a nest in aix

Where to start, hmmm…. I am half French Canadian from my father’s side. I have always tried to keep up my French despite my British mother’s attempts for me to be an Anglo-Saxon. So French has been my second language but more than half of my cultural experience has been French. I was born in Quebec, Quebec, and then livied in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, until my late twenties. I have always considered having a second language as a gift and learnt to appreciate it more when I started to travel around the world. Living and raising my children in the US I have made a great effort to give this gift to them. This desire and good fortune brought us to Aix en Provence, France, for a school year (2009-10) of French immersion. This would solidify all my efforts, I hoped! Claire went at age 12 in what would be seventh grade or “6iéme” in a “College” and Céleste at age 6 in kindergarten or “Grande Maternelle” in an ”École Primaire” in France.

My husband Paul and I brought our own work there. He can work wherever he is as long as he is connected to wifi, skype, and mobile service and has access to an international airport. I assist by doing administrative and book keeping work. This can be a disadvantage because work follows him everywhere he goes and an advantage because we can live anywhere, Plainfield or Aix! I felt compelled to take advantage of the latter. So, off we went, after many, many, many details had to be sorted out to leave and then get settled once there. The French love paperwork and somehow I managed to get most of it done and flatter the right people along the way.

One of my real professions is as a photographer although I can never seem to make money at it.  I have an MFA in photography and have had many years of practice, that would be twenty plus. I took thousands of photographs while in Aix thanks to digital photography. Editing through them posed a daunting challenge. I had to sift through tons of family snap shots, tourist pictures, architectural details and beautiful landscapes,both rural and urban, to find what I hope gives you a glimpse into our huge family adventure and into my artistic endeavor to capture it through the digital photographic medium.

Voila! by cynthia poirier dileo