I do not remember the characters or even the story told by Tennessee Williams in his famous novel The Glass Menagerie, which was required reading my junior year at St. Francis De Sales High School in Columbus, Ohio. But I vividly recall these words jumping off the page in the opening paragraphs: "Oú sont les neiges?" The words stung, but I didn't understand why. In class we were told that the "literary" meaning of this phrase was: Where are the snows of yesteryear? I was studying French at the time, even less of what I recall today. I did not understand (and neither my English or French teacher could explain) how the words "Where is the snow" could be translated into so much more. But what I felt that cold winter in Ohio almost 4 decades ago hasn't dimmed. Even at the tender age of 17, I was at once acutely aware of the fleeting mystery of this thing called life. I was filled with a longing for winters past, winters lost.
Today, I find myself at the beginning of what surely must be the winter of my life. I am drawn once again to that haunting call: Oú sont les neiges? And at long last, I have the time to chase that call. Where to begin? What better place to begin a quest than that timeless City of Lights, where my husband Ron and I have leased an apartment for three months. We leave on Saturday. As Publix founder George Jenkins was fond of saying: Begin, the rest is easy.
[Fun fact - I recently learned that Tennessee Williams simply misquoted what had been circulating in French literature for many years as "Oú sont les neiges d'antan?" As I launch this rather absurd blog, using a medium I know nothing about, to explore a topic that may not ever develop, I take more than a little comfort knowing that even the greatest of novelists make mistakes!]
Happy adventures!
Enjoy my friend...