You remind me of hooooome

It is a little strange to me that even though I am so far away from home, I am able to find things here in France to connect me back to my home.  Not just the peanut butter and Nuthins. For example, one of the assistants here in Dunkerque is from Vancouver BC. Just a hop across the boarder!  But that’s not the amazing thing. Aside from the comfort of being able to talk to someone who has seen the San Juan Islands and who knows what a real mountain looks like and what its like to live somewhere that it is always green, I was surprised when he told me something. His family drives through Washington to go to Oregon (or anywhere in the States really) a few times a year. And every time they drive down the good ole I-5 corridor, his mom insists on taking a little side trip on I-405 and Bothell-Everett Highway to…..Country Village. Of all places to go. He has probably been to Country Village as many times as I have. For those of you who do not know what it is, here is a brief description. Your grandma would probably love it. Quilt shops, crafty, homemade soap and candles, pottery, wicker furniture, those wooden sculptures made with chain-saws=kitch. There is a big duck pond and you can feed the ducks and geese and other water fowl. There used to be a carousel that I loved to ride, then they moved it to another part. There is a little train that you can ride around on. Two English tea houses. A glass-blowing studio. And he has had to endure trip upon trip to Country Village, just like I did whenever relatives came to town. And all the way over here in France we can share a moment together when we talk about how you really only have to go once to know what its all about, but usually have to go many times and how its in country Village where Santa’s Sleigh arrives and “flies” down to light the official Bothell Christmas Tree. Amazing.

Then there is the “Bothell-ite” that I met. At my first “training day,” we were all walking to lunch and I overheard a friend of one of the Dunkerque assistants tell someone that she was from Seattle. Excited that someone was even from the same state, I asked her if I had heard her correctly.

Me: I’m from Seattle too!

Her: Seriously? Really?

Me: Well…………not really.            

(because no one actually says that they are from Bothell, no one knows it, and Grey’s Anatomy is the only reason the French have any idea what I’m talking about. )

Her: Me neither!

Me: Where are you actually from?

Her: Bothell…

Me: OMG!

At this point I was almost on the ground with shock and laughter. Come to find I know just about exactly where she lives, and although we went to different schools, we have many, many, many mutual friends. She went to High School with friends of mine from Jr. High who got married this summer. And of course I asked her if she had ever been to Spartas. Got the usual response: yes. And told her that it meant that she has met almost all of my family. Crazy.

            I could imagine having someone else from Washington state being in France at the same time as me (well, because I know for a fact that they are people from Washington here…) and I could imagine someone from the Seattle area and maybe Bothell being in France. But to have them be in my academie? And to meet them walking down the street?

            Dunkerque is blustery. And it reminds me of the great winds of Bellingham. I am grateful for double paned windows here. But as I sit here and listen to the howling wind shake my fairly new windows, I can’t help but think of home. My Bellingham window was put in somewhere around 1906. (If it was the original.) Paint chips peels off of the frame all the time and fell onto my bed. Most likely lead paint. The glass part of the window was not really attached to the frame anymore. So that every time the wind blew, it shook in its boots. There were many nights that I was afraid that I would wake up with broken window all over me. But she always held steady. When it rained and was windy, little bubbles of water blurped over the frame and into my room. And during the winter, even with towels securely placed over any cracks, a fairly thick sheet of ice crept up the inside of my window, making it feel like a winter wonderland. Thank you Jack Frost.

            Although its not exactly the same here, and I know that it will never be, I can still be comforted by these little things that remind me and pull images from the depths of my memory to the surface.