The French Part of My Brain

A funny thing happened when we were having lunch at the home of our friends Sylvie and Jean-Eric.  It had been the usual five or six hour meal, all in French.  Then Sylvie’s nephew Laurent came by to pick up his eight-month-old baby, who Sylvie had been watching for the day.

Laurent gathered up the baby gear and was just leaving when Sylvie noticed that he had forgotten the baby’s bottle.  She called out to him – “tu a oublié le biberon !”  I didn’t know the French word for baby bottle (biberon) so I asked her to repeat it.  She did, and then asked me what it was called in English.

I drew a total blank.  I could see it in Laurent’s hand but for the life of me I couldn’t think of what it was called.  I had completely lost my English vocabulary.  After a long and embarrassing pause, I finally came up with “bottle” and we moved on. 

It’s a little like when I read Le Monde and later Val asks me what was in the news.  Darned if I can remember.  It’s as if there are two parts of my brain – French and English – and I can’t connect the two.

So during the lunch with Sylvie, I was in the French part of my brain, and it was a struggle to find my way to the English part.  And when Val asks the English part of my brain what it read earlier in French, it has trouble getting there.

Since I spend most of my time with the English part of my brain, I thought it would be interesting to try to explore the French part.  Kind of like spelunking, but without the goofy headlamps.  Who knows what I might find there?  Maybe I’m actually suave and sophisticated!

Unfortunately, it turns out that the French part of my brain is filled with the same kinds of useless crap that is piled up all over the English part, like the starting lineup of the 1972 Oakland A’s (“Batting fourth and playing first base, Mike Epstein!”)

As I poked around the dark recesses of my French brain, I found various bits of historical trivia, like the Edict of Nantes (a big hit with the Huguenots.)  And favorite literary passages (“Je suis né dans la ville d’Aubagne…”)  And, of course, obscure French wine grapes (Fer Servadou, anyone?)  Plus I found some parking tickets from Avignon that I don’t think I’ve paid yet.

I am still looking for naughty pictures of Brigitte Bardot but no luck so far.

KVS