Reflections on a return to France … this time with my dad

While on the French Riviera for the Nice Jazz Festival, my pianist dad and I took in Le Negresco Hotel's Le Relais Bar, where Farnell has been invited to perform.
While on the French Riviera for the Nice Jazz Festival, my pianist dad and I took in Le Negresco Hotel’s Le Relais Bar, where Farnell has been invited to perform.

One thing I’ve found is that the older I get, the more I appreciate the power of hindsight and reflection. Time often needs to march on before you can truly appreciate where you’ve been, what you’ve done—and how past experiences influence your life in the present. I returned to the United States nearly nine months ago (can’t believe it’s been that long!), but am still processing how the year I spent living in France will not only alter my life’s trajectory, but those of other folks, as well.

I may have only been in charming Samois-sur-Seine for 12 months, but I often joke time spent living abroad is like “dog years.” Every experience feels amplified; time seems to expand—and you’re truly present in every moment. And you have to be, as you think in one language, but must translate into another tongue and culture all day. This summer, I got to do it all again during a trip back to Samois and south to the French Riviera—but this time, with my dad Farnell.

Because I’m a professional writer, I process my thoughts through words. And an editor friend at the Chicago Defender gave me the chance to process this trip with my dad in a Travel column for this legendary African-American newspaper. As I wrote, international travel is potentially life-changing if you open your mind to the possibilities it sometimes brings. And that’s just what’s happened for my dad Farnell, a songwriter, pianist and lifelong Chicagoan who got his musical groove back thanks to a couple of recent trips to France.

Lest you think Mr. Jenkins is one of those beret-wearing musicians who regularly pulled out his passport over the years and headed overseas, think again. Every time my mom, sister and brother-in-law would urge him to join us on some vacation in Paris, London or Rome, he always said no. Perhaps he wanted to enjoy the solitude of home; maybe, as he used to say, he just didn’t like the idea of flying 30,000 feet over an ocean for hours at a time. (As a young singer and songwriter with a singing quartet called the Teachers’ Edition, he traveled on two tours of Asia with the USO—and perhaps that was enough.) But in late 2010, he finally said yes to a trip with me.

You UrbanTravelGirl readers know I love to travel solo, and planned to celebrate New Year’s and my birthday in Costa Rica. I invited Farnell to come along, and to everyone’s surprise, he agreed. We had a blast—so much so that when I asked him a few months later to go with me to Panama City, Panama, to check it out as a possible place to live, he didn’t bat an eye. Friends and family were as psyched as I was, knowing how I tried for years to talk him into these overseas trips.

Since then, I like to think Farnell and I have become good globe-trotting buddies. As a freelance Travel and Food writer for several years, I’m far more comfortable on the road than I ever am at home. But actually leaving the country with your dad puts your father-daughter relationship on a whole different plane—literally. Once you’re on foreign soil, you leave behind all things familiar. You’re struggling to speak a foreign language, spending cash that looks like play money, walking a fine line along a culture you may not understand.

Sharing overseas experiences—the harrowing bus ride on a Costa Rican mountainside, sampling fresh ceviche in a Panama City fish market, sitting on a dock beside the Mediterranean Sea—with my dad has been a huge blessing. It’s allowed us to build a whole host of memories of our own—and a litany of crazy tales you’d have to be there to believe.

Making the most of opportunity

So during my time in Samois, I invited my parents to visit and was thrilled when my dad agreed to come. But I needed to find lodging for my then-smoking dad, as tobacco wasn’t allowed in the house where I lived. I booked my dad a room on La Bonne Amie, a gorgeous four-room, luxury bed & breakfast boat moored just across the street from me on the Seine River. Fortunately, the boat’s New Zealand-born owner Steve was also a smoker. And a talker. He and Farnell hit it off—and Steve later invited him back to the boat for a week of piano performances this summer.

Playing in front of people is first nature for Farnell, a “preacher’s kid” and gospel musician who’s shared his immense talent at Chicago-area churches most of his life. (The late gospel singing legend Mahalia Jackson was a long-time member of his father’s congregation, and a teen-aged Farnell had the honor of accompanying her on the organ during a church revival.) He’s also no stranger to the secular scene, as he and the four college friends who made up the Teachers’ Edition (they were all public school educators) not only toured Asia but also recorded on Memphis-based Hi Records with legendary producer Willie Mitchell, who helped shape Al Green’s trademark sound.

During this time, Farnell wrote tunes that became part of the Teachers’ Edition’s onstage repertoire and recordings—including “I Wanna Be Loved,” an early ‘70s melodic slow jam that British rock singer Elvis Costello covered in 1984. The tune later appeared on “The Very Best of Elvis Costello” in 1999, introducing this Hi Records classic to a whole new generation of worldwide fans.

Before returning to Samois for this summer’s performances, Farnell needed to hone his musical repertoire. Enter Cyrano’s Farm Kitchen, an authentic French bistro in downtown Chicago with a charming downstairs cabaret. I’ve known the affable French chef/owner, Didier Durand, through my freelance Food writing and introduced him to my dad. Farnell became the Barrel Room cabaret’s regular Thursday night performer this spring and summer, adding his own soulful twist to jazz, blues, R&B, and pop standards. He packed them up, took them to France, and during a trip south to the French Riviera, landed another invitation—this time to play the elegant lounge at the legendary five-star Le Negresco Hotel in Nice.

And Farnell jumpstarted it all by agreeing to hang out with me in a French village.

My dad Farnell and I got to meet legendary Earth, Wind & Fire singer Philip Bailey following the band's performance at the Nice Jazz Festival this summer.
My dad Farnell and I got to meet legendary Earth, Wind & Fire singer Philip Bailey following the band’s performance at the Nice Jazz Festival this summer.

If I were a believer in fate or chance, I’d attribute this whole thing to one of those. But I’m convinced this all happened in divine order, giving Farnell an entrée back into the music world decades after he first jumped in. At the annual Festival Django Reinhardt jazz event in Samois, he met a helpful publicist with music publishing ties. And since I was covering the Nice Jazz Festival as a freelance writer, Farnell and a Chicago musician friend facilitated an interview between me and legendary Earth, Wind & Fire bassist Verdine White—someone Farnell first met 40 years ago.

The moral of this travel tale: just picking up that passport can launch you into a new adventure.  In Farnell’s case, saying oui to these overseas trips has given us a chance to spend priceless time together while he pursues his musical dreams both here in Chicago and on the other side of the world.

Yet another reason why international travel literally rocks.

Moving from one chapter to another … leaving France, returning home

Here I am, standing underneath the Eiffel Tower — in my favorite city in the world — in November.

When cleaning out a dresser drawer this week, I ran across my permesso di soggiorno per stranieri, or the Italian “Foreigners’ Permit of Stay” that became a prized possession during my time in Florence nearly 10 years ago. It allowed me to legally live in Italy and to work as a libero professionista, a freelance professional. Just seeing this folded piece of blue-tinted paper—to which a passport-sized photo of me is loosely stapled—took me back to those days in 2004 and 2005 when I temporarily called Firenze home. Looking at my smiling, youthful face, surrounded by freshly done two-strand twists, I remember how idealistic and fearless I was when launching my first living-abroad adventure as a freelance writer.

In many ways, I felt the same way when leaving Chicago last January for my year-long stay in the charming French village of Samois-sur-Seine. It wasn’t a well-known Renaissance city like Florence, but it has its own renown and as a welcoming place for artists and writers over the centuries. When I left for Samois with a French visa glued into my nearly full American passport, I also was excited, hopeful—and dare I say, wonderfully optimistic about this new chapter overseas.

With a scenic village as a backdrop—and a central location in the middle of Europe—I planned to write freelance Travel and Food articles for a wide range of publications. I wanted to travel to nearby European countries and to explore France. Since Samois was about an hour south of Paris, I vowed to take the 40-minute SNCF commuter train into the City of Light at least once a week. I hoped to finally become a fluent speaker of French. And I wanted to start writing a book on African-American women and our love affair with France. Nothing like having a list of goals as long as your arm, right?

But alas … I decided it was time to close this year-long chapter of “cultural immersion,” or what I came to think of as my “mid-life sabbatical” in France. Some weeks ago, I moved back to Chicago, realizing it made more financial sense to return and resume my freelance writing and communications consulting career here. Since coming back, I’ve been working nonstop, settling back into my condo in downtown Chicago, and readjusting to an American life that after a year away sometimes feels a bit foreign. Although there are many things I miss about France—crusty baguettes, safe streets and charming accents are near the top of the list—I’m surprisingly happy to be home.

Still, I managed to do much of what I hoped during my year in France. I got lots of great writing assignments, expanding into publications like CNN.com, About.com Luxury Travel, and Ebony. I traveled some, mostly to the south of France and across the border to Italy for media trips. I got myself to Paris as often as I could, as it’s still my absolute favorite place in the world. Every time I’d get off the train at Gare de Lyon and stroll out into those city streets, I instantly felt lighter and more at home than I often feel in my native Chicago.

Sadly, I’m nowhere near fluent in French. I’d hoped that living in an authentic village would have me conjugating verbs in the subjunctive in no time, but when you report and write in English all day, it’s hard to develop the fluency that comes from truly LIVING a foreign language day in and out. But I haven’t given up. I’m going to enroll in classes here in Chicago to keep myself engaged with le français. And I definitely plan to still write that book about black women and France. I got a start on the project while I was overseas, but there’s much more to be researched and great stories to be told. I’ll need to do it during occasional trips abroad, but I’m determined to get it done.

What I DO know is that my year in France will continue to shape my perspective—and my outlook on life—in ways I can’t yet imagine. I’ll write about some of my initial impressions in my next post, and about others as they hit me later on.

Charming restaurants, like the La Patte d’Oie gem in the small town of Mennecy, are among things I miss about France. But fortunately, the country — and the wonderful folks I met over the past year — are just an airplane flight away.

One thing I’ve realized is that my adventure wasn’t mine alone—or really even about me. I’ve been touched and amazed to find that family, friends and my UrbanTravelGirl readers felt as invested in my time abroad as I was. I’m psyched that I inspired many of you to pack your bags, grab your passports, and head out on those first overseas trips. Others have told me that like me, you long to live abroad and are preparing for the day that you make that move. I can’t wait until I can return the favor and become your cheerleader, encouraging you to do it and to just go. We only live once—and we owe it to ourselves to experience as much of this incredible world as we can.

But this is hardly the end of my traveling and wanderlust. Even though I’m back in Chicago, being a traveler is who I am, an intrinsic part of my being. I’m making a trip back to France with my pianist dad Farnell Jenkins this summer as he pursues his own overseas adventure—and I’m thrilled beyond words to know my time there helped inspire it.

And that’s the reality of life. Our international journeys are often circular; they don’t always lead us in a straight line. Some of us discover them early in life, others later. But the point is to get there and to take advantage of all the great stuff we find once it presents itself.

Personally, I can’t wait to see where my own journey leads from here. But you’d better know that wherever it goes, I’ll have my passport firmly in hand. As European travel legend Rick Steves always says at the end his public television shows, “Until next time … keep on traveling.”

Amen to that!

Give a fascinating glimpse of African-Americans in Paris for the holidays—or anytime

Where has the time flown, my UrbanTravelGirl friends? Merci beaucoup to those of you who missed hearing from me, wondered where I’ve been, and dropped me e-mails asking. I can’t believe that Christmas and New Year’s are nearly here, as it seems like just yesterday that I was excitedly preparing for my France adventure and move overseas. But I’ve been here nearly 12 months now, and it’s definitely been a life-changing learning experience.

My posts have been far more sporadic than I’d planned as I’ve spent so much time working like mad—and when you’re a freelance journalist and consultant like me, you need to “make hay while the sun shines,” as the saying goes. In the New Year, I hope to have more time for reflection about my African-American female expat life in France—and will happily share it with you once I do. In the meantime, seeing as the holidays are knocking on the door, I want to share a fascinating new Blue Lion Films DVD that’s parfait for the Francophile on your last-minute shopping list. (But really, who needs an excuse to think about France? Anytime’s a good time.)

When African Americans Came to Paris” is a labor of love from Walking the Spirit Tours CEO and Founder Julia Browne—an incredible sister who describes herself as “British-born, Canadian-raised, and French by affinity”—award-winning documentarian Joanne Burke, and her writer/cameraman husband David Burke. This DVD features six short videos, each one between just four and seven minutes long. And each offers a fascinating historical take on black folks in the 20th century and the Paris that offered them an embrace long denied by their American homeland. Burke researched the content, tracked down the archival images, and narrates each segment, while Browne served as a consultant, promoter and distributor for the project.

Walking the Spirit Tours CEO and Founder Julia Browne holds a photo of black American author Chester Himes, one of the legends mentioned during her tours. (Daniel Morris photo)

Jazzed up with period music, black-and-white still and video images and smart, thoughtful commentary by scholars, artists and other present-day contributors, each segment is a stand-alone glimpse at why France, and specifically Paris, occupies such a mythological place in the minds of black folks. As contributor and Bates College professor Marcus Bruce states in the introductory video: “When African-Americans come to Paris, they discover the terms by which they want to define themselves.” It was true centuries ago, and newly arrived emigrants like me still feel the same.

“When African Americans Came to Paris” includes:

  • W.E.B. DuBois and the 1900 Paris Exposition;
  • Henry Ossawa Tanner: An Artist in Exile;
  • The Harlem Hellfighters;
  • James Reese Europe: Warrior and Musician;
  • Jazz Comes to Paris;
  • Three Women Artists in Paris.

The DVD’s videos vividly bring to life what Browne offers through her company’s walking-and-bus tours of current-day Paris, from strolls past artist Henry Ossawa Tanner’s first apartments near the Louvre to trips through the still-vibrant Montmartre quartier where black American entertainers and entrepreneurs like Ada “Bricktop” Smith and Eugene Bullard (also the world’s first black combat pilot) left their indelible musical imprints in the 1920s. Keeping the spirit of the videos alive on both sides of the Atlantic, the Burkes and Browne will take to the road, sharing “When African Americans Came to Paris” at conferences and special screenings in Paris and in the United States.

Walking the Spirit Tours’ Julia Browne leads a group through Paris’ Latin Quarter. Her company’s year-round tours expose visitors to 200 years of black American history in the City of Light. (Daniel Morris photo)

 

So whether you’re planning a trip to Paris, longing to relive previous jaunts to the City of Light—or want to travel to France by way of these incredible vignettes—pick up this DVD. It’s available in both U.S. and European formats for schools, corporations and government agencies. And what I especially love is that Blue Lion offers a comprehensive Teacher’s Guide for students in grades six through 12. Nothing like encouraging a love of international travel and African-American history at the same time.

Bon voyage! 

See the world … if only through a novel

Bonjour et bonsoir, mes amis!! I know it’s been awhile since I’ve shared my French adventures, but all is well on this side of the Atlantic. I promise to update you shortly on my thoughts about spending my first full summer in France—and my ongoing adjustments to expat life.

But in the meantime, UrbanTravelGirl is sharing this space with author and playwright Melda Beaty, a super-talented, Chicago-based sister (AND one of my proud Delta Sigma Theta sorority sisters!) whose debut novel, LIME, takes us on a trip around the world through the pages of a book (and an eBook for you Kindle carriers). My fellow word-lovers know what a delicious adventure that can be … so enjoy this guest post from Melda and check out LIME for yourself!

Melda Beaty, author of the newly released novel, LIME

For 40 years, my life revolved around a few states in the United States. My origins began in Mississippi but quickly transplanted me to Chicago, Illinois, when I was a few weeks old.  Growing up, I went on family vacations in different U.S. states, but traveled more during my college and adult years. However, it wasn’t until my 40th birthday that I got to take a trip that most only dream about. Me, a little black girl from the West Side of Chicago, boarded a plane headed to London and while there boarded another plane to Amsterdam. Despite the cool and gray 60-degree temperatures in the month of August, I thanked God every morning for allowing me to experience life 3,900 miles away from my comfort zone.

I’m not sure what gave birth to my fascination with other cultures. I’ve been a Travel Channel junkie for as long as I can remember. While others watch “Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern” and Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations” for the food, I fixate on the culture that produces the food. I am drawn to the language, customs, beliefs … the overall way of life of people living happily overseas.

LIME takes readers on an often-glamorous tour around the world.

This “draw” found its way into my brand-new novel, LIME (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, $14.95). The heroine, Lime Prince, is the best mixture of different cultures and places that my imagination could conceive. Her Ethiopian/Jamaican genes accented with lime-green eyes afford her a life as an international supermodel. Like mine, Lime’s beginnings were in Chicago, Illinois. When her Ethiopian mother takes her back to Brixton—the wonderfully vibrant and heavily African-Caribbean neighborhood in London—where the Amde family resides, Lime gets to experience this world-class city with its double-decker buses, Buckingham Palace, old CoolTan building, St. Matthew Westminster, and more.  From there, she finds herself in Johannesburg, South Africa or E’goli (a “place of gold,” as the city is called by the locals) with its cornucopia of black faces, diverse languages, wildlife, and vitality.

With runway shows and fashion photo shoots in Paris, Milan, and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, LIME takes you, the reader, along for these around-the-world adventures. However, in the midst of her fairy-tale life, she is forced to confront the realities of violence against women. This juxtaposition of beauty and violence, and glamour with pain eventually takes Lime to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Like Lime, I’m not done seeing the world. If you follow her, I promise you will see it, too, if only in a novel … for now.

Melda Beaty is an author, playwright, English lecturer, and educational consultant. She currently teaches English at South University. You can read more about LIME at MeldaCreates.com, Amazon.com, and now on Kindle.

‘This too shall pass’ – Keeping French expat life in perspective

There are many fabulous things about Paris, but sometimes you just need a reminder of good ol' American stuff. Here's the first Chipotle location to open in France -- and it's on Boulevard Montmartre, right in the city center.
There are many fabulous things about Paris, but sometimes you just need a reminder of good ol' American stuff. Here's the first Chipotle location to open in France -- and it's on Boulevard Montmartre, right in the city center.
I know I’ve waxed poetic here about the “honeymoon phase” of my move to France and appreciating the “small stuff” about my new life in the charming village of Samois-sur-Seine and within France itself. But you UrbanTravelGirls knew THAT wasn’t going to last. Reality eventually intrudes, and all those cute-and-charming quirks about French life—you know, the midday break most businesses take, the fact that nobody but you seems to be in a hurried rush—start to get on your ever-lovin’ nerves. And I’ve encountered quite a few of those quirks over the past week, frustrating me and making me wonder WHAT in the world I was thinking to trade in a relatively easy and uneventful life back in downtown Chicago for the unpredictability of one as freelance consultant and writer overseas.

To keep my annoyance from getting out of hand, I’ve had to quote myself, referring back to UrbanTravelGirl posts I’ve written in seemingly simpler and less stressful times: “But although there’s much that’s fabulous about living in France, it’s not like every day is a holiday or that I’m constantly planning a last-minute vacation to some fabulous place (my Travel writing work notwithstanding). It’s real life, with all the pressures, challenges, errands and occasional hassles that go along with it—visits to the dry cleaners, La Poste, immigration office and other havens of bureaucracy.” For this Type A workaholic, it’s not always that easy.

Take yesterday, for example. Early in the morning, I tried to buy a train ticket online from Paris to Villefranche-sur-Mer for a friend’s wedding in the south of France, and for some weekend travel from France to northern Italy. Seems simple enough, right? Well, since I needed to pick up the tickets at the Paris train station, the website wouldn’t accept U.S. credit cards, only French “Carte Bleue” ones embedded with a special chip—and my French bank account hadn’t yet credited the funds I’d transferred over from my U.S. bank last week. So I called my bank in the nearby town of Fontainebleau, asking in broken French if I could just deposit euros in my account and have immediately available funds as I would at my bank in the States. NO SUCH LUCK. It would take at least one day.

So I went to Paris’ Gare de Lyon, a large station where trains depart for places in the south such as Marseille and Provence, and Italy. An employee assured me that I COULD use my foreign credit card in a self-service machine, thus skipping the line—so I got out of the long queue. (You know where this is going.) Of course I couldn’t—so those two tries wasted 30 minutes, making me run late for my next appointment.

The taxi driver told me the ride to historic Place Vêndome would take 14 minutes, but it ended up taking 40 and costing a small fortune—AND I ended up jumping out the cab and walking the rest of the way. Every time I’d ask, “Honestly, Sir—how much longer?” he’d say, “Four minutes.” WHY can’t folks just tell the truth, even if they can’t give the answer you’d like? And then the endless queues at the supermarket last night … ARRRGGGHHH!! Last night, I was supposed to check out the VERY cool Festival Django Reinhardt, the Samois summer music fête named for the famed gypsy jazz guitarist, but after this hassle-filled day I was spent.

If I had a euro for every time a friend or acquaintance said, “Wow—you’ve got such a glamorous life,” I’d be a wealthy girl (which I’m obviously not). Sure, thanks to my work, I get to experience incredible places—such as the five-star hotels and restaurants I visited last month in St. Tropez, Nice, and Monaco—but these only pay off if I’m able to translate those into Travel and Food articles that some publication wants to buy. But folks don’t see me sitting in my PJs in the middle of the night and early morning, noisily typing on my laptop and crashing on some deadline. Or the constant back-and-forth e-mails with potential editors and clients about possible projects and story ideas. Or poring over some French-language website or brochure, French-English dictionary in hand, desperately trying to decipher some important rule and keep myself on the right side of the law.

Sure, life would be way simpler and more carefree for us expats if we were independently wealthy or living luxuriously in villas in Jamaica. But as Kelly Clarkson shouts in “What Doesn’t Kill You (Stronger),” there’s something to be said for challenges:

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, stronger
Just me, myself, and I
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller ….

But it’ll take more than these hassles to send me packing. (And to be fair, there have been GOOD moments this week, such as going to the French immigration office toute seule (all alone, no translating friend in tow) for a required medical exam and walking away with my “Certificat de Controle Medical,” officially stating that I meet the health conditions to legally live in France. YAY for that!!) What’s key is remembering that this is all a learning process—I shouldn’t expect to know all the answers yet. Folks who’ve been here for decades are still figuring out French bureaucracy and how the country works, so why should I be surprised when I get caught off-guard?

As I always say, it’s just more fodder for “the book!”