A Celebration In France

Bonjour, I just had the most amazing celebration for our exchange student who was turning 18, which in France is a big deal. So this talk is going to be about celebration, and going and doing whatever it is your heart desires.

Transcript

Bonjour.

I'm greeting everybody in French because I just got back from France.

In fact,

I got back yesterday as I'm recording this.

I'm a little jet lagged,

But I felt this was important for me to discuss with you all today.

So the reason,

Well,

I went,

We went to France because we were invited by our French exchange student Lysander Demière and his family to come and celebrate his 18th birthday.

And in France,

Evidently that's a big,

Big deal.

At least this family celebrated him in amazing ways.

And we just in all,

I will all over the world,

We were just opening out of the pandemic.

So I just want everybody to know we went to France and we came back and everything's okay.

Meaning if you haven't gone somewhere,

You really want to go somewhere.

I think it's very important to do that,

To make sure you take time,

Especially after the last year and a half,

Do the things I want to encourage everyone to do the things that you are drawn to do.

For me,

It's traveling internationally.

It's traveling everywhere,

But traveling internationally,

Especially.

And because it was something I didn't get to do as much in my younger years.

And so I am making up for lost time.

And so of course,

When we were invited to go,

My spouse Kevin said,

Of course,

Let's book it.

So we were feted.

We were literally wined and dined.

We were in the Champagne region of France at a small village Fleury,

La Riviere.

And there was so much beauty with all the vines that the weather was a little rainy,

Which wasn't good for the vineyards wasn't good for the grapes.

But it was beautiful.

It just created so much more ambiance,

If you will.

And we got to go with our exchange son,

Lysander.

He drove us,

We had a chauffeur.

He was an amazing chauffeur and tour guide and drove us to the towns around his village.

We went to Eponais,

We went to Reims,

We went to Troyes,

Which is a medieval town that my spouse is his family,

His descends from.

But what was amazing,

And this is the story,

The main story I want to share with you all.

What was amazing is how much we were embraced by this family,

The extended family of friends.

And even though there was a bit of a language barrier,

We were able to communicate in so many wonderful ways by having champagne,

And food and drink and then asking questions of each other to share our cultures.

And to me,

That's part of what becoming enlightened is,

Is to ask the questions and to listen and to be observant,

To be observant.

Okay,

One one story.

So the Valley of Champagne,

Le Marne Valley is tons of vines,

Tons and tons of hectares or acres of vineyards.

And every once in a while,

You'll see a church,

A random church out in the middle of,

I'm thinking nowhere,

In the middle of the vineyards,

Or random house out in the middle of the vineyards.

And so we asked about that,

And they said,

Well,

That is the last remaining building of the small village that was there before it was bombed in World War One.

And so this country that had two world wars,

Well,

And other wars,

Within their country where there was loss of life,

Loss of housing,

Loss of food,

Just then put more vines in created more life.

And just,

They just strike me as so tenacious and persevering and not.

Well,

This particular family was that they're,

They're great grandfathers.

There were three of them that were friends from the small village that went to that were involved in World War Two and came back and so the families are very,

Very tight.

And the reason that they don't hold animosity toward the Germans,

Because as it was explained to us,

It was,

It wasn't necessarily the particular German men hating the French,

It was,

They were soldiers and they were doing what they were told to do,

Just like the French were doing what they were told to do,

Or the Americans.

And to be in that region of history so rich,

Going back to the Roman times,

Actually,

Was fascinating to me because I'm a student of history,

Especially American and European history.

But so we were there over the Fourth of July this year.

And on that day,

The family and extended family and friends went on a riverboat ride on the Marne,

The river Marne,

And,

And it was a two story riverboat,

Fabulous,

Gorgeous day.

And we were upstairs on the top.

So we're on the top level of this riverboat,

And enjoying the day,

Enjoying champagne,

Enjoying French food,

Oh my gosh,

Enjoying conversations with people as we were speaking broken English or French and communicating really well.

And then a thunderstorm came in rapidly,

And everybody looked up and there there it was,

And then all of a sudden,

It was on us and just raining,

Raining,

Raining.

And so those of us that were upstairs,

We got under this canopy.

So there was about 20 of us under this canopy trying to stay dry.

And of course,

We didn't stay dry.

It was pouring rain,

It was dumping buckets.

But as we were under there,

Some of the men,

The French men started humming the American Anthem.

And my my spouse,

Kevin has a beautiful voice.

And so he's saying the American Anthem.

And everybody got very quiet.

And afterwards,

It was just beautiful.

I'm gonna cry.

But anyway.

So a man,

One of the Frenchmen that we hadn't spoken to turns to us and says,

You're American,

We start talking with the help of a couple of other French people translating.

And he finds out that my spouse was in the Navy for 20 years.

And he shows him a ring that's on his finger,

The French man,

Did you did that?

I think that's how you pronounce his name.

And so it was a ring that had an American Eagle on it,

And the eagle and its right claw was holding arrows,

Which is a symbol of war,

And it was looking at that side.

And in the other hand,

It had a banner and DD said that,

That he had found the ring or someone in his family had found the ring and he had kept it among other artifacts.

A lot of evidently,

I didn't realize a lot of the French have collected all sorts of paraphernalia and artifacts from World War One and World War Two.

This man,

DD had like 120 American vehicles that they then parade through a couple of the villages with that had had significant battles fought around them.

And he does reenactments like we do here about the Civil War.

And so as we're talking,

He takes his ring off and he starts handing it to to my spouse saying you take you take and we were overwhelmed because it was just overwhelming.

And Kevin kept saying,

No,

It's I can't take that from you.

It's priceless.

This you've had this,

You keep it.

And then he turned to me.

And he said,

You take you take and I realized he wasn't going to stop until one of us took the ring.

So I said,

Okay,

Daco held out my hand and he put the ring in my hand.

And as I closed it,

I burst into tears.

Because and I have chills now.

And this is the importance of the story.

Because what I realized is that there was a complete circle that had just closed.

And because I realized that my grandfather,

I remembered that my grandfather had been an officer in the Navy.

And Dita said that the ring had been founded Omaha Beach,

Which was part of the beaches,

What they named some of the beaches during the Normandy landing,

And offensive and my grandfather was one of the naval officers on one of the transport ships that that let the guys out to get on the beach or not,

As the case was.

And once I remembered that it felt like a whole circle had closed.

Isn't that incredible?

So here's the ring.

And for me,

It represents family history,

Ancestral history.

And for this sweet,

Generous,

Gruff man,

To gift this to me,

I feel like I have accepted a piece of my history back.

Isn't that incredible?

So I felt it important to share this story to inspire you to become enlightened by learning about other cultures.

Not just your culture,

But other cultures,

Because we are people of the world now.

And having gone through this pandemic globally,

I think it's important to begin to go reach out travel,

However you want to do this to other places that you've never been.

And being open hearted,

Like I talk about all the time,

And open minded,

To observe,

To learn,

To listen,

To witness a different culture.

Because that's how we become global citizens in traveling and respecting each other.

And this includes going to different states in the United States,

Because each state does have its own kind of culture,

Just like every region of France has its own different culture,

Slightly.

So yeah,

That's my personal story I wanted to share with all of you.

And before I close,

I want to read this quote.

It's from L.

R.

Nost.

I don't know who that person is,

But the quote kind of fits.

Go figure.

Life is amazing,

And then it's awful,

And then it's amazing again.

And in between the amazing and awful,

It's ordinary and mundane and routine.

Breathe in the amazing,

Hold on through the awful,

And relax and exhale during the ordinary.

That's just living,

Heartbreaking,

Soul healing,

Amazing,

Awful,

Ordinary life.

And it's breathtakingly beautiful.

And that was my experience traveling right after the pandemic.

Heart opening.

Definitely.

Give it a try.

And thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you everyone that's been downloading the podcast.

We crested 3,

000 downloads,

Uploads,

Whatever they are.

And I thank you all for listening.

I thank you all for following me.

I thank you all for engaging in the guided meditations that are on the Insight Timer app.

I know that they create value.

So thank you.

And that's it.

Yeah.

And so it is,

Namaste.