m still finding my way around this site — and saw, to my great surprise, that a couple of people had actually read some of my deathless prose. Thanks!

Still, knowing that, I feel ever so slightly more inhibited than I did when I thought no one was actually going to read it, but I’m going to push on anyway.

So yesterday it poured all day — the south of France is not all sunshine, especially in November — but I needed to go to the pharmacy in the village to fill some prescriptions. Living in a foreign country and not speaking the language very well — even after eight years —can turn the most mundane activity into an ordeal.

Added to yesterday’s difficulties, I’d somehow managed to lose my wallet containing my carte vitale, the French health care card which took almost a year to obtain in the first place — French bureaucracy can make you go cross-eyed.

I’d also lost all but one of my US credit cards. Given my tendency to procrastinate — Peter would roll his eyes at that statement — I’d put off going to the pharmacy until I’d completely run out of some medications and realised I was spending more time trying to figure out how to get by without them than I would have just walking up to the pharmacy.

So I went. Got rained on en route, struggled through explaining my dilemma — J’ai boucoup de problèmes. D’abord, je perde ma carte vitale.

My French is limited to the present tense. The girl — everyone under fifty looks like a girl to me — smiled and rattled off something in French which, of course, I didn’t understand.

Often I say, si vous parlez plus plus lentemente (I’m guessing on the spelling and grammar here, but basically, If you speak very slowly, I can understand.) Sometimes this works, but more often they just rattle off a string of very fast French and I nod and smile and probably look more of an idiot than I feel.

But we managed to communicate, I walked out with my bag of medicines, got halfway home, and realised I’d left my parapluie (umbrella) on the counter. I debated whether to leave it and go back later, but it’s Peter’s umbrella and he probably wouldn’t have been happy.

He’s far more organised and less scattered than I am, so I trudged back, recovered the brolly which had already been put away in the back of the pharmacy, and continued home.

By that time it was late afternoon and the thought of writing about capturing ephemera, or pretty much anything, had no appeal. Peter, who usually goes down to the garden in the afternoon, but couldn’t because of the rain, was sitting on the couch in deep communication with his laptop.

He looked up briefly to say that he was making no progress on figuring out how to exchange his UK driving license for a French one, rolled his eyes, and groaned.

I retreated to my office. Our last exchange over driving licenses was when he looked at my American one, shook his head, sighed, and informed me that it had expired two years ago.

I could have sworn it was good for another two years. The discussion had not ended well.

Now, still damp and bedraggled from the pharmacy trek, I sat at my desk and stared at my own computer. If I’d still been living alone — as I had for six years before I met Peter — I’d have gone to the kitchen, poured a large glass of wine, flopped on the couch and watched junk TV, preferably Come Dine With Me, and probably have awakened myself an hour or so later with the sound of my own snoring.

Relationships demand compromise though (I’m still trying to convince myself of this)so I made tea instead and pretended to work on my computer, while actually indulging in one of my secret vices — reading Royal family gossip in the Daily Mail.

I’m especially interested in and infuriated by, Meghan Markle’s continued use of the Duchess of Sussex title. I don’t get it. Well, I do; who is she without it, but this is not really what I want to write about.

Later, Peter made us gin and tonics and I told him I didn’t feel inspired to cook dinner but would make a quick macaroni and cheese. He was fine with that.

He’d have preferred chicken biryani, which I’d promised that morning to make, but this was his compromise. He’s very good like that. So that’s it — yesterday’s ephemera.