Auf Wiedersehen - Until I See You Again

Our precious three weeks with Phil have finally drawn to a close. We accept it, though. We're used to these goodbyes. First Phil was deployed to Afghanistan for 6 months in 2006, then he PCS'd to Korea for 8 months in 2008. Thankfully we're getting really good at "soldiering up" and dealing with missing each other. Separations force us to be our strongest selves, and help us to appreciate one another more than we otherwise would. There are so many lessons to be learned, and so much growth to experience, from these goodbyes. 

I attribute much of our family's closeness and team mentality to our extensive traveling and also to these lengthy separations. We're constantly in situations that call for us to think and act as one mind, to help one another, to depend on one another in critical ways. We're each a pillar of our family structure, and each of us knows it.

The Frankfurt airport never saw so much hugging. Surprisingly there were very few tears, because we all felt so loved and so close, and we knew that Phil would only be gone for another three months. Compared to eight months, three is a breeze.

Comic relief!

As Lvov used to say, "We love our-chothers!"

Fun at the Burg Nanstein Medieval Fair in Landstuhl, Germany

Braided Together on a Sunny Day

Akychame, Lvov, and Jack the Skeleton Just Hangin' Out

A Typical Home-School Snapshot (when we're not outside exploring)

Reuniting with Friends from 20 years Ago

Our Lovely Paris Vacation: A Poetry Reading, Burning at the Notre Dame Cathedral, and a Midnight Picnic on the Left Bank

There are pigeons and love-birds all around Paris' famous Notre Dame Cathedral. Oh, look, here's a couple of love-birds snuggling in front of the wood and calligraphic metal door of the cathedral. Can you hear them cooing? Can you hear the mighty organ reverberating ecstatically through the stone walls of the gothic cathedral?

Inside, the cathedral is glowing with candles and faces turned to god, burning passionately. Everything rises. Far above us, in the pocket of heaven tucked into the angles of the cathedral ceiling, our prayers took wing in the dark warm spaces. A little bit of this hallowed atmosphere entered our lungs, then released itself back into the respiratory system of the cathedral, each of our bodies a minute bronchi in the breathing in and out of this great stone spirit.

This was a brilliant day and night! Oh man, it's the stuff of dreams! We spent time at the legendary Shakespeare and Company English-language bookstore, where we saw a poetry reading and where the kiddos curled up on an old couch with the resident puppy. Then, just literally a hop, skip, and a jump across the river and voila! We were at the Notre Dame cathedral!

We visited the cathedral in 2005 too, but it was closed...so we hung out with backpackers, tourists, and all sorts of colorful characters late into the night watching street artists and fire jugglers. This time, though, oh man...not only was the cathedral open, but there was a midnight mass in progress (serendipity - my true religion!!!) when we entered, replete with organs and the sound of many voices raised like wine to god. After this heady experience, we had a scrumptious picnic while watching a street performer juggle and blow fire. Every time I look at this picture (above), it evokes these memories.

On a sophomoric note: in this picture (above) Phil's backpack looks like a futuristic jet pack, the twin "jets" of the French bread about to propel them across the Seine. It cracks me up!


With full hearts and souls and bellies we strolled around the Left Bank as long as we could before collapsing. It's a sacrilege to waste time sleeping in the city of lights...so we traded a bit of sleep for a bit of Paris that we'll have in our memories forever. A dream for a dream.

Paris' Left Bank: the Legendary Shakespeare & Company Bookstore

In every corner, dilapidated couches and cupboards in the walls serve as beds for any down-on-their-luck bohemians in Paris lacking accommodation. In exchange for a couple of hours of work in the store, travelers can crash at "Tumbleweeds," snuggling up in beds and couches in the bookstore (above).


This was our first visit to Shakespeare and Company bookstore, the old haunt of Anais Nin and Henry Miller (a couple of my favorite lovebirds and writers). It's a fusion of living room and bookstore, of 1950's and 2007, of bohemian hedonism and commercialism (it was surprisingly expensive). I had to remind myself that we're not just paying for books. We're paying for history, ambience, and, some would say most importantly, we're paying an institution that provides free shelter to writers from all walks of life.

One of the owner's good friends stopped Phil to tell him how happy he was that he had brought his young daughters to the store. He said that they are very lucky to experience a place like this so young. I'm not entirely sure that the girls saw it that way, though; they couldn't wait for the poetry reading to be over! They curled up on couches and quietly read and played with a dog who seemed to live there along with a group of transient writers.

Funny side note: I had the most uncomfortable conversation with a resident writer there, who was striking a magnificently introspective pose while seated at a little desk with pen in hand (remember Burroughs in Naked Lunch getting pulled over by the cops? When asked to prove that he's a writer, he holds up a pen and says something like, 'Of course. I have a writing tool'). After about a minute of conversation, during which he made it very clear that he is a writer who is "pondering the next great American novel" he cut me off and said, "do you mind? I have writing to do." I'll bet that Henry Miller would be as amused by this as I was.

Here are a couple of pictures of the bulletin board upstairs (it's interesting if you click on them to enlarge):


As I was taking these pictures, a curtain above the bulletin board rustled, and I nearly jumped to see a woman lying down in a little bed behind it! Anything that can conceivably be used as a bed, is. After that little surprise, I made sure to act really cool just in case there were other people similarly curled up in hidden nooks throughout the store, watching me. God forbid someone catch me photographing Shakespeare and Co. like it's some sort of tourist attraction.

And...the treasure. There is always a treasure at a used bookstore, and it is different for each of us. This treasure is pretty self-explanatory (besides just looking like a hell of a good read):


It's missing the "I" but that's OK; "I" wouldn't exactly want to be in this novel, anyway. Judging completely by the cover.

Lvov and Mommy's Favorite Memory of Paris

Lvov and I sitting on the edge of a little dock-island in the middle of the Seine, our feet dangling over the river at midnight, a bottle of French wine after a poetry reading...chilly noses and cuddles...Eiffel tower in the distance and drunkards and lovers stumbling about on both sides of the river...Lvov and I hung our feet over the edge and sang like a couple of happy drunks while Akychame and Phil walked around filming and taking pictures. It was amazing to see everything lit up with white light, and to watch the dinner and party boats cruise slowly past us, waving. We were in the heart of our lives, in the heart of the Seine in the heart of Paris.

Lvov says:

Sitting with Mommy on a skinny island by Pont Neuf bridge was my favorite time in Paris because it was with my mommy and we had a perfect view of the Eiffel tower with the white lights going off on it. Last time we were in Paris last year, we looked down from the Eiffel Tower and on the grass below somebody had carved a huge heart into the grass. Probably for their boyfriend or girlfriend to see when they looked down from the tower. Mommy and I were cuddling and we could see and hear little waves in the water and other people were scared of sitting so close to the water, but mommy held me so tightly. It was really nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going to a "Talk Like a Pirate Day" Party & Phil's Fledgeling 1970's Moustache

Optimism in Unlikely Places

Lvov's cup is more than half full...and it's smiling, to boot!

Little Miss Rosie Cha-Cha

"I'm playing outside Mommy! Love you, Bye!"

Eyeball, Finger!

A.K.A....."AK"

Akychame wants to be an electric guitar goddess, an animal rights extremist, and a graffiti artist after graduating from Harvard with her best buddy Rebekah.


Speaking of graffiti art, last year we had a picnic at an old castle ruin in Bad Durkheim. In one of the turrets there had been a bonfire, so we each took a stick of charcoal and drew graffiti all over the castle walls (which would be washed away that night in the rain).



Akychame kept writing "AKA-AK" all over, so we asked what it meant. She said that graffiti always has a special tag name, and that's her tag. AKA (also known as) A.K. (her nickname). Very clever!


Oh yeah, I'm clever! So clever! Break it down!

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