CHAPTER FOUR

The Charming Benefits of Travel

Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.

—ANAÏS NIN

A FRENCH GIRL IN AMERICA

My dear Parisienne friend Sylvie first came to America in 1990 to work as a nanny for a French family in Connecticut. She fell in love with an American boy and lived in New York City for many years. Life took its twists and turns and she returned to live and work in Paris. She’s the girl (okay, the woman) that Jessica and I stayed with when we came to Paris to host interview parties for my first book, French Women Don’t Sleep Alone. Sylvie not only organized the events, but she took us on individualized tours around her beloved City of Light. And she took us to her secret shopping spots on the Left Bank and to the designer sales that only the Parisian cognoscenti know about and the cafés that are frequented by the locals and overlooked by the tourists. Sylvie was our guardian angel in Paris, so proud of her beautiful city and so generous in sharing Paris with us.

A few years ago, when my husband and I were still living on Cape Cod, before his retirement from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and before his new career as a gentleman farmer, Sylvie came to America and she and Jessica drove to the Cape to stay with us. Sylvie was in remission from breast cancer at the time, and she was quite thin, but not gaunt. In fact, her hair had grown back into a very cute pixie cut. She looked so pretty and happy in her French bikini, out in the water of Waquoit Bay, where my husband showed Sylvie and Jessica how to dig for clams with their feet, since we didn’t have enough clam rakes to go around.

At lunchtime, we sat down at our dining room table by the galley kitchen and talked and laughed and ate in a delicious broth the steamed clams that we had just caught. And then, by special request from Sylvie, my husband made BLTs for us. This is because, before she arrived, we asked her what she would like and she told us how she remembered living on Sullivan Street in New York City and how she would go to a certain luncheonette on the Lower East Side and order a BLT. Apparently for this French girl, it was a revelation—bacon, lettuce, and tomato, along with Hellmann’s mayonnaise, all in a sandwich!

My husband made the most amazing gourmet BLT for us that day. He fried really good bacon, and then he added fresh arugula and tomatoes from our garden on top of sliced crusty sourdough bread. He secured them with toothpicks to keep them from tumbling apart and brought the little sandwiches to the table with a flourish. We also had champagne, of course. This was, after all, a very special occasion.

Jessica and I oohed and aahed, and Sylvie agreed the sandwich was very good. But later, Sylvie confessed that she’d really wanted the true American BLT—on Wonder Bread with typical diner bacon and, get this, iceberg lettuce!

Truthfully, I could see her point, but still, in that moment, I saw the humble American BLT with new eyes—with French eyes. Sylvie made me see that my very own typical American life is charming. Yes, Wonder Bread and iceberg lettuce (seen from the vantage point of a visiting French girl) can be charming!

THE REINVENTION TOUR

Here’s my favorite part about travel—it gives me permission to reinvent myself. But more than this, traveling gives me back my childhood. No, I didn’t actually travel a lot as a child, except for those car trips from Connecticut to Key West when my dad was stationed at the Naval Reserve. Travel returns me to a kind of innocence—to those days in the early 1960s when I sat in the back of the 1954 Ford station wagon, staring out the window as we drove down US Route 1 through the small towns in the south. This was before the interstate highway now known as I-95 was carved into the north-south corridor, before there were thousands of channels on cable, before the Internet. This was during the days when there were four (or if you were lucky, five) television stations and no remote control. I’m not saying I’m nostalgic for these limitations, but I am nostalgic for that feeling of wonderment, when all of my senses were fully engaged in the struggle to comprehend the world and the people around me, and perhaps more important, to bear witness.

This is what travel brings to me.

When I am in France, I experience a kind of reawakening. My eyes, ears, sense of smell, taste, touch—and most of all my heart—are fully engaged in the challenge of understanding the mysteries before me. Why do the French dine all at the same time, in perfect order, as if someone made an announcement that it’s time for lunch, and yet, they can’t seem to queue up properly? I wonder how the French manage to hang on to the idea of terroir and the importance of festivals, celebrating everything from spring cleaning (the vide grenier) to the prune harvest in the southwest.

For me, the most delicious part of travel is the permission it grants me to be a child again and ask a whole lot of questions that might seem a little impertinent if I asked them in my own country. Why did you paint your walls bright yellow? When did you decide that your grandfather’s casquette (workman’s hat) would be your signature look? How do you organize your lingerie?

Highly impertinent!

Ah, but I am just an American lady and I want to know these things and somehow, for me, the foreigner, it’s always okay. The Parisians and the people from all over France have opened their arms to me. And I do believe this is because I am sincerely interested and I am still that little girl staring out the window from the back of that Ford station wagon.

HOW TRAVEL CAN CHANGE YOUR DESTINY

Here I am at the home of Pierre and Frédérique, or as she likes this American to call her, “Freddie.” I have taken the metro to Nation and walked to their home, entered the code, and taken the tiny gated elevator up to the fourth floor. Freddie greets me at the door and ushers me into their apartment, where light streams into the spacious room. We say our bonjours and give our bisous (kiss on each cheek) and I turn around to face the living room and I find myself falling under a kind of enchantment. Freddie and Pierre’s home is filled with exotic mementos as a kind of homage to their adventures—a visual map tracing their travels around the world.

Their home feels like a Cabinet of Wonders. I walk around and notice all sorts of exotic icons and sculptures from Africa, Cuba, Colombia, southeast Asia, Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Honduras. When I ask about an ancient wooden table, Pierre explains that it’s from Indonesia, and that another carved wooden cabinet is from nineteenth-century China. Freddie adds that they visited the Sumatra island in Indonesia.

“But Tanzania is truly my secret garden,” she whispers to me as she gathers her yoga bag. I should explain that the French talk about their “secret garden” as a metaphorical place where you find your spiritual sustenance. It can be a literal garden at your home, or it could be taking violin lessons, or cooking or practicing yoga or even travel.

The secret garden is a metaphor for a place that nurtures your body, mind, and spirit. It can be any place you choose.

HOW FREDDIE FOUND PARADISE

A few days later, I meet Freddie at the café Le Fumoir, just around the corner from the Louvre. Freddie is wearing black pants and a hot pink jacquard top with a little bit of blue and red running through it. Freddie looks a lot like the French actress Audrey Tautou. She has light brown hair and big brown eyes and a kind of curiosity and sincerity that is completely disarming. And charming.

Le Fumoir is bustling with the Friday-night crowd.

We order the evening’s special—monkfish with fingerling potatoes and haricots verts (green beans). We order a bottle of Orezza, a sparkling water from Corsica. She tells me it’s very special, with delicate bubbles. Apparently, Perrier has not-so-delicate bubbles, and therefore is not as nice. Who knew?

I was first introduced to Freddie by my friend Deb Krainin. She met Pierre and Freddie in the Chiloé Archipelago off the coast of Chile in the town of Ancud. They were staying in the same little hotel and they all went to see the penguins together. They stayed together during their travels on the island and later they met up again in Santiago before they went on with their travels. This was in 2008 during a time when Freddie and Pierre took a yearlong world tour. Before this, in 2006, she and Pierre traveled on safari to northern Tanzania.

For her, Tanzania was a kind of Eden. A paradise. Both she and Pierre love animals, and in Tanzania you can witness the migration of millions of animals crossing the river between Tanzania and Kenya to find food and water. They saw wild buffalo, elephants, lions, leopards, and wildebeests. “Oh, and to see them in their natural habitat—it was a life-changing experience,” she adds. “All of us cried at certain places.”

MEETING THE MAASAI

“This is where I met Olee, a Maasai guide. I remember it was at sunset,” Freddie explains as the waiter brings a bottle of Bordeaux to the table. “We had been traveling all day and Olee wanted to take me for a little walk. Pierre encouraged me, and so Olee took me by the hand to climb up a kopije. It’s like a big rock. We stood there, side by side, looking out at this vast landscape, and something changed for me. I looked down at the land and I could feel a magnetic, spiritual force.”

Freddie tastes the wine and gives the waiter a nod of approval before he pours it into our wineglasses. Freddie and I toast to our health and to Tanzania. She smiles. “You know, at the time, I didn’t give this experience all that much importance. It wasn’t until only later that I realized something sacred had happened and in that moment my life changed forever.”

I must stop and muse on this, how often this sort of thing happens—you are in a new place and you know what you are experiencing is important, but oftentimes, it’s not only months but even years later that you realize the encounter, the experience, the little thing someone says to you is actually life-changing and will live within your heart forever, and more than this, will lead you through a doorway that you never even knew existed and take you into a completely new direction.

Perhaps you can’t afford to take a yearlong trip around the world or go to Tanzania like Freddie and Pierre, but you can go someplace new. You can do something that is different and will help you see your world through new eyes.

And when you do this, a whole new world opens before you, as well as the possibility of a new career.

This is what happened to Freddie.

As it turns out, this Maasai guide, Olee, could speak English, and after the trip, they kept in contact by e-mail.

Freddie returned to Paris, and, inspired by her trip, she went back to university. In 2009, she received her master’s degree in tourism, culture, communications, and museums.

Today, Freddie is the French partner with Soaring Flamingo, a travel company that brings visitors to beautiful Tanzania.

Freddie tells me:

“This is the magic of travel: meeting someone at the end of the world that will guide you through your life path. Maasai spirituality can be reflected in these lines of action: to overcome fears, to remain connected, to not create division within and around oneself, to make the most of life’s challenges, and to experience what is.”

Before the evening ends, we talk about America and I confess that sometimes I worry that the French don’t like us. I do know that this is how some of my compatriots feel. And then there was that whole business with renaming French fries “freedom fries.” Perhaps you remember. (Truth is, as the French will tell you, French fries are actually a Belgian invention.)

Freddie tells me, “We love Americans! You freed us.” She smiles at me and for a moment she really does look exactly like Amélie. “You gave us Glenn Miller.”

Freddie explains to me that her first visit to the United States was as an exchange student at Ohio State University, or “Ooooh-high-oooh!” she tells me. “It was one of the best experiences of my life!

“It was my first contact with American culture. I appreciated the way people in America live. For example, they queue and stay in line while waiting for the bus. People respect each other.” She gives me the sweetest, most sincere look and leans forward. “I discovered this in Columbus. People in the United States respect the rules.”

Really? We do?

But here you see it—how there’s nothing quite like looking at your daily life from an outsider’s point of view.

This is ultimately what travel brings to you—the gift of seeing your own little corner of the world, your own ordinary life, with new eyes and new appreciation. This will change you forever. And it will lead you to love, because your heart and eyes are truly open.

Travel helps you see your own world with new eyes and new appreciation.

Parisian Charm School Lesson

French women will tell you it’s important to start traveling when you’re young. You don’t need a ton of money. If you’re a student, look for exchange opportunities in high school and college. Look at the French Consulate site. They have quite a number of opportunities for people under thirty-five years of age. Volunteer!

Do you have family in your ancestral home? Look into visiting them. Create your own cultural exchange program.

Any kind of travel is a way to meet another culture, even if that culture is the one to be found on the other side of town. Travel is also about meeting yourself. You have to adapt to a new situation and you develop your ability to change.

Not all French women travel around the world, the way that Freddie and Pierre did. In fact, about half of French people don’t travel outside of France. They’ll take their five weeks of holiday and stay home, go to all the exhibitions, go to the beach, and play the tourist in their own town, and they’ll visit family and friends in the country.

Many singles and married couples will rent a big house together in Brittany or the South of France.

The point is that time is meant to be savored and enjoyed. Hence, the French take off the entire month of August for their summer holidays, as well as most of December. In addition to this, the French have many more holidays where shops are closed, and the French will take time to enjoy a trip or a visit with their families.

All this might not be possible in our workaday world, but certainly, we can do more with our two- or three-week vacations. We can travel! In fact, this is one of the most important French secrets to finding love and romance, as well as a renewed sense of happiness.

If we become shut in by our own surroundings, we close ourselves off from the world both physically and intellectually, and we become set in our ways, believing that our future husband is within a ten-block radius of where we live (not to say that this isn’t possible). Even if you do meet your future husband in your own neighborhood, consider that there is something very compelling about a woman who has just returned from a sojourn to an exotic locale. Perhaps you’re wearing a pair of interesting earrings that you bought during your travels. You’ve formed new opinions about world economics. You’re full of interesting stories—and maybe you’ve got a great tan!

Parisian Charm School Pratique

Find ways to travel by taking short trips to new places. Visit your hometown and reconnect with old friends and family. Be willing to be surprised by the unexpected person or place. Travel with new eyes and an open heart.

Read travel guides. Look at travel magazines and dream. It doesn’t cost anything to dream!

Travel with new eyes and an open heart.

You’ll see. You will visit a place in a foreign land. You will find true love, or at the very least, you will make a friend and that friend will come visit you one day in America and will show you what is special about you and she will sing the praises of the humble American BLT or whatever ordinary and overlooked beauty stands for in your own precious life.

So today’s lesson is to simply appreciate the ordinary daily gifts found in your own very simple but very special life.

And then make plans to see the world!