A year ago I started to write the story of how I met my French Husband. After a week or so I was derailed by babysitting, brocante and baking up romance for another American and her soon to be French boyfriend. Plus I am flakey and forgot I was telling a story.
For those of you who do not know the storyline, or who forgot, or who are scratching their heads saying, "Did she met him in a police car, or was it at that nude modeling class… oh no, no, no it was at that gay dance club." Here are the steps to how I came to met French Husband:
Twenty steps to a new life:
- 1986 Yann, (my French Husband) took a year off to travel through the U.S.A..
- He had a childhood friend who lived in Chicago, so he went there first.
- Skylark was a $300 rusty car. He bought it to see his dream:
- The setting sun over the Pacific.
- During a freak snowstorm in Colorado he kissed a girl in the backseat of a police car.
- Lack of modern devises added with a terrible sense of direction landed him in East L.A.
- In a grocery store parking lot Skylark was his hotel. A gang greeted him. Not digging L.A. he headed down I-5.
- Remembering a note his Mother's neighbor gave him, he reached for his wallet.
- The "note" said, "If in California I have a daughter who lives in Gustine."
- At that very moment the road sign read: "Gustine" Yann pulled off.
- Madame H. lived on a horse ranch and cooked French food.
- Madame H. had a French niece, who was married to an American man and lived in San Francisco. Yann went to visit them.
- They were vegetarians. Yann gave up meat.
- Every night, every dance imaginable happened at the I-Beam: Rock, punk, ballet, jazz, slow, hip-hop to the sound of New Wave. Yann's newfound friend's told him it was one of the hottest nightclubs in town, gay most nights, but on Tuesday it was a free for all, a wonderful wild dance scene. They went dancing.
- Tuesday, April 1986, 10:00 p.m., 1748 Haight Street, San Francisco, a lonely girl danced at the I-Beam. Yann noticed.
- Language skills were at a minimum. Yann told the girl his name.
- The disco ball's sparks couldn't hold a candle to the flame that started with that one word: John.
- Yann's heart wanted to stay in San Francisco.
- Needing a job, without a green card Yann became an Aupair, and modeled nude (but you don't want to hear about that do you?)
While in Rennes these last few days we went to visit a our dear friend… Francoise who lives near Dinan. A friend who every time I see her a wave of emotions overtakes me and I am reduced to tears. You see it is because of her advice to my French Husband to go to I-Beam that I met him (line number twelve and fifteen).
Francoise is French and lived twenty some years in California before returning back to France. She knows all about adjusting to a new culture, what it means to be married to someone who doesn't speak your language, eat your food, dance your style of rock and roll, or understand the naked to the eye differences that speak volumes of what it means to be married and live forever in a foreign land.
We have been close friends for one fourth of a century and still have alot to talk about, both in English and in French.
It was like ole' times when the three of us went yesterday, to Dinan in search of Kouign Amann.
Years ago Francoise and I spent an entire day going in every bakery, to taste eat and compare every Kouign Amann we could find. We spent the entire day deciding which was one best bakery, whether we like the more buttery ones, or ones with a more flakey crust. In the end we were ten thousand pounds heavier. We finally decided that the grocery store bakery was the best, even though it didn't look nearly as appetizing as the others.
Though yesterday after several bakeries and no available Kouigh amann we started to worry that our search was going to be reduce to tasting pastries instead. What a pity, what a shame, how depressing to have to taste pastries instead.
Doesn't our friend Francoise look like she is twenty! Gee, isn't she a doll?
We did not find any Kouign amann in Dinan, so we bought a baguette instead.
… to be continued because French Husband's Aunts and mother are calling me all sorts of names because I am taking too much time on the computer… but hey they are still putting on their makeup!
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