So, just exactly where have we been for four weeks?
A few times during the past few weeks I have thought about posting to the blog, but for one reason or another it just did not seem right. I did not want to just post a travelogue, since that isn’t what the blog is about, it’s about David’s recovery, the road he is on, and our experiences together. In this case, the road was not so clear while on the way, but for now, sitting on the plane headed home, the path seems a bit more meaningful looking back.
Technically, David is making physical progress, little by little. Some days less than others. Today, sitting on the plane while the purser was reading the safety announcement, there he was moving his left hand up and down with a big grin on his face. He is very motivated to get better, especially now after our trip to France. Some days it is hard for him to get up though and face it.
Our journey this past four weeks has been more than just half way around the world, it has been a journey into our past life in France with a realization that life goes on, only differently for now. He is very frustrated (and yes, depressed) that he can not just run down to the corner to the Boulanger and get a baguette, or head up to rue Croix Nivert to see what is in the antique shop this morning, like he used to. How about we just jump on the metro over to St Germain for dinner? Or leave me for a while, working on the computer usually, just to get out and about for an hour or two? Not happening right now. Everything is a journey and our ‘range’ is far less than it used to be.
What the trip did accomplish was for us to understand how life works for us in France, just as we learned at home since the stroke. For one thing, everything takes a lot more planning now which takes away a lot of the spontaneity, but not necessarily the fun. It is Paris, after all.
So, to backtrack and overlap a bit of the earlier posts, we arrived in Paris on Boxing Day (26th) around 7am and had a very quick trip through the airport and into the taxi. How we fit in that not-so-large taxi I will never know, but anyway we got to the apartment and rested most of that day (Saturday), just figuring out where things were when we left them more than a year ago when we thought we would be back in a month or two. Yes, the chair fit (just) and we learned how to do the “W” turn pretty well out of our bedroom, to the hallway, then in to the bathroom. The chair, David and I fit (with me in the shower usually) but hey, it worked. Learning the shower ‘orchestration of movements and locations’ to get David in the bathroom, on the shower chair, and the sequence of where the soap, shampoo, razor, towels, etc all go to make the process function was a work in progress, which we finally got working pretty well by the time we left.
Getting the computers set up (new WiFi box), going through the closet, unpacking all the bags and sorting through the gifts we brought, etc, took most of a day on Sunday, together with a quick trip to the street market and the grocery store for me. Bought two roasted chickens that day that we ate over the next few days. Can’t tell you how even a simple roast chicken that has real chicken taste changes the experience of life. That and some St Agur, a baguette, butter with chunks of fleur de sel from nourmoutiier, and just a little red wine. By the way, don’t ask me how much weight I gained this trip, but pushing the wheelchair around Paris only helped al little (not as much as I would have liked…)
By the 28th we had the big event, his seizure. He hardly remembers it except waking up in his underwear on the bed with a bunch of firemen in the room. I will leave that part of the story alone. Anyway, I guess the deal I made with someone or something out there while he was flailing around in my arms must have been accepted because he came through it in the end and after a few days of rest we were back where we started, just a little more frustrated at what we would have been doing ‘otherwise’. Then came New Years, and we rolled on down to the Eiffel Tower to see the grand display. We stopped off at one of our favorite restaurants, Pere Claude, for an ad-hoc New Year’s dinner. Turns out the had a fixed price holiday meal, 300e for the two of us, but hey, you only live once (or twice).
Our friend Alex flew in from Frankfurt for a few days and we met up with our friends Thierry, Francois, and Philippe for a few days. We had a great time and a couple of meals with them (one again at Pere Claude) and at Maison du Berger, a great fondue restaurant. The story here is that Maison du Berger is in St Germain and this is a metro ride for us, on a line with no elevators and luckily only two flights down. Well, with the 5 of us it was sort of comedic getting down the stairs, with the chair, through the bypass gates (to fit the chair), then back through the gates again since each person needs a validated ticket and when they let the chair bypass the gates somehow you have to end up with all the people on the other side, each with a validated ticket. Reminds me of the story trying to cross the river in a small boat with a the fox, the chicken, etc. (only interesting if you know the story, it’s one of those brain teasers). Well, we made it there, had a great dinner of cheese fondue, and made it back. Finding the place to keep the chair in this tiny restaurant, making our way to the bathrooms (worth a book of stories on its own) and getting home was quite a trip. And the restaurant is up a steep hill from the metro. A book of memories in that one meal, but we managed. Okay, on we go.
We went to the museum the next day with everyone. Quai Branly, near our apartment actually. Great exhibits of culture from around the world. Philippe came with his car which was a blessing. Parking was a challenge, even on Sunday, and luckily he did not have to park his car farther away from the museum than our apartment! We learned a lot about the power of the wheelchair though, as we were whisked to the front of the line and into the exhibit. I will take this moment to mention that all over Paris there was tremendous accommodation for accompanied persons in wheelchairs and once we learned what to do and where to go, it was somewhat easier. Not easy on your own though in a chair as the curbs are still a bit high and the cobblestones can rattle your teeth (not to mention the occasional pot hole). Being with Alex was at the same time fun and a little emotional, since this was his first chance to be with David since the stroke (and maybe even since David’s parents and our friend Muriel passed away a few years ago). It was sort of a ‘Sunday out’ and I know how important it was for David. It brought back so many old memories of David’s time together with Alex in the years before David and I even met. Later in our trip we went back for dinner with Philippe at his apartment with his partner Frederick and again Thierry and Francois. Their apartment is up high and has the most wonderful view of the Eifel Tower. You can never get enough of that stuff.
Next came our big reunion with Fred, Mireille, Noel (Fred’s mother) and young Pierre. Fred owned the bakery on our street when David was first in Paris and we have been friends ever since. Since then they opened an even bigger bakery near the Arch de Triumph in an even nicer neighborhood and have been having a good success there. We made our way to their apartment for a great reunion and swapping of gifts for the holidays, then off to a local restaurant for dinner. Their gift to us included a wonderfully HUGE black Perigord Truffle that we have been eating off ever since (what is left is in our suitcase packed in rice right now). They also gave us an immense fruit basket with some of the most wonderful fresh fruits (uh, January in Paris and the peaches and cherries were indescribably delicious) and an assortment of mustard and salts that we will cherish when we get home. Mireille is/was due with #2 (a boy, Pierre) and although we tried to see her in the hospital yesterday (19th) they were still in the delivery room when we had to get back to the apartment. Photos will have to do until we are back in Paris later this year.
We had planned to go south to visit Stan and Avril and to stay a few days at the Maison de la Reine (Charlotte’s 10 bedroom home she owns with Stan and Avril in Ligny le Chatel), but the snow and ice made me cancel the idea of renting a car and instead we booked the train to La Roche sur Yon to spend 4 days with Pierre Jean and his girlfriend Kristal at their cute new home (actually in Jard sur Mer). The train was both an adventure, and at the same time easy to deal with. The SNCF sales office is just around the corner from our apartment, so it was much easier than the internet (really) to book the train (direct) and organize the wheelchair seats. There is a phone number to call to reserve assistance in the train station at each end. My French teacher will be very happy to know I managed to organize the entire thing on the phone, in French. In theory it is not that hard, once you figure out the direction and scope of the conversation, and what exactly she was trying to ask. To me, after speaking for 20 minutes in that situation I felt a great accomplishment. At each point along the way there they were, the SNCF team, rolling him off the train using the manual ramp. On the way to see Pierre Jean David wanted to walk the length of the train to the snack car, but it was too rough at 200 MPH. On the trip back we did walk the long walk and had a snack. The food was not the issue, it was the walking on the train that was the success.
While with Pierre Jean we saw the outside of the summer resort restaurant they have just bought and will re-open this April. Our best wishes are with them. Lucky they are young is what we can say. The location is great and we are sure that with his determination they will do well. We had a big celebration lunch with all Pierre Jean’s family at their parents home, where we have visited before once or twice. Crackling fire in the dining room fireplace and a wonderful Gallette de Roi that his father, a retired baker, made. Nothing finer. And the ‘feve’ was in David’s portion, but he surrendered it so that Pierre Jean’s young nephew could ‘find it’ again and be the king. Sort of like re-hiding the afikomen at Passover to avoid family feuds (a Jewish family holiday thing, you have to be there to fully understand).
So on the way back to the train station to Paris from Pierre Jean’s, we stopped off at Metro (think Costco for the professional chef, only bigger). EVERY single thing a chef would buy for a restaurant in France is there, every ingredient, every little odd thing. Think kid in candy store. So, we filled up the suitcases and headed back to Paris. Well, the good thing about Pierre Jean having a summer resort restaurant is they have 6 months off in the winter and can come help us in California for Christmas at least!
Back in Paris and time to visit Le Cordon Bleu. I thought I would try a shortcut but we should have stuck with the route David walked all the time he was in Paris going to school. We did get there eventually, after stopping for a coffee of course. It was good for David to see the school and how busy it was with students. He is very proud of his accomplishments there and is looking forward to be back in the kitchen rolling out pastry some time in the future. The next day we (I) decided it was time to learn the buses of Paris. Completely different than the metro, with routes that use different streets depending on the direction of travel, so knowing where you got off of the bus is of NO help in knowing how to get back home (nor is that line necessarily the right one to get home efficiently since the place you get off going home is maybe not even on the same line as the one you use on the way there!) We did get a few trips under our belt though, and lots of lines have ramps that roll out for the wheelchair and it was very nice how helpful everyone was on the buses. If it were not so cold out the connections would have been a little easier to deal with.
A few days ago we headed out to G.Detou, A.Simon, and D.Hellerian, the finest in cooking shops in Paris. It was great to see everyone that knows David personally from our years of coming here and to have all of their encouragement and support. Any time I can get David out of there for only a few hundred euros I feel very lucky. We ended up at Le Pied de Cochon for the famous onion soup, and a bit more. Their cheese topping is more of a soufflé, what a treat. A week or two earlier Jean took us out for a dinner treat to Le Suffren, near the apartment and we had THEIR onion soup, which actually was better David thought, with a very rustic approach to the crouton using chunks of bread (think Rocky Road). I do not want to think how many sit-ups each will cost me.
Yesterday was another bus adventure to visit Mireille in the hospital to see the new baby. We had to go there also to try to settle the bill for the ambulance ride back in December, so we went even though Fred had not called us yet to say the baby had been born. We found her room, but she was in the delivery area, so we went to have a coffee, then dealt with the ambulance bill. By the time we got back to the room they were still not there, and we had to make our way to the Grand Epicerie de Paris to buy the last gifts on our list (it was getting late by then) so we had to bail on the hospital but we’ll see the pictures and visit them later this year. With bags full from the epicierie we managed to fight for a taxi (strangely easier with the wheelchair, sort of like the parting of the red sea at the taxi line up).
Then came the packing. Took me the better part of 6 hours to pack everything neatly and weight distributed into 5 suitcases stacked in the kitchen, and then straighten up the apartment for our departure this morning. I finally got to bed around 2am. Luckily Jean was there when the taxi arrived around 8am to help us load up for the airport. As we were leaving David said he could not believe we were leaving already. The past 4 weeks have been a big learning and adjustment period. David knows he CAN recover enough to be able to manage himself in Paris by himself once his arm is working and he can walk better. The risk of falling is much less once his left arm is working and he will be better able to do everything for himself that I know have to help him with. Having a left hand and stronger legs will also let him go to places where the toilet is down stairs with a winding staircase with only one rail (you would be surprised how many Paris restaurants are like this).
When we get to San Francisco there will be a few hours in the car, then at home tomorrow (Thursday) to get things put together, then I am off to New York on Friday for a week. David will be resting and recuperating at home with help for a week. Like any good vacation, you need a vacation afterwards to rest up.
Thanks again for all your support for David during this both physically and emotionally difficult time.
Drew