My American Dream: Finding Its Way

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Brooklyn vs. Rochester

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

Someone I knew from New York City wrote to me yesterday with what seemed to be a snickering attitude.  

“What, Rochester?” he wrote, implying “Where the heck is that?” I can’t condemn him, I’ve had the same attitude, and still do, just a little.

I’ve lived near New York City, and the immense range of activity it offers, most of my life. Then, starting six years ago, I began a series of moves to places with a ton of caché: Mystic, Connecticut, then Paris and Barcelona. Then I fulfilled a life-long dream and moved into NYC itself: the Upper East Side of Manhattan (for two months), and Brooklyn (for four years). Brooklyn in its own right is such a storied city. I saw baseball caps with “Brooklyn” on them in France and Spain.

How Can I Search for the American Dream Here?

Where the heck, on the other hand, is Rochester? The downtown has two tall buildings and is dead at night. There is a more lively neighborhood of cafes and restaurants known as the Park Avenue neighborhood, and I’m searching for an apartment in it. But even that neighborhood doesn’t seem to have much “there” there, not after the electromagnetic force of Brooklyn.

I must suspend judgment of Rochester as a city, as a venue for the arts, as a place that fosters my creative inspiration, until the pandemic eases. It won’t feel like home until ballroom dancing resumes, and the theater group I want to be involved in (as a mere set painter, not as the superstar that I, in reality, am) springs into action again, and the Wild About Writing circle can meet in person. And in Rochester, I will be able to afford to hear live classical music regularly at the Eastman School of Music! Carnegie Hall was beyond my reach. 

I'm a snob

I do miss Brooklyn. Not so much living there, because life was tough, overwhelmed by tons of stressed-out strangers in a brick, asphalt, chain-link, and razor-wire jungle. But I miss being FROM there. I wrote on my Amazon author profile that I’m a writer who lived in Paris, Barcelona, and now Brooklyn. Those place-names have caché. I’m a sucker for caché. I’m a location snob, I admit it. 

“Rochester, New York” has ZERO cache. But maybe it should have a little. It is a unique epicenter of social justice. Harriet Tubman lived near here. Frederick Douglass lived here, wrote here, and delivered his famous speech here, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?", delivered on July 5, 1852, addressing the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society.  Women’s rights were championed by women in this area, notably Susan B. Anthony, who lived and wrote in Rochester. Another example of social compassion: Rochester Institute of Technology has a nationally recognized center for deaf students.

 
Brooklyn's advantages

Brooklyn had advantages. I could choose all kinds of organic fruits and vegetables at the Flatbush Food Coop, a 10-minute walk. I can’t find that variety here, and you have to drive to the grocery store. I could walk to three Indian restaurants, three Mexican, two burger joints. I could have lavender lattés at Café Madeline. I don’t know of a café in Rochester that has even dreamed of serving them. Prospect Park, with world-class design, was a 10-minute walk. 

In Brooklyn I lived near three international airports that could take me on direct flights to friends in France or family in small cities like Asheville, NC, Providence, RI, or Rochester, NY. I could easily grab a bus to visit family in Bethlehem, PA. I could easily take the train to Fire Island or to the Jersey Shore. Now that I’m in Rochester, I’m closer to one part of my family but have bigger hurdles to overcome to get to the rest. And getting to the Atlantic Ocean is a huge undertaking.

In Brooklyn, I felt I was in the center of the world. On Ocean Avenue, during my quarter-mile walk to do my laundry, I heard voices from Pakistan, Liberia, Panama, Jamaica, Barbados, Senegal, Kazakhstan. At any given moment on Church Avenue, I could make videos for my little grandson of trucks of every shape and size and function, and long, articulated city buses. 

Rochester contrasts

Here at this house in Rochester, it’s quiet. Once a week a garbage truck goes by. But I can do my laundry downstairs instead of trundling it a quarter of a mile each way.

There were other downsides to Brooklyn. In spite of my best efforts to build friendships and stay connected, I felt acutely alone. The streets felt dangerous. People were indifferent (of course they were, we were all strangers to each other). It broke my heart to see groups of young men hanging out, passing a joint, with tons of pent up energy and talent but lacking the education—and faced with racism in hiring practices—that prevented them from getting into a decent job, unleashing that talent, making a living wage, and making a contribution.  They could have run a company—or a country—but were trapped.

 
I felt a keen desperation in the atmosphere on the streets. I lived in a gentrifying neighborhood. As rents leapt upward, people were more and more worried about making rent that month. I could feel the anxiety in the air. So many people lived hand to mouth with no hope of a better life – and angry about that fact, and about the racism that locked them into this predicament, locked them out of the American Dream.

And then there was the dog poop. Many people did clean up after their dogs, but enough people didn’t that there was a hazard when out walking or pulling a cart full of laundry. I had to keep my eyes on the sidewalk. Which might have been just as well—looking at groups of young men passing a joint might get me in trouble, so I had to keep my eyes down anyway. Which I didn’t like. As an artist, I love to look around and notice things. I want to look at people and imagine their lives. In Brooklyn, that wasn’t wise to do because you might notice a crime. I really hated keeping my head down.

Starting over in Rochester

Here in this suburb of Rochester, I can smile and give a little wave to the people I pass when I’m out walking, and get one in return. We’re privileged to be living in a lovely neighborhood. I’ve nicknamed it “The Arboretum” because of the stately huge shade trees, and blooming trees, and shrubs. During the summer there were eight-foot-tall hydrangeas in some gardens, burgeoning with blossoms, exuding charm. 

So I’ll start life anew in Rochester.  I have to overcome my location snobbery and embrace the advantages this situation offers. One of them might be a sense of dislocation. Exile has proven to be good for my creativity in the past, especially in Paris and Barcelona, and it’s helping me again, I believe. 

I have discovered, to my joy, that I really love swimming in Lake Ontario. I thought the lake would never suffice, not after the joy of being in the Atlantic surf at Fire Island or the Jersey Shore. But the lake has its advantages—most days, it’s quiet enough for me to really swim without having to fear being inundated by breaking waves, as I would in the Atlantic. 

Also, in spite of the pandemic, I’ve made a new, in-person friend! She has put me in touch with working artists in the area, including a local set designer. I’m working on a novel about a set designer, so that interview will be very interesting! 

Brooklyn is a great place. I miss it, and I’m so relieved to be out of it.

How about you? Do you have mixed feelings about a place you used to live? Or that you live in now? Comment below! 

I'm in Paris! Still in Search of the American Dream--for Writers

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A Writer's Sabbatical in the City of Light

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I am in Paris again -- in a suburb just outside, actually, but much closer than I was in my apartment in Brooklyn! I'm here to do a short version--a three-week version--of the one-year creative writing sabbatical I did in Paris a few years ago.

The plan is to write much more of my new novel. Like last time, I'll do it in the historic libraries of Paris. My favorite from my one-year sabbatical, La Bibliotheque Historique de la Ville de Paris, is closed for renovation this summer. It was built in the 16th century and was knock-out beautiful. I was so sorry to read that it would be closed while I was in Paris this second time.

So I had to hunt for a new historic library. I found several!  I've selected three or four libraries I've never been to before--that I didn't know existed until I found this link: http://www.blog.welcome2france.com/10-of-the-most-beautiful-libraries-in-paris/

So I'll be writing a novel set in Brooklyn while luxuriating in the beauty of Paris. 

I'm not sure how well it's going to work. Brooklyn vs. Paris.  Grit and chain link fences versus charm and wrought-iron balconies. I hope this works!

But it's fantastic to pursue a writer's dream--doing more good work--while in the City of Light, so called, in part, because it's the capital city of the Enlightenment. I'm praying for lots of light to shine on the dark stuff I need to write about in order to write realistically and compellingly about Brooklyn.

I have some good news and some bad news about this trip so far.

I find that the French words and expressions that I painstakingly learned four years ago are coming back in full. This is very exciting. French is not the easiest language to learn, and I hated feeling like I had forgotten most of it.

I learned yesterday that it's still with me! It was taking a breather in the far recesses of my mind. It's still a little jumbled with Spanish, which I studied during my 3 months living in Barcelona. Yesterday I said, "muy bien" instead of "tres bien". But my French friends graciously smiled and carried on.

After chilling out with these friends and recovering from jetlag, I was supposed to go into Paris today with my lovely French friend and host, Christelle.

But in the days leading up to my flight to Paris, I neglected to do my daily back-strengthening exercises because I was too busy.

I'm paying the price. My back went out at noon today. Instead of a pique-nique in the Tuileries amidst flowers and grass, I am flat on my back with an icepack.

But it's a French icepack! And hopefully by tomorrow I will be feeling well enough to buy a baguette and un petit peu de fromage.

Yesterday,  before my back went out, I went for a walk in Christelle's town of Viroflay Rive Gauche and took a few pictures I'd like to share with you. They're of French houses (soon I will share with you the pictures I took at the Jersey shore of Victorian houses).

The orange stone is locally sourced. Isn't this home gorgeous? So solid -- it will last forever.

Another stone home behind gates.

This house has a circular window in the attic -- and the French have made shutters that exactly fit such windows! Clever!

Just beyond a wrought-iron gate are these steps to another French home.

Behind the gate, up the steps, into a solid, stone home.

This is a newer place. But the French love shutters and flowerboxes, so this home has both, as usual. I especially admire the lace panels behind the window.

Another home, a different type of lace panel.

This is what the home looks like, in full. A profusion of flowers.

Another beautiful lace panel. How about you? Do you want lace at your windows or something plain? Comment below!

Travel: Does it Expand Your World View?

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I Embedded in Paris in Search of the American Dream

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I saw a question online: “What are the top 10 places to travel to in 2019 to expand your world view?”

I’ve traveled quite a bit—more than I dreamt possible—but I wasn’t changed discernibly by two weeks in Italy or 10 days sailing in the British Virgin Islands.

But when I bought a one-way ticket to Paris, when I went there to live for a year in search of my American Dream of writing a very good novel, when I lived chez famille with a French woman and her two nieces, when I embedded in the language and the culture and knew that I couldn’t go home for at least one year—that changed me.

The vast distance from home—3,000 miles of ocean, and I couldn’t afford to jump on a plane to traverse it—made me homesick after the first month more deeply than I’d ever experienced. I could not return to the familiar faces and things of the States. I found it a bit distressing that everything was different in France, even the plastic wrap. It was tinted green and thinner than the stuff I was accustomed to. Fixtures in the bathroom, tiles, fabrics, the foods offered on the shelves, were all different.

Below: pictures from my life in Paris and more on embedding.

Driveways in the Paris suburbs are different than in the U.S. Ancient stone walls, for one.

Martine's niece Daphne, who taught me French and became a lifelong friend. She's visiting me in Brooklyn in May!

Statue of Charles DeGaulle outside the Metro.

I didn’t expect that. I had thought before I left, “France is a Western country, steeped in the Judeo-Christian mindset. I won’t be that much different from here.”

Wrong. And the distance from home, the inability to fly back for a quick fix, being embedded in a culture I found profoundly different, made big changes in me.

I was forced to redefine "home," and I could only find it within myself. And since I believe in a Higher Power, whom I choose to call Emmanuel, I had company in my home within myself.

I did not have to be defined by labels imposed by myself or others, like “American writer” or “mature woman” or “expat”—though I rather adored that expat label and did everything I could to remain an expat in Europe. See my blog post about how I ended up living in Barcelona here.

I felt free, with Emmanuel, to cultivate a childlike wonder about Paris, and all things French, and for how Emmanuel had orchestrated my life that I would end up here. Read how here.

The immersion in a culture vastly different from the U.S. made me see that we aren’t the center of the world. Other countries have much higher priorities than news from the U.S. Though we feature in their news much more than they do in ours.

My appreciation for the French deepened too. My landlady Martine and her two twenty-something nieces opened their hearts to me. It was unlike any experience I’ve had from American friends.

I learned, because I had the time to learn and to experience, which I wouldn’t have had if I had rushed around Paris for a brief vacation, that they have a different attitude toward life, work, family, friends, money. Most French, I think it’s safe to say, work in order to live, not live to work. They keenly value friends and family and aren’t willing to give up time with them for the sake of the Almighty Euro. I learned so much. Including that this orientation is changing, sadly, under the influence of the United States.

My worldview expanded when I lived in Paris because I realized that Putin’s tanks in the Crimea and Ukraine could conceivably roll all the way to me. News stories of suicide bombs in Israel and Palestine were scarier because those places were much, much closer. India was closer too. Many French go there for vacations, and it’s a much shorter flight than from New York. It’s doable.

The last worldview change that I experienced from living in Paris and Barcelona is that I’ve never felt at home in my own culture in the U.S. since. Martine had warned me that going back to my own culture would be the hardest part of having lived abroad.

Martine grew up in the Saumur region tending the vines and trodding the white grapes the region is famous for. She had dreamed of living and working abroad—and she made the dream come true. She lived in Kuwait, Malaysia, Burkino Fasa, and India. So, the Middle East, Asia, Africa and South Asia.

While I was embedded in her Paris home, Martine and her nieces taught me French expressions and cooking. We threw parties together. I cut beautiful loaves of crusty pain into baskets for guests to smear one of France’s 350 types of cheese upon.

I had all kinds of memorable experiences. Martine was an actress, and belted out Les Marseillais on Bastille Day, with a nice touch of irony, while the President of France marched with a brass band down Les Champs Elysees on her TV. I could hear her from out in her jardin. I would not have gotten that unforgettable experience if I’d floated into Paris for a look-see and floated out again.

She sold the beautiful house she had in Paris, the one I lived in for a year, and moved back to the Saumur region recently. In both homes, I hear her say she doesn’t feel at home.

I still recommend not just vacationing around a place but embedding there long-term. My answer to the title question is: anywhere that you embed is the best place for a permanent change of worldview! 

Two friends from my Paris Writers Circle

Everything was different in France. Coming from New York City, I marveled at how there were no right angle corners in Paris.

The flowers left in dismay after the Charlie Hebdo shooting. It was a taste from home--the U.S.--mass shootings and terrorism.

Some of the art left at the site.

Momentoes left in grief and shock. 

How about you? Where would you like to embed yourself and learn about the culture, language, and landscape? Comment below!

The Traveling Writer Went to France in Search of the American Dream

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Scenes from Paris, including Notre Dame

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

I love Europe. I want to explore it more.

I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to live in Paris for a year, on a creative writing sabbatical. It was beyond my wildest dreams. God turned the tables on me -- I had told myself a hundred times that I would never bother to visit Paris because Parisians didn't have the right attitude toward Americans. Then I found a book, described in my blog here, and ended up not just visiting Paris but LIVING there for a year. Exploring. Experiencing life with a French family (an aunt my age, and her two nieces).

I capitalized on that year to write The Paris Writers Circle. You can click on the book's cover in the right hand column of this blog to read reviews.

I was a big fan of New York City when I moved to Paris. Paris was going to have to work hard to capture a place in my heart. 

Somehow, it managed.

I fell in love with Paris and with Paris doors. There were so many, as beautiful or more beautiful than this one. Feel the history oozing from it and from the surround. Generations have passed through the door, living their Parisian lives.

I do know that Paris is not anywhere near as energetic as New York City. Barcelona is getting there, though. It's a hub of design and entrepreneurship. Pics and stories about my Catalan family in my blog here. I've heard London is full of energy, but I haven't been there in 40 years : (

Paying 70% of their salaries in taxes, and being guaranteed a retirement income, I believe, is a disincentive for Parisians to do the manic level of hard work that I intuit New Yorkers are doing. 

Also, France and other European countries are older, and have more history, which means more history of national mistakes and abuses, which dampens patriotic enthusiasm perhaps.

But Europe exhibits the glories of the Roman Empire and gives us the glories of centuries of excellence in the arts, most of it nurtured by Christianity, I might add. Europe gave us Bach, Mozart, Vivaldi, Palestrina, Paganini, Verdi, Beethoven, Saint Saens. To name a tiny portion of the whole.

Europe fostered and gave us the Pieta, the paintings of scenes from the life of Jesus that still stop us in our tracks, the glories of the Vatican, the statues of David and Mary Magdalene and John the Baptist.

And gave us churches and cathedrals, tons of them. Soaring ceilings, sculptures in stone, carvings of wood, stained glass. Incredible achievements of design, engineering and construction.

We in the United States are all blessed by Europe and the incredible hotbed of creativity it once was and that I hope it will be again.

The rose window of Notre Dame.

It's gorgeous from every angle.

This is the nave, a tiny portion of the cathedral.

I could look at it all day.

On the place outside Notre Dame, tourists mill while guarded by the gendarmerie.

An Audrey Hepburn look-alike thinks this horse is pretty cool.

Then she wonders off into Paris, dressed for breakfast at the King George V. How about you? Do you love Europe too? Crazy about Paris? Comment below!

Robbed in Barcelona, while in Search of the American Dream

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What the Traveling Writer Endures while in Search of the American Dream

By Norma Jaeger Hopcraft

This week, we're back to Barcelona, where I lived for 3 months as a nanny in order to extend my one-year creative writing sabbatical.

Today I tell you the story of how I was robbed on the stairs you see directly below. I was sitting on the stairs leading up to the right--a mistake, since it was out of view of people in the courtyard. But that's where I was able to tap into the library's wifi, because the library was closed.

When the police came, I experienced a huge cultural disparity that made the situation worse.

The stairs lead up to the Biblioteca de Catalunya. It was built in the 1300s as a hospital. 

When I worked on my novel, Paris Writers Circle, here, I had all the atmosphere that a high vaulted ceiling could give me. Plus I would think of how grateful I was not to be a patient there in the 1300s, the recipient of medieval medical knowledge. More Barcelona pictures below.

I sat on the stairs one Saturday needing Wifi to find an English-speaking 12-Step meeting--I was bruised by the Catalan boys' disrespect (that story is two below this one, or here), feeling low, and knew a meeting would bless me. The library was closed, but I wondered if its wifi would reach outside the thick stone walls so I could Google the location of a meeting starting soon. 

So I sat on the stairs in view of people in the courtyard, but there was no Wifi. So I moved up the stairs, turned a corner, and was all alone, out of sight of everyone. But the Wifi worked there. I quickly logged in and started Googling.

Suddenly a slight young dark-haired man was in front of me holding out his business card. I was uneasy, but then again he didn't look dangerous. 

"Why are you here?" he said in accented English.

"I'm looking for wifi."

"Wifi?" he said, waving the card in front of me. "Wifi!"

I had the library's wifi, I didn't need his, so I said no, thank you. He moved up the stairs to stand next to me and I turned me head, away from my backpack (where my wallet rested on top, since I'd needed the library card inside it to log into Wifi). 

"Wifi? he said, waving the card again. Then he leaned in close, holding the card near my eyes. I looked at the words, in Catalunyan, and waved him away.

"No, thanks."

He said okay and went down the steps.

I went back to Google for a second, then felt like something was wrong. I saw my wallet was gone. I slipped my laptop as fast as possible into my backpack--it had all my work in it, I couldn't leave it on the steps unguarded--and raced down the steps.

"Thief!" I shouted.

A man in a yellow shirt came up to me and blocked my path. "You were robbed?" he said in accented English. I kept looking for the young dark-haired man, and Yellow Shirt kept bobbing in front of me. "Robbed?" I was looking around wild-eyed for my wallet, for someone who spoke English to help me.

Then a man with a red plaid shirt that hung outside his pants came up to me holding my wallet. "You?" he said. 

I was so relieved to see my wallet, and I didn't know what this man's intentions were either, so I snatched it out of his hand. 

"You come with," he said.

I stared at him, my heart pounding, clutching my wallet to my chest.

"Who are you?"

"Policia."

Yellow Shirt was still bobbing around me, giving me a threatened feeling, and I had just been robbed. I didn't know who to trust.

"Identificacion," I said. 

Red shirt dug a wallet out of his pants pocket and showed me a card through the wallet's plastic window. It was completely unconvincing--I had expected to see a shiny badge.

"You come," he said.

I pushed his wallet back at him and said, "Identificacion!" again.

He lifted his red plaid shirt, and there was something black tucked into the waistband of his pants. What was that? He had another wallet?

"Identificacion!" I said.

He pulled the black thing up a bit and I saw it was a small handgun.

Well, I wasn't going anywhere with an unknown man who had had my wallet in his hand and who I now saw had a gun tucked into his waistband. 

"Senora," an old toothless man said, sitting by the courtyard fountain. "La." and he pointed to a restaurant on the other side of the courtyard. I ran to it, confused, overwhelmed with men trying to steal from me when all I'd wanted to do was Google a meeting.

I sat on a bench of people waiting to be seated at the restaurant. A nice, American young man said, "Are you okay?"

"I think I'm in great danger," I said -- but I was half-smiling, maybe as a nervous reaction. The young man didn't offer to help.

Just then two uniformed policemen came through the restaurant's wrought iron gate and came up to me slowly. To my immense relief, the handsomest one spoke excellent English.

"There are all kinds of people trying to steal from me in the courtyard," I said. "I can't believe how many."

"You are safe with the man with the handgun. He's a police officer."

"But when I asked for identification, he didn't show me a badge."

"He showed you his revolver. Only police in Spain carry revolvers."

Oh.

"Well, in America, where I come from, every crazy person carries a gun," I said. "There was no way I was going with him to some unknown place."

"We want you to come to the police station to file a complaint," he said. "We caught the two thieves. In court someday we'll need you to identify them."

"Was one of them the man in a yellow shirt?"

"No, he was just some guy. He was trying to add to the confusion to block the police."

What a nightmare.

So I walked through Barcelona's ancient streets to the police station on La Rambla, the biggest tourist street in the city.

"Thieves are a huge problem here," the handsome policeman said. "That police officer was undercover to try to protect tourists and control the problem. But the law is lenient, and so are the judges. That thief will be back on the streets sooner than you will be today."

In the police station, I filled out forms. The officer in the red plaid shirt walked by. I felt bad that I'd been so uncooperative.

"Lo siento," I'm sorry, I said. He smiled and went back out the door to the streets.

I thought about writing a letter to someone in Barcelona to tell them that a man in plainclothes showing a revolver to American tourists would not reassure them. It was important that it not keep happening. But was my Spanish up to the task? Was Google Translate? And who would I send it to? No, it would be a waste of time.

Putting it all on the line for my art, in search of the American Dream

What was I doing, living with impossible boys, far from home and family? I felt very desolate that afternoon.

While I filled out forms and gave my Catalan family's address and agreed to testify when the case came up in a few months, I saw what could have happened to me.

Two young girls from Sweden were also filing a complaint. The police officer explained that their handbags had been stolen with all their money, credit cards, passports and plane tickets home.

Yikes! I'd been spared so much grief when the undercover policeman recovered my wallet. And let me snatch it from his hand. 

I thanked my Higher Power that, even though I hadn't gotten to a meeting, he had been taking care of me.

St. Josep's market on La Rambla. Enjoy! But watch your wallet!

A meat counter in St. Josep's.

The candy counter.

Fruit and fruit juices!

More hams, bacons. It's a great market. How about you? Ever had your wallet lifted? Comment below!