VISA!!!! (No, not a credit card ...)

I have leaped the last hurdle in the race to my long-stay French visa!!!! I drove down to Miami this past Sunday afternoon, stayed over night, and then went to the French consulate on Monday morning and turned in my last pieces of paperwork that the consulate needed in order to issue my super-duper, really real, honest-to Murgatroyd long-stay visa. It shall be issued on May 13, according to the very nice lady behind the window in the visa room, and I gave them a pre-addressed overnight envelope so that I am sure to have it IN HAND prior to my flight on May 20. I am ecstatic and relieved and happy. This was the last thing in the way of paperwork that had to be done.

My dad actually drove me down and back, and it was a good thing to be able to spend some one-on-one time with him. We won't get so many more chances to do that, as I am leaving very, very soon. Now I have some more memories for the old memory vault that I can pull out when I'm feeling homesick and awful, as I'm sure I will from time to time. France is kind of a long way away.

By the time I land in Paris, it'll have been almost three solid months that I haven't seen my husband. What were we thinking???? Why didn't he stay here with me so that we could do this together? Next time we are crossing to another continent, I will be insisting we do it together. No question!

I no longer hate volcanoes

Well, all of my prior bitching was for nothing. My prayers have been answered, and the volcano eruption that stopped flights throughout Europe did not adversely affect the arrival of my livret de famille - the last piece of documentation needed to process my French long-stay visa. Yes!

I got the livret a week ago today (I think - time is sort of running all together these days), while I was sitting in my driveway overseeing my yard sale with my dad and friend Chris. I was so excited when I saw the envelope, I'm sure that Dad and Chris thought something really exciting must be in it ... when they saw the thin passport-like book with the plain writing on the front, it surely was a disappointment for them. For me? Sheerest bliss. Here was the last piece of the puzzle that I needed.

So next, I go to the French consulate's website, which, though it has all necessary information on it somewhere ... that "somewhere" is not always so easy to find. At any rate, I managed to find the area where one signs up for an appointment to submit visa paperwork ... and I made the appointment ... and, oh crap! No printer! It won't confirm the appointment unless I print the confirmation page! At that point, it was Saturday night, I was hungry and tired, and so I gave up for the day and reconciled myself to having to re-book for a much later date and time by the time I got logged on again on Sunday. Again, surprise! Went to my parents' on Sunday and re-requested the appointment - got the same day and time, and this time confirmed it and printed the confirmation page. Victory! So on this Monday, May 3, I will be meeting with some representative at the French consulate regarding my long-term stay visa application. Phew.

I am actually really nervous about it - they all seem to look at you like a bug (or maybe a talking animail - a rat, or a pig, perhaps) if you don't speak French easily and readily - but Patrick told me not to get all fussed. He says they all speak English fluently, and if I simply say to them I'd rather speak in Engligh, to be sure I fully understand everything that is needed, that will be fine. Still, I wish my French were more fluent and I could just aspirate my R's with the best of them. I hardly think that my random vocabulary (consisting mostly of words for food or ballet positions) and avoidance of anything requiring me to use the past tense is what anyone would consider as "fluency". Believe me, Consulate Staff - you'd rather speak to me in rough, unmelodious English than listen to me butcher your mother tongue. And so that's the route I will take.

Wish me luck - Monday morning comes soon, and if all goes well, my visa will be issued within 10 days. As I have already purchased my plane ticket for Thursday the 20th, I certainly hope that is the case!

Volcanos are dumb

If it weren't already taking a million years to get all of my paperwork in order so that I can move to France ... a volcano erupts. And all air travel to Europe ceases for many days. This didn't have any immediate impact on me, since I am not planning on flying to join my husband in La Canourgue until late next month, but then I thought for a moment ... oh, God. The mail.

If you have never contemplated a move to another country, this might not make so much sense to you. When your whole life hinges on how quickly mail gets back and forth between France and the U.S., suddenly that volcanic eruption all the way across the Atlantic starts to matter a lot more to you! The way that my husband and I calculate it, our application for the livret de famille (this weird book thing that you are issued by the French government when you get married - you use it to record things, that much I know. What things? Hmm, not so sure on that part ...) would have reached the consulate in Miami pre-eruption. However, it is entirely possible that the application and accompanying docs wouldn't have been sent on until the next week ... if our case worker was using the "diplomatic mail", which only leaves their office once a week. Seriously. So there's about a 50/50 chance that our streamlined plan has just been set back 2 weeks. Drat.

If it were only a matter of obtaining the livret, I'd not be so worried. But after you get this mystical little book in your hot little hands, you then have to call the French consulate and make an appointment to physically go there and submit a bunch of other stuff, another application for your visa, and the livret, so that they can process the actual long-term visa for you. Because what I want to do after three months of mailing forms and documents and collecting ridiculous pieces of information from everywhere in the world, it seems, is drive the four hours to downtown Miami and submit this crap in person. I have no idea how I will manage to get in to see anyone, as the available appointments will all be on weekdays, between the hours of 9 and 4pm - I work then. Don't you? It's maddening.

We've already been through one delay, because Patrick and I obtained a document earlier than the consulate would accept it. I am not kidding. Even though we were able to obtain this document (an apostille marriage certificate) almost immediately after we were married, we instead had to WAIT for six weeks before it could be submitted to the consulate, because the Office of Vital Statistics adds a small bit of information to the bottom of any certificate printed after six weeks from the marriage date have elapsed. It's completely crazy. Why couldn't the consulate just call up the Office of Vital Statistics when they got our form and ASK for the additional info? Don't know. Certainly would've been more convenient, but apparently the French government and the U.S. government attend the same "Mastering the Inefficiencies of Bureaucracy" seminars, because that was definitely NOT on offer. We had to wait, re-request, and re-file the certificate before the consulate would proceed.

I don't know why I'm so whiny about this today - I simply miss my husband, I think, and am just so impatient to get over there. All this waiting seems silly. I know they have to make sure I'm not a murderer and that I don't belong in debtor's prison or an insane asylum before I become a personal resident of their country ... but shoot, couldn't this just be a weensy, teensy bit easier? The separation is tough enough.

Anyway, volcanoes. I am glad people are okay over there, and we didn't have another Pompei or something, but -- this volcano is seriously impeding my forward progress. I am sure that all of the poor folks stuck in Europe for days on end would agree with me! Iceland, you are hereby forbidden to explode any more volcanoes. Seriously, you're done. The next time you get the urge, just hold your breath. Take an antacid and think of pleasant things. Anything, really ... just don't jeopardize my mail delivery!

Moving to France - I'm crazy

So, I met and married the most wonderful man, possibly in the whole universe. He is perfect for me and I thank what powers there are up above every day that he walked into my life. I love him dearly. But I have known, from Day One, that he was a French Guy. Not only that he was a French Guy, but that he planned to relocate back to his home country as soon as possible.


At first, it seemed not to matter. Then, as we got closer and closer to each other, it mattered a little more. He asked me to visit. Then, to use my visit as a "test" to decide if I, maybe, someday, could live in France. Then, we decided to get married, and suddenly I had made the choice, almost without noticing. I am going to move to, and live in, ... A Foreign Land. France, to be precise.

I have no idea how this transition has worked for anyone else, because I don't really have any friends who have suddenly met the love of their lives, and he/she happens to be French, and they move overseas, ooh la la, and live happily ever after. I looked through the travel writing section of the bookstore lately, trying to find some sort of guide to what the move from the U.S. to France would be like, and I found a few books about Americans living in France (pretty much only in Paris or Provence - neither of which I will be moving to) ... but not really what I wanted. I wanted a book that talked about the transition, about how they got everything done before leaving the U.S., about how the move felt, about how long it took them to adjust and to be accepted in their new home. Instead, pretty much everything I found just talks about the differences between the French and Americans, and one woman even talks about how her own children poke fun at her for her "American" pronunciations and how she feels that strangers still immediately identify her as a "foreigner" in her small town in Provence ... and she has been living there for more than ten years! Maybe I missed the right books? It's possible. Borders and Barnes & Noble are certainly not always definitive.

So, where to learn about this monumental move to a small, rural village in the Auvergnes region of France? Apparently, I'm looking at it. I can't believe that there aren't more people who have made a similar move, to a similar area ... but maybe there aren't! Perhaps I am the first, and this will be like a walk on the moon. Cold, alien, uneven terrain ... but I doubt it. It's probably like moving anywhere new.

And so, since my husband is already there (he returned to native soil about a week after we got married and is busy getting our house ready for my arrival), I have been talking to him every day, via telephone or Skype or email, asking him questions about things, and learning myself just by going through it. It occurred to me that someone else might benefit from what I've done so far, and what I find out as things progress, so here I am. Writing. We'll see where it takes you - me - well, it'll take me to France, I guess. And you'll hear about every little thing on the way.

Got married, moving to France

Wait, am I crazy? I have been asking myself this question repeatedly over the last several weeks. I am ecstatically happy to be married to Patrick, and to have been able to get married with my family present and accounted for ... but I am just as emphatically NOT happy that he is already back in France, waiting for me as I begin the LONG process of obtaining my long-stay spouse visa. Seriously, a bureaucratic nightmare. Absolutely ridiculous amounts of paperwork and long wait times for processing. Blech.

By the time all of this comes together, and assuming I can get out of my lease and out from under my car payments ... I will go to France, two cats in tow, to this tiny village in the Auvergnes, and collapse into the waiting arms of my husband. Much mushiness and sexiness will ensue, but eventually we will wear ourselves out, and then I will have to face the fact that, no longer in my home country - I will be THE OUTSIDER. Even worse, THE AMERICAN. La Canourgue is not the type of place where there are a bunch of American expats just bumming around - I will be a genuine oddity to these people. Patrick himself is enough of an upset ("A Parisian? Who lived in the States for 15+ years? Mon Dieu!!") , but I have a feeling it is going to be a little tough to win friends and influence people, especially in a tongue I haven't spoken on a daily basis for about 10 years, and which I was NEVER fluent in. So, again - am I insane?

I don't want this to sound like I am not excited - I am. Immeasurably. My heart does the excited little bump-bump dance every time I stop and think, oh, my God. I'm really going to live with my husband in France. Holy shit. I am going out into the world to start a new part of my life, and that is damned exciting. Being married in and of itself is exciting - I certainly waited long enough to pick someone! But underneath the excitement and positivity of the whole situation, there is definitely a small little smidgen of panic and doubt. I am struggling to keep that smidgen as tiny as possible, and also to shove it out of my way. I am not listening to its little voice, taunting me and trying to deposit pockets of unease into my everyday thoughts. If I can avoid making eye contact, so to speak, then the tragedies and troubles it predicts will never come to pass.

I suppose this is normal for anyone making a big move. Even though you know it doesn't have to be, it feels like forever.

I've never been so far from my tribe. My people. My family. For 34 years, I have been within driving distance (and usually within 10 miles). It will be mighty strange to walk roads that are nowhere near where they physically reside. To see places they don't share. To speak in a language that isn't theirs. Ours.

In a way, it will be the first time in my life I have been a real adult. I dread it, and I can't wait. I'm exhilarated and afraid. I'm hopeful.  

Beauty

What must it be like to be beautiful? How does it feel to walk into  room and have every head turn to watch your passing? Is it completely annoying, almost like having a handicap that people constantly ask about or comment upon? Or do you simply grow accustomed to the admiring looks and feel that it is, quite simply, your due?

I've always wondered about this. Recently, I confessed to the man that I'm dating that I would like to be beautiful, just once. He was astounded that I would say such a thing - not because he didn't think I would be subject to such a 1950's way of looking at a woman's role in the world - but because, he said, I am beautiful. I started to cry, a little. He was honestly bewildered that I didn't think so, myself.

The thing is, I do think I'm beautiful. There are a hundred things about me that are unique and fantastic and enjoyable and incredible. The difficulty is that, based upon this kind of a definition, well, everyone is beautiful, correct? We all are, each in our own and individual ways, and that is as it should be. To our own families and friends and loved ones, we are indeed all possessors of beauty, on many different levels.

I guess that makes me kind of messed up for wanting, for a small while, to be beautiful outside, where everyone can see it, like a painting or a statue. I suppose this all comes from too many years of watching television and movies and reading fashion magazines. The women there all seem to set this impossible standard, and yet we all (don't we?) secretly (or not so secretly) wish to be like them, to hold the gazes of the multitudes, to bask in the warm glow of that admiration, to have people want to be you ...

Hunh. Now that I write that out, it seems a little creepy. And plus, I bet to look so picture-perfect, you have to spend a really ridiculous amount of time working on yourself - exercise, diet, hair and nail appointments, etc ... would I really choose to spend my time that way? Pampering and prepping myself, instead of spending time with the people I love and reading and riding my bike and a thousand other important things? Probably not. My brain can recognize the unappealing nature of taking that route. And to have people stare wherever you went? Try to talk to you? Copy your hairstyle, buy the clothes you like, try to emulate the least important part of you - your exterior?

Maybe I don't want to be thought beautiful, by anyone other than my soon-to-be husband. I'll let him be my sole admirer, as long as he lets me be his. Does it really matter what anyone else thinks? Nope, not so much.

I have decided that I am not an ideal blogger. Or even a semi-ideal one! I could sit here for literally an hour, thinking of and then almost instantaneously discarding topics, one after the other. And when I finally DO write, it is generally one of those "writing about nothing" kind of blogs that I despise reading when I come across them on other people's sites. Oh, what a tangled web I weave. Sigh.

Were I a more focused person, I would pick some category - books, my pet's antics, a picture each day, politics, food - and then hammer away. Once a day, you write something down. Sounds simple, and maybe it is, for some folks. For me, I crave variety. I get sweaty-palmed thinking about limiting myself to just one thing. Dear God, I think my armpits are sweating now, too. Anyone want to know why I never finished college? Easy - I simply couldn't settle on learning about one topic, one career. I was endlessly changing my mind, finding a new interest, losing an old one. I have no idea what gave me this perpetual wanderlust of the mind, only that it is part of me, and my boredom with concentration on one topic or idea has been with me my whole life.

It's actually kind of cool to just keep on jumping around the spectrum, as folks who search blogs are generally looking for one on a specific topic. This way, I can post whatever the hell I'm thinking, and it releases tensions and airs my ideas, but possibly no one else will ever even read this, because it is about so many different things. It's sort of like the ship's log of my life, an online diary, only with the added excitement that someone, anyone, might read it at any point. I don't flatter myself that many people would be interested in reading my scrambling ramblings, but the potential is there. Just a little extra layer that makes this about an inch more exciting than saving a daily or weekly diary on my hard drive.

So, I think that, instead of berating myself for not settling on one thing, I will instead shake my own hand and then continue to write when and if the spirit moves me, and about whatever springs to mind on those days. I will avoid categories and classifications as if they carried the bubonic plague. I will float my secrets out into the ether of the internet and wonder where they end up, if anywhere. And, like always, the writing of words is what will be the satisfaction. Mmm.