The country of 246 varieties of cheese

Well, that's how Charles de Gaulle described France, but the number of cheeses has since then grown to over 1000, imagine that...but that's another story...and another post...

Believe it or not but next week I'll be, God willing, on my way to France. It still seems like a dream for me which will hopefully come true when I sit on the plane and land in the City of Lights. A dream because I constantly fantasise about France and all things French.

I've been thinking lately about how it all began, this obsession with France and French. Like most things in life, it sort of began, as we say in Croatian, bez veze or for very little reason at all. I was in Year 10, and I had to choose a subject to 'fill in' my curriculum. So I chose French. I think it was because I really liked the teacher. She had taught me English for a couple of years and was really quite hip for a 60-odd year old. She told the best anecdotes ever and had a knack for making English and any subject she taught seem alive (she was a director in a theatre at one stage and I'll never forget her anecdote about Shakespeare and "an union". Well, in old English, they used to say "an union" which, when you think about it, is more correct than "a union". But because this is not the case nowadays, the actors would constantly make the faux pas of saying "an onion". It's really quite easy to make Shakespeare accessible to a hormone-ridden teenager when you think about it :). It was a year after I had lost my dad and she was just the kind of teacher I needed - someone to inspire me and make me feel alive after feeling a bit dead for a while.

So, I studied French for a year and started to think about the HSC (Years 11 and 12). And I thought, well, I did pretty well at French this year, why not go for it? So I did. Then I started thinking about uni.

I knew I wanted to study music, that was the do all and end all for me, but in Australia you have to study 4 subjects during your first year, 3 in your next and 2 in your last for your Bachelor of Arts. Or at least some combination of that. So I thought about a double major in music and theatre studies, they seemed to complement eachother and I could work in opera or musicals. I also chose to study French and Russian in my first year. Well, I was a total and utter flop at theatre studies, had absolutely no talent whatsover for acting, was just horrible at it and was now at an odds as to what to do. I had a bit of a background in French, none at all in Russian, so I again went for the French. And that's how I completed a double major in Music and French.

Since then my fascination with France and all things French has grown from strength to strength. I've visited Paris 4 times now and started going to the Alliance Francaise 6 years ago for French lessons. And I recently discovered where this fascination may stem from. It might not be so 'bez veze' after all. You see, my father's side of the family, the Crnkovics, were Croatian nobility through marriage to the Frankopan family during the 17th century. At one stage, a member of the family, Ivan Crnkovic, moved to France under the name of Jean de Noir (Crn in Croatian means black or in French noir). Unfortunately, most of the family were killed during the French revolution and existing members fled to Italy under the guise of - wait for it - de Niro (could Robert be a long lost cousin???). One member returned to France when Napolean came to power but died in the Russian campaign. His wife then moved to Croatia.

I have to say that when I read this on Wikipedia, I was pretty bloody spooked. I had gone to Catholic schools all my life so I believed in eternal life - eternal heaven and eternal damnation. But suddenly I thought, could eternal life mean something else? Could eternal life mean something other than a place up in the clouds or a fire infested hole, rather, the soul passing from one generation to the next, from one family member to the next one? Why are we so drawn to the people, things, music, books, etc. that we are? Could these all be from the past lives we have led? We'll probably never have the answers to those questions but it sure does make for interesting thinking and pondering...

'Til next time take care,
The Knitting Songbird

PS I have to admit that thinking about eternal life and what it's all about has not shaken my faith in God and Jesus Christ. However, I have to admit, it does sadden me to see where Christianity has gone to since that humble Man from Nazareth, born in a stable, was on this earth among us. Many of us have since forgotten to "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." But I still have hope for humanity and think that we will all come to realise what is really important in this life, that l'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.