Often I see the children reach a point of collapse -- sudden weeping and wailing over something they are certain they will never ever master, like riding a bicycle or jumping rope-- and right after the collapse, whatever they were collapsing over is accomplished. I have been grumbling about the state of my French, and feeling rather hopeless about it. It's not that I couldn't read French, or understand when someone was speaking clearly and relatively slowly to me. It's French among French people, fast and furious and slangy, that I was unable to navigate. But Saturday, at the market in Bergerac, I was walking behind an elegant old man, who suddenly shook his cane at another man passing by, and said, "You walk right by without saying a word, what a savage you are!" with a giant grin for the friend he was harassing. And I laughed out loud because I understood all of what he said. Then I noticed I was catching little bits here and there of conversations around me, and it was like a veil had lifted, or at least become more transparent, that had been separating me from everyone.

On the way home, I listened to a radio show in which commentators discussed Hannah Arendt, Nazism, and what is lost when a film about the Nazis is done in English rather than German. And I understood most of that too. The next program started with a tape of a speech, and I recognized De Gaulle's voice, and understood what he was saying. 

So after my wailing and complaining reached its peak, a breakthrough. And that, along with the fact that the average radio show talks about Hannah Arendt, is enough to make me want to stay in France and not go back. Well, those things and crème caramel.

I was so overflowing with confidence that going to lunch yesterday at a friend's did not worry me. And it's true that I had no trouble understanding anyone's French, on a variety of topics. But my speaking was...bad. My ears have started working better, but not my mouth.

Sunday lunch is an event in France. The children ran around outside while we chatted and I drank a delicious glass of wine from a box. Children are expected to participate in things like Sunday lunch, and they are expected to make their own fun -- no one is making the slightest effort to entertain them or to provide them with toys, movies, craft supplies, anything. So the children made up a game that involved hurling seed pod grenades and guarding ammo dumps that was apparently deeply fun, and when they came in to eat they were beaming and sweaty and red-cheeked.

The first course was a bright green pea soup. We mopped up the last bits with some bread and kept our plates for the salad, a layered heap of raw fennel, sliced orange, and olives, with a vinaigrette. Fabulous. We drank an organic wine from near Perpignan, not nearly as good as the red from the box. Next was cous-cous, with stewed pumpkin and parsnips, raisins and roasted sunflower seeds. And quince tart. We talked about Bush, and Monsanto, and how to keep from being depressed in the face of all they have done. We talked about plants. We talked about books.

I love it here.