Where do the French go?

In continuing to read stories and memoirs where our hero or heroine picks up their lives and moves somewhere else, which I think I'll call the Peter Mayle effect, I've begun to wonder what this is telling me.  I don't have to wonder, I know - I'd like my life to be different than it is right now. Thankfully I find escape in books and not drugs; the habit is cheaper and doesn't ruin my body or my relationships. But where would I want to go? My last post was by a Canadian woman who moved to Paris via California (Paris Letters) and my newest read is another Brit (like Peter Mayle) who moves to the Poitou-Charentes region of France - Tout Sweet by Karen Wheeler.

I think countries like France and Italy have come up with a great way to get their old run down cottages, farms, and villas renovated and boost local employment of handy men/women - get some foreigner to come in with dreams of bucolic village life, and spend a lot of money trying to achieve it.  Don't get me too wrong here, I think restoring existing buildings is wonderful. I hate seeing the clearing of land followed by brand new construction when there are abandoned properties waiting to be reused. I often wonder why some of these places aren't being used - taxes? death? squabbling families and inheritance? In Tout Sweet and The French House (see post here), the in-comer buys a home that is more hovel than habitable: no plumbing or heating, roofs that need major repairs, flooring that must be put down, walls redone and the list goes on. But they are in love with the idea of what life will be like when everything is done, and because it has turned out well they've successfully pitched the book idea to some publisher.

So where do the French go when they want to start over? I certainly haven't read any of those memoirs, or perhaps they are only available in France. Or is it a mind set of Americans or Britons who need to escape? Are the French all happy just where they are or have they found the secret to living a contented life? As for me, I know that running away from home isn't going to be my solution. Learning to be content with where I am is the challenging lesson for the day.

How much money will it take ....

Paris Letters -
Janice MacLeod and
Cafe tea pot

I was drawn to Janice MacLeod's Paris Letters simply by the first line of the back cover blurb, "How much money does it take to quit your job?" Excellent question! In her case not as much as she thought, but her plan was to take a break for a year and rethink her career plans - I want to retire. I want to be done with working altogether. I'm still a bit young for retirement as I can't start drawing on the IRA monies for at least another ten years.

MacLeod did what many of us dream of, quit the job and go off to explore the world. She ended up in Paris. It seems everyone wants to run off to Europe to end up in Paris, or Provence, or Florence. To have a little apartment or reclaim a farm house and plant a garden. It all sounds so wonderful and I'm grateful to the numerous people who have done it and written about their experiences, but deep down I know it isn't what I want. I want a quiet little place on a lake or a lazy river where I can sit and watch the water flow, hear it lap against the bank, see sun or moonlight sparkle upon it. To set out in my kayak and paddle early in the morning or late in the afternoon as the sun sets. That's what I dream about. Now how much money do I need to make this dream a reality?

Money isn't really the object here, it's the belief that I can make this a reality that is at the heart of the matter here. I need to believe that I can have this dream. MacLeod wrote a lot about her 'old life' of being a copywriter and that it was her dream job but that she had come to dislike it. The dream hadn't turned out to be what she expected. She had been living a life that wasn't authentic. She began to strip things away until her possessions fit in a suitcase and took to the road. At some point she finally gave up one last reminder of her previous life and it was then that "I forgave myself for my prior judgements of not being good enough to be just who I was" (107). There it was - the truth - my truth. My constant daily struggle to be okay in myself no matter where I am. Quitting my job and going halfway around the world will not solve my problems. Accepting who I am is the only solution and discovering what it is that makes me happy and doing it is what's most important now. Everyone wants to travel to see Paris, but deep down in my heart I know it isn't for me. And that's okay. Step one - stop living someone else's dream.

"Write to learn what you know.... First and most obviously was that I had all the inner resources I needed to effectively deal with my situations" (240). Paraphrasing that - I read to learn what I know, and she's absolutely right, I do have the inner resources to deal with my life. I've been learning as I have managed to get through every challenge I have faced in my life. I've simply not given myself credit for the inner strength because I've been waiting for someone else to point it out to me. It's just not going to happen that way. The only person that can pat me on the back for all the hard work I've done is me. With that knowledge, I can begin to plot, plan, and save for rescuing myself from the life I thought I wanted and start living the life I really want. You can too!!

MacLeod, Janice. Paris Letters. Naperville, Illinois: Sourcebooks, 2014.