Tag: french

Faux is French for Fake

I was perusing some online shopping outlets and I looked at a “faux” shearling jacket. I live in Florida, thus I don’t need too many jackets, and I certainly do not need too many warm jackets. Therefore, I passed on buying the jacket. Still, I paused on the description page, and I felt a tad nostalgic and wistful. Having grown up in Pennsylvania, there are two things that I miss about living in the north, these things being fall leaves and winter clothes. Certainly, I don’t miss having to wear winter clothes to ward off frigid temperatures and snow, but I do love the look of winter clothes. Winter clothes have more texture, and comfortability, and richness of quality to them, than summer clothes do. Winter clothes beg to be layered. And the biggest plus about winter clothes, is that they are so much more forgiving than summer clothes. They’re like make-up/masks/disguises for your body, whereas a bathing suit is like that giant magnifying glass at your dermatologist’s office.

Reading the description of the jacket, I had to giggle at the word “faux.” The French have a way of making everything sound lovely and sophisticated, don’t they? What if the description kept it all in the same language and said, “Fake Shearling Jacket.” Yep, it’s fake. Do ya still wannit? I wonder if the word “faux” is as off-putting to the French, as the word “fake” is to us. Do they change “faux” to the word “fake” in their descriptions of things, to give their products a more exotic, foreign appeal? I have my doubts. I’ve read that a lot of Europeans like to buy American western wear here. Do their catalogs advertising “vegan leather” (ha!) cowboy boots read, “Fake cuir des bottes de cowboy”? Maybe using the word “fake” gives the boots a charming, Americana twang to the description?

There are so many word comparisons like this, that seem to accentuate our American down-home flavor, versus the French air of sophistication:

biscuit/croissant

swagger/savoir-faire

really good/par excellence

fancy clothes/haute-couture

friendliness/bonhomie

one-on-one/tête-à-tête

“the bomb”/crème de la crème

get together/rendez-vous

presto!/voila!

I love being American. I’ve been to France once, and it was nice. The French were actually much kinder to us than they are reported to be. In fact, they sure were super friendly! 😉 I think that the French people, who we met, must have felt my joie de vivre, being on a fabulous trip. Truth be told, I don’t speak French at all. I took five years of Latin for my foreign language requirement. There are so many stories and sub-stories from this experience, (my erratic and dramatic Latin instructor was also my hyper-competitive high school Forensics coach, and his wife, alarmingly looked exactly like a human version of Betty Boop), but these stories are for another blog post, some day.

Reading over this post, I see how “off track” I tend to get, and how rambling it is. It’s been a crazy week. Pardon, my la divigation, s’il vous plaît. Thank you, kindly! Merci!

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Lucky Find

I get a “word of the day” emailed to me every day. This week, I liked one “word of the day” so much, I put it in my journal. I like this word so much, that I am blogging about it this morning. The word is French. The word is “trouvaille”. It means “lucky find”. How fitting that this new word in my vocabulary is a lucky find for me! As I write this, Ralphie, our big ol’ goofy Labrador retriever is playing the piano. He recently discovered that he can play the piano by pushing the keys with his chin. His musical talents are a lucky find for him. (whether his new found talent turns out to be a lucky thing for us, remains to be seen – thank goodness for piano key covers) What are some of your “lucky finds” in your life? I consider my husband, and my friends, and my dogs, to be my best “lucky finds”. I have a pewter bunny bank full of lucky pennies, found as I go about my daily business. One time I found several beautiful Hermes scarves at a thrift shop, for the whopping cost of five dollars each. There are so many books that I have read over the years that turned out to be “the right book, at the right time.” They were trouvailles, for sure. Our lives are full of trouvailles, if we are willing to look for them and recognize them for what they are, and what they mean to us. I am wishing for all us, many trouvailles in the new year and beyond. Let’s focus on our trouvailles, versus our troubles.

“We are all a great deal luckier that we realize, we usually get what we want – or near enough.”– Roald Dahl

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”– Cormac McCarthy

Impossible

Lately I have been letting myself get sucked into the soup of negativity. My moods can turn into a downward spiral and I found myself swirling closer to the drain than I like to be. It is so much nicer to float on the surface. The murky depths were getting to me. So, for me, my best medicine to get my lower self out of my head, is to drive my convertible with the top down, sing at the top of my lungs, and just see where the drive takes me. Yesterday, my ultimate destination was to pick up dinner at The Fresh Market. I adore that grocery store. It makes me feel grown up and sophisticated to shop there. Everything is slower paced inside of the store. The lights are dimmed (almost like candlelight), symphony music plays subtly in the background, fresh cut flowers abound, no one walks fast or talks loudly on their phones while perusing the edible delights that are just about everywhere you look, and even the check out people are uninterruptedly deliberate, unflappable and even-paced. If you have a hard time meditating, just shop in the The Fresh Market. It’s a walking meditation.

Now getting back to my story – before I reached The Fresh Market, I was driving around, happily and aimlessly, and I realized that I was in close proximity to another delightful, unique French boutique that is in my vast collection of happy places. I don’t get there very often because it is a good half hour away from my home and is sort of a hidden gem, with no other stores near to it. I saw on my phone that it was open until four p.m., so with excitement fluttering in my chest, I steered my mechanical baby (my car) towards the boutique. I hadn’t been there since before the coronavirus mess, so I eagerly awaited our energetic embrace. I could feel my moodiness lifting, as I was driving, singing, and looking up to the bright blue sky, as I made my way to my savored destination.

As I turned the corner towards the store, I noticed that the boutique didn’t have their usual array of impossibly pretty planters (or jardinière, as the French say) out by the windows on the sidewalk. As I drove up to the strangely empty parking lot, my heart sunk down to the drain hole again, when I saw an enormous, indifferent “for sale” sign, on the empty, soulless, bare building that once housed a bustling spirit which took you away to France, without ever having to board a plane. I started cursing the fates. Why wasn’t I being supported in my attempts to uplift my energy?! (I have an unhealthy habit of personalizing everything.) Still, even at my depths, I am a ruggedly stubborn optimist. Google said that the boutique was “open.” Google had green open hours connected with my beloved boutique. Google is Big Brother. Google knows everything. Could my boutique have changed locations? I went to the Wizard of Google and I did actually find an alternate address. This address was just five minutes away.

You can guess the rest of the story. My darling little French boutique still exists! It has weathered coronavirus, and while smaller and cozier, its spirit still remains strong and elegant, as the shop owner hands out complimentary tea in beautiful porcelain tea cups, as you peruse her lovely, charming shop. As you know by now, I am always looking for the life lesson in everything. This experience reminded me to not lose hope. All is not lost. Gardens come back after winter, and all robust gardens started out as just tiny little seeds. When there is a will, there is a way. I purchased a CD of various French songs typically played in Parisian cafes (yes, even my husband was shocked to know that my car has a CD player) and I sang out loud, to words which I do not understand (but my heart seemed to know that they were wonderful words) and I headed to my next living meditation, in order to buy my family’s dinner makings.

Vouloir, c’est pouvoir. (When there is a will, there is a way.)

Impossible n’est pas français. (Impossible isn’t French.)