Quebec in All Her Glory-Charles André Marchand

Land of French, land of snow, what else do you not know about Canada and in particular, that bit of it that is Quebec? As a child growing up in France, one learns of the Great Separation that almost was, the New France Quebec could have become, that there are bears and cabins in the woods, and great, peaceful expanses of wilderness. I know almost nothing of the very European metropolis that is Montreal. 

 

Today's guest brings us the music, literature, film, sports, and fine cuisine of this sliver of heaven in the north. Charles André Marchand, a gifted author, sports radio host at 91,9 Sports, journalist, interpreter, actor, and more, kindly agreed to sit down and chat with Thierry and me, and we discovered just how cool (how French for Thierry, how French AND North American for me) is the land of Quebec, and how much one life can contain. Join us for a rollicking walk through the quartiers of Montreal, football, history, and culture.

 

Books by Charles André Marchand, first, his latest work of fiction, Arcade et Gail, Volume One, Les Amours Impossibles, and Volume Two, co-authored with Katherine Girard. His latest non-fiction works are two volumes of Pégre QC, a history of the underworld of Quebec which was simply fascinating, the most fast-paced non-fiction I have read in ages. These are in French, as are his earlier works, but if you are looking for a good audiobook to slow down and listen to, Pègre Quebec is a great choice, especially if you happen to be a court interpreter and/or a history buff. I am both!

 Find the episode here; don't miss this one, and please subscribe! 

Food, Culture, French!

The food alone in France has its own glossary of words, never mind music, festivals and nature. What is left for you to discover in this great world?

You have within you, possibilities yet unexplored. The languages you do not speak have a power to express parts of you in ways you have yet to discover. Look at French, for example and the expression; "Bon appetit." You have had the pleasure of chopping, sautéing, seasoning, mixing and baking for hours to prepare a magnificent small feast you are proud of. If only there was more to be said than; "Dig in!" The French have a way of appreciating fine cuisine that is not better, but perhaps more refined than what exists in English. Food is culture, tradition and made and served with love, not with a splat to the plastic plate. The produce has been lovingly picked out and maybe haggled over. A baguette is agreed upon according to degree of baking; "not too done", "nice and brown", or "just so." The wine is chosen according to the course, one's palette and what happens to be in the cellar this month, but always with care. The only possible phrase to celebrate a meal of this caliber must be; "bon appetit!"

Discover "le mot juste" to communicate what you want to say, what you must say, in French. The words are waiting, the adventure as well.

I will be sharing more on language learning, France and French this month. Stay tuned. 

Feathers of Frost and a Polar Vortex Kind of Day: Survival Guide and Celebration

                     The Coldest Day of the Year is Here

I went to bed anticipating exactly the sort of day I awoke to, fabulous works of art on my windows, painted in the night by Jack Frost; to the north we have a delightful new feather pattern I have never seen before covering the entire outer windowpane, the inner one left with merely a fancy slope of icing along the bottom edge, just to let me know this is serious stuff. To the west there is a beautiful decor of tiny star bursts dotting the entire field of vision, more thickly bunched to each side. 

Nothing gives me more of a cozy thrill than a day at home when the temperature will not reach 0 degrees. To the poor people who miss this each year when they flee south for three months...my heart goes out to you. 

"It's just not as cold as it used to be," can be heard around here, here being deep in the Midwest. Well, today it is, and we seem to be down to about one week of this each year now, which is just sufficient to put one in the right frame of mind for looking forward to the springtime again. I love these days, and this one is even better, because there is no reason for me to go back out in it. 

How cold is it? Well, let's see...I have been traveling around the state for work since Sunday. Sunday felt cold, but it was 16 degrees F., I believe. Saturday's snow dump had just barely been cleared away as I was departing. An hour before, on the road conditions website, parts of the highway were still marked "covered by snow and/or ice" and "towing not advised per state mandate." My red nose and cheeks can be seen in a quick video I shot to show the pretty, white Iowa landscape. I had been out of the car for all of 30 seconds and I looked like a 17th-century washerwoman at the end of a long week. 

If French is Your New Year Thing to Do

Relax, pour yourself something nice; green tea, fizzy water or a sparkling glass of champagne to celebrate this new chapter in your life. You have waited a long time to conquer this task of French language fluency.

You are about to invite a language, a culture or more than one; (Canada, Africa, France, exotic islands...like Tahiti) and all of the insight, joy, food and love that goes with it, right into your own home. Chouette!

I will be right here by your side, Thierry too, as you renew with the French speaker who lingers within you. Over the course of four weeks, in just 10 minutes a day, your ear will be adapting, remembering that long-ago French once learned, and you will speak, exchange, grow.

Let us look at just what enables one to incorporate another language into mind and ears, and back out of the vocal cords.

This has been ruminating about for some time; since I was 19 and noticed that many of the exchange students went back home after a year abroad fluent in French, yet others were still woefully inadequate as speakers of anything other than their native tongue. Why? I had no special skills or gifts in learning, I was certainly not the kid who finished my year with no accent. I did, however, end the year fluent in French. Were we not all immersed and thus in the most favorable conditions for acquiring a new language? It was not the old disadvantage of age; we were all between 16 and 19 that year. In the following years, patterns would emerge, some involved method, some the company one kept.

I went on to teach English to the Spanish and later to the French, then French to Americans. The running joke between my students and myself was;

"How did you learn French so well?"

"I live with my teacher. Don't suppose your partner would object to you moving out for six months, would they? Get a local fellow/gal."

Right, how about we go back to that bit of French we were working on again?

The idea of learning with a partner stuck with me, and grew into a plan to make it easy to do. Speak each day with the one you're with? Oui. Sure, you can wake up and say; "Let's speak in French today," and: good for you, if you do. But having a method: a meaningful dialog in the form of a script makes it easy to implement. I wrote one especially for last year, for the Great Staying Home for two adults to share; at home, across the world via video, anywhere; French at Home; A Conversation. More followed; French a Debut for beginners, French Abroad for travel and French with Kids, for the whole family.

As to method, when I first started teaching, I began in a strictly prescribed trio of lesson plus workbook plus group exercise used by the language schools of the 90's. True, that worked sometimes for some students. What worked every time, though, was a student interested in learning, engaged in their own progress and conversations on topics relevant to their life.

A friend of mine hit on the prime impetus for language and for the dialogs we use today; "a statement should elicit a response. If you ask your beloved; "do you have the keys?" The response will be spoken, "Of course I do/I have no idea where they are" or physical; holds up key chain and shakes keys. You both see a direct correlation between what is being said and the answer; spoken or acted upon. In other words, use language for communication.Talk to someone you like, or maybe love.

Hacks to Homeschool Happier

 

HOMESCHOOLING FOR THE FREE-SPIRITED 

 

Rule to Remember: It does not have to be a drag.

In fact, learning at home can be joyful and rewarding and create moments, habits and a way of looking at the world that last a lifetime. Our homeschool days were always a mix of formal and carefree. I guided the younger children more and trusted that the older one grew, the easier it became to discover what was interesting or important enough to pursue. 

I need to rephrase that; the younger ones had a regular rhythm of meals, play, read-alouds, naps and bedtime, but we did not pursue anything academic at an early age, (unless you count the year I attempted to do an at-home-after-school boxed French curriculum each afternoon after kindergarten-disaster).

News! Book to be Published Soon

It seems the most precious things are also the most fragile and closest to our hearts, so we protect them and keep them hidden away. What have you not told the world? What do you think you don't know about anyone else that might be absolutely phenomenal? Why are we keeping all of these mysteries and closeted skeletons which are truly harmful to none?

 

Mine is the book. 

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of a Foreign Language

If you grew up with the feeling that you ought to be beguiling princes of foreign lands in their own tongue, climbing mountains while conversing in Tibetan or German, or weaving with the sisters of an island encircled by sky-blue water while speaking fluent Greek, you will connect with this feeling. We make the daunting, vast world smaller and more real by speaking each other's languages. Language is the last frontier we get to conquer. Desire for connection is a basic human value, and even anglophones feel its lack at times. 

 

When Love Meets Art: Lana March Interview on French Please

I just spent the day with an extraordinary human. I feel more likely to be loving, to appreciate beauty, to honor the true in each person in my life, to explore art in new ways, listen to more music and...to work on my French grammar. 

This is a feat, and I want you to have the opportunity to hear her in the interview we just completed as well; Lana March, poet, artist, photographer who has chosen the light in all aspects of her life. The podcast will be out this week. Bring some joy to your day, your life, and listen in. 

Connective Tissue Disorder (EDS) and Exercise

Neighborhood kids would call each other over to see me do the splits, all the way, without effort, when I was four years old. 

That ability remained, along with the weird, bend my thumb back around to the other side of my arm thing, ankles that could twist, doubled over and around, over nothing and go right back, but it was not until many years later that I discovered these were the result of a debilitating condition that meant that the springy parts of my youth were now the cranky parts of my body. 

PODCAST Creation...French Please!

Introducing...French Please, the Podcast! 

Find my favorite episode here: Lost Found and How do I Say That Again?

Is French in your dream curriculum this year? As homeschoolers? As a couple? We made something for you! How better to share this language I love than through the spoken word? 

The Artwork of Children, Today and Tomorrow

Every parent knows the sweet feeling the comes over you when your child offers you a drawing, from the simplest of purple stick-figures to the most elaborate painting or piece of sculpture made of wire, papier-maché and those funky styrofoam puffy guys. The final result has nothing to do with your feelings of pure love, joy and pride in this kid's creativity. You are part of them, they are part of you, and object in question was produced by them, thus it somehow becomes an extension of this lovely spirit.

There is a new tug to the soul that can come when it is time to sort out, to choose, to not keep every single bit of this flow of creative genius.

Nature? Nurture? Both? When the Child Returns to the Great Outdoors

 

 

It has been a consistent joy to see my adult children wander back outside after the need to be indoors has taken over most of their waking time because of school, work or "activities" (I swear that one is going to be considered a 4-letter word by parents across the world very, very soon). 

There comes a point at which a child is no longer interested in a nature hike with the old folks. Sorry, parents of younger children, I did not mean to give you apoplexy by sharing that. In fact, if your sweet kids are under the age of thirteen, please carry on as though that sentence never happened. Ignorance is bliss sometimes. Between small screens and long papers to be written, a mama might wonder if a child will ever again realize there is an entire world under the sky out there. 

Each of the older three have gone back outside on their own, for their own reasons and engaging in their favorite activities. One has become an avid fisherman, constructing and reconstructing a few small boats for that purpose, and spending days and evenings out on the water. The video-game playing came to a halt on its own, giving way to exploring local lakes and spots on the Mississippi. The word "bait" became a household one for the first time ever, and there has been much debate on the pros and cons of inflatable vs. wooden or aluminum construction and, naturally, on where the boat(s) should live in the winter.

Another of our offspring never stopped sailing, pretty incredible considering that four years of it was in Iowa City, necessitating a car ride to a lake 20 minutes away from campus. In Chicago, when she looked out at that beautiful, blue, enormity of Lake Michigan, boatless and stranded on shore, she found a way to meet people who had a boat but not the sailing skills she possessed. She became a skipper for someone with a beautiful little boat and is as happy as can be, sailing twice a week. Her most recent vacation was a hiking one in the Northwest, splendid.

This one? Above with her sandals on the edge of the frog lab? Amazing! She is making the environment part of her life's work. It is her major in college and she has spent the entire hot, muggy summer working outside for Americorps. 

She has become acquainted with each of the turtles, owls, frogs and snakes on a personal level and learned worlds of information by this micro-study. She can weed-wack an entire trail with a scythe and lead a group of homeschooled kids, cub scouts or girl scouts out into a creek exploration in the pouring rain or the blazing heat and not blink an eye. She regularly comes home covered in sweat and mud and she loves what she is doing. She gave us a tour of her nature-center-home for the summer. Her less hardy, less courageous mom waited until the temps were out of the 90's to visit, and loved every minute of it. Merci, ma cherie!

Bright Neon Yellow Shirts: Day 13

This article of clothing is now my favorite sight when I am out. The wearer may look a little bit bedraggled, and the t-shirt will have smudges on it; that is one light color and hard to keep clean, but it is a signal to my mama's heart now. Almost to a one, this will be a working guy or gal, outside in every sort of weather you can imagine. Many are engineers on construction sights or water lines, others are the labor force in those same places. My kid is a combination of the two and I am super proud of him and the work he is doing all across the country these days. 

Day 12: Being Ill and Getting Better

This should not have been a year in which we take our good health for granted, but that is the definition of human nature; eternally optimistic and very forgetful of unpleasantness. There I was, caring for my kiddo who had managed to get what the doctor labeled a "summer flu". What the heck?! Is that even a real thing? He was down for the count; fever, sore throat, aching all over, clogged nose and cough and I was concerned. I did the usual; encouraged fluids, rest, made soup and tea, and he recovered little by little, with no major concerns. This was not, after all, COVID, nor strep or any sort of infection. Just a little virus (ahem).

And then it was me.

Day 11: Adult Children...and Visiting!!!

Such a joy I have to share today! I am visiting my eldest kiddo in Chicago. This one somehow managed the thing schools tell parents and kids cannot be done without a perfect GPA, the right classes, the right combination of test score and school activities...TOOT, TOOT, TOOT for homeschooling, (just a warning)...that is to say, homeschooling all the way to college, going to college, and on to grad school with brio. I am so glad she has been free to shape her life the way she sees fit and that she is also sailing Lake Michigan in her free time, having a blast. 

And mama gets to hang out for a few days with her...I feel like inserting a little heart emoji, I should have tried writing this with an i-pad so I could draw silly things; I am that happy. 

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I found the emojis! Thanks, Blogger!