The Boogey Man

My apartment here in Aix is really adorable and absolutely perfect for me...aside from some of the noises that emanate from the other apartments. 

My 638 square feet of personal space is cute....the entrance to my space is not. Like so many other other old buildings here in the central town, the entrance is horrible. Ugly...dirty...unpainted...scary.  I still remember this phenomenon being one of my first impressions here in Aix. And an ugly entrance is not a good first impression!

I don't know who is supposed to take care of it . Often there is a sydicat who is paid collectively by the owners each month to clean, change lightbulbs, repair anything that's broken and the like. We must not have one. I mean, how many years should one have to look at this on the way up to one's apartment?

When the lightbulbs burn out and nobody replaces them,  entering or leaving is like falling into a deep, dark pit of....I don't know....snakes? I always warn my visitors that they must pass through hell before they can arrive in heaven.

I'm not afraid here. It's a secure building and a safe neighborhood. I've never been afraid....until a couple of nights ago. I descended the stairs, struggling with two large bags of garbage that I set just outside the doorway each night for pickup. I made my way through the section of dark hallway, arrived at the door, set down my bags, opened the heavy port......and stopped short. My stomach dropped to my toes.


Just outside the door, backed up against the wall and clearly hiding, stood a motionless man... obviously waiting for someone to exit. It was apparent that he wasn't very clever because I could see the tips of his shoes.

Still, a stupid criminal is a dangerous criminal!  I stood still, scared to death and quickly weighed my options. I finally decided to exit fast and swinging, so I picked up those heavy bags again, flew out the door ready to smash the SOB's face with old wine bottles and vegetable peelings. I turned to face my would be attacker, bags flailing... and stopped short. After the brief moment it took to collect myself...I burst out laughing...at myself.

Before me...my dangerous, would-be attacker....turned out to be...in fact....

a pair of shoes, set in the proper spot for garbage pick-up. And very neatly set, I might add.

Gaspillage

It's Monday Memory time again. This article was written a year ago and I still continue to admire the French way of living with less. There is one paradox I have since learned however. In spite of the fact that France uses, per capita, somewhere between half to one-third the amount of water compared to the United States, the French drink 3 times the amount of bottled water. That's a lot of plastic bottles going somewhere and a lot of oil used to produce those bottles. This one, I have yet to figure out. 

Yesterday my jeans climbed off the chair, marched down the stairs and crawled into the washing machine. All by themselves. I swear. They were so dirty that they were able to perform this feat on their own…along with the rest of my dirty clothes that I had been saving until I had a full load. And I’m just a wee bit proud of my dirty jeans. They’re a symbol of some of my lessons learned.

When I lived in the U.S. I would generally wash my clothes after 1 or 2 washings.  And I had a lot of clothes. As a matter of fact, I am quite sure my closet was bigger than at least one of my apartments here in Aix en Provence. When I lived in the U.S., I often left a light on all night. It felt safer. When I lived in the U.S. I would sometimes start my car and let it run until it was nice and warm before venturing out into the cold. And, of course, I used my car for everything...and then went to the gym!  Sometimes I would take a long, hot shower, just because it felt good and my children, in spite of my grumbling, seemed to feel that long, hot showers were their daily right!  My groceries were carried home in crisp, new paper or plastic sacks, which were eventually thrown away.  In spite of this behavior, I really did consider myself ecologically aware.

I am proud to say, I don’t behave this way anymore.

We were having a conversation the other day in class about waste or gaspillage (I love that word!). It was one of those discussions that was meant to entice all of us into voicing our opinions in French. We were reviewing facts and figures about how much the French waste and how terrible it all is. I finally had to stop the dialogue and explain what real waste is. It is not my practice to spend time bad-mouthing my country, but in this particular case, I was not proud of some of our practices and had to say so.

Within the first week of living here, I became painfully aware of our nation-wide wasteful lifestyle.  Aware, because things are done so differently here. I’m sure that our habits stem from a perpetual feeling of abundance that is naturally part of our national psyche but I think, in this case, we have some lessons to learn from our European neighbors.

The French consume, per capita, a little more than half the energy that Americans use. Dryers are not necessarily the norm, nor is air conditioning. Lights stay off during the day and the shutters are closed to keep out the sun. Clothes are washed much less and people have fewer of them. Of course cars are smaller (there is no choice, the damned streets are so narrow) and more fuel-efficient.  Most people take their personal shopping bags or caddy’s to the grocery store or market. The lights in the hallways and corridors of buildings are off until someone enters and it’s up to the person entering to switch them on. Afterwards, they turn off automatically. When stores are closed, they are completely dark and often even seem dark even in the middle of the day.

The stores are not air-conditioned to the point of causing teeth-chattering (you know what it’s like to go to an American grocery store in the summer. It's almost essential to bring along your down parka!) And offices building lights are extinguished after business hours.

I’m not sure that these are things that have developed from a French national consciousness about ecology. I think the bad habits just never developed.  Nobody misses them because they never existed.  Mind you, I’m not saying France is a perfect world. Far from it.  What I’m trying to say is being here has opened my eyes to the fact that living without certain things and particular niceties is no harder than living with them. Just different.

My friend Holly and I were laughing about this the other day. How our laundry has to fail the spot and smell test before it actually gets washed. And sometimes, even when it fails, we give it one more go. She spoke about traveling with an American friend who wanted to leave the air conditioner on in the hotel room while they were away so it would be cool when they got back. She was flabbergasted.  We laughed about how freakishly weird we have become about turning off lights and leaving the house dark until we must turn on the lights at night. We laughed at ourselves because we remember how we lived before and are so happy to have learned such a valuable lesson.

Americans are not the worst energy consumers in the world. Saudi Arabia gets that honor. But we’re right up there. And in spite of our abundance, we are citizens of the world. And I hope we are capable (actually, I know we’re capable…willing is a better word) of enough change so that someday, some poor French person who is living in America and writing and for a little French newspaper, will describe how America has moved to the forefront in protecting it’s truly precious resources. And they are precious.

I found the energy poster photo on photobucket...part of a campaign at Brown University. PERFECT!

One Person’s Trash…..

Like every Monday, today's story was originally written in 2009, during my first year here in Aix en Provence. However, the photo was taken yesterday. I still continue my exploits!

Yesterday, while walking down my little street, I came upon a shopping cart. Yep, the metal basket on wheels found at the grocery store or next to a homeless person sleeping in the park.  I have to say, I was really excited to find it and actually walked around it a few times, trying to figure out how I might be able to get it up the stairs and where I would store it in my apartment.

In fact, a shopping cart all my own is practically like having a car. With my very own shopping cart I could haul all my treasures around without breaking my back. I could ride it down the street just for fun in the middle of the night when no one is looking. I could move from one apartment to the other without having to beg friends for their cars.

However, I stopped, got myself in check, and decided I really didn’t need to finish my first year in a new town wandering around with a shopping cart!  Delana, get a grip!