With the exception of one overnight frost and two furious days of 60+ mph winds, November just kept truckin' along with what I think of as early autumn weather and vibe. Everyone is in jackets and scarves, but a sunny afternoon easily hits 70F. Outdoor cafe seating is full, there are still flowers growing, and I just walked by a dude splashing around in the ocean without a wetsuit.
After satisfactorily passing my midterms, I stuck my neck out and went on my first new-friend date. Catherine is French and lived with her American husband in San Francisco for twenty years. She arrived speaking no English and remembers well her confusion and fatigue, and thus sympathizes with me. We met at her studio for lunch and she showed me her current projects including collages and manipulating different kinds of leather to encase objects -- bones, driftwood, rocks.
Every November, La Rochelle hosts an international adventure film festival, a superabundance of independent documentaries about all kinds of outdoor pursuits. My favorite was about a surf club in Liberia that functions as a community center and local economic engine, and organizes group therapy for former child soldiers. Q&A with the directors after each film was fun because they're all basically ski bums who channel their drive to seek good powder into a passion for storytelling.
The other amazing thing about November was my reacquaintance with roast chicken. Here, even the humble bargain legs in styrofoam at the supermarket are perfect: they have not been saturated with saline and are therefore dry; they don't piss a bunch of flavorless liquid into the pan, so you can roast your veggies together with the chicken and get caramelized nuggets of root vegetable. This almost makes up for the three times and counting I've visited the government office to try to obtain a social security number.
