part one | part two | part three

I know you’re wondering what the heck with the no pants running around the courtyard screaming thing.

Well, it really has to do with me and France. I wanted to go to France for years and years. While I was drinking, living in Paris, writing like Henry Miller and Anais Nin, and being the toast of the bohemian Moulin Rouge ball was a huge dream. HUGE. But of course while I was sitting on the bar stool spending my bus money it just wasn’t an option. And then I got sober. And in 2004 my parents took me to France to visit my brother. And in 2005 I went again. How awesome is that? And it was all I ever hoped for and more. The more is the part that should have concerned me. There is no glamour for me in France. No dignity. Nothing but opportunities to shed all my walls and just be me.

There are lots of things that I could tell you about those trips. I can tell you that for 6 weeks before going (I was to spend a week in Paris alone in addition to the time spent with family) I was planning on drinking and smoking. And coming back and never telling anyone that I had relapsed and had 2 days. Thankfully that didn’t happen cuz I told on myself in meetings for 2 weeks before I flew out. I can tell you that the food is all it was cracked up to be in Burgundy. Paris was a crap shoot. I can tell you that standing in the snow, alone, at Christmas time, in the courtyard of the Duke of Burgundy’s mansion in Beaune made me cry tears of gratitude to Her. Standing alone in front of Rogier van der Weyden’s Last Judgement in the Musee Hotel-Dieu in Beaune also made me cry at the amazing vision and fine motor skill of the man. And the eyes on the wings of Michael the Archangel. Oh lordy. That archangel, almost as big as me, is a stunning sight, drop to your knees if the guard wasn’t watching you beautiful and scary and full of power.

But nothing made me cry like the ride up the tram in Chamonix…

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