Writing. Life.

An Update from France

A bit of news from France and some in the states, too. The new PS edition of Come Back was just released and is in stores now, on the endcap/aisle at B&N and on the Buy 1, Get 1 tables up front at Borders; if you happen to be in a bookstore and it's not there, please send me a note! In the new section at the back, we talk about our writing process, there's also an interview with us, as well as copies of some of our letters to each other while she was away. We included her first letter home from Morava, quite a missive... if I'm not out of here by summer I'm gonna burn the fucking place down! She wasn't and she didn't.

You can click on this link if you'd like to read some of the new PS section, click here.

We're still in Avignon working on our new book, stealing away when we can to have fun. Here we are at our friends' vineyard in St. Cecile les Vignes. Jean-Marc's grapes are "biologique," their term for organic. When he first planted them last year, he even made "tisanes" for them, herbal teas, to strengthen them, as one would our own immune system. We tasted his first red, "Dentelles," which is rich and, pardon my lack of wine vocab, "thick" and silky, a little chocolate and cherry. After only half a glass, I also realized that it has a higher alcohol content, 14%, than our wines, quite a kick. Here we are by the vines.

As promised below, here are photos of us in a jumble of lavender and one in the right direction (instant purple catapillars.) You'll have to click on the links to see two of the photos. View this photo
View this photo

Morava, revisited

Hi there, it’s Mia again, reporting from a forested mountain top outside Brno, Czech Republic. More specifically, from Hotel Jelensky, formerly known as Morava Academy, the lock-down school where, as an out of control teen, I was sent kicking and screaming. I was there six months and, despite my initial reaction (which included hating my mom for sending me there) I first reconnected with a precious self that I had worked hard to destroy, where my appreciation for my parents was renewed, and where I formed friendships with girls deep enough that, ten years after not having seen each other, I still consider them family. (As an aside, we’re all meeting in Vegas this October for our ten year reunion, a weekend I will be sure to post about). I have been in Budapest with my mom the last two weeks and I decided to pay a visit to my former digs. My old counselor Peter, whom I hadn’t seen in ten years, picked me up from the non-air-conditioned train cabin in which I lurched from Budapest to Brno for four hours. Next time I’m ponying up for first class. I’d gladly trade the price of the overpriced meal I was too sick to eat for a more comfortable cabin. During my six months at Morava, I never left the grounds of the building and I was surprised to discover the treasure trove of castles and caves nearby. Morava was based on a system of points and levels and had I stayed there longer than six months and advanced to a higher level I would have likely visited Moravsky Kras. Ten years having gone by, I think it’s safe to say I was at a high enough level to have earned this right! Moravsky Kras is an amazing network of caves honeycombed inside a mountain, with a narrow, twisting river that had carved a tiny tunnel for itself three hundred feet below ground level. The caves are spiked with a maze of stalactites and stalagmites. I traded one lurching mode of transportation for another as I boarded the oversized metal canoe for a ride along the river. Had Peter not translated the monotone mumble of our driver telling passengers to watch their heads (Czech safety regulations are decidedly different than those stateside) I would have scraped off the side of my face on one of the numerous jagged rock formations we barely cleared. The safety hazards were well worth it, however, as you can see from the picture. After Moravsky Kras and a tour of the mostly medieval downtown Brno, we drove back up a road that I hadn’t been on for ten years, nearly to the day. Morava may have another name and purpose now, but it’s like I’d gone back in time. Nothing had changed, right down to the cheesy wall hangings and communist-era furniture. Even our favorite cook, Francesca, who was thrilled to see me, was still there! Actually she was the only person there, there wasn’t a single guest or other employee. Once she left for the night, I was alone in the entire building. The silence that I used to find comforting was downright eerie in the absence of the girls and boys that used to occupy the facility. Girls and boys who no one expected to live past eighteen, let alone go to college as most of us have since done. I'm having a hard time uploading photos for some reason. We'll be putting some photos up on our website this week, which will include some from this trip.

Deja Vu

This month has been a time of return, remembrance and renewal for Mia and me. We returned to Gordes, in Provence, a place of great peace and beauty for me. It was where I first felt healed from the trauma that had dominated our lives to that point, and it was where I felt a sense of profound pleasure, of great sensual delight for the first time in twenty-five years. And for the first time I realized that such things are not a luxury, they nourish us as much as food, air and sleep.

We are in Budapest for two weeks to visit my family, some of whom Mia is meeting for the first time, my great-niece and great-nephew (having a great-anything is a sobering thought.) We usually start each day at Nagycsarnok, the biggest indoor market in this part of the world, to buy some of the amazing produce grown in Hungary (and a poppy seed pastry or two... or three.) It’s a beautiful glass and metal building with a soaring ceiling, reminding us that this is very much a nineteenth-century city, complete with several structures designed by Gustav Eiffel and wrought ironwork that is a national treasure (or should be considered so, it might nudge the city to restore more of it.)

Mia took a two-day side trip to Brno, in the Czech Republic, to spend the night in what was once Morava, the school/facility where she herself first began to heal. Of course, she was forced to go (by yours truly) and it was a lock-down facility (so she couldn’t run away for the fifth time,) but it was where she first learned to love herself again. It’s now a small resort/pensione, but the cook you read about in the book, Francesca, is still there and made Mia the same lunch she used to make the girls. She also got to spend the night in her old room, in her old bed. It was a very significant trip for her, nostalgic, bittersweet and delightful in its way. She’ll post about it later this week

Greetings from Provence!

Hello there, it’s Mia this time. This post is coming to you from Avignon, a fortified city in the South of France where my mother and I are working on a new project. France has proven to be both delightful and depressing. Delightful in that, well, it’s France. Depressing in that as my waistline slowly gets bigger thanks to all of the bread, cheese and chocolate, my bank account is getting not-so-slowly smaller thanks to the weak dollar and the fact that I quit my well-paying, full-benefits 9-5 to take on this project.

But back to the delightful... My mother has been to France six times and has yet to arrive early enough to see Provence’s lavender fields. Braving foreign driving rules and signs, and the speed and impatience of the French when they take the wheel, we rented a car for the day to do just that. My initial impression of a lavender field was rather underwhelming, a peppering of purple amidst sage-colored tufts of grass. It wasn’t until we drove by and saw the field from a different angle that the plants suddenly organized themselves into row after row of what looked like giant, purple, Dr. Seuss-like earthworms. PICTURE A GORGEOUS FIELD OF LAVENDER LEADING TO A HUGE STONE ABBEY HERE (where the photo is supposed to be but isn't loading for some reason - check back soon.)

While I was charmed by sunny hilltop villages, I was most impressed by the Abbey at Senanque and totally seduced by a little shop in otherwise-drab Apt called the Bonbonierre, where I bought a confection that sinfully combines candied clementines, marzipan, honey and chocolate. PRETEND YOU CAN SEE THIS CANDY HERE - SORRY!

This trip is the first summer my mom’s enjoyed the lavender. It is, however, the sixth summer she’s enjoyed this candy (quell surprise…)

Around the World and Back!

We made it back! Our trip around the world was exciting, exhausting, crazy, beautiful, illuminating, you name it, every emotion, experience, issue crammed into three weeks, thirteen countries, four continents. We learned much about ourselves, each other, the world and, in particular, how women and girls in other cultures live and percieve themselves.

One of our scavenges was to see a Bengal tiger in the wild and we did, apparently a rare occurrence, on the back of an elephant in the Chitwin Reserve in Nepal, a country whose images still haunt.

We just did an interview on Gus Lloyd's "Everyday Heroes" ( www.guslloyd.com) on Sirius radio's Catholic Channel, where we talked about the trip and ECPAT (End Child Prostitution and Trafficking,) the charity we focused on.

More to come. Meantime, if you want to read a great travel writer - and I mean laugh till you cry great - check out Pam Mandel of http://www.nerdseyeview.com/. Her internet article "Baked Insanity" is one of the funniest things I've read in a long time. She's as addictive as the desserts she describes in her search for the ne plus ultra of Austrian sweets.

A Toast!

Picture this: An organic vineyard on a Provence hillside, a beautiful family, a successful book and another on the way, a 400 year-old farmhouse to renovate, kind, if quirky, neighbors, your first vintage taking top prize...

Kristin and Jean-Marc Espinasse did picture that - and made it a reality. Kristin left Arizona after college with a dream to be a successful writer living in France. She had her struggles and doubts along the way, both as a writer and as an American woman in France (you can read about this part of her life in her memoir, Words in a French Life, Simon&Schuster, 2006.) Along the way, she picked up a camera and a handsome French husband and went on to create the incredibly popular blog, http://french-word-a-day.com/, where she muses on being an American mom and wife in Provence. She also co-created two beautiful children. Her story is like a real life French Kiss.

Jean-Marc was a wine merchant for many years, bringing French wines to America and holding wine tours in France. His love and passion for wine led him to buy some old vines (a la Kevin Kline, mais non?) and create a vineyard in the South Rhone named Domaine Rouge-Bleu, which just won the Silver Medal at the National French Agricultural Fair. I know little about wine growing, so I've found it fascinating to follow his seedlings' journey from planting to harvest to bottling at his blog,  http://www.rouge-bleu.com/. I'll never complain about the price of a good bottle again.

If any of you live in the NYC area, Kristin and Jean-Marc are debuting their wine (and words) on April 16th at Union Square Wines & Spirits, 140 4th Ave, from 6 - 8 PM. You can taste their first wine, "Dentelle," and hear Kristin read from her book and talk about the new book she's writing on their new wine venture. If you live nearby, I promise you'll enjoy the evening - Kristin is talented and absolutely charming and Jean-Marc's got a wonderfully dry French humor.

Mia and I are disappointed we won't be able to be there, not just because they're friends but to taste the wine! We'll have already left on our own dream-come-true, The Global Scavenger Hunt. It's been crazy trying to get everything ready. It's not until you travel that you realize that you're out of socks, your bathing suit is out of date (or my body is,) your new cell doesn't work overseas, and you've forgotten whatever you once knew about the international dateline. And I won't even go into trying to prepare for the countries here, that's another whole blog. Suffice it to say that the combination of being controlling and a perfectionist and going to 10 - 12 countries out of a possible 50, and you don't know WHICH 10 or 12, is a recipe for nervous breakdown (mine and those unfortunate enough to be around me.) One reason I'm taking this trip is to learn more about myself. I'm on Lesson 85 and I haven't even left yet.

Oops

Upon reading what I just posted below, I realized two things. One, being creative with colors and type is best left to those who actually know what they're doing. And, two, that I forgot to tell those of you generous enough to donate that you'll need to email me to let me know if you'd like me to list your blog link or logo. Needless to say, you may remain anonymous if you like.

Just found out that we can blog while on the trip! So you can follow along here as we find ourselves, well, we have no idea where yet, because part of the challenge is that they don't tell you where you're going until you're on the plane, which means no one has any way to prepare. We do know we'll be in China on April 12th because we had to get a visa in advance. We have to take photos of everywhere we go to prove that we've done the scavenge, so we'll have lots of great photos to share!

Remember, all donations are fully tax-deductible and you can specify which charity you'd like to support. Whether or not you're able, or inclined, to donate, Mia and I would be thrilled if you would write a post about this, with a link to the info on our website,  click here.  My first linkee (God bless her witty, lovely self!) is Paige of Life Goes On I Think, who's quite the world traveler herself.

A Rather Mad Adventure

So, Mom, the the daughter said, what's our Next Big Thing? Well, mom replied, let's start with a wish list: we love to travel, we're suckers for adrenaline and novelty, we have loved reaching out and helping others. Tall order, mother. Yeah, so?

I'm in a cafe few weeks later and notice the front page of the USA TODAY Travel section. There's an article about The Global Scavenger Hunt. Ten countries, four continents, 23 days, all to raise money for global charities. If wish lists are prayers, God heard ours.

I hurried outside to Paul, practically yelling, "This is it! Mia and I have to do this!" I called Mia right on the sidewalk. That day, we went on The Global Scavenger Hunt website, applied, had our personal interview and then waited and hoped.... and got accepted!

We'll be one of twenty teams of two circling the globe this April, solving riddles, tromping through jungles, ruins and bazaars, relying on the kindness and pity of strangers, avoiding embarrassment and tourista whenever possible. It'll be exhausting, exhilarating and worth every moment and dime, because we'll be helping those in desperate need through KIVA.org, Unicef, Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, and many more amazing organizations. This isn't a reality show, there's no money to win. This is how we can all pay it forward.

I hate to be a pain in anyone's butt, but I'll gladly do it to help kids who are sold into sexual slavery, an impoverished widow trying to learn a trade or kids with AIDS. We're asking each and every one of you, your friends, your company, your relatives and neighbors to please join us in helping those less fortunate. 100% of every donation goes to charity and it's fully tax-deductible! No donation is too small! Please go to our website to see how each of us can make a difference in the world - and it takes so little!

We've not been able to put bloggers or any commercial entity on our book's website or this blog, but we can list donors' blog links and company logos. So do some good for others and for yourself by donating!

Mia's NY Times Op Ed on Britney Spears

My daughter, Mia, just had her first article published last week, in the Op Ed page of the NY Times. While I was, of course, very proud of her for such a big accomplishment, I was just as proud that she took on such an important, if politically incorrect, topic - our refusal to involuntarily commit those who are in need of it, not just to protect them from themselves, but to protect others from them.

To be naive, ignorant or complacent about the capacity of the mentally ill to cause irrepairable damage to themselves and others is to be blind to the obvious at best, dangerous at worst. Such blind devotion to "civil liberties" is to condemn untold numbers of the mentally ill and addicts, to a life of misery, illness, lack of proper medication, of early death, or repeated rape (does the ACLU think mentally ill and/or addicted women get raped any less on the streets than they did in mental institutions or rehab?) And they condemn others, like Kathryn Faughey and far too many innocent students, to death.

Should countless lives be sacrificed at the alter of political correctness? Insisting on civil liberties for all is great in theory, often dreadful in practice. Liberty should not be for all. When we, as a nation, can't see the danger, the sheer stupidity, of taking away the right of a parent to keep their minor child alive (as happened to me,) or of allowing the criminally insane to live amongst us until they actually murder someone, or of pedophiles to go free and receive therapy on our nickel, well, then heaven help us all. Because the legal system doesn't. And not enough of us seem to be insisting it does.

A Lesson from a Little Brown Dog

It's Christmas Eve on a hilltop in rural north Georgia and I'm standing under the moon listening to carolers in a hay-wagon. It's about 20 degrees, dogs and kids are squealing and running underfoot, the horse is eating the hay off the hay-wagon, the caroler's props and Tupperware drums are constantly being readjusted, the sheet music keeps flapping in and out of the flashlight's beam and a dog to my right was growling loudly along with the singers. I turn to pat him. Him turns out to be someone's toddler.

It was a delightful chaos, as were the thoughts racing around in my head. Mia and I had just signed on to be one of twenty teams going on an around-the-world-a-thon to raise money for charity. I was about to turn fifty-one and wanted to start the second half of my life off with a bang. I also wanted to take an adventure of a different kind with my daughter, one that would be a little more like heaven and a lot less like the hell we chronicled. It took me about three minutes after being accepted into the competition to start obsessing over how to study sixty countries, figure out what to pack, whether or not I need shots for yellow fever and Japanese encephalitis, etc., etc., etc.

Which, of course, meant that I was neither in calm contemplation of the upcoming Global Scavenger Hunt, nor fully present at the holiday merry-making. Until I noticed little Fifi standing in front of my face, looking for all the world like a sturdy little honey-baked ham on legs. She was as serene and present as the moon, a mighty little guru in her simply there-ness.