Seventeen isn’t too old to start over, is it? I decided not to go back to school for another year. My folks got me on this great International Exchange Student Program in France. I get to live with a French Family and learn how their lives are. They have a sixteen-year-old daughter. Next year she gets to come and live with us in the states. Her name is Danielle. I hope she isn’t big and fat and ugly. I’m searching for some beauty in my life now. I’ve been spending the last few months studying how to speak French non-stop. I’m so fluent in the language I can even philosophize in French. Isn’t life wonderful? I’m beginning to feel good about myself again. I’m still a genius. Geniuses have especially tough lives, but I can take it. This is the way things were meant to be. I have my faith back. I feel almost invincible again. To tell the truth I have had such a full recovery it’s almost scary. Life is great don’t you think?

Danielle’s family, the Gellets, live in a really ancient two-story stone house with a thatched roof in the tiny village of Ez in the south of France. It was a former artist’s colony and the operative description would be quaint. The house sits on a hillside overlooking the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean. This is what true beauty is all about. The house itself has maize of small bedrooms on the second floor and one bathroom (This is going to be a problem, it has no lock on the door). The main floor could best be described as one huge family room opening onto a big kitchen with a huge wood-burning fireplace that’s sometimes used for cooking. There is no central air conditioning or heating, none is needed in this moderate climate. It’s charming.

The Gellet’s have a large family. Danielle is the oldest of four siblings. There are twin eleven-year-old girls and a thirteen-year-old boy (This might be a problem, I am to share a room with Peter). Peter it turns out is no problem. He is always off playing with his friends. The family seems to operate in a happy communal fashion: sharing meals, family outings, and above all laughter. Everyone seems to be laughing all the time. They are having fun. So this is what happiness is all about. Oh, I forgot to mention that Danielle’s grandmother lives with them. She is a small frail woman with a mole on her chin. She uses a cane, mostly to shoo people like me who annoy her away, sits in the kitchen near the fire all the time, and never smiles. At least she never smiles at me. I think the old witch sees right through me. I don’t like her, but I am careful to always be polite and respectful. To tell the truth I’m scared of her.

I was welcomed with great warmth and treated just like one of the family. They laugh at my French. I laugh at their English. We get along famously. Danielle takes me all over. It’s summertime and she is out of school. It seems like the whole country is on vacation. Most days we spend at the beach, and then meeting with Danielle’s friends at a local village café for endless espressos, much talk about America, and endless jabbering about what they are going to do with there lives once they grow up. It occurs to me that they have a better handle on things than I do. No one is out to change the world. No one has any deep thoughts. No one has the worries of the world on their minds. It’s delightful. It’s refreshing. It’s a whole new world to me and I like it. I decided to relax and treat the whole thing as one big happy learning experience. By now my eyes are wide open.
*****

Hi, this is Arthur Levine, the author of the novel Johnny Oops. To read more about Johnny’s new beginning please visit http://johnnyoops.blogspot.com

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