A Book of French Poems by M. Mitre

Opening the closet door I found 2 Cents and decided it meant I am doing God's work.

I am sitting outside a white tent.  Inside, there are dozens of vendors selling books on covered tables.  Even with a language I haven’t grabbed well enough to read easily in, I still want to buy books.  Oh yeah, and I did.  It was a book of poems by an old man named Philippe Mitre who was just great to talk to—if you can call what I try to do talking. 

I’ve been studying French in a memorize vocab / listen and repeat way for a little over an hour a day, which is a terrible (behaviorist for you education folks reading) way to learn but the best at avoiding embarrassment and easiest to do while lying in bed alone.  Just a few minutes ago though I was able to ask a question with the verb “admirer” (guess what that means?) I was saying ten thousand times yesterday while writing its 14 tenses carefully in a blue notebook.

Qui admirez-vous?  [confused look]  pour leurs poemes [ahhhhh!....(mostly unintelligible except for the names)].  This is how I create French learning opportunities through interaction (the interactionist approach—thank you for the back pat).  Though I could only understand a little bit, I felt good about trying to have a conversation with a man who wanted to talk to me, or sell me his book, but whatever, now I’m outside and writing this and thinking of new things I could have said to him or will say to him tomorrow. 

Maybe tonight I will create a fake conversation and make Megan dress like him, putting on the one suit I have angled in the closet.  She will smile and point to a book on the table, which will be his/hers, and say “you can look through” but in French, and I will have to say, “Oh yes, I really like poetry and think that you are really cool because you have a book in front of you and look nice, and maybe after this whole thing is over we can go get a beer, or wine, if that is more your thing, and the peanuts or smoked sausage they bring is all yours, or if you’re trying to watch your salt intake because your old I can have a few, thanks, and the way you’ve just signed your name in the book is awesome, so we can go? oh you have a few more hours here, that’s fine, maybe I will just stand, over there, by the decorative tree and think great thoughts about the power of language and something religious about birds, or something?  You’re the best, I love you, I’ll sleep next to the wall tonight because I know you get claustrophobic.”

I didn’t end up engaging conversation the day after, but I saw him though, talking with his hands in a way I knew meant great things.