I’ve just come back from a wedding in France. Weddings are few and far between in my culture - me, born of an eccentric and some would say Bohemian mother, and my family scattered all over the globe. So it was with great excitement that I, with my family, headed off into France to be a part of the celebrations, which went on for three days. We all had a great time. My cousin Alexander born and bred and New York City has married a woman named Delphine who comes from the Argonne. It was a thoroughly French wedding and a brand new cultural experience for me, especially when the ceremony involved reading some very particular sections of the French civil code, which basically boiled down to: ‘You better look after your own children’s moral physical welfare and educations because the French Government sure as hell won’t’. It was actually their second wedding. The first one was in Manhattan.

 

Nevertheless, the Manhattan branch of the family flew in, as did a number of friends from the US. We happened to be staying in a village where there was a festival of pigs’ trotters this very weekend. Ironic really, even for a secularised Jewish family like ours.

 

France is ever more enticing for me though; after two or three days I begin to get attuned to the language and my A level French starts to come into its own. I love speaking the language once I get over the initial fear of sounding stupid. Two things about France I love: the bread and the lettuce. Fantastic lettuce.

 

Most of my family were staying in a single hotel and we had the joy of eating breakfast together in the downstairs restaurant. Made me think a great deal about the scattered tribe. Here we were, coming together for this rare event and it was lovely. There is so much to be said for the extended family. Of course there are always problems in any family, but in a large one, difficulties can be spread and absorbed and diluted and there’s always someone on hand to help.

 

It was a good time to go away, having just completed my thirty-poem marathon and feeling thoroughly pooped. I must say that on some level I obviously regard poetry as an indulgence because I never really think of it as work. It’s only when I stop doing it that I suddenly realise that it IS work and it IS hard and it DOES make me tired. This weekend was a reminder of that. Even a wedding several hundred miles away, not much sleep, a lot of traveling and the kids to look after area all a piece of cake compared to writing poetry. I’ve certainly returned feeling less tired than when I left, and there’s a vast slab of wonderful cheese in the fridge too.

 

I never did try one of those pig’s trotters though.