Good friends are as rare as good wine, especially if they are made in Paris. Some of us knew one another back home in Texas, but the real bonding began at the Paris-American Academy the summer of 1991.
Our common denominator was a love of the arts and a need to survive. Carmen spoke fluent French, having studied art at the Academy for nearly twenty years; Bettye could survive in French and originated the creative writing course at the Academy; Joyce salvaged enough college French to be self-sufficient studying art history and poetry; Pat could s'il vous plait with the best of them but she was never without her dictionary as she mapped her way through every museum, and chateau in France; Peggy did none of the above, but she wrote love poems by the hundreds, dreamed enough dreams to fill a book, and was the glue that held us all together.
Carmen hasn't figured out yet how a New Yorker became so inundated by Texans in a foreign country. The answer was simple: we needed her brain and she needed our laughter. We were made for each other.
Carmen was better than a guide book - she was the Queen of French Trivia. She plotted our adventures, organized our forays into the French countryside, rented our cars, bargained for rooms, translated menus, held our hands on the awesome RER, and cajoled us to try it all Joyce, Pat, and Peggy stuck to her like cockleburs to a sock top.
Bettye was a free spirit, who kept us writing prose and poetry with her ingenious methods, and then arranged for readings of our work at heady places like Val de Grace, Shakespeare and Co, Motel, and her own Soirees, attended by the Paris Literary Scene. We shared apartments, beds, clothes, food, money, joys, problems, and Paris in the heat and in the rain.Since that first summer in Paris, the five of us have met on far-flung retreats in Puerto Rico, New York, Houston, Galveston, Austin, and of course, more summers together in Paris. We are vintage now rooted in the heart forever.
Our common denominator was a love of the arts and a need to survive. Carmen spoke fluent French, having studied art at the Academy for nearly twenty years; Bettye could survive in French and originated the creative writing course at the Academy; Joyce salvaged enough college French to be self-sufficient studying art history and poetry; Pat could s'il vous plait with the best of them but she was never without her dictionary as she mapped her way through every museum, and chateau in France; Peggy did none of the above, but she wrote love poems by the hundreds, dreamed enough dreams to fill a book, and was the glue that held us all together.
Carmen hasn't figured out yet how a New Yorker became so inundated by Texans in a foreign country. The answer was simple: we needed her brain and she needed our laughter. We were made for each other.
Carmen was better than a guide book - she was the Queen of French Trivia. She plotted our adventures, organized our forays into the French countryside, rented our cars, bargained for rooms, translated menus, held our hands on the awesome RER, and cajoled us to try it all Joyce, Pat, and Peggy stuck to her like cockleburs to a sock top.
Bettye was a free spirit, who kept us writing prose and poetry with her ingenious methods, and then arranged for readings of our work at heady places like Val de Grace, Shakespeare and Co, Motel, and her own Soirees, attended by the Paris Literary Scene. We shared apartments, beds, clothes, food, money, joys, problems, and Paris in the heat and in the rain.Since that first summer in Paris, the five of us have met on far-flung retreats in Puerto Rico, New York, Houston, Galveston, Austin, and of course, more summers together in Paris. We are vintage now rooted in the heart forever.
