French School Presentation and Au Revoir!

We awake in the dark and we’re on the road in an instant—barely time to eat some porridge, pack, play some hip hop songs for Jordan, and say au revoir to Montoleo. Kristin connected me with her friend who is an English teacher in Carcassonne and she arranges to have me come and be a guest speaker in her class of 14-15 year olds. Kristin and I get to speak to the class for almost an hour. I ask the kids what words come to mind when they think about America. They say “BIG” and “rich” and “Bush” who is “a little crazy.” I talk about CODEPINK and how we started and what we’re all about and why it is important for women to speak about politics and to learn how to be strong leaders, and I show them our slideshow of creative actions and projects. I congratulate the French on not engaging in the Iraq War and I answer their myriad of questions. When I show the slide show, they all lean in and squeeze together and climb on the desks to get a better look at my small laptop screen. I look up at them and they are such a beautiful group of young people—all bright and interested and vibrant and trying to understand my English and excited to learn. The presentation goes by very fast and at the end the kids stay to sign up their email addresses and to get info about CODEPINK, including my last business cards. A group of seven young women are the last to leave and they tell me that they want to start a CODEPINK at their school and have pink buttons and wear pink. I get the idea that it would be great to connect these students with a French class at a school in the US. We part with the Rise Up song in call and response. Kristin and I leave the labyrinthine school and go out into the rain (of course it is raining a few hours before my departure).

Kristin and I weave a wondrous path through the city: into the vintage store and through the corner patisserie and all around the home decorations store which has so so so much pink and fuchsia and we reach the plaza and see the ice skating rink and the farmer’s market and all the very bright orange carrots and creamy ginger roots and bins of green leafy bundles. Then we are meeting up with the teacher once more and we are zooming back to Montoleo because I have forgotten my essential notebook with all my notes from the Donne di Pace tour at Kristin’s house. We make a vegetable stir-fry for lunch and Kristin and I get some more real time to talk so even though I feel bad about forgetting my notebook and making us have to drive all the way back, I am grateful for this time and the quiet of the house and nourishing food and the opportunity to listen to Krishna Das and Deva Premal and feel as if for a moment time has stood still and Kristin and I can talk about all the politics of life at home—in Tucson and San Francisco—and savor every bite and every last moment. I leave with my notebook and a heap of gratitude. The good thing about gratitude is that when you acquire more, it actually makes you lighter; it defies the laws of nature that way. The teacher drops me off at the tiny airport in Carcassonne and in no time I am on the airplane again. Ryan Air is great because I get three seats to myself and I meet a really sweet Norwegian medical student and the flight attendant hand writes me all the ways to get from the Stanstead airport to London Heathrow. It is weird because they charge for non-alcoholic drinks and they sell scratch tickets to win prizes as a benefit for charity.

I land at London Stanstead airport and take the train into the city center--Liverpool Street. There I spend some time talking with Ravi, the man who works at the bag check desk, and then outside with the British Red Cross canvassers, who give me great ideas about what to do with my limited time in London. Because my plane is delayed, I have enough time to eat a good Indian meal on Brick Lane and walk around the city, watching as all the Christmas decorations go up. I make it to Heathrow by around 11 p.m. and am home by midday Friday. Chris greets me at the airport and we go straight to the office. A little work and then home to face jetlag full on and begin the alluring game of catch up... o me, o life.