Connections

Next month we are all going to France again. David has a business trip for three weeks, and we decided that was far too long to be apart. So the kids and I are going over to be with him during the middle week. The first week he will be in Poitiers, in western France. Then we join him in Paris (along with my mom) before we all go down to Montpellier in the south of France, for a week. None of us has ever been to Poitiers or Montpellier before. The kids and my mom and I go home when David heads off to Munich, Germany, for his final leg of the trip.

I took the kids to the park tonight. We all rode our bikes. Whom should we meet but a lovely French family whose son was in a community dance class with Emily a few months ago. They have four children, ages 10 down to 9 months. I adored listening to their French chatter and understanding every word. I felt a bit like an eavesdropper, though. I eventually started up a conversation with the son to check he was indeed the one from Emily's class, and via that channel met the parents and revealed my francophone background. The other connections we discovered were amazing to me. The father is from Poitiers and the mother is from Montpellier. The father's name is the same as the main character in the French movie we watched last night. And it's not something common like Jean or Jacques.