It’s rosé season and I’m here for it| Karbohemia
In my renovation fantasy, we would continue to live in the exquisite and exquisitely small apartment in the centre ville until the refaire of the Ugly House was completed—light fixtures installed, molding painted, floors finished—but that would mean paying both rent and a mortgage, something we couldn’t afford. But before we could move into the ground floor, or, as we would come to think of it, Married Student Housing, we needed to buy a bed.| Karbohemia
Our September Come to Your Senses retreats here in Collioure are now behind us. Our writers arrived without a hitch (thank God) — rested relaxed, opened their minds and senses, enjoyed spectacular food, and viewed their writing through a fresh lens. Because even in a magic village in France, life is still life, there were a few glitches. Someone lost her luggage (or rather, KLM did), someone got lost in the vineyards (yes, we found her) and more than one person survived an impressively larg...| Karbohemia
Looking forward to a life-changing experience? One that transforms your writing as well as your sense of yourself as a writer? That’s fun and relaxing, but also meaningful and soul-stirring? That puts your merciless day-to-day slog on hold so you can take a breath? That lowers your cortisol levels, boosts your immune system, improves your well-being, and upgrades your Instagram feed? (Serious, you should see the light here.)| Karbohemia
We just put the last retreat participants in a taxi, headed to the train station in Perpignan. Our 2021 Come to Your Senses writers could not have been a more lovely group of humans. They could not have written with more courage, sensitivity, and humor. They wrote about: growing up in the Caribbean; attending a “scream-camp” in Germany; the disappointment of receiving an “Infant of Prague” baby Jesus statue for Christmas as a child; their troubled mothers, their ridiculous fathers, th...| Karbohemia
Before I moved to France in May 2019, everyone said, “In a year you’ll be fluent!” It is now August 2021, and I’m not talking pretty yet. I have good days, when I’m able to string together three or four sentences, and I can say “Beh oui!” and shrug and roll out my lip comme un pro, but I’m not even fluent-adjacent. You could say I’m conversational, if the conversation is with a friendly dog.| Karbohemia
No one knows how to vacation better than the French. Unlike the Spanish and the Italians, who are sort of always half-vacationing, the French work hard during non-holiday/non-vacation times. They would never admit this. If you were dangling a Frenchman over a cliff by his ankles, demanding in your high-school French that he fess up to working as hard as any American, he would rather take his chances, counting on his beret to cushion his fall. (I jest: no French person I know wears a beret, no...| Karbohemia
France has been “reconfined” since October 30, four days before the American election. This lockdown is less strict than the first; the French government was trying to find the sweet spot between decimating the economy and allowing the virus to rampage unchecked. “Nonessential” businesses are closed, but, fortunately for us, the government has decided that Leroy Merlin (pronounced Luh-roi-mare-lan), the French cousin of Home Depot, and the city dump are considered essential, and so th...| Karbohemia
There is a lot of renovating work that just isn’t that interesting. I could pretend it was fascinating, posting some well-lit close-ups of struts and joists, but I’m too lazy even to figure out what these words are in French, so best to indulge in an interlude.| Karbohemia
There comes a moment during every remodel when you need to make a concrete decision. No more flapping your hand into space saying, “I know we can’t re-create Coco Chanel’s suite at the Ritz, but what about a tribute room?” or, “Let’s just have a loft — crumbling Catalan abode on the outside, dynamic international live/work space on the inside!” or, “Why not a fireman’s pole?” All that scheming and dreaming is over, and you’ve got to decide on stuff that will never chan...| Karbohemia
Come to your senses – and your writing.| Karbohemia