The month of too much to do

Maybe it's because there are 16 hours of daylight in June and people feel there's lots more time, but it always seems to me there is too much activity to fit into a mere thirty days.
The two sentences heard most often during this month are
"I'd love to but I just c-a-a-n't!" and "Oh, I'm so tired!"
Different people are impacted in different ways by this busy month, of course. But everybody notices -- if only because they have trouble getting in touch with their friends.
The work load always increases. For some professions (like teaching) this is obvious, of course, as the school year is coming to an end. But everyone seems to have either a boss or a client (or both) that wants to get something major done "before summer." It's also a popular time for people to retire or leave for a new job resulting in good-bye parties to go to at the end of busy days.
For those with a family, particularly a large extended family, June activity attains a new dimension. It's the month of weddings and first communions. There is always Father's Day. And this year, there was Mother's Day, too. (In France, Mother's Day is the last Sunday in May, except when that is Whitsunday. Then it is celebrated the first Sunday in June.)
If you have teenagers, one of them is probably taking the bac. The whole family participates in this ordeal as well as close family friends. I have often been called for some last minute tutoring in English. Or just to listen and calm an anxious friend. (The actual candidates sometimes seem less stressed than their parents.)
Families with younger children will be invited (with camera) to admire them as they perform in the annual school show and will probably be asked to "bring something for the buffet" afterwards.
Each activity of every child or adult has an end-of-year event involving food and drink which must be made or purchased and brought on the appropriate afternoon or evening.
Friends want to get together "one last time before vacation", especially as the weather is often nice and the evenings are always long. Sometimes other friends arrive from different cities or countries for an early holiday or a relaxing (for them) weekend in Paris.
Do you, a member of your family or a close friend enjoy the arts? If so, you'll enjoy them even more in June. Amateur artists, dancers, musicians and singers display their talent during this month. And they all need audiences. And don't forget the Fête de la Musique.
A sports lover? If you can spare the time, tennis, football (always football), rugby and Formula 1 car races can be watched on TV or, for the fortunate, attended in person. In any case, they'll be discussed at all the social events one is invited to.
There are always national events to look forward to, also. This year, as well as the 65th anniversary of D-Day and the Obama family's visit to Paris, there was the election of the European Parliament. In fact, all of these happened on the same weekend. -- the weekend of the final matches of the French Open. And the European elections were on the same day as Mother's Day. In my personal life, that was the weekend of my two choir concerts and the Sunday friends from Charlottesville arrived for 3 days in Paris.
I've had a great time this month and below you'll see some of the pictures to prove it. But now I'm tired. And after dinner this evening with friends and lunch on Tuesday with another, June will be over and I can relax and enjoy the memories.

Culmination of a year's hard work

Our choir picnic by the Seine

Happy retirement, Danielle -- one of the teachers at the pre-school where I read to kids.

Our last story day -- we had a lot of fun this year.

My kidlets perform at the school show

Part of the yummy buffet afterwards
-- thanks to the Moms

Happy memories of a busy month

Fête de la Musique

Yesterday was the first day of summer and the longest day of the year. In Paris, this means 16 hours and 11 minutes of daylight. The sun was still a little shy, spending a good part of the day playing hide and seek with some rather dark clouds. But the temperature did get up to 21° (that's about 69° F for those of you who don't do Celsius) and it didn't rain as predicted. It would have been disappointing if it had because, as all who live in France know, the first day of summer is the Fête de la Musique.
This was launched by Jacques Lang, President François Mitterand's first Minister of Culture in 1982. The idea was to celebrate music, all kinds of music. And not to reserve performing to professionals in concert halls which charge a lot of money, but to encourage anybody and everybody to go out in the street and make music. In fact, the first slogan for it was "Faites de la musique; Fête de la musique". (For the non-French speakers among you, the words 'Faites' and 'Fête 'are pronounced exactly the same. The approximate translation of the phrase is "Make music; celebrate music".) During the first years, there were few organized concerts; people just showed up with their instruments or their choir in squares and parks where there were sure to be other people to listen to them. The idea caught on immediately and the Fête de Musique quickly became an institution.
As the years have passed, there are more and more organized concerts in specific venues where people can come inside and sit down. You can plan your day and evening by going to the official Fête de la Musique website, input the town or city you are interested in and the type of music you like and download a complete program of what is happening, when and where. For several years, the Louvre has subsidized a concert by the Orchestra of Paris inside the Pyramid. This year, the Orsay Museum had one, too. But even the organized concerts are relatively short (an hour maximum) and free. And there are still plenty of people out in the parks and squares or in cafés and restaurants. It's a wonderful day to wander in Paris. Below, you'll find some pictures I took of some of the musicians I heard yesterday. Sorry I can't provide the sound.

Musician seeking concert venue -- and the day begins.

Mendelssohn, Bach and Carpentier in a XIIIth Century Church.

Sunshine, music and a cool drink. What could be better?

A rapt audience for Ave Maria, sung by a counter-tenor at one of the entrances to the Louvre

The Louvre getting ready to welcome the Orchestre de Paris and Pierre Boulez

Choir singing French popular music in the Tuilleries Gardens.

Band from the Congo in the Tuilleries Gardens

Hip Hop at the Place Clichy

Bac Philo

Today is D-Day for over 500 000 high school students, candidates for the Baccalaureat exam in France, the rite of passage affectionately called "le bac" which takes place over the next week or so. For several days , the TV news has been counting down. We've seen interviews with candidates (some stressed out, some not), with encouraging fathers of candidates, with helpful mothers who say they are preparing nourishing meals and trying to keep the household calm, with younger sisters rolling their eyes and saying how they have to be quiet so that "monsieur" can study, with doctors and teachers giving advice on how to best prepare yourself physically and mentally for the ordeal.
This is more than your run-of-the-mill final exam. Yesterday's big news was the revelation that on Friday three young people from a Parisian suburb had tried to break into their high school to steal the keys to the room where the exam papers were being kept. They had been caught by the security person who lives on school premises and knew them. An interview with the Assistant Principal reassured us that it would have been impossible for the boys to reach their objective. Not only was the key to the reinforced steel door of the store room with her at all times but the exam papers were kept in a safe inside this room. There is good reason for all this. The "bac" is a national exam -- all candidates in France take the same exam at the same time on the same day. If someone in one school gets hold of the papers beforehand , questions are changed for all schools in the country so that no one has an unfair advantage.

The opening salvo of the exam is the most feared and the most respected -- all candidates have a four hour philosophy exam ( "le bac philo" ) on the first morning of exam week. As well as testing their stamina, this exam tests other qualities dear to the French -- the ability to analyse a question, summon arguments and quotes from philosophers to defend your point of view and express the whole with rigor and method in elegant language.

At 12:05 on this day, all over France, cell phones ring and anxious parents ask the important question: "What was the subject?" After reassuring themselves that all is well or cheering up the anxious candidate, the parents rush to lunch and impart the news to waiting colleagues . And for those who do not know anyone taking the bac in a given year, the lunchtime radio and television news always opens with this important information. Shortly after 1 p.m. the entire country knows and discussions are launched on the internet, in the media and in cafés and restaurants all over France.

I don't want you to feel left out so here are the subjects, translated especially for your benefit.
Note: the general "bac" is divided into three branches -- science, economy and social sciences and literature. Each set of candidates gets their own questions.
This year the science students chose between

1. Is it absurd to desire the impossible? or
2. Are there questions that science can't answer? or
3. Commenting a text from Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" on how you can interest citizens in democracy.

The economics students reflected on

1. What do we gain by exchanging? or
2. Does technical development change mankind? or
3. a text from Locke claiming that moral values are not innate but adopted because they are pragmatic.

And, finally, the literary students expressed themselves as deeply and elegantly as they could on

1. Does language betray thought? or
2. Does the objectivity of history depend on the impartiality of the historian? or
3. a passage from Schopenhauer on the relationship between desire as deprivation and the satisfaction of desire.

You've got to love a country where, in the midst of an economic crisis and an explosive situation in Iran, the noon news opens with a ten minute segment on these larger and more universal issues.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to pour myself a glass of rosé and reflect.

Tax Day!

Well the day I picked to do MY French tax return. My deadline is actually tomorrow. Unlike the United States -- the other country where I file and pay taxes -- there are several tax days in France. Five years ago, the government created a method of filing on-line and, to encourage people to use it, gave you a 20 euro rebate and also extended your filing deadline. It worked so well -- what a person won't do for a tax rebate! - that last year they cancelled the rebate possibility except for those using the on-line system for the first time. But you still get the extended deadline. So this year, if you insist on mailing in a form you fill out with a pen, it had to be postmarked no later than midnight May 29th. If you live in another European country, a Mediterranean country not in Europe, North America or Africa and have to pay French taxes, you have until June 30th to deal with it -- whether you mail in your form or file on the internet. People living in all other countries get until July 15th. For those of us living in France and filing on-line there are three deadlines -- June 11th, 18th or 25th -- depending on when the kids in your area had their spring break this year. Come on! Would I lie to you. You can look it up at http://www.impots.gouv.fr/ if you read French.

Also unlike the United States, filing your return is very simple and has gotten simpler in the last few years as technology advances. Until a couple of years ago, you were sent a form with your personal information already filled in. You filled in your salary, any other income, and the amounts of any deductions in the appropriate lines but did no calculations. The French have realized for years that computers do calculations faster and more acurately than humans. To further help you, banks were required to send you a facsimile of the tax form in which the numbers corresponding to your interest or dividend payments were filled in on the correct lines. All you had to do was copy these numbers onto the corresponding lines in the real form. The no-anxiety tax return.

But, in its wisdom, the French government thought that might still be too much of a burden for the harried tax-payer. So, two or three years ago, they started sending the forms with your salary already filled in, too, though you still had to copy the interest and dividend information from your bank. This year's tax form has that information already filled in, too. If you have deductions for things like charitable contributions, child care, alimony, student loans, mortgage interest, home improvements that lower your use of non-renewable energy etc. , you DO still have to insert those numbers yourself. But for many taxpayers, filing your tax return now involves merely, read, sign and send. So you really only have to worry about meeting the deadline. I did. And I'm done.

Mon Quartier

(Or "my neighborhood" for the non-French-speaking among you)

I first moved to this neighborhood in 1972 -- right after I left the room-with-a-family that had been my home during what was supposed to have been my one year in Paris. I'd like to be able to tell you that I did a lot of research to find exactly the right place to live but, in fact, I chose it because it was just 8 métro stops away from my new job. Once again my lucky star took care of me as it's one of the greatest neighborhoods in Paris. Most people never leave the area even if they do change apartments within it. (I have lived in 3 different apartments on two streets in the time I've been here.)

At first, I just thought it was great because it was convenient to everything. But, gradually, I discovered that the Quartier d'Europe is much more. It was the handiwork of two financial speculators -- a Swedish banker and a French courtier -- who acquired the land in 1826 with the intention of creating a new residential area in a place that, at the time, was on the outskirts of Paris. They decided to name all the streets after European cities. The building, re-building and enlarging of the nearby Saint Lazare train station caused them to revise their plans somewhat but they persevered and finished their project about 1865 -- though the train station was finally finished 25 years after that. So-o-o glad I missed all the construction !

The area quickly became a center for muscians and artists and continues so to this day. The old Opera House (Palais Garnier) was opened in 1874 and is within walking distance. On my way to the grocery store, I sometimes hear a lovely soprano warming up and wonder if she sings at the Opéra. Nearly every time I take the métro, I dodge students carrying ungainly musical instruments on their way to the nearby Conservatory which opened in 1911. The street parallel to mine and even closer to the Conservatory is still THE place to have your violin, cello or guitar made or repaired. You can also buy other instruments and the music to play on them here.

A number of impressionist painters were fascinated by this new residential area and by the Saint Lazare train station, symbol of modernity and progress at the time. For six years, Manet had his atelier in a former fencing studio.

Manet's studio

From his window, he could see my street and painted a well-known picture of it. He also painted a picture of a little girl looking at the trains, still a favorite occupation of little kids in the neighborhood. Monet painted the train station itself and Caillebotte preferred street scenes. I have fun sometimes taking photos and comparing them to the originals.
Like this:
My photo of my street.

Manet's painting of my street:

My photo of a sunny day in Paris:

Caillebotte's painting of a rainy day in Paris:

Such a fun place to live!

My Reasons for Committing Bloggery

For months now I have been contemplating this blog. No, I have none of the usual reasons

• no life-changing event
• no fabulous trip
• no advice I feel needs to be given -- and preferably, by me

And I certainly don't want to be one of those people whom Margaret Atwood scorned in an interview I read recently: "It's like everyone is blogging about how they brushed their teeth this morning."

But, over the years, I have had the same questions again and again from different people.

What's it like to live in Paris?
What do you do in Paris?
Why Charlottesville?
Why don't you just spend 6 months in Paris and then six months in Charlottesville?
Do you feel more French or American? .........

I like to answer questions and explain things. I like to take pictures and show them to people. I like to observe and write about what I have seen. Those seem to be good enough reasons for a year or so of bloggery.

I see this blog as un unfolding of the events that mark my time and the time of the places where I live -- a sort of secular and personal Book of Hours. I hope you'll come along for the journey through a year of my Double Life.