Spring and springing

There is so much to say, so much to tell… I haven’t written for a while because it’s difficult to synthesize what’s been happening. So perhaps instead of trying to write something coherent and (perhaps) interesting, I’ll just content myself with a newsy note.

As I write this I’m in Paris, at the apartment of my friend Danielle. She’s very centrally located (St. Germain-des-Près), has an elevator (tiny), and a guest room. Her husband is also in a wheelchair, so it’s nice to keep each other company… One amusing detail: the doorways in the apartment are all scratched and gouged to death from Gérard’s wheelchair, so I don’t worry at all about damaging the woodwork when I roll from room to room!

Most of the week I’m in the Perche, about an hour and a half south of Paris, with my friends Dan and Pascal. They have a lovely home in the country, surrounded by fields and forests. The weather has been dreadful, but we’ve had a few opportunities to have lunch outside – and as things are looking up weather-wise I hope to be able to spend more time in the garden before leaving for the US in a couple of weeks.

My biggest challenge currently is dealing with being… homeless, unemployed and temporarily handicapped. ALL of the above situations are temporary, in fact, but it’s a lethal combination as far as well-being and mental equilibrium are concerned. I keep reminding myself that it’s just a bizarre moment to get through, but when I bundle up all of my belongings and take the train to Paris, where I have to roll myself through the streets, backpack on the back of the chair and walker balanced precariously on my knees, I occasionally have a meltdown.

There’s a part of me that wants to believe I’m still on “sabbatical”, because if the accident hadn’t happened, I’d still be in Cambodia. I feel a bit cheated, and sometimes play the ostrich. But it’s not always possible… as I sit here typing this, Gérard is listening to France Musique, and what do I hear but Scott’s choir Sotto Voce singing a song I’ve heard many times in concert. Music is still here, and so am I, and the relationship between the two requires some attention.

____

It’s the next day, and I’m sitting in a café at Montparnasse waiting for a series of people to come and chat with me. I took the bus from Danielle’s, after a short shopping expedition to Monoprix for some basic supplies… Somebody really needs to design a wheelchair for people like me who take their home with them every time they go somewhere! I almost fell out of the bus today because my backpack (hooked on the wheelchair handles) was so heavy that it tried to tip me over. And the walker, carried on my knees while I grunt my way up and down the street doesn’t help. Ah, well, this too shall pass. But I can tell you right now that if I knew I had to be in this thing forever, I’d design the coolest and most versatile electric wheelchair-cum-shopping cart-cum mobile home you’ve ever seen!

Last night I worked with Gaudeamus for a while – my first “real” rehearsal since last year. It was a true pleasure to learn that my bossy old self is still in there, and that I still have very strong ideas about how music should sound, and about how to get the results I want. The next step is to see just how many people here in Paris are willing to take back the “old” Bonnie – the authoritarian, stubborn dictator. Down with depressed choir directors! Down with committee-directed choirs! Down with dreary routine! There.

It’s sunny and just warm enough to be pleasant on this Ascension Thursday. The city is quiet, and there’s a kind of peace in the air that we don’t often see in Paris. People here are discouraged about a lot of things – several have wondered why I still seem to want to live here, given the economic situation, the rising violence, the high rents. I wonder myself sometimes, but not for too long. I could live more “comfortably” in Cambodia, certainly, have a bigger apartment, travel… but where would I find all the lovely (non-essential) comforts of home that I saw in the aisles of Monoprix this morning? (My first shopping expedition since returning from Asia was both wonderful and traumatic – the latter because I had to keep myself from buying millions of delicious things for the apéro tonight simply because I couldn’t carry them!)

Where would I find the prosperous beauty of a city that has both history and modernity? Where would I find a place to live where I can choose from dozens of cultural and not-so-cultural things to do every day, even if I choose to do none of them? Where would I find the quiet assurance of a population that has no real, daily fear of hunger or death?

Parisians think things are tough. They haven’t seen a thing, most of them. There is a security here, and in other developed countries, that most people don’t appreciate because they haven’t really experienced the opposite – except on a one-week vacation through a third-world country, or on television. Those don’t count – to really appreciate prosperity, one should know what it’s like to face danger or illness in a place where either of those often mean impending death.

I feel more comfortable being in France at the moment than I suspect I will being in the US for one important reason: if something happens to me health-wise, I know that I will be taken care of. In Cambodia, health care is a travesty. In the US, it’s the privilege of the well-to-do. In France, it’s a right for everyone, rich and poor alike, and we don’t even sacrifice quality to achieve this miracle.

I am grateful for everything that I experienced this year. I also don’t think I’ve really come to the end of my Asian adventure, but while I’m physically and financially handicapped, it’s a great blessing to have not one but several homes where I can feel safe. I know Cambodian people who feel happier in Cambodia in spite of having lived many, many years in the United States – but they have accepted that life is cheap there, and that they too may well one day suffer the consequences of years of intellectual decapitation.

There is more for me to learn there, and I will go back.

For today, however, my motto is “another grand crème, s’il vous plaît…” And when my third coffee is gone, I’ll keep my head down and roll those wheels. Steer straight ahead and have faith that there is something surprisingly wonderful ahead.