Il y a paroles...

There are certain words in French that I only know from a memory. Every time I say a certain word there's a memory attached to it. Like gentil, it means kind. People say "Ça, c'est gentil"."That's kind".         I'm sure I'd heard the word before, but every time I hear genial  I think of the last day I was in Brest over the summer. It was a rarely sunny day and I was excited to wear shorts for a change. I had spent all day shopping around Brest and trying to say goodbye to the city, thinking of all the things I hadn't had time to do, or all the places I would miss (Histoire du Chocolat, the Kebab place, La Mie Câline). Ainsi, I was sitting on the bench at the bus stop in the hot sun watching french cars drive by. These 3 girls came and sat next to me on the bench. They seemed to have gone for a chocolat and milk run at the grocery store, holding bunches of Kinder Bueno and a carton of milk. Usually when I had to wait for the bus I'd run off to explore a new shop or buy myself a pastry from La Mie Câline or sit in a café to wait. But this day I was supposed to be home by 6 because we were going to a fête of some kind. So i was sitting and waiting. Extremely patiently. Without a watch. Counting the minutes going by. And this older woman walked up to stand and wait for the bus. I was glad when she walked up because I thought that meant the bus would arrive soon hopefully. But I didn't want to get up because then I would stand there and want to sit and have more temptation to run from my waiting post and miss the bus. So I was being the rude lazy american teenager. Just as I was thinking of getting up for the woman, the littlest girl stood up and told the woman to take her seat. The lady tried to protest but the girl insisted and the woman smiled very big and said "oh, ça c'est gentil. Merci mademoiselle" and sat down. I just remember the tone of the woman's voice, very thankful and very surprised for the small kindness of a little girl on a hot sunny day. It's a pretty common phrase, but every time I hear the word gentil I hear that woman's voice and how she pronounced the word with such thankfulness.

I want the privelege, but I'm frightened to use it.

Today in A.P. Literature class we read a short story called "The Birthday Party." I'm not entirely sure who it's by, but we were supposed to use a Hemingway approach and find the other seven eighths of the iceberg.  Here take a look:

                                            Birthday Party

"They were a couple in their late thirties, and they looked unmistakably married.
They sat on the banquette opposite us in a little narrow restaurant, having dinner. The
man had a round, self-satisfied face, with glasses on it; the woman was fadingly pretty, in a big hat.
There was nothing conspicuous about them, nothing particularly noticeable, until the end of their meal, when it suddenly became obvious that this was an Occasion—in fact, the husband’s birthday, and the wife had planned a little surprise for him.
It arrived, in the form of a small but glossy birthday cake, with one pink candle
burning in the center. The headwaiter brought it in and placed it before the husband, and meanwhile the violin-and-piano orchestra played “Happy Birthday to You,” and the wife beamed with shy pride over her little surprise, and such few people as there were in the restaurant tried to help out with a pattering of applause. It became clear at once that help was needed, because the husband was not pleased. Instead, he was hotly embarrassed, and indignant at his wife for embarrassing him.
You looked at him and you saw this and you thought, “Oh, now, don’t be like
that!” But he was like that, and as soon as the little cake had been deposited on the table, and the orchestra had finished the birthday piece, and the general attention had shifted from the man and the woman, I saw him say something to her under his breath—some punishing thing, quick and curt and unkind. I couldn’t bear to look at the woman then, so I stared at my plate and waited for quite a long time. Not long enough, though. She was still crying when I finally glanced over there again. Crying quietly and heartbrokenly and hopelessly, all to herself, under the gay big brim of her best hat.
Copyright © 1946 The New Yorker. All rights reserved. Originally published in The New Yorker."

So this poor woman is trying in vain to do something nice and be noticed by her self-satisfied pig of a husband, but instead she ends up hiding her tears under her big hat she was so proud of. I don't know if it's the time period/culture or if it's just sucky life, but I keep coming across more stories like this. Citizen Kane, The Artist, Crazy Stupid Love, pretty much any movie I've watched recently I keep finding these married couples that are just dead in their ways and unhappy. "They looked unmistakably married", so I'm assuming they didn't look happy or fun and probably weren't talking at all unless it was about the weather or the menu. Is this what happens when you  marry the completely wrong person? Or is this a 50% chance of  what will happen when you're married? Lifelong partners sound great, love and support and companionship, but what is with these examples? In Citizen Kane Susan Alexander and Kane live together for God knows how long before she finally escapes. Granted yes he is a sugar daddy (Suga-Kane), and she is an awful spoiled brat, but they still stay in awful unhappiness without ever a wakeup call until she finally leaves and he trashes her room. As age comes on do people notice? Do they see themselves becoming less and less of the person they wanted to be? Do couples like this wake up every morning and resign themselves to dealing with another day in that cage, or do they blithely deny it to themselves?

Okay I realize that was getting really over the top depressing. But i just don't see why people would live together in unhappiness, just to be together. (#EatPrayLove) I really want Gay Marriage passed in all 50 States,  I think every couple deserves the same benefits and rights. But gosh I'm quite frightened just of the idea of marriage. Okay not really marriage, but making choices in your life that lead you to a giant trap that you can't seem to get out of, or seem to find the want to get out of. It just sounds awful.

Hemingway's short stories are better though.