From "Licking The Windows" to Licking My Wounds

(This blog expands on my Talia Tells Tales November 2025 newsletter. ) 

I am expanding on my incredible life in Paris in a blog, but will start here by explaining that since Esther, the protagonist of JERUSALEM MAIDEN, ran off to Paris and I had to chase her around the cobblestoned alleys, the Francophile in me reawakened.

You see, I attended a French high school in Tel-Aviv, and even passed the dreaded matriculation exam ("Le Bac"). In recent years, I've traveled to Paris twice a year, treating myself to French culinary, artistic, and architectural delights.

I am squeezed on a banquet bench at a Parisian café. Among the two dozen people scattered around bistro tables, conversations are flying in both French and English. The aroma of brewing coffee is in the air inside, while in the street outside the large windows, autumn’s leaves float, undecided whether to land on the sidewalk, or to glide a bit further into the Seine.

The man on my left, visiting from a remote island off Australia, tells how his father had arrived in that uninhabited place in the 1950s. On my right, a French journalist details her 1968 harrowing escape from Czechoslovakia on the last train as the Russians were invading. Across from me, a Frenchman explains why even at the end of World War II the German economy was set out to become the strongest in Europe today.

           This “conversation meeting” is one of five weekly exchanges I attend, where Francophones mingle with Anglophones, each seeking to improve their language skills of the other’s language. What comes out of these international encounters, is a kaleidoscope of fascinating stories.

           This evening, when the meeting ends, my friend Sue organizes a small group to move to a nearby Irish pub. We eat, drink, and laugh. I met Sue a few years ago at a recital on one of my frequent trips to Paris. This past Yom Kippur, I attended services at her synagogue, conducted in French by an American rabbi, with an Israeli cantor. Each of the two evenings was beautiful. The rabbi’s talk about the Jews’ commitment to Israel irrespective of politics but rather to the idea of Zion and the existential threat to Israel was critical at this time. Most significant for me was that, unlike in many streams of Judaism, I was permitted to say Kaddish for Ron.

           It’s been a long day. I have had three planned activities before this late dinner. Sue and I take the Metro together since we live near the same station. Yet at the exit, when she turns into the side street, I head the other way, toward the bridge over the Seine. Within a few steps I am treated to the majestical sight of the Eiffel Tower, my current neighbor. It sparkles against the night sky, the reflections of its illuminations break into a million smaller pinprick lights in the inky water.

           Back in my apartment, I kick off my walking shoes, one of three pairs I only wear in Paris, rotating them daily. I would never dare show up anywhere in the US with such functional footwear. Unlike the US, there is no mail to sort out, or packages to open. Earlier this morning, I cleaned my rental apartment and took the bed linens to the laundry service because the dryer, which is supposed to be built into the washing machine, doesn’t work. Still, at this moment, when the world outside falls away, calm sets on me. This is my queendom, where I will soon click open my phone photo app and scroll through Ron’s photos and videos. It’s my time alone with him. The acute pain of the loss has somewhat dulled these past two months in Paris, but my emotions are still too raw for TV news. I only watch documentaries in French to help improve my language skills.

I check my WhatsApp group messages. In my Museum Explorers’ group there’s a thread about a trip ten of us will take to a new exhibition. I comment that I’d bought a ticket, and then post about the exclusive interior design show on Saturday to which I have an extra ticket. I respond to a woman who asks who would like to join her on a visit to the Cléopatra exhibit on Friday, then I inform another member that I’ll meet her at the open-air art fair on Sunday. I’ve only seen these two women at some get-togethers and know that once I spend some time with each, I’ll make yet two new friends.

These art excursions are added to my visit last Friday to Petit Palais (Jean-Baptiste Greuse) with a French acquaintance, and this past Tuesday to Musée  D’Orsay (John Singer Sergent) with another, who turned out to be an art historian.  Last week I participated in an exclusive visit with the French Heritage Society at M19, a large modern center that houses 700 craft artisans who embroider for all haute-couture, such as Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, and Dior as well as for major home décor outfits that create the embellished curtains and hand-woven upholstery seen in chateaux.

           In between, I’ve taken walks with Barbara and Gloria, exploring markets near the Canal St. Martin; with Yael who is an expert on the ancient history of the Fifth arrondissement starting with the Middle Ages; with Anne (a Frenchwoman), who guided me through hidden spots in Le Marais. There are days I clock between 12,000 to 18,000 steps a day. Even in days I take public transportation, I clock over 7,000 steps.

           In the very few open windows in my calendar these past two weeks I’ve played Mah-Jongg, joined a dozen women to cook a lunch at one’s home, and dropped in on three separate regular 10 AM socializing taking place at specific cafés around the city.

           In slightly more than this two-week period, in the evenings I’ve been to the Opera Bastille to see La Bohème, was invited to two local friends’ homes for dinner, and had girls’ dinners, and outings with American visitors and a theater critique. I’ve been to a Toastmasters meeting and to an organ concert at the St. Sulpice church (a place I particularly cherish since it’s the location of some important action in my novel JERUSALEM MAIDEN). Twice I joined a young friend for late bar outings (too noisy), where I had interesting conversations with Italians, Portuguese, and Croatians, and I advised a French diplomat in which of their US consulates he should be stationed (Miami).

           In two social early evening receptions that I attended (what the French call “Apéro”), I engaged in a conversation with a retired Egyptian cardiologist and listened to a botanist couple who’ve accepted a winter assignment in New Zealand to count the koala population. (Hint: by sniffing the fresh poop; it smells like eucalyptus.) I agree that sniffing koala poop is preferable to the brutally cold Parisian winter.

           Back in 2013 I wrote a blog about the quirks of the French language, in which window shopping was called “Licking the windows” to indicate the hunger that the sight of a Parisian window shopping evoked. As I am licking my wounds over Ron’s stupendous loss, I am finding the path of joy in being overly active in Paris.

           It’s now the top of the hour, and the Eiffel Tower erupts into a burst of sparkles, like the largest birthday candle, telling me it’s time to turn off my lights and get ready for a busy day tomorrow of packing to go home.  

 

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Every Sunday 10 AM, at La Coupole, organized by Terrance
(Link below) 

 

Links to organizations and sources:

AmericanWomen in Paris

WICE

FrenchHeritage Society

TerranceGelenter

AdrianLeeds, Pares-Midi

MeetUp French-English Conversationalists 50+

InterNations

Toastmasters of Paris

The American Library in Paris

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Parisian Soirée

Jim Haynes with Author Talia Carner

          Tucked in a Parisian residential is an unkempt garden. Or rather, it is a pathway along the side of a building in which two-storey high windows allow peeks into artists’ ateliers. Just past a shed with boarded windows, one side of the path is planted with fruit trees. Take a few steps onto a narrow brick terrace, and you face the door to Jim’s world.

            Jim’s home is built upon a quirkily impressive history of literature and theater—and his love of people. The home has a kitchen that occupies one-third of the first-floor living area. In that kitchen, every Sunday evening for the past three decades, volunteers cook up a dinner for up to seventy strangers who’ve heard of Jim’s soirées.
             In our American standards—and perhaps in European standards, too—the living room is tiny for such an ambitious hosting. An upholstered bench runs along one wall, supplemented by a couple of chairs. Above them, a long shelf exhibits books by authors close to Jim’s heart.
             The real action of the evening, one soon discovers, is in the people who gather in that room, and by necessity, spill onto the terrace and the garden. A couple of ex-pats who’ve long settled Paris are helping around the party. The rest are either tourists from all corners of the globe seeking the flavor of old literary Paris, or temporary residents of Paris. It is easy to make introductions as one must squeeze close to a dozen people to fetch ice from the only commercial-size appliance in this otherwise modest dwelling that manages to whip up a meal for so many guests. The red and white wine, extracted from the spigots of cardboard pegs, help set the mood.
            I was first handed a bowl with three servings of three totally unidentified food. Each piece or mush challenged me with its different shape and texture, but I failed to guess what it was. Nevertheless, I trusted myself (and Jim) enough, and found the food to be quite tasty—yet still unidentified. Someone said this dish had Asian influence, and I was unable to argue one way or another. The main course was more familiar, though less edible, for the slab of meat that had never suffered the heat of fire or oven was to be consumed with only a fork. I recalled my visit to a French family back in the 1970s, where I was served my first raw meat, but it was eaten at the table, with the benefit of a knife.
            Even though we were all Jim’s guests, in his e-mail he suggested a 30 Euro donation (about $40) per person. He asked that the money be discretely placed in a recycled envelope, while Jim, sitting high on a stool at the back of the room, welcomed every person and ticked them off his list, noting the envelopes. One guest speculated that the octogenarian Jim landed a weekly income, cashing in on his long reputation and the media exposure his evenings had received. Totally legitimate in my mind—and well worth it. I found myself engaged in interesting conversations: An Australian duo of a mother-daughter visiting Paris; a Minnesota couple on a tour of Parisian most notable gardens (Jim’s is not on the list;) a mixed Caucasian and Black American couple that had inherited an apartment in Paris; a French web designer practicing his English; a retired architect with set views about the many countries in which he had worked.
            There is no secret to a successful Parisian evening: Put dozens of strangers who enjoy travel and meeting other people in a room with a garden, feed them, pour them wine, and let them start talking.
                       

More about Jim Haynes: http://www.jim-haynes.com/

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New-York-based novelist Talia Carner's explores the world's social issues. See www.TaliaCarner.com
           
            

The Allure Of A First Love

       

            What had attracted me, at age fourteen, to choose a long daily commute to a high school far from my home, when I could have attended a similarly high academic school merely two blocks away?
            French. Having mastered basic conversational English, I was ready for the challenge of taking a second foreign language. I also loved the new, spacious building of the new school in the outskirts of the city, so unlike the crammed classrooms in the center city of Tel-Aviv where I lived.
            We, the student body of Alliance Française, soon became Francophiles. We loved the language and the music of it. We staged plays in French, sang songs in French, and cursed each other in French. As a romantic teenager with three languages at my disposal, I wrote poetry in French.
            Fast forward, in my twenties, I moved to the United States and found myself immersed in the language and culture of my adoptive land. I soon entered the corporate world, where I never encountered Israelis or French, for that matter. In the early 1980s, it was a world of white American men, and I was a woman breaking the glass ceiling while raising a family in secrecy, because my boss told me, “We don’t hire women with children.”
            Many years later, in 2005, I was deep into a second career as a novelist, in English, when my protagonist took off from Jaffa to Paris. I had not planned that move as I was writing Jerusalem Maiden. What was she doing there? I had to follow her.
            In the two weeks between Esther’s fleeing to Paris and my arrival to discover her whereabouts, I bought a French dictionary. For the first time in decades, I knew, I had to use the language. I reflected on all my visits over thirty years to France with my American husband, where I acted like an American tourist, never using the language in which I had once been fluent. I never even asked a waiter, in French, for a glass of water….
            Now I followed Esther in Paris of 1924, and realized it had been the avant-garde era. What was Jewish life here between World War I and II? I found myself at libraries poring over tomes of material, in French. For the first time in decades, I actually spoke French with art mavens and historians. I was surprised at how much of the language I had retained, and disappointed at how much of it I had forgotten.
            This is when, seeing the city through the eyes of my protagonist, living there, that I made Paris my own.
            But there was no time to reflect on any of it. I had a novel to finish and a life to live in New York.
            In 2009, I reconnected via Facebook with a woman who had attended my French high school. Our lives had intersected many times, starting even before our births, when our respective grandfathers had been business partners. She still lived in Israel, but in recent years had purchased a magnificent apartment in Paris. I was delighted when she invited me to stop there on my way from Tel-Aviv to New York.
            The weekend I visited, I accompanied her to a day-long party at close friends’ castle. The family welcomed me warmly, and for the first time in so many years I actually had long, social conversations in my no-longer-good French.
            The following summer, while waiting for Jerusalem Maiden to be published, I decided to trace the history of a painting that had been in my family since the mid 1930s. It had belonged to the grandparents of a pair of cousins, a brother and a younger sister, each of whom I had met only once, in our youth. I found them both living in two areas in France, married to French-only speaking spouses.
            The bond was instantaneous, starting with the one hour and forty-five minute phone conversation with the sister, and followed by an hour-long conversation a week later with the brother, who then put his Swiss-French wife on the phone. Turned out that while they had not been on my radar screen all those years, they were up-to-date on my life.
            Since my husband had to be in Europe for a meeting in November 2010, we all decided to meet in Paris. The three couples spent four glorious days together, and although my husband speaks only English, he got along extremely well with the French-only speaking spouses. And I had to chat with them from morning to night, filling all the blanks of our lives. I managed well enough to speak, but was fully aware of how poor was my language level.
            In 2012, in the midst of an extensive two-year book tour for Jerusalem Maiden, I had a conversation with a young man in New York who was on remission from cancer.
            He asked me, “If you had one year to live, what would you do?”
            “I’d eat chocolate,” I said.
            He looked at me with astonishment. “That’s it? You’ve done everything, you’ve been everywhere?”
I gave a humble nod, “Yes.”
            Back home, I thought that my response had been pathetic. I no longer had dreams. Had there been something I ever wanted and simply suppressed?
            Yes.
            Back in high school, I had dreamed to one day take a semester at the Sorbonne in Civilization Française. But after a two-year service in the Israel Defense Force, I had to rush my university studies along.
Suddenly, this old dream began to bloom. Studying in Paris had been the only thing I had once desired strongly, yet never fulfilled.
            There were two issues with reviving this dream: First, I did not wish to uproot my life for a whole semester. The other was that the student body, which had so appealed to me when I was fifteen and sixteen, was still made of twenty-year-olds….
            I broached the subject with my husband and asked it as a birthday present—not the funding as the time off to do something he had no interest in sharing. I coached my request for only one month, and, thanks to the internet, was able to stitch together a full day program of language and culture immersion.
            April 2013 was my debut month, the first time ever to be on my own, (an experience that I chronicled in a series of blogs.) When Ron visited for a few days, a visit that cut on my language immersion, I asked him “to try to incorporate Paris into our life.”
            “I am not saying ‘No’” he replied.
            And so, today, a year later, we arrived in Paris for four weeks, this time with the idea of feeling the pulse of life here. My French is improved, and although I had not reached the level of my post high-school years, I will take only a few classes. I’ve been learning some slang; even though I will not use it, I must understand it.
            At dinner at a sidewalk café, we chatted with a couple from Bordeaux. The wife commented on my excellent vocabulary, and when I expressed astonishment, she said that all I needed was the proficiency of speed. Luckily, she hasn’t seen my writing samples.
            As Ron and I are settling in the apartment we’ve rented in the heart of the historic Saint Germaine area, I am feeling the return of that first blush, of first love, and I feel happy about somehow living a version of my youthful dream.
            Stay tuned.

 (To read previous Paris posts, please click  )