The Garbage Wars

July 14th is called Bastille Day in English. For the French, the date alone says it all: le 14 juillet, Independence Day, the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, an end to the tyranny of monarchy.

On the US side of the Atlantic, July 14th, 2019 also marks the first attack of “the Garbage Wars,” as I call them. Here in France, on a much smaller scale, a fierce “Garbage War” has been going on for some time.

Since July 14th, I’ve been following presidential tweets as he attacks “the Squad,” four young first-term congresswomen of color who, according to President Trump, should “go back” to their countries. Graciously, the President has offered to take care of travel costs. I don’t know exactly know how to interpret this, as three of the four congresswomen are US-born.

As the week of July 14th progressed, things got uglier, as more “garbage” was tossed around. On Wednesday the 17th, a crowd of Trump-supporters in North Carolina chanted “Send her back,” attacking Somali-born Representative Ilhan Omar, as the President looked on approvingly.

On Friday the 19th, Trump protested to reporters that neither Omar nor Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another member of the Squad, have the right to “call our country and our people ‘garbage’.” Fact-checkers were quick to point out that neither used the term ‘garbage’ to refer to their fellow citizens.

I always try to send off my monthly article to The Republican Herald on the Monday preceding its last-Sunday-of-the-month publication. As you read, much of what I’ve just written may already be “old news.” A lot of presidential tweeting can go on in one week and who knows how “the Squad” may respond?

In general, who knows how the world will turn?

One thing is certain, the President’s attacks against the four congresswomen have struck a nerve in me because, here in France, for over a year, I’ve been caught up in my own “garbage wars.”

My story may appear trivial in comparison to national or international events, yet it contains elements common to all wars.

First of all, it’s about territory: who has the right to control it? Who has de facto control? In my case, we’re talking about a wide cement passageway that separates my home from the local superette. This is what the French call “une cour commune,” a shared courtyard, a co-property, where each owner shares rights and responsibilities.

For years, the manager of the local superette, a feisty woman in her 40’s, considered this space her own. One house in the passageway was owned by an absent Parisian. Another, by a taxi service using it as a business address.

Then there was what became my house, with its roof and living room floor about to collapse. You’d have to be a fool, locals believed, to buy such a place.

Such a fool—me—showed up, bought the place, fixed it up, turned it into a home, and presto, the manager of the superette was no longer alone—which did not mean she was ready to relinquish sovereignty.

To approach my house, you must descend an incline. The manager of the superette had given local boys the right to use the slope to pop wheelies and then execute fancy turns in the courtyard. I protested, especially as a reckless stop sometimes sent their bikes crashing into my front door.

“Corinne (I’ve changed the manager’s name) told us we can ride here,” the boys said. And they continued till the day I got out my phone and took photos of them in the act. I could have saved myself a lot of trouble if, instead of asking first, I had simply flashed my phone in their faces—that gesture sent them running and they never came back.

That was a minor battle won, but one battle does not win a war. Corinne still did not want to share and to prove it, she piled the store’s garbage a few feet from my front door. This was, to put it mildly, too much.

Since moving in, I had learned that Corinne managed the store but the building and the courtyard belonged to city hall. I went there, met the mayor, and recounted my plight.

He was on my side, I could tell, but my predicament made him uneasy. Grocery stores like Corinne’s are essential to rural life. He—and Corinne—knew her business was the lifeblood of the village. That did not stop him from finding a solution: an enclosure to hide the garbage cans. I was delighted and wrote a letter of thanks. I had won a major battle and had my say about our common space.

Naively, I believed my troubles were over. I had not bargained for the ideological side of warfare, which, as President Trump well knows, has a lot to do with false accusations and name-calling.

The garbage cans were out of sight, but the war continued by other means. One evening as I was walking home, the manager’s husband approached me and began insulting me. I had “no values,” how could the French educational system allow someone like me to teach? I was sneaky, “false.” I went behind his wife’s back, addressing myself to the mayor. Such behavior was not “French.”

When attacked, I rarely strike back and that evening I remained calm. I even thought about what Corinne’s husband said. His insults were nasty, but perhaps he had a point about speaking directly to his wife. The next time there was a problem, I’d give it a try.

And that’s what I did, diplomatically, I believed. Still concerning those garbage cans, I asked her if they could be cleaned (they never were). In response, she lashed out at me with such verbal violence, all I could do was back away.

The war escalated and Corinne once again began piling garbage outside my door. When I protested, she made fun of the way I speak French. This last incident happened only a few days ago, while the US Garbage Wars raged.

Though no one has yet told me to go back to where I came from, I know I am neither liked nor wanted by villagers like Corinne who reject me without knowing me: I am a woman, a foreigner, and that’s enough.

My greatest crime? I exist. I take up space and have rights. These are also the “crimes” of the Squad of four. And I have the feeling, Mr. Trump and Corinne, that you’d better get used to sharing because none of us “criminals” are going to go away.

**************************************************************

Below, the French take on Trump and the 'Squad of four': Toujours l'amour!
Translation: Trump goes after four elected officials
Speaker 1: But why only pick on women with foreign backgrounds?
Speaker 2: Melania must have kicked him out of the bedroom again.

Organic gardening – now and then

Since I began gardening seriously, and by that, I mean sometimes devoting hours a day to that activity, I’ve begun asking myself what it would be like if I had to depend solely on my garden to sustain my life.

What if the only fruit or vegetables I ate were those I grew? What if a couple of chickens picking at the earth were my sole source of eggs, and when they got too old, of chicken stew? There’d be no more need of diets or cutting back on this or that high-calorie treat. Between tending the earth and losing crops to pests or the elements, I’d soon be as thin as a rake.

Yesterday I spent over four hours in the garden. I mowed the lawn with a hand-mower (I am keeping things simple and limiting pollution in all forms). I removed slugs, one by one, from ripening strawberries and tossed them into a bowl of beer. Some of their fellow creatures had already climbed in; all were drowning in a drunken stupor. It’s cruel, but it’s me against them. If I didn’t seek and destroy, there’d not be a single strawberry left for me.

This year there are no cherries. Not a single one. In March 2018, I had my cherry tree radically trimmed. It seemed ill (I don’t know if it really was) and was too big, casting a shadow over my vegetable patch. Most importantly, it was not producing well. Though as towering as an oak, it gave me just about enough cherries to make two clafoutis, a light French cherry custard. That was a lot of tree for what came down to a harvest of about 50 pieces of fruit.

I thought trimming would make things better. I hired a professional gardener to do the job. He showed up with an assistant, a man who claimed he was a lumberjack. As I walked into the garden to see how things were going, I discovered him hanging by his feet from a ladder, his chainsaw sputtering on the ground near his head. He looked like a cross between Saint Peter, crucified upside-down, and the about-to-be victim of a chainsaw massacre.

The gardener managed to get the chainsaw under control. Somehow the lumberjack, no spring chicken—he was precisely at that age when you’d start thinking about throwing him into the pot, got himself back on his feet (I turned my head, the whole scene too gruesome for me). The two men returned to work and reduced my cherry tree to a trunk with three ugly bare stumps.

Since then, for the past two springs, those trunks have sprouted branches and the branches, leaves that turn from tender green to black. Black flies cover every inch. The leaves wilt and the tree is an eyesore. The gardener says I just have to let nature take its course. In a year or two…or ten, there may be some cherries.

This makes me ask myself, again, what if all I had was my garden? At this time of year, I could live on fresh lettuce, deformed radishes, and the tasty leaves of the red beet and turnips sprouts I pull from the earth to create breathing space for the more robust plants (this is my first time planting from seed and I’ve created too-crowded conditions).

Soon I’m hoping for green beans, zucchini, pumpkins, onions, carrots, tomatoes and cantaloupe, but only time will tell if those hopes become reality.

In le Perche, where my home is located, there are many former monasteries. Some have fallen into ruin, some have been converted into private residences, others, into parks and monuments.

I visited one last weekend in a place called Thiron-Gardais. The “Thiron” in the hyphenated name honors a monk who, in the early 12th century, on lands given to him by a local lord, created an earthly paradise for hermits who had been wandering in surrounding forests.

In the early 12th century, what is today the town of Thiron-Gardais was a forest. No land was cleared for planting, no stone structure stood. Saint Bernard de Tiron and his fellow hermits cleared the land, created a pond, and built themselves a church, a cloister and a dormitory. They became a community of men working to create a garden where every tree, plant and flower spoke to them of God. And, as a biographer of Bernard Thiron wrote, the monastery became the very image of Paradise.

For the monks of Thiron-Gardais, work was prayer. God created the ground on which they stood, and that made it holy. They took care of it, and the earth gave to them all they needed to live. In their cottage garden, there were onions, leeks, lentils, cabbage, parsnips, beans and common vetch, known as “poor man’s peas.” These were the main ingredients of their diet and monks were vegetarians long before the term came into vogue.

They also had a garden for medicinal herbs, which included flowering plants, such as lilies or roses. Lily root fought leprosy; attar of rose healed ulcers and eye infections. The cemetery was the monastery’s orchard, with fruit trees surrounding the graves. At its center, in the place of the apple tree of temptation, stood a cross.

The monks of Thiron-Gardais prayed without ceasing, hoeing, digging, weeding, pruning, harvesting. Their time was the time of the seasons and they submitted to the whims of the sky. Observing nature, they learned patience. Growing the food they ate, completely dependent on Mother Earth, they became humble. Sharing what they produced, they practiced love.

That was the monastic ideal put in place at Thiron-Gardais, where the gardens live on today. Almost 1,000 years ago, the monks, cut off from the outside world, created their paradise on earth. Today we enter their sanctuary and admire, but we have little idea of the difficulties they faced to maintain their simple diet of herbs, legumes and fresh vegetables.

Thanks to my vegetable garden, I may have a clue, but I’ve a long way to go before I learn the patience, humility and love it takes to truly care for Mother Earth. I also have a lot to learn about failure and submission to the elements. Far from an image of paradise, my organic garden (just like the monks’) is an open-air school of hard knocks.

Meanwhile, I’m glad there’s a supermarket down the road, a bakery in my village, and food on the table every day. And I take my hat off to the monks of Thiron-Gardais.

Living with disabilities in France

Mickaël is back.

In January 2019, at the start of the second semester of the university year, that was just about the best news any of us had heard in a long time.

Mickaël, a student who had abruptly disappeared from the classroom two years earlier, was returning to complete his “licence,” the French equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. He was picking up where he had left off when the disease first took hold.

In the beginning, the symptoms looked like those of the flu: fever and aching joints. By the time he was diagnosed with meningitis, it was almost too late.

He survived. He emerged from the coma, his mental faculties intact. However, he lost his fingertips and both feet; his legs had to be amputated at mid-calf. He also suffered a severe loss of hearing and sight. For months he lay in a hospital bed. Then he spent months learning daily life all over again.

Today Mickaël travels on his own from Melun, a city to the south of Paris, to Université Paris 8, located in Saint-Denis, in the northern suburbs of the capital, over forty miles from his home. To attend 9 o’clock class, Mickaël must get up at 4:30 AM. Once he has showered, put on his protheses, dressed and made himself breakfast, he walks to the nearest bus stop, using only a cane that neatly folds when he’s in the metro. This is the first step in his journey.

The bus drops him at the suburban train station of Melun. From there he has a 30-minute train ride to Gare de Lyon, the major Parisian train station to points south. Once there, he walks ten minutes underground to line 14 of the metro.

This line, the most recent addition to the Paris system, is the only one adapted to the needs of travelers with disabilities. For all the other lines, it’s hit or miss. Sometimes there may be an escalator, rarer still, an elevator. In most stations, there are flights of stairs to climb.

After a bus, a train and a metro, Mickaël is not yet at his final destination. There is still one more leg of his journey, a change of metro lines, underground corridors to traverse, and then a ride on line 13. In French, I call it “la bien nommée,” the metro line that lives up to its name.

If “13” is an unlucky number, so are all of us who must put up with the overcrowding and delays, which are the daily lot of commuters who depend on this line. Mickaël often stands for the dozen stops of his ride.

Finally, a few minutes before nine, he arrives at the end of the line, Saint-Denis Université. There is an elevator in this station. He takes it to street level and hurries to class. At the end of the day, he’ll repeat the same itinerary in reverse, returning home after 9 in the evening.

Once home, he’ll make supper. Then he’ll take off his protheses and remove his hearing aid for the night. Thanks to them and to his glasses, Mickaël is able to attend classes and navigate a transportation system that has some serious catching up to do before it can claim to accommodate passengers with disabilities.

Such is public transportation in the Paris region. I might add, such is France.

In early May, caravans of the handicapped, les handicapés as they are called in France, set out from points all over the country, “on the road for (their) rights,” converging in major French cities on May 14th. On that day, a protest march was held in Paris, with slogans such as “liberté, égalité, mobilité,” and “my handicap is exclusion from major services.” The association “France Handicap” presented a letter to President Macron, reminding him of his campaign promise to make the handicapped a priority.

So far, reality has not kept pace, and his government’s measures in favor of the disabled are timid or limited to good intentions.

At this point, it may be interesting to note the French have chosen the English term “handicapped” for those with disabilities. This word, handicapé, came into use in France in the 1980’s as the inclusive term for all those with disabilities. In the United States, at about the same time, the term “handicapped” was discarded in favor of the “person-first” approach: a person has a disability; a handicap is a barrier or circumstance.

In other words, the Paris metro system is full of 'handicaps': stations with lots of stairs and no elevator or escalator. There is also the 'circumstance' of employment discrimination. In France, the unemployment rate among persons with disabilities (19%) is double that of the general population.

The current Secretary of State in charge of the handicapped, Sophie Cluzel, has pledged to create 100,000 new jobs for persons with disabilities by 2022. The government has also reaffirmed its commitment to making accessible all buildings open to the public. This is a work-in-progress and there is still a long way to go.

Throughout Europe, May 16th was Duo-Day. Begun in the Republic of Ireland in 2008, Duo-Day has set as its goal the bringing together of prospective employers and persons with disabilities. For example, after an initial contact through an on-line site, lawyers with disabilities meet the heads of law firms, disabled gardeners meet the owners of greenhouses or flower shops. On the evening news that day, a journalist in a wheelchair presented a part of the national news.

Meanwhile Mickaël has almost completed his bachelor’s degree. Despite an open sore on his knee, he travels regularly to university, a commute of over 2 hours.

He also battles with bureaucracy, one of the greatest handicaps a person with disabilities must face. A young man of unshakeable good spirits, he has met obstacle after obstacle. He is entitled to free transportation, but only in the zone where he lives. Because he is determined to finish his studies at the university where he began, located in a different zone, he must pay most of the ride out of his own pocket and this adds up to a lot of euros each day.

Mickaël has also learned to drive a standard transmission car. He thought this would entitle him to an aid for the purchase of a vehicle. The official response was “non.” He can only receive aid for a car adapted for “handicapés.”

Yes, Mickaël is back and may he go far—for a person with disabilities must strive ten times harder than the rest of us.

The Day After: Notre Dame de Paris

I remember my first time—my first visit to Notre Dame de Paris. I was 17 years old, a student at Pottsville Area High School, travelling with other students and with Mrs. Alice Ney, our courageous chaperone. We were fearless, sneaky. We did not stay with the group.

With my friend Jane Dolbin, who died in 2008, we wandered off and went shopping on Boulevard Saint Michel. We each bought a new dress and put it on in the boutique. Then we proudly marched down the boulevard and crossed the Seine to Notre Dame, paying a couple of francs to climb the steps to the northern tower, the one that, last night, was touched by the flames at the cathedral’s heart.

Once at the top, we had a panorama of the rooftops of Paris that took our breath away. The sun was shining, a strong wind was blowing, but little did it matter. We had a magnificent view of the famous spire of the cathedral, the one that fell a few minutes before 8 PM last evening. We also looked down on the flying buttresses that withstood last night’s fire and on the lead roof, held up by “the forest,” an immense wooden frame made of oak beams dating back to the cathedral’s construction in the 12th and 13th centuries.

Last evening the fire began in “the forest,” beneath the eaves. The lead roof melted, causing some parts of the vaulted stone ceiling of the transept to fall.

Standing atop Notre Dame nearly fifty years ago, wearing my Parisian minidress, I was unaware the wind had lifted it up around my waist, exposing my American panties to a delighted security guard. My friends knew; they did not tell me.

That is my first memory of Notre Dame de Paris. It may seem trivial, too personal, in light of the destruction wrought in a few hours to a religious and historical monument that has withstood wars and revolutions for more than 8 centuries. Yet, I’d go so far to say that Notre Dame de Paris, My Lady, is a personal part of my life, a friend whose door is always open; who, since my first trip to France, has welcomed me hundreds of time. She would smile and understand two teenagers who, on their first trip to Paris, wanted more than anything else to look like the elegant Parisians who surrounded them in the streets.

These days, whenever I can, I cross the Seine on foot, just so I can have a look at her. No matter what the weather or season, she looks beautiful, day or night, a great lady promising comfort and intercession to all who open their hearts to her.

But “these days” are now the past. At the time I write, there has not yet been an estimate of the damage. For example, it is not yet possible to approach the church’s magnificent organ, one of the finest in the world, rebuilt over time but still containing pipes from the Middle Ages, capable of “singing” like a choir of angels or creating the ominous rumble of approaching thunder. No one can say what state they are in today, nor can anyone know if, upon reconstruction, the church will regain its exceptional acoustics.

Paris, France, the world is in mourning for a beloved monument and a spiritual beacon, today covered with ash and exposed to more damage by falling rain entering through the roof. In one night, in our careless times, where no one has time to wait, and everything must be done asap, roaring flames proved they too can work fast, erasing the past in the blink of an eye.

Last evening, as the flames were being brought under control, President Macron opened a national and international fund raising drive to rebuild Notre Dame de Paris. A church, but more than a church, a historical monument, but so much more, this cathedral is “everybody’s home.” No one has ever paid an entrance fee to cross its threshold; Notre Dame welcomes us all.

In his 1831 novel Notre Dame de Paris, Victor Hugo gave the world its first bird’s eye view of the rooftops of Paris, and he played an important role in awakening public awareness to the church’s importance to all of France.

In the 20th century, Americans, perhaps more than the French, understood his message, and Hugo’s novel became a staple of Hollywood. In the 1923 silent film classic, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” the hunchback, played by Lon Chaney Sr., pays tribute to the church’s bells as he effortlessly climbs up and down the façade. In this moving excerpt, to the accompaniment of organ music, Chaney communicates the cathedral’s grandeur (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84lab78RiPg ).

In 1956, Anthony Quinn became Quasimodo and Gina Lollobrigida the beautiful and seductive Esmerelda (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df2xIFEABjc ). And in 1996, it was Walt Disney’s turn in an animated version.
More than the Eiffel Tower, more than the Moulin Rouge, it is Notre Dame de Paris “who” reaches out to the world to say, “this is Paris,” and it is the city’s most visited monument. That is why today I feel I’ve lost a part of myself and I’m sure many others feel the same.

Yet the fire has not destroyed the church’s contours. The towers, the walls and the flying buttresses still stand, though weakened by time, neglect and now, flames.

The spiritual message of Notre Dame is that humans alone cannot save themselves. Now Notre Dame de Paris seems to be saying she cannot be saved without us.

Turmoil and Doubt: The Catholic Church in the US and France

On April 15th, Notre Dame de Paris caught fire and extensive damage was done to the centuries-old cathedral, known and loved as a religious and cultural symbol throughout the world. On Easter Day, the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, celebrated mass in nearby Saint Eustache, a church whose architecture was inspired by Notre Dame.

In his sermon, the Archbishop thanked the firemen of Paris for their courage and devotion. He also asked, “Where is the body of Christ?” During this Lenten and Easter season, this has been a difficult question for the Catholic Church of France, shaken by scandals, lawsuits, and a much publicized court case involving its highest ranking dignitary, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

In the United States, the scandal of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church exploded onto the national scene in 2002 with the Boston Globe’s exposé of abuse within the archdiocese of Boston. The paper’s investigation resulted in the prosecution of five priests. It also served as a catalyst, giving many victims who had longed remained silent the courage to speak out. At that time, a Gallup survey’s findings revealed that, after the Boston scandal, 22% of American Catholics were considering leaving the Church.

This year, on March 13th, a day after the sentencing of Cardinal Pell of Australia to six years in prison for the abuse of two choir boys in Melbourne, another Gallup poll revealed that 37% of American Catholics surveyed expressed their desire to leave.

The Catholic Church in France has recently been shaken by the same type of scandals, yet in some ways the situation is more dire. If we compare figures, keeping in mind the variations in reliability of surveys in general, 23.9% of Americans (about 72 million) identify themselves as Catholics, and 39% of them say they attend mass on a weekly basis. In France, 53%, or about 35 million people, declare themselves Catholics, yet only between 2% and 6% of the general population attend weekly mass. This boils down to about one and a half million faithful in a nation with a population of over 67 million.

These figures, in terms of religious practice, make Catholicism a minority religion, alongside Islam and Protestantism, in a nation where most citizens declare themselves agnostics or atheists. Today, for the French, Catholicism represents a vague cultural identity, and few who call themselves Catholic understand the workings of their faith.

Also, the exposure of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church came later to France, in part because victims were too often ignored by Church hierarchy. A case in point is that of the priest Bernard Preynat, today 73 years old. Between 1970 and 1991, Preynat, very active in the Catholic boy scout movement, raped and molested dozens of boys. Only in 2016 was he indicted for sexual assault against minors by a person exercising authority.

Father Preynat, still a priest but without a parish, living under court supervision in Lyon, France’s third largest city, is expected to be brought to trial later this year. His case, however, has had serious repercussions on the Archdiocese of Lyon and on its bishop, Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

On March 7, 2019, the Cardinal was sentenced to a six-month suspended prison term for the non-denunciation of sexual assault. In other words, the French courts accused him of covering up the crimes of Preynat, of which he was apparently aware. On March 18th, Cardinal Barbarin presented his resignation to Pope François, who refused it. The Pope gave as his reason the presumption of innocence, as Cardinal Barbarin is appealing the case.

In a nation like France, whose revolution was fought against both King and Church, this scandal has heaped more discredit on an institution already struggling to keep its foothold. In a French film called “Grâce à Dieu,” “Thank God,” released in February 2019, director François Ozon reconstructs the events of the Preynat case. The film's title is based on the words of Cardinal Barbarin who, in a public interview, declared that “grâce à Dieu,” certain accusations brought against the pedophile priest remain outside the reach of the courts because of the statute of limitations.

On the eve of this year’s Lenten season, another sexual scandal was placed under the national spotlight. On March 5th, a documentary was aired on Arte, a Franco-German public TV station. Its title: “Religieuses abusées, l’autre scandale de l’Eglise,” “Women religious abused, the other scandal of the Church.”

This documentary is based on two years of interviews and research by Marie-Pierre Raimbault and Eric Quintin. Its findings, once again, reveal coverups by Church hierarchy, too blind or too proud to identify the corruption in their midst. The most damning accusations concern two brothers, both Dominican friars, Marie-Dominique and Thomas Philippe, who, according to the women religious they abused, instituted a system of sexual slavery. Marie-Dominique Philippe, who founded a charismatic religious community in the 1970’s and died in 2006, was a close friend of Pope John Paul II, and there are those who believe the pope was aware of his behavior.

The year of 2019 may well be France’s “2002,” a year like no other concerning sexual abuse and hypocrisy within the Catholic Church. A French journalist and researcher, Frédéric Martel, recently published “Sodoma, enquête au Coeur du Vatican.” Translated into English, the book’s title is “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy.” Though you may not have heard of the book, it is not difficult to realize what it is about.

After four years of inside investigation, with solid evidence to back him up, Martel accuses those church prelates who most decry homosexuality, be it in France or elsewhere, to be practicing homosexuals themselves. Though the book is often repetitive, it delivers ample proof of the Church’s double standard regarding homosexuality and sexual mores in general.

All of the above have made 2019 a painful year for the French Catholic Church. Yet, at the grassroots level, parish priests labor on. In direct contact with parishioners, they often bear the brunt of charges directed against their higher-ups. Many are responsible for several churches. Those who are reaching retirement age must often look towards French-speaking Africa if they hope to be replaced, as the number of vocations has radically fallen in France.

As Notre Dame burned, Father Jean-Marc Fournier, the chaplain of the firefighters of Paris, entered the church and saved the Blessed Sacrament. But, after decades of sexual scandal and a refusal by hierarchy to admit the sexual hypocrisy in its midst, can the Catholic Church save itself?

In Strasbourg, a taste of “home”

A few weeks ago, I had to go to Strasbourg for professional reasons. This French city, located on the western bank of the Rhine River, has not always been part of France. For centuries, its inhabitants pledged their loyalty to the Germanic Holy Roman Empire. Early on, its clergy embraced the teachings of Martin Luther, and Strasbourg, a “Free City” granted self-rule, became an important center of the Protestant Reform.

In 1681, after a rapid siege, the Sun King Louis XIV made a triumphant entry into the city. The Alsace region, of which Strasbourg was the capital, had already become part of the Kingdom of France at the end of the bloody Thirty Years’ War. Ignoring previous treaties, Louis XIV claimed this independent Protestant city for France.

Though he granted Protestants a certain freedom of religion, he returned the city’s beautiful cathedral to the Catholics. At a time of fierce persecution of Protestants elsewhere in France, Strasbourg’s Protestants were subjected to many restrictions yet could discreetly practice their faith.

In the narrow streets around the red sandstone cathedral, once the highest building in the world, Catholics and Protestants, French and German voices, mingled. The city was on its way to becoming, as it still is today, a hub of two languages and cultures. At times, they coexisted in precarious harmony; at others, neighbor was pitted against neighbor as two great Empires fought over the city’s destiny.

In 1871, France’s Emperor Napoleon III lost the city to Bismarck, first Chancellor of the united German Empire. The French Republic won it back after World War I, only to lose the city to Nazi Germany, which occupied it from 1940 until 1944. In 1949, Strasbourg was proclaimed capital of Europe and today, the Council of Europe has its headquarters there. The city, disputed for centuries, has become the symbol of European aspirations to live in peace.

I have been to Strasbourg many times; I like to go there because it is the one place in France where I feel “at home.” When I speak, no one ever asks me where I’m from. Like me, many Strasburgers have a hint of an accent when they speak French. Many, again like me, are bilingual. In the place of my English, they speak the Alsatian dialect of German.

If they see my family name, they simply assume I’m one of them. It’s the “i” in Honicker—rather than an “e,” as in Erich Honecker, the leader of East Germany at time of the fall of the Berlin Wall—that suggests I share their Alsatian roots.

I have other good reasons for feeling at home in Strasbourg. In a bakery there, I discovered an almond ring, a favorite pastry of mine, tasting exactly like the one my mother used to buy at the Danish Bakery of Pottsville, once located at 20th and Market Streets. Some readers may remember the Vienna bread, fresh-sliced and warm when it was handed over the counter by Mrs. Frederickson. There were also glazed doughnuts, still the best I’ve ever tasted.

I discovered (or rediscovered) the almond ring in a bakery at the edge of a canal in Strasbourg’s Old Town. That little bakery, its façade painted burnt orange, could have been a setting for one of Hans Christian Andersen’s tales. As the buttery pastry and the almond filling melted in my mouth, I was transported back to childhood and the delights of discovering that “European” treat in a bakery on Market Street, once painted burnt orange, just like the one in Strasbourg.

My interest in the Rhine River began in high school, thanks to Herr Hartley, my German teacher. He was demanding; he made us learn poetry by heart, and one of those poems I can still recite today!

He had us learn “Die Lorelei” by Heinrich Heine. The poem is the story of a skipper and his boat, dashed against the rocks because he could not resist the voice of a golden-haired Mädchen. Seated on a rocky summit high above the Rhine, as she combs her dazzling hair, this entrancing beauty sings a mournful tune, casting a spell on the skipper just as for decades, her words have cast a spell on me.

On my last trip to Strasbourg, I did something I’d never done before. I travelled to the banks of the Rhine and crossed to Kehl, Germany, riding one of the newest lines of Strasbourg’s tramway. Though I was not dashed against the rocks like the skipper, I lost, not my life, but certain romantic illusions about the Rhine.

Or I may have simply been in the wrong place. The legendary Lorelei inhabits a summit about 160 miles north of Strasbourg. Where the tram crosses the river, there’s not a rocky cliff in sight. Worse still, once I reached the German side, I entered a zone of gas stations and discount alcohol and tobacco stores offering prices the French, on their own territory, can only dream about.

There were also tacky hotels surrounded by bleak, almost-empty parking lots. This is not where Strasburgers go for the weekend; this is where those willing to pay go for sex. In Germany sex is an industry and brothels are legal businesses. In France, prostitution is hidden from public view, and clients, not sex-workers, can receive fines for paying for sex.

The only positive note of that little excursion was the purchase of a delicious soft pretzel in a Kehl bakery.

I don’t know much about my family history, but I suspect my past is connected to Strasbourg and the banks of the Rhine. Despite my claim to French nationality, I’ll always be a foreigner in France—except for Strasbourg, where I get a sense I belong.

As for the Rhine, once back in my country home, I picked up a book I’ve been trailing for years, Rhine Journey: a novel, by English author Ann Schlee. I bought this book over 30 years ago in a book store in New York. I finally opened and read it last month.

There I found it, the Rhine I’d been dreaming of. In a 19th century journey down that river, a young woman undergoes a transformation that quietly but radically changes her life. We follow her inner journey; we also intensely experience the Rhine River as it was then.

You can find it at the Pottsville Library. Don’t wait 30 years like I did. Pick up Rhine Journey and enjoy it now!

Springtime Preview in Normandy

Mésange, rouge-gorge, merle et moineau--chickadee, robin, starling and sparrow. They are all outside the window as I write, sitting at the kitchen table so I can watch them flitting in and out of the cedar hedge, roosting in the highest branches of a tall pine tree, basking in the morning sun on the still-bare branches of my neighbor’s cherry tree.

Still bare, but not for long, shouts this last weekend in February, as fields, gardens, vegetable patches and flowerbeds entice us into believing that spring is just around the corner. The sun is shining—has been for three entire days after months of gray and rain. The morning frost is heavy, but by noon temperatures are in the 50’s and rising. It feels like spring to me.

I’ve been avoiding my garden. It looks dismal in morning mist and rain, with trees black and bare. The earth, undermined by some very ambitious moles, has been turned into a bumpy terrain of muddy hills and swampy green valleys: this is my lawn, its uneven sweep interrupted here and there by what looks to be Celtic burial mounds.

They are my attempts at organic farming. As I build new vegetables plots with layers of branches, cut grass, dead leaves, scraps from the kitchen and horse manure, I worry that local authorities, who have a view of my land, will soon be accusing me of turning it into a private cemetery.

Very haphazardly, I must admit, I am trying my hand at permaculture, as defined by Bill Mollison, an Australian professor of Environmental Psychology: (It) “is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted and thoughtful observation rather than protracted and thoughtless labor; and of looking at plants and animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single product system.” That’s what he wrote in his 1991 book An Introduction to Permaculture.

Come true spring (I know this weekend is just a teaser), I plan to turn those “burial mounds” into living earth, to test associations of carrots, radishes, and onions; lettuce and cabbage; pole beans and zucchini; tomatoes and basil. That is the plan. Will it become reality? The sun warms the earth’s surface; underneath, it’s icy cold. I still have weeks to wait before I plant, but spring cleaning can already begin.

This weekend I’ve filled sacks with what the French call “green refuse”— “déchets verts,” trimmings from the cedar hedge, branches from a hazelnut tree. As I cut, I remember how delighted I was to discover a few in my garden. Times have changed. Now I see hazelnut trees as “pesky weeds,” trees that grow too fast, whose leaves block rain gutters and wispy branches dip over vegetable plots, depriving young shoots of light.

Catkins are already hanging from their branches. I glance at them suspiciously. Pollination is underway. Hazelnut trees can be incorporated into permaculture, I’ve read, and I should not (as I do) treat them as adversaries.

I’ve also been taking care of my fruit trees, my “chouchous,” my little darlings. I already had an apple and a pear tree. Last November 25th, on St. Catherine’s Day, the ideal moment of the year for planting trees because “à la Sainte Catherine, tout bois prend racine”— all wood takes root, I planted another apple and pear tree. I also planted a “mirabellier de Nancy,” a tree producing tiny yellow plums with a reddish blush, mirabelles, native to the region around the city of Nancy and, somehow it seems appropriate, named after me.

I scratch the earth at the trees’ base, but not too deep. I don’t want to disturb earthworms or microorganisms already at work. I sprinkle some fertilizer, “compatible with organic farming,” as I read on the box. I spray them with a spray, also “compatible with organic farming,” called “agriculture bio” in French. Last summer, blackflies coated the underside of the leaves on my cherry tree, and I’ve been forewarned: they are wintering in the bark and it is best to treat before true springtime sets in.

“Compatible with organic farming”—I’ve been wondering what that expression entails, so I’ve looked it up on the internet. I discover that in France certain products harmful to the earth, such as copper sulfate, are permitted. For organic wine producers, for example, they are essential, for without the use of copper sulfate as a fungicide, the grapes could not survive.

On the site of Ecocert, a private French agency that has become a world leader in the field of the certification of organic products, I find long lists of crop-production products, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers, “compatible with organic farming.” Some can pollute the soil or nearby bodies of water; others must not be applied to plants meant for human consumption. Obviously, organic farming does not eliminate all risks or damage.

Yet none are comparable to the dangers of the herbicide Roundup, considered a probable carcinogen. Roundup 360 pro was banned for sale in France in January 2019. At my local Centre Leclerc, the French Walmart, I found it on the shelves in the gardening section. There’s no trace of it, however, on Leclerc’s site on line. The local store may be trying to get rid of its last containers in stock.

As for the insecticide I’ve used on my fruit trees, it is composed of 85% canola oil, but what about the remaining 15%? The instructions warn against using the product near a body of water.

On Friday, February 22th, high school and university students throughout Europe skipped classes because they had more urgent things to do. They were protesting their elders’ betrayal of the planet, outside Parliament in London, in front of the Ministry of the Transition Ecologic in Paris. The movement #Youth4Climate, set in motion by Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish climate activist, has spread to cities across Europe as, every Friday, young Europeans protest their parents’ neglect of planet Earth.

Permaculture, organic gardening, careful recycling, I’m trying to do my bit. I take the train, walk a lot, use my car sparingly, but in the country I’d have a hard time living without one. Sometimes I wonder if my actions even matter; it may simply be too late.

Meanwhile the sun shines, the garden calls. Snowdrops have blossomed, crepe myrtle is in flower. Tulips and hyacinths are pushing up out of the earth.

Today and every day, Mother Earth reminds us, we can’t live without her.