Let French Ring

I am so heartsick about the bombings in Paris that occurred on Friday. I know many other countries deal with such atrocities even more consistently than Paris, and of course, my heart goes out to them as well, but I have always felt such a connection to and admiration for Paris. It is indeed a city of dreams, be they romanticized or realistic. I lived there as a young woman, and have returned whenever I can manage it. As Ernest Hemingway said: "If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast." I have two "Parisian Moms" to whom I dedicated my first novel, one who lives here in California, and one who now lives in Toulouse but happened to be in Paris when the attacks occurred. They were the first I reached out to after the terrible news started trickling in. 

Paris is an old, old city. It has survived so many atrocities, the Nazi occupation comes to mind, but still Paris remains a place where intellect, freedom, beauty, art, history, all are revered. There, now,  the word is that the biggest act of resistance they can enact is to continue to live their lives in the way they always have, working and playing in the light, never cowering in the shadows, to embrace their very special version of joie de vivre that the world loves them for, that makes them French.

I wrote this piece for a local paper in 2007 when Bush called France "ungrateful" and "cowardly" for not backing him on the invasion of Iraq. He said we should remove French from our lexicon, though Bush would not have used that word exactly. So I wrote this piece as satire, and today, it seems a good time to bring it out again. Vive La France!

“Let French Ring”

By: Jill Koenigsdorf

            It was a beautiful spring day and the sunlight was streaming in through the glass of my Freedom Doors and the fragrance of Freedom Lilacs was wafting into the kitchen.  My boyfriend and I only moments before had exchanged deep and lingeringFreedom kisses, and he was now out back, thinning the Freedom Ivy while I ground some Freedom Roast.  Birds were chirping, spring fashion was arriving at the malls, much of it designed by big-name Freedom designers from abroad, and, except for a pesky couple of million scofflaws and naysayers who had been protesting this “war on our terms,” (most of them probably foreigners,) one could almost believe that all was right with the world.  Perhaps, in a swift and forceful way, a way that would harm nary an Iraqi civilian nor a U.S. GI, a way that would both “shock and awe,”  America could, at long last, open blind eyes around the globe to the joys of democracy.   Democracy by any means necessary! Why in God’s name wasn’t EVERYONE on board with us?  I always thought the Pope was just automatically patriotic, but no! Heck, all great nations have been colonizers at one time or another, why were we getting so much flack for it now? The road to liberty is never without its bumps, I thought, spritzing a little Freedom perfume on my wrist.   The country of Turkey not wanting to be a launching pad, I could maybe understand, but I was truly baffled by the Gaul’s lack of team spirit in this America-at-War thing. 

I have always been a Freedomphile, to the point where I wore a beret in high school and wrote many college papers on topics ranging from: “The Freedom Resistance Movement in World War II” to “The Freedom Surrealist Movement in Paris in the 1920’s” to  “Freedom New Wave Cinema in the Sixties.”  I knew that those Gauls had given us everything from the Chevrolet, to the Statue of Liberty to a virtual blueprint for our Declaration of Independence to the invention of the MOVIES, for goshsakes, so I was saddened by the lack of the ole liberté, fraternité, and egalité they were exhibiting now!   Sure they were America’s friends and friends should be able to tell you when you’re making mistakes, but as Our Leader, or maybe it was someone else, once said: “Yer either fer us or agin’ us.” 

When my boyfriend came back inside and saw the state I was in, he put on a lovely classical  c.d. and soon the soothing strains of Freedom Horn and Freedom Harp filled the house.  We engaged in some more deep, soulful Freedom kisses to the point where I had to say “Honey, we’re going to have to unwrap a Freedom envelope tout suite if we don’t stop or conception will  certainly occur!”   We agreed to take the proverbial cold shower, and certainly all the news of war put a damper on any thoughts of romance.  We read the Sunday paper with heavy hearts, as it was filled with the grainy images the all powerful had allowed the embedded press to publish, fuzzy images of tanks in sandstorms and buildings obscured behind clouds of black smoke and a blur of white flags. It was all such a downer!  But as I poured some good old Canadian maple syrup on my Freedom toast, I thought to myself, hey, relax, congress would never have approved a war budget of eighty BILLION dollars unless they had confidence in our president’s motives and foresight.  So who was I to worry? “Ours is not to question why/Ours is but to do or die.”  Maybe the President said that one too and I must say, blind faith is certainly a lot less taxing for most folks in the long haul!

“Honey,” I said to the boyfriend, topping off his Freedom Roast, I thought I’d make Freedom Onion Soup with Freedom Fries and Freedom Dip for supper, can you swing by the grocery store?”

“Sure thing,” he said.

“Just pick out a nice bottle of Freedom wine you think would go with that menu.  And please stop by the Freedom Laundry for your shirts on the way.   Oh! And we’re also out of Freedom Dressing.”

He looked so sweet, yet slightly weary driving off to market.  No, this war was not going to be easy on any of us.  Sure, here we have clean drinking water and electricity and shelter and are not being invaded, but psychologically, it’s taking its toll.  And the hassle at the airports!  But I just know this one’s going to be an easy-in/easy-out type situation, because if we learned just one thing from that Vietnam thing, that would be: “keep it short, cut your losses, and bail.”  As I squirted some Joy into the sink, I told myself not be be such a Gloomy Gus.  I recalled one day long ago being upset that one girl didn’t want to come to my birthday party.  My mother hugged me and said: “Now Dearie, you can’t be EVERYONE’S best friend!” And I guess that’s sort of what America has to remember now: you can’t please ALL the people, ALL the time, and there will always be some party-poopers, both on the homefront and abroad.   Still, it was too bad about France.  I’d always liked that place.  We were planning a trip there this summer and, after much agonizing, had decided to go ahead with it, war or no war.  Maybe we could even act as ambassadors of a sort, show them we’re NOT that stereotype of the “Ugly American.”  I began to get excited about my mission: to teach, not to condemn.  But to do that, I knew I’d have to speak their language, at least a little bit.  I have to say I was somewhat amazed that no where in my entire Yellow Pages did I see a listing for what I needed: Freedom Lessons.