Having grown up in a bilingual area of Québec (as an anglo) I have been a relatively decent french-speaker since I was about 10 or so; meaning that I could get along well enough to translate for my parents who barely spoke french. Once I hit high school, I was in the immersion program and discovered that really, I didn't have a whole lot of support available to me in terms of homework help because of my anglo family, so I just futzed my way through with the help of my friends, and actually managed to graduate with a provincial bilingual designation at the end of it all. I lived for a month and a half in Brittany, France with a french-speaking family, and then in the heart of Paris, and thrived happily in french. I now work as a bilingual customer service rep, and answer technical questions and prepare quasi-legal documents in french...and...am generally less terrified about doing all of that than I was 6 months ago. What is truly amazing, however, is that despite all of these efforts and experiences over the speaking-years of my life, I don't think I ever, ever knew how to say 'Thanksgiving' in french... This occurred to me as I was chatting with the supremely friendly Claudie Perron of near-Montreal, who had in the space of one hour, managed to find and reserve a ticket to the sold-out Rachel Brice show in Ottawa at the beginning of the Thanksgiving weekend. My friend Diana's ticket connection had fallen through at the last minute and we were desperate to find a replacement. Tribe.net offered up a post from Claudie, stating that she still had a few. Four hurried phone calls later between her husband, Claudie, and myself, we had made arrangements to meet at Arts Court theater before the show so that we could buy our tickets.
We ended up waiting a bit to actually get the tickets from the staff, and we just chatted away comfortably in french and english about the show, our ties to belly dancing, and the weekend. It occurred to me as we were speaking that I had no idea how to say Thanksgiving in french, so I asked her. She paused a sec, laughed, and then said (heavily accented) "bien, I don't know. Thanks-geeving? Mais, non, c'est l'action de grâce..." Action of grace...that's how it's said. I couldn't stop thinking about it all evening, even through the awesome show, the incredible Rachel numbers, and the wine, chili and chocolate feast that awaited us when we crashed my parents' place at midnight.
Again, french language trumps english for pure concise beauty.
The weekend was, really, the action of grace. The action of being graceful, of having grace, the grace and gratitude of having and being in action. We soared through a 4-hour workshop with Rachel, and by soared I mean we were *high* to be studying with her. Her workshop is far and away one of the most fun things that I have done in a long, long time. It was almost overwhelmingly fun. I smashed away on my zils and found out that I wasn't as crappy with them as I had assumed. I laughed out loud at how I no longer hated zilling! Rachel herself is so full of thankfulness that being around her just opens you up...she was genuine, hilarious and goofy...and she took no prisoners. The drilling was intense! My quads the next day?..well, I was pretty thankful for wine...wine and sofa!
I had the opportunity to give gratitude, in words and in deed (I had a gift of a BelleTorc necklace for her - she's wearing it in the pic on the left) to an artist whom I have found incredibly inspiring and influential over the past 8 years of my artistic life. This was a super big deal to me...almost embarrassingly big. Almost all the artists that I love, look to and thank for being my creative guides have passed on...so I felt that since I had a chance to really thank someone for helping to inspire me to continue on in the face of quitting, I had to take full advantage of it and really say 'thank you.' And it felt great to actively seek that out and say 'thanks for doing the thing that helps light me up on the dark days' and have the recipient of the thanks respond (something to the effect of) 'I've quit doing this 6 times...but I always come back to it, so thanks for being a part of what reminds me why.'
We treated ourselves to a day at Le Nordik spa on Sunday. Hot tubs + steam room + freezing waterfall + saunas + cold pools + more hot tubs + aching muscles + no schedule = bliss. Again, way fun. My body was so thankful for a little TLC, it felt like 10 years of stress came off these bones. The cold water was cathartic, and the hot water put us back together again. Best part of the day? Sitting in the hot tub, massaging our necks and backs under the crazy heavy, pummeling waterfall, and having it hail tiny ice cubes on us!
We watched movies that I'd been waiting to see. Slumdog Millionaire and Ghost Town. Both really good. I didn't do anything when we watched them - highly unusual for me and my steady diet of enforced productivity...oh wait, we ate a ridiculous amount of ice cream while we watched them. We visited with ever-cool Ms. Excellence and her excellently awesome kids and invented, conceptualized and planned BATTLELUGE...a new event for the new year. We almost lost our s**t laughing ourselves hoarse at the plans...stay tuned for more information on this kickass event as it becomes available! All I can say is it involves lawn-luge with ice, and a merging track...oh, and capes!
I gave Diana the 10 cent tour of the Gatineau Hills where I spent my childhood, and we took in the Champlain Lookout and Meech Lake and enjoyed some major solitude, chilly skies and awesome views. The weekend was so comfortable and effortless. It was all simple, easy and fun. Big big fun.
I told Diana at the end of the weekend that I was all filled up with happy and that it made me aware of how low my happy tank had been for so long. Why do we do this to ourselves as grown-ups, deny ourselves the action, and the responsibility of being truly, silly happy? Is it cause we're too busy, we're too responsible, we're too tasked...? What bogus reasons. When fun hasn't been had for awhile, and if finally appears in bucketfuls in your life, you become aware of what an essential element it truly is. Living without it is like barely breathing. It's going to catch up to you eventually.
I was really, really happy that I had had the opportunity to hang with D over the weekend. She is truly awesome, and so easy to just be with. I guess that's the true marker of friendship, the quality of the time that's spent just hanging out and being. I feel pretty damn lucky to have such cool friends.
I never want to be that busy...but I am, and I'm not sure how happy I am about it. It has been food for thought ever since.
I really do like 'Action de Grâce' a whole lot more than the word 'Thanksgiving'. It just offers up so much more to think about out at this time of year, instead of just wondering whether I can really fit in a 2nd round of garlic mashed...