How I Did

Tonight I ushered out the old year in the company of friends. Sitting by the fire in the lovely McKnight district, sipping a glass of fizzy cava, beating the pants off of the unbeatable Dan at Scrabble, I reflected that it had been a good year. Sometime around October, I mislaid the napkin on which I had written my resolutions, but pas de problème, as I had digitally captured it for posterity back in January.

Here's how I did:

1) get in the movies. Well, I guess I did that! I had purposely left it open, but ended up doing one of just about everything I had imagined, and more. By March, I had been an extra in a movie starring Kevin Spacey. I followed that up with several more movies, TV shows, and an ebay commercial. I got my car in a movie. I joined a screenwriting group and started writing a screenplay. I went to screenings and industry workshops and film festivals. I met lots of movie types, from actors to directors to casting assistants to writers to Cameron Diaz's espresso guy. I had a blast and I learned a LOT.

2) publish wine article. Did that one, too. In fact, I published two. And got paid to do it. I toasted the old year and the new tonight with the Segura Viudas Brut Reserva cava I've been recommending in print, buying for myself, and talking everyone I know into trying.

3) jazz. I listened to jazz, read up on jazz, acquired a bit of jazz for my cd library, and attended a jazz festival. So, yes, I did that.

4) finish novel. OK, here it gets rocky. I did plenty of writing, but not the novel. So that's ongoing.

5) publish book. That one's stalled, too. The book is written, but I've got another project ongoing with the publisher, and he won't talk to me about the book until I finish the *** (I don't even want to write the word). Can you say "procrastinate"?

6) Lew Hunter workshop. That's a screenwriting workshop, which would have been fantastic to attend, but it's pricey and I couldn't justify the expense. I joined the Northampton Screenwriters Workshop instead, which is much less intensive, but still extremely helpful. I'm not giving up on Lew Hunter, though.

7) Europe. Did that. Le Mont St-Michel, super-hip Antwerp, ever-lovely Brussels. I wish I could've gone to Europe with my mother--she would have loved it, too, I'm sure--but her spirit lives on for me in Belgium. And I've been dreaming about that big rock in the Atlantic Ocean since high school. I still can't believe I finally climbed it.

La Mère Poulard

Long before you are aware of the proximity of le Mont St-Michel, if you are driving towards it from the direction of Paris, you are aware of la Mère Poulard. That's a restaurant at the base of the famous shrine. Well, it's a restaurant the way Disney is a production company for cartoons. Over the years it's morphed into an institution, a brand that's intimately associated with le Mont St.-Michel and nearly as famous.

La Mère Poulard is a restaurant dating from 1879, but now also a hotel, a glacier, a piano bar, and a boutique. Gifts and comestibles from the company are sold throughout France, but especially in Normandy. Cookies, sponge cakes and Calvados with the familiar red label are found in increasing quantity at rest stops as one approaches the Mother Ship.

Unlike Betty Crocker or Aunt Jemima, la Mère Poulard was an actual person. She ran a hostelry at the shrine in the nineteenth century. Remarking that the pilgrims arrived famished at all hours, she developed a signature omelet which could be prepared easily and quickly. Here's her recipe, as she gave it to a Parisian restauranteur who requested it:

Monsieur Viel,
Voici la recette de l’omelette : je casse de bons œufs dans une terrine, je les bats bien, je mets un bon morceau de beurre dans la poêle, j’y jette les œufs et je remue constamment. Je suis heureuse, Monsieur, si cette recette vous fait plaisir.
Annette Poulard

For those whose French is rusty or non-existent: break some good eggs in a bowl, beat them well, put them in a well-buttered pan and stir constantly. Hardly worth writing down, but with persistence and a strong arm that recipe made her famous. Made her, in fact, a little empire that's going strong today.

Pilgrims

Here's an attractive fountain at le Mont St.-Michel with an interesting sign above it. "Lavage des pieds interdit" is French for "Foot washing prohibited." All I can say is, shame on them.

Whoever is responsible for the sign, that is. Not the scurvy footwashers.

In Luke 10:3 Jesus exhorts his disciples when sending them out to preach his word, "Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: and salute no man by the way." Many Christians have taken this command quite literally, going barefoot to show both obedience to Christ and complete reliance on Providence.

St. Francis, St. Clare, St. Teresa, St. Ignatius Loyola, St. Francis Xavier...barefoot. Count Leo Tolstoy...barefoot. George Fox and other early Quakers...barefoot. And a great number of pilgrims over millenia...barefoot.

As going without shoes shows obedience to and trust in the Lord, washing the feet of others shows humility. Mary Magdalen washed the feet of Jesus; Jesus washed the feet of his disciples.

Le Mont St.-Michel has been one of the great destinations for pilgrims since the Middle Ages. Still is. Undoubtedly a few continue to make at least the final steps of their pilgrimage pieds nus. But may they wash the dust of the journey from their feet? Or perform a penance by washing the feet of others? Not in this fountain!

Le Mont St.-Michel

Long before I ever visited France, I was fascinated by it. At the top of the list of places I would have chosen to visit as a young teenager was le Mont St.-Michel in Normandy. One of my French teachers had a poster of it on our classroom wall. A rocky outcropping on the Atlantic shore, topped with a medieval abbey, le Mont St.-Michel is an island at high tide but attached to the mainland at low tide by a thin land bridge. Romantic, historical, beautiful.

Well, it used to be a tidal island. A causeway built in the nineteenth century, as well as canals and a dam on the nearby Couesnon River (the border between Normandy and Brittany) have caused silt to build up. Over the years coastal land has been reclaimed, Dutch-fashion, for pasture. Finally last year the French government decided that le Mont St.-Michel should be an island again, and began pumping out the accumulated silt. In another five years or so, the project should be completed.

Although I've visited France many times, and lived there at two points in my life, I'd never made it to le Mont St.-Michel. Till yesterday.

High tide was early in the morning, before I arrived, so I didn't get to watch it. It rushes in at the rate of one meter a second, which must be an impressive sight. But I was just happy to be there, and at a time--mid-week, mid-spring--when there weren't too many tourists. I guess I could pencil it in for 2012, when the de-silting project will be completed. Put it on my napkin, as it were.