Dear Dan Harris (and the crew at Ten Percent Happier)

I have been using your wonderful app for almost three years, listening to your podcasts, and I’ve read both of your books. Because of you and your work, I meditate daily and have the most amazing crew of teachers at my fingertips. You have probably done more to make Vipassana/Mindfulness accessible to an entire nation than any one person in a long time. 

For the entire time that I have been using the Ten Percent Happier app, I have often felt distressed by the many discussions of sugar (in all its forms), sugar addicts, and how to attempt to live without sugar. A while ago, on one of your weekly challenges, your guest suggested using behavior modification as a way to create distance from sugar intake. I remember thinking that as knowledgeable as this person is, she didn’t know or understand the definition of addiction. Yet, they seem to understand alcoholism and drug addiction. I’m quite sure that this same person would not suggest treating alcoholism by having one beer a day. The other day I heard Jeff W. talk about chocolate as if it were the same as getting a splinter (my words, not his). Maybe for him, it is. A small annoyance but not much more than that. Also, maybe for him, a small taste of chocolate is a genuine pleasure. I want to make clear that I know that no one on your show thinks of themselves as the one true answer or that they are “recommending” a certain kind of treatment. I am talking about the chatter, the back and forth of questions and answers, and the inadvertent throwing in of a substance, that in a listener’s mind, could be the same as permission if they just meditated enough. 

These smart, educated people still seem to think that letting go of sugar has something to do with willpower. Yet, in all this time, I’ve never once heard anyone on Ten Percent refer to a glass of wine (straight sugar), a beer (grains), an oxycontin, or marijuana in the same way as they talk about sugar. There is respect for the danger that those substances have on a whole group of people that you don’t seem to have for sugar. Just as you have a substantial group of listeners who are recovering from alcoholism, you also have a substantial group of people who are recovering from sugar and food addiction. I am speaking for this group of people.

I, personally, have not had sugar or grains in fifteen years. When I hear Jeff or Dan talk about chocolate, I wince but I’m not tempted to kill myself. Then I think of other people newly off sugar, listening to people who they consider experts talk about sugar as if it weren’t a life and death deal, as if you can let go one day, binge, and go right back to abstaining the next day. Back in the 1980s, I went to a one-day retreat with Jack Kornfield at Spirit Rock. One of the things we did that day was mindful eating. He had us put one raisin in our mouth and chew as slowly as possible. Many people got a great deal of pleasure out of this. Me, newly abstaining from sugar and hoping against hope that I wasn’t a sugar addict?, well it set off months of obsessive sugar thinking and binging. None of us knew any better at the time. But we do now. Jack would never have asked us to savor wine in our mouths without at least a warning that this is not appropriate for alcoholics. But I suspect, knowing Jack, he wouldn’t even take that chance. No one would. We know too much about alcoholism. Now we know about sugar addiction.

I’m not suggesting that everyone who listens to your podcasts and meditations reacts to sugar the way I do. Any more than all listeners of your show are alcoholics. Yet, you seem to respect that talking about alcohol in less than a serious way could easily trigger and harm a substantial group of your listeners, so you don’t do it.

I think you need to consider the impact that you have on your listeners when you talk about sugar. Sugar and grains are the same ingredients that are in alcohol. Why wouldn’t you give sugar the same respect you give liquid sugar and grains?

Dear Dan Harris et al, there are a ton of us out in the listening world who love you and what you are doing with Ten Percent; that you have expanded from the basics of meditation, to the teachings of Buddhist concepts, to offerings of western psychology. Why don’t you talk to us, the experts on sugar addiction? We are sugar addicts in recovery. We aren’t guessing, we aren’t opinionating, and we aren’t putting forth possible behavioral solutions unless we have personal experience. We’ve been to hell and we’ve come back. Many of us use the combination of twelve steps, meditation, and therapy to NEVER forget where we’ve been and could easily go back to. 

Please give sugar, all that white stuff, grains, liquid and hard ingredients of alcohol, the respect it deserves. As you, Dan Harris, have said many times, “sugar is poison”. When was the last time you had to use behavior modification to convince someone that it is not healthy to put cyanide in their tea? 

Just askin’

With gratitude for your app and how you have devoted your life to our betterment. Can you take the next step? I realize this is just my opinion but having lived with food and sugar addiction for all of my life, I do feel strongly about it.

Thank you for reading,

Sara Somers

Author: Saving Sara; A Memoir of Food Addition (SheWritesPress 2020). Psychotherapist in California for thirty-five years before moving to Paris.

Food Junkies Podcast: 

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/XRwm9DilTWY?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

and many other interviews I’d be happy to provide if interested.

http://savingsara.home.blog

sarasomers.substack.com Out My Window: My Life in Paris

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Watching the World Cup and knowing next to nothing about Soccer/Fûtbol

I have lived in Paris for nine years as of Nov. 5th. Before that time I had not really paid attention to Fûtbol for more than a couple of hours. Many people have mistaken me for a sports fan. This is because I’m crazy about baseball. In California, I was an Oakland A’s season ticket holder and went to 50-55 home games a season (plus one or two road trips). I knew (still know) statistics backward and forwards and loved talking baseball anytime I could.

This does not make me a sports fan. I dislike American football. The concept of grown men charging each other, getting concussions, and entire campuses spawning criminal activity is beyond my comprehension. Basketball is too fast. It requires 100% focus for the entire game. I’ll leave the Olympics out for now. What I love about baseball is that it is like a dance, a ballet. It is teamwork. It is blue skies and a summer day. It is sitting with your baseball family and shutting out the world.

Here in France, there is Fûtbol, Rugby, and Tennis. Tennis I could watch in the States but don’t. Rugby, I still think of as an English game that I’ve never taken to—although it does make more sense than American football. Then there is the world’s most popular game known by many names depending on where you live: soccer, fûtbol, le fût, etc. Les Bleus (France) are one game away from being repeat champions of the World Cup 2022.

After all this time, (and maybe missing baseball), I finally wanted to know what is going on down on the field. I found Soccer for Dummies in my virtual library. Beyond the obvious, that the team with the most goals wins, I’ve learned that there are eleven players on the field. One is the goalie. The other ten are the ones talked about: defense, midfielders, and forward. Watching a game, I couldn’t have told you who was who until I watched Morocco vs France. For the whole month leading up to the semi-final, Morocco had let one goal in. Their defense is incredible. They seemed like worker ants buzzing around the enemy blocking all means of entrance, defending their goalie and their net. It was a thing of beauty. I realized that soccer is also like a dance. I could like this game. Kylian Mbappé, the twenty-three-year-old star of Les Bleus, moves with such grace. While others fall and feign agony, Mbappé never does that. Mbappé, once a midfielder and now a forward can go on the attack scoring goals. These players never stop moving for ninety minutes with a time-out at half-time. Ask an outfielder for the Oakland A’s if he could not stop moving and running for ninety minutes. Well, I don’t know what he would say but I know what he should say.

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On Sunday night, 4 pmCET. THIS WAS INCORRECT IN ORIGINAL POSTING. France will play Argentina for the World Cup Championship. There is a true superstar playing for Argentina who also happens to play for Paris Saint-Germain for a living. Lionel Messi. I gather this will be his swan song World Cup and many are saying he should be given all the awards: Best Player, most goals. There are others besides Messi and Mbappé who are teammates during the year and it must take a true professional to play next to a teammate who just took the World Cup away from your country. In trying to understand what to expect and why someone is great, I read this in the Guardian about Lionel Messi “A major part of the problem is knowing where Messi will spring up. He will almost certainly be part of a front two, alongside Julián Álvarez. But he drifts on the periphery of the game, suddenly appearing, perhaps centrally, perhaps on the right, perhaps deep, perhaps high up. At various times, he will flit into the zones for which Theo Hernandez, Aurélien Tchouaméni, and Adrien Rabiot (or Youssouf Fofana) are responsible. But how you stop somebody such as Messi, who can confound a player as good as Croatia’s Josko Gvardiol with his dribbling, or split a defense with a preposterous pass that nobody else could have seen, let alone executed, as he did against the Netherlands? It may not be possible by tactical means.”

Then I read this about Kylian Mbappé: Just as the first question for any side facing Argentina is how to stop Messi, so the first question any side facing France must ask is how to stop Kylian Mbappé. As with Messi, there is a sense that once he gets the ball, he can do almost anything, as his two goals against Poland demonstrated. But Mbappé, brilliant as he is, is a more conventional talent than Messi. His pace is his greatest asset, so one option is to sit deep against him and deny him space to run into, as Kyle Walker did in the quarter-final.

But what Morocco showed in the semi is that Mbappé can be transformed into a (temporary) weakness. Achraf Hakimi took Mbappé on, surging down the right to link up with Hakim Ziyech. Only after Marcus Thuram had been introduced and Mbappé moved to the middle was that avenue closed down. Mbappé rarely tracked Hakimi and that left Hernandez, not the most natural defender, exposed. Argentina’s Nahuel Molina is not an attacking right-back in the manner of Hakimi, but he was the recipient of Messi’s brilliant pass against the Netherlands; he can get forward. It’s a gamble, and it’s understandable why full-backs would be wary of deserting Mbappé, but at least at times it’s probably worth calling his bluff and trying to create overloads against Hernandez”

I will not be able, in this game at least, to be able to see someone run, think through his options, and perform at the skill level of these two. But I will be able to appreciate that I am watching greatness.

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A bientôt,

Sara

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Walking the Talk

(To my readers: this is longer than my usual blog but well worth your reading!)

Mathieu Yème is the oldest son of my friend, Barbara. I’m writing about him today because he is a remarkable man and I’m going to ask you to help him out this Christmas season. 

Mathieu was born in Paris and raised, bilingual, in the Burgundy area of France. He studied engineering in France and Brazil and holds a degree in Engineering. He also speaks five languages! Until a few years ago, he worked in Aachen, Germany as a well-respected engineer with projects all over the EU (pre-Brexit). He took a year off with the blessings of his workplace (who paid him a stipend), and traveled the world with his then girlfriend. They would stay in countries long enough to work somewhere, usually as volunteers, learn the culture, how they grew food and sustained their lives. You can read about their amazing trip at https://sustainable-autonomy.weebly.com

With all this information knocking around inside of him, Mathieu decided to do what many of us would love to do but don’t have the courage.

He quit his job to be a better citizen on our planet.

Mathieu Yème

After some self-questioning about how to best use all that he has learned, he landed in the Périgord-Limousin region of France.  He bought land with nine other like-minded people. They are growing food without using machines, without chemicals, and with huge love.

Although this is a collective, there are individual projects that each person is responsible for. Mathieu has decided to concentrate on berries, to build a business that could possibly begin to support them. 

Why berries? Because berries are delicious and who doesn’t love berries?

The following is an interview with Mathieu. He has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise enough money to get started on planting this Winter. If he can raise enough funds, he can buy the shrubs and get them in the ground by February. Mathieu is a committed, dedicated and humble man. If he says he will do something, he will do it. I hope that you will consider a Christmas gift to him and his collective. His success could inspire more people to do what they are doing and wouldn’t that be wonderful for our planet? Go to: https://jadopteunprojet.com/decouvrez-les-projets/detail/les-petits-fruits-de-la-varlanchie.

(Mathieu has written in French and English. If you are an English speaker, scroll past the French. There are several sections explaining the project in detail).

In return, you will benefit when the berries come to fruition. Pun intended! Mathieu says when you are in France, you are always welcome to visit them and get a tour.

The land waiting for the shrubs!!

These are Mathieu’s words. I have only edited for grammar and conciseness.

1–Why is your berry project important in our society today?
I think it is important because my project is part of a bigger collective endeavour. Ten of us bought a common piece of land. We cooperate together to lead good lives in our territory. To do so, we acknowledge that speaking about ethics and values is important, embodying our values to make it happen for real is essential. Since example is often the best teacher, we perhaps need more true stories to push us to action. We want to share that story with you one day. A story of cooperation, abundance, autonomy and resilience, good life, sharing…

2–You used to work as an engineer.  How has engineering informed your decision to devote your life to “working without machines, with living soil, on small surfaces and with a lot of love”

I want to work without machines because machines harm the soil. I want to take care of the soil because the soil takes care of our plants and therefore of us. As I also want to take care of myself, I will focus on smaller surfaces to limit the damage. Smaller and slower solutions fit my values and vision better.
I guess my inspiration came more from my permaculture training, travels, and several experiences on farms than my engineering training. For sure, engineering helps me do the math, understand the pros and cons and thus decide rationally what solution is a priori technically best within a given context. But brain work is not sufficient. My inspiration comes from my guts and my heart. Brain, guts and heart agree on working without machines, with living soil and with a lot of love.
Last but not least, it also makes the berries grow healthier and taste better.

3–Is this similar to what the hippies did back in the 70s when they lived on communes and lived off the land? How is it different?
Good question and hard for me to say, since I was not there back in the 70s. Nevertheless, my project and our collective initiatives do not appear from nowhere. I am sure the hippies inspired us in a way. Communes inspire us. As a matter fact the ten of us met through an association named “la Commune Imaginée du Bandiat” (bandiat.org). Many real stories inspired us all.
What might be similar is the collective action and the dreams for a free and brighter future.
What is different is this context/ I want to hope. I think our society also needs hope. To be perfectly honest, as far as I am concerned, it is not easy nowadays to be 100% optimistic when it comes to our collective future. Ecological destruction, social injustice, biodiversity collapse, resource depletion and related increasing scarcity, tensions on energy supply, authoritarianism and war… The list goes on and I do not want to give up on hope. We feel a compelling urge for action and for change.

4–Why did you choose berries to begin your new model of making the existing one obsolete?
I chose berries, not so much to make the older model obsolete but because I still have a foot in the current model. In the current social model, money plays a substantial role. I will cultivate berries to generate income. I want to share this income to support our collective initiatives and concretely participate in the dynamics of our local economy. In return, our local economy -economy in a broad sense- allows us to depend less and less on money. When money plays a secondary role in the definition of our material conditions of existence, we depend less and less on the current model, we make it obsolete.

5–What is the most important thing that you want your investors and friends to know about you and this project?
I want you to know that it is possible to say “STOP”. When I quit my job, I knew I wanted to meet others, find land, and grow towards more autonomy, resilience, reconnection, regeneration, and federation. Everywhere, people of good will inspire us to love and act, to prefer care and cooperation to hate and competition. And yes, we can do it so let’s do it. 

6–Are you using any existing models either in France or the US as examples to guide you?
The forest inspires me a lot. Permaculture inspires me a lot; it is so wide, so complex. Farms and the collectives I visited all over the world and had the opportunity to do volunteer work for, also inspired me a lot. The next inspirations will come from careful observation and interaction with the land.

7--Why should people who don’t know you give you money?
If you have money, you can spend it. When you spend money, you also make a decision, a decision that influences the world we live in. If you feel we have values in common and you also hope for a brighter future, I offer you the opportunity to support a grassroots project that embodies our values to progressively realise our dreams. You can humbly choose to make dreams come true.

8–What have I not asked you that you would really like people to know?
Your questions are really good! Under other circumstances, I would take a longer time to answer such questions. I did my best to keep my answers as short as I could. Obviously, what led me to answering your questions today is a long process, several years of exploration. If people want to know more, I would be more than happy to dive into more details!
Meanwhile, please know that you are more than welcome in our green Périgord-Limousin.

If, after you have read this and the crowdfunding site which is full of information, you would like to know more about Mathieu or contact him, please write me in the comments and I will forward on to him. Meanwhile, let’s help make his dreams come true.There will be delicious berries in our future!

Périgord-Limousin

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A bientôt,

Sara

A Thanksgiving Story

You sent a ‘Save the date’ notice to all the guests-mostly Americans and some other cultures-two weeks in advance.

You explained why the celebration has to happen on the weekend not on Thursday since everyone works on Thursday in France.

You went to the special butcher and ordered the turkey, asking again, as you do every year, that all the innards need to be out and, for a little extra money, could they start the roasting for you.

You arranged to pick up the turkey the morning of your Thanksgiving feast, so you’d have at least three hours to finish the cooking.

You sent out e-mails far and wide asking where to find cranberries in Paris.

You wrote a lovely invitation with the history of Thanksgiving, then explained how it is a myth, yet it is most Americans’ favorite holiday.

You requested that each person think of something to share that they feel especially grateful for.

You borrowed chairs from the neighbors feeling a bit guilty that you were having a party and not inviting them.

You then wrote a note reminding the neighbors of the American holiday Thanksgiving and thanked them for contributing to it.

You went to the local Fruits Primeurs and bought up two kilos of green beans and a massive amount of potatoes, wondering again why sweet potatoes had never made it to France.

You pulled out all your Thanksgiving decorations and your pumpkin pie spice that you bring back each year from California.

You put together the ingredients for pumpkin pie and stored in the refrigerator.

You set your table early as it made you smile every time you walked by it.

You instructed your cat that she is not allowed to jump on the table or play with any of the decorations.

You sighed as your cat stared at you with that look that said “Don’t tell me what to do.”

You wrote e-cards to all your friends far and wide wishing them a Happy Thanksgiving.

You set the delivery time for the e-cards for the morning of Thanksgiving.

You went to sleep knowing everything would be perfect.

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A bientôt,

Sara

The Smells of Paris

I’m surprised to learn, after sniffing up a storm today, closing my eyes, and hoping the olfactory part of my mind would wander down some ancient pathways, that I have no real smell memory, not even one that reminds me of ‘home’.  I have three smells that take me back to earlier years. Someone taking the first puff on a cigarette.  There was nothing like that smell to me and it was non-reproducible. I can picture a friend (different friends throughout my smoking career) lighting up, taking a deep inhale, and blowing out the smoke.  All or much of it landing on my nose.   Today I try to move away from cigarettes.  Don’t really want the memory pull.

Then there is being outside on a walk and, suddenly out of nowhere, smelling marijuana.  Usually, I never see where it’s coming from. But the smell takes me back to the most romantic of my memories of my hippie years when everything was in front of me, and I had left all the bad, all the painful back at home. I easily picture in my mind, friends sitting around in a circle.  Sometimes we are talking.  Sometimes we are listening to music. But always, it was friendly, and it was an invitation for my brain to take a break from whatever the day had held.

And lastly, there is just-baked bread. Since weight has always been problematic, I don’t have great associations with that smell as delicious and heavenly as it is.  Since I’ve been in Paris and no longer worry about my weight (though I never eat bread), I’ve learned to just appreciate the smell, how aromatic it is. There is a boulangerie on the corner of my street and if I’m up and out early enough, I walk by and can inhale the staff of life while watching the cooks who have been up since 3:30 am take a break leaning up against the wall of the shop smoking cigarettes.

I must be an auditory memory person. I can hear the first three bars of “EaterPurple People ”, and I’m back in my youth, nine years old, lying in my twin bed with measles. A transistor radio propped on a chair in front of me where I first discovered Hy Lit on WIBG, Philadelphia.  

I can hear the first note of ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and I’m in a VW bus with four other people riding up the west coast of Italy singing at the top of my lungs.  I’m returning to Florence where I had spent my senior year abroad and I was buzzing with excitement. 

I can hear three strums of ‘Silver Dagger’ from Joan Baez’s first album and I’m sitting on the floor at Christmas, down in the rec room, my parents, uncle and aunt, and Peggy all sitting there.  I have a guitar and I’m playing a song I wrote. We’re at the far end of the room next to the doors that open up onto the backyard. I’m wearing my dark hair parted in the middle and trying to look as much like Joan Baez as I possibly can.

These are visceral feelings I have no control over. I recently listened to the Beatles on Spotify. Here Comes the Sun started the playlist. I was instantaneously overwhelmed with memories of being young, of being hopeful, of just wanting to have fun, and not worrying about money, family, or health. I had to sit down and take deep breaths and just let the feelings roll through me. It all feels so long ago—literally another time, a different person that was there.

Would I go back there? Not on your life? What hits me is always the best of those times.  Music was absolutely the best of the best. I lost myself in music.  I listened to rock ‘n roll around the clock.  I don’t know when it stopped but it stopped. And now it’s like sparkling sand that flows through my fingers.  I can’t hold onto the feelings, nor do I want to. But I do love that I have a magic key that takes me straight back and I get to relive a tiny part of the past.

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A bientôt, 

Sara

Thinking about the midterms from Paris

At 10 pm CET, Tuesday night, Voting Day in the USA, I was ready to go to bed. I’ve been sick and too tired to be anxious. I checked my e-mail from my sister who has worked her butt off for MI Elections: Her last e-mail reported: “We’re all going crazy with worry today–for Michigan and for the country.  I’m having a small election “party” but we all fear it’s going to be a wake…” This last e-mail I received was sent one hour later and read:`’Most of the people I invited aren’t coming because they are so depressed and just don’t want to face it. So it’s going to be weird.” She followed with “Not much is going to be known for MI even by tomorrow (my tomorrow). And if the D’s win anything, they’ll call it fraud, so it’s all a big mess.” 

I woke up Wednesday morning to two wins in MI, Governor Whitmer has retained her seat and a house member has also won. According to CNN, the Dems were very happy and relieved. I wanted to call my sister and wake her up but thought better of it. 

from Frank Bruni’s Op Ed piece in NYTIMES.

People have had a rainbow of reactions. I wondered about my own lack of anxiety. Perhaps it was because I’ve been sick for over a week and didn’t have the energy. Maybe I’m just too far away living here in Paris or maybe I’ve started to integrate that it’s useless to worry without enough information. I did pray- before I went to bed—I think it was a heartfelt prayer to whatever Higher Power watches over us. I prayed for kindness to the US. The papers were predicting a blood bath for the Democrats, and, naive me, just could not fathom that the God of my misunderstanding would send that kind of facism to the US. Unless it was to teach us a lesson. That particular god sent Hitler and the Holocaust. If there was a lesson there, it certainly wasn’t learned. With the arrival of Trump and all the ugliness out from under the rug, there is clearly as much antisemitism and white supremacy as ever.

I’ve been watching the Lincoln Dilemna on Apple TV+ and, it seems to my untrained historical mind, that things were worse back then. Worse to the point that eleven states ceceded from the Union and were willing to go to war for their beliefs. And though the South lost the war, they’ve never really given up or given in. Then there was Woodrow Wilson….”Wilson defended segregation on “scientific” grounds in private, and (scholars) describe him as a man who “loved to tell racist ‘darky‘ jokes about black Americans.” – Wikipedia. I’ve never seen statistics but I’d be interested to know how many Americans sided with Germany during WWII.

People say there will be another Civil War. I’ve said that I didn’t see massive change without violence—as if there wasn’t enough violence now. With the US’s hands in so many other wars, where would there be people willing to fight in a full-out war. The question people over here in Europe are asking is how could so much money be spent on these elections? 9.3 billion dollars. Can that be right? And now more millions will be thrown at Georgia between now and Dec. 6th. I had some naive hope that all the bullying and demanding e-mails for money might stop but no. I’ve received at least 100 in my Spam since the run-off was announced. 

There is great relief that there was no red wave. Biden called it a victory. My Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson, says Democracy won. There are still outstanding contests to be called. This morning I learned that Mark Kelly has been declared the winner of the Arizona senate seat. Forty-nine to forty-nine. So it could be that nothing has changed—the Senate divided fifty/fifty. The Times says the big change is Trump. He had 330 personally hand-picked people running. Very few won. 

Is there anyone who hasn’t seen this? 

Trump disgustingly threatened De Santos if he ran against him for President in 2024. Two men with god complexes running against each other. If it wasn’t so sad, it would be fascinating. The media view, one which I agree with, is that the Republican party is moving away from Trump—but towards what? A more eloquent white supremacist or someone else? 

There is still so much to learn from these elections, especially the two Senate seats in Nevada and Georgia. As of this writing, the two contenders in Nevada are neck and neck with a large percentage of mail-in ballots still to be counted. We won’t know Georgia’s outcome for at least a month. And now I learn that Nevada finished counting and has a Democratic Senator. A close call. Fifty/Forty-Nine.

Here in France, the midterms have been in the News. But my french friends say people are tired of us and these shenanigans (my word). Nobody understands what is happening to a great country like the USA. How could so much blatant hatred be tolerated? Of course, we have Marine Le Pen and her far-right but somehow to this American, it isn’t the same.

These are all thoughts. The next two years will be very interesting.

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A bientôt,

Sara

Watching the Playoffs in Paris

If you mention baseball to a french person, they will either look at you incomprehensibly or roll their eyes. It’s not that they don’t know about the sport of baseball. It’s that they don’t understand such slow action and, therefore, the French do not do baseball. At the World Baseball Classic, an every four-year event that actually includes teams from all over the world, the Dutch have a baseball team, the Italians have a baseball team, but the French team is largely composed of Major League players who have some French in their ancestry.

Opening Nite in Houston-Game 1 (photo from CNN website as are all the rest of the photos).

So it is with great gratitude that I watch Apple TV+’s Weekly WrapUp every Saturday. In the US, it is shown on Friday nights, but as I live in a timezone that is six hours ahead of the East Coast, I get it on Saturdays. Now that the PlayOffs are in full swing, I get a daily report which I watch at noon. I can watch a nine-inning game in eight minutes. I’m so happy I get that. And for some people, eight minutes is just perfect. They get all the action and none of the stress of waiting, inning by inning, to learn who wins. For those of you who aren’t big baseball fans, the better team doesn’t always win. It’s part of baseball.

For Game 1 of the World Series, the Philadelphia Phillies were playing the Astros in Houston. I don’t know how fans in the US feel but, for me, the Astros have taken over from the Yankees as “the team we love to hate.” After the Astros won the World Series in 2017, it was discovered by Major League Baseball that the team was stealing signs. They did not lose their title. Fans were outraged. Maybe not Houston fans! Ok, then there is Dusty Baker who is now the manager of the Astros. He’s just about as nice a baseball person as you can find. It’s hard to imagine that he would be a party to sign stealing (any more than the rest of the teams). I know there are fans who are convinced that the Astros are still crooked.

Dusty Baker, manager of the Houston Astros

Back to Game 1 played last Friday. It went ten innings. For a fan like me, watching a nail-biter in eight minutes just doesn’t do it. As the lead went back and forth between the teams, I was just imagining what it would be like sitting in the stands, ecstatic when it is your team ahead and down in the dumps when the other team took the lead. In the end, in the tenth inning, the Phillies won. So a word about the Astros Opening Nite pitcher. I realize that for some of you this is way more information than you care to know. But it will help you understand why some people breathe baseball. And why as my friend, Darcy’s father used to say: “there are two seasons in the year. Winter and baseball season.” He was not wrong.

Justin Verlander, Opening nite pitcher for the Astros.

Justin Verlander was the Opening Nite pitcher for the Astros. He is and has been a great pitcher. He used to pitch for the Detroit Tigers. Back in the day when the Oakland A’s finished first in the American League West, somehow their first opponent in the playoffs was the Detroit Tigers two years in a row. And twice with the two teams tied 2-2 with one game to go to play the next tier of the playoffs, Justin Verlander would be on the mound for Game 5. It didn’t matter how tired he was, like Marly’s ghost, he loomed large over the A’s. And the A’s lost. Justin Verlander is moche ( french for ugly, total yuk) in the minds of A’s fans. And here he was, ten years later, Opening Nite pitcher for the team we love to hate. It may have only been an eight-minute game, but for this A’s fan, I jumped up and down when the stats said that Verlander was the losing pitcher!!!

I grew up for the first fourteen years of my life in the Philadelphia suburbs. Nothing about Philadephia says ‘home’ to me. My mother moved from Princeton, NJ to lower Bucks County in her late seventies. So it is easy for me to root for the Phillies. The last time the Phils won the World Series was in 2008, the year my mother died. The Oakland A’s started out in 1904 as the Philadelphia A’s. In 1954, they moved to Kansas City. After a short unsuccessful stint there, they moved to Oakland in 1967. I’ve always felt a kinship to the Philadelphia A’s and, at one point in my life, was given a lifetime membership to the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Museum. 

Jimmy Foxx of the Philadelphia Athletics

Four World Series games have been played. The teams are tied 2-2. Only the first two games were tight with the teams matching each other play for play. Last night, the Astros set a WS record: 4 pitchers pitched a No Hitter. Not one Phillies player got a hit. So what’s left is the best of three!

fans in Philadelphia waving their rally towels

If you’ve read this far, thank you. People ask how I could have ever moved to Paris when I love baseball so much. I really don’t have an answer to that question. I can tell you that it feels very nice to write about baseball. I am hoping to go to Spring Training in Arizona next March. So I’ll end with a shout out to all Phillies fans around the world. Go Phighting Phils!!!

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A Bientôt,

Sara

Art in Paris: digital and natural

Monday, I was sitting on a platform in the back of an old foundry in Paris overlooking what is now known as Atelier des Lumières. The Atelier is the first digital art museum in Paris. I have gone five times since it opened its doors in April of 2018. All the shows are a combination of Art and Technology. Using 120 projectors, images are thrown up on walls and the floor. They are in constant motion and accompanied by music.

After watching a show of Cezanne, Kandinsky, and Van Gogh, I decided I wanted to know more about the origins of the Atelier des Lumières. As each of the shows ended and the credits were projected on the walls, eight cities (including Paris) now house these light shows: Bordeaux, Les Baux-de-Province, Amsterdam, New York, Dubai, Seoul, and Jeju. That is six more than the last time I was there during the summer of 2020. My sister had told me she had tickets to see the Van Gogh show in Detroit (for five times the price we pay here in Paris!). I had assumed it was the Paris show that was traveling but I’m not so sure. There is a permanent installation in New York.

The first of these art and technology shows, Carrières des Lumières, started in les Baux-de-Province. There the art is projected onto the walls of caves. It is part of a much larger organization called Cultural Spaces. Bruno Monnier, the president of Cultural Spaces, wanted to bring the idea to Paris. He found an unused foundry from the 19th century called Chemin-Vert located in the 11th arrondissement. It was created in 1835 to meet the needs of the Navy and railways for high-quality castings. It closed in 1929 due to the International crisis. Monnier has taken the space, left it intact, and cleaned it up while fitting it for all the projectors. It opened in 2018 with a show of Klimpt’s famous paintings. It is hard to describe the show if you haven’t seen one. My photos are static but the images are constantly moving like a giant slide show. Music is chosen specifically for certain periods in an artist’s life. The result is captivating. It’s not a stretch to call it a completely immersive experience. Children often run around chasing the images on the floor and become part of the fun of the show.

Kandinsky

After writing the above, I walked to Parc de Bagatelle to check on the peacocks and the cats. I couldn’t go on Sunday. I saw how fast the peacock tails were growing in. I thought of sitting in the Atelier watching these famous artists’ depictions of nature dancing on the walls. And, of being in Bagatelle week after week, looking at the trees turn colors, the roses die away, a few defying nature and hanging on to their stems, the peacocks strutting around, their tails growing so fast it just might be a slide show. There is no sign of the females. There aren’t even that many people even though it was a lovely autumn day. The cats were all out enjoying the warmth of the sun.

Gaston and Zoe (the cats from the circus) are lying on the bench.

The regular volunteer was just finishing up feeding time for the cats. I asked him how long it took the peacock tails to complete the circle to full growth. He said April. They molt in August. Four months is the short time they are full and probably the equivalent of mating season.

Two months worth of growth, the eyes are now clearly visible

I asked him about kittens. He said most are born between September and December. We never see them because the mothers hide them in the thick bushes on the periphery of the park. I had visions of bushwacking my way through those bushes until I found a litter. Then I’d steal one and raise it—much to the chagrin of Bijou who is the true Lady and Mistress of my small apartment. A girl can dream.

One rose, with a strong perfume, is hanging on. Because it is an entrant into the competition of 2023, it is not named.

Being at Bagatelle week after week is as immersive an experience as the digital art show at the Atelier. One shouldn’t compare apples and oranges but, if I were forced to choose…..

Van Gogh’s Starry Night

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A bientôt,

Sara

Hooked on Food

Michael Moss, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who wrote Salt, Sugar, Fat and his latest book, Hooked, was the speaker at the American Library in Paris author event. I wrote a review of the book Hooked: How we became addicted to Processed Food a year and a half ago and encouraged all my readers interested in both Addictions and Food, to read it. I learned he was coming to Paris to be a guest speaker at a writing retreat this week. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible for me to attend the retreat. When I learned last weekend, that he would be speaking at the Library, I was very excited. This man had thanked me on Instagram for the review and I got an image of an author that was totally approachable.

Not only did I want to hear him in person, I decided I would give him a copy of my book Saving Sara, A Memoir of Food Addiction. I could tell from his writing that he did not have addiction issues himself, at least as far as food is concerned, that his aim was to expose Nestlé, for the pimps they are (my words not his), to alert the world that these companies WANT you to get addicted to their products as it is excellent for the financial bottom line. I’ve long wanted to correspond with him but hadn’t found a way. When I met him walking in the door of the Library, after we all greeted him, I asked him if he would be willing to read my book. He said he would be honored. So I inscribed it and handed it to him.

He was interviewed by the Library’s excellent Alice McCrumb who provided an air of excitement about the book. He told us about the research presently going: on taking ‘Photos’ of people’s brains right after eating chocolate, for instance, and how the researcher can see the corresponding parts of the brain light up within seconds. Most damningly, it seems industries don’t try to hide the fact that they are working hard to find products that are convenient, cheap, and addictive. The CEOs of these industries would never eat their own food, Moss told us.

I found myself very uncomfortable during the whole talk. Looking back I realize that I had come with the intention of making his acquaintance, giving him my book to read if he was willing, and maybe forming some kind of bond with him. That didn’t happen. I appreciate the science and the research that is now going into the huge subject of food addiction. He told us that in his first book, he danced around using the ‘A’ word, In Hooked, he didn’t. He even went so far as to say that for some people this addiction is like drug addiction and that people have to look at what drug addicts do to overcome their addictions for help with food. What I finally came up with by the time I got home was that I’m so used to being with like-minded people when talking of this subject, that I’m not often in the position of learning the more scientific aspects of it. In Michael’s talk, he was talking about Big Pharma (known as the food industry), not the addicts themselves. People had come to hear the dasterdly deeds of Nestlé (which makes $63.8bn a year) and the nine other huge food companies that control the majority of what you buy from the food and beverage brands, not to hear from people like me. I was definitely the odd man out.

Near the end, one woman asked “What is the solution?’ Two days later, I’m not actually sure if she was asking about the solution to stopping production of these addictive products or the solution to helping people stay away from them. I heard it as the second. I raised my hand and outed myself as a food addict in recovery for over 17 years, and that each of us has to take some responsibility for ending the abuse on our bodies. The topic before had been that so many families couldn’t afford good food, they had to buy this cheap excuse for food in order to feed their families. I didn’t respond to that but I know plenty of food addicts who live hand to mouth who have found a way to feed their families with real food. In 12 step rooms, we’re told you have to want it bad enough. 

The thing is: I agree with every one of his findings, and I applaud him for calling this problem what it is: Food Addiction. But I don’t agree that the industry has to take 100% responsibility for our health. If I had waited until that happened, I’d probably be dead by my own hand today. I think each one of us has to take 100% responsibility for what we put in our bodies and, people like me who have lost the power to act in healthy ways, we should get ourselves surrounded by like-minded people who will hold our hands through the withdrawal part, explain to us in no uncertain terms that this disease is one of Obsession—obsessing about those foods/substances that are supposed to make us happy, find Prince Charming, etc, etc and one of Compulsion—once the substance we are allergic to, in my case sugar and grains, is in my body, I don’t know what will happen next. I’m at the mercy of my compulsion.

I felt very alone at the end of his talk. I think I brought it on myself. I know what he writes about and I’m a huge cheerleader. But I forgot what it’s like to be in the company of people just learning what is going on in the food industry and how people like me are already dying from addiction. Here is the kicker: It is easy to think “well this happened in the tobacco industry, maybe things will change.” Guess who owns some of the largest industry companies?? The tobacco companies. Tobacco stopped making the billions it was making, so they found the next best thing. Philip Morris owns Kraft. RJ Reynolds owns Nabisco. Does the average person have a chance?

Michael Moss is an investigative journalist and author. In 2010, he won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on contaminated hamburgers. His previous book Salt, Sugar, Fat, was a New York Times best seller.  Hooked (2021) explores our complex relationship with processed food. It explains why certain foods leave us wanting more, and reveals how our brain chemistry and our evolutionary biology are exploited by the fast-food industry.

Sara Somers is an author, blogger, and retired Psychotherapist living in Paris, France. Saving Sara: For nearly fifty years, Sara Somers suffered from untreated food addiction. In this brutally honest and intimate memoir, Somers offers readers an inside view of a food addict’s mind, showcasing her experiences of obsessive cravings, compulsivity, and powerlessness regarding food.

*** ***

For those of you following the growth of my peacocks’ tails, here are the latest photos. The feathers of the tail are at least two inches longer than last week and I could see an eye or two. On his back, the brown and white feathers are beginning to turn into blue and green shell-shaped feathers that will eventually take up most of his back.

A bientôt

Sara

There is a time for building, and a time for living and for generation-T.S. Eliot

I was sitting on my couch yesterday talking with a good friend who was visiting Paris from California. She asked me if it was smarter to rent something here or to buy. I said that it depends. Why was she asking? She said that the general atmosphere in the US has become unbearable for her and her husband because of politics. She had visited with another group of friends two days ago and that had been the focus of their conversation. Selling and moving to Paris (these were all people who love Paris). I was a bit stunned. She lives in California and I saw California as a refuge from all the insanity. I guess not. You can’t not know what’s going on all over the country if you own a computer or a TV or both. Maybe with the mid-terms coming up, the volume has risen so high that the desire to run away from it all must seem so attractive. 

I left in 2013. Before there was Trump (although we were going through the Tea Party mess). I wasn’t making myself crazy by trying to decide to leave my country because of principles. I left because I could. I had retired. I wanted to experience another culture, really experience it, and came to Paris for a year. That was one month short of nine years ago. I haven’t gone back. To be considering a permanent move without knowing anything about what the future holds seems very brave to me. 

That was the other thing we talked about. The future. We are both at the age where one has to be thinking “where do I want to get old?” “Where do I want to be old?” The US has wonderful Continuing Care Retirement Communities. France does not. France has a wonderful medical system. The US does not. If I can no longer live independently, if I have to depend on someone or someones, what country do I want to be in?

These are huge questions. Honestly, I try not to think about them very often though I should. Yet, it was a pleasure discussing it all with my friend yesterday. A pleasure because we are like-minded and putting it all out on the table. I recently put an offer on a house in Normandy. I had an inspection done by a wonderful Scotsman and I told him my age and asked if he could look at the house with that in mind. He was happy to. He told me the house wasn’t suitable for someone my age, meaning if I had to redo a room or a bathroom to make it more handicap accessible, it wasn’t possible in that house. I patted myself on the back for having the foresight to even think of that question much less ask it.

To me, thinking about leaving the country feels like a little death. It’s great to move if you are going towards something, have excitement about new things, having a chance to start over again somewhere else. But that isn’t what people are saying when they are talking about leaving. They say it with sadness, that it is so scary to live in the US right now. I don’t envy them. 

Meanwhile here in Paris….. I was down near Notre Dame last week. Before the fire in March of 2019, my favorite view of Notre Dame was looking at it from behind; the roof held up by flying buttresses. I’d stand about half a kilometer east on the left bank and take deep breaths looking at the extraordinary beauty of that cathedral against a blue sky. Now all you can see is scaffolding. And cranes. And more scaffolding. 

Two years ago, there was talk that Macron wanted the rebuilding finished by the 2024 Summer Olympics which are being held in Paris. No one believes that can happen. According to the Smithsonian website, the clean up was finished this past August and the rebuilding started in September. The government is still hoping to finish it in 2024 and has actually announced that it will be open to the public in the Spring of 2024. 

There was a contest, at one point, to design a new roof for the cathedral. There was even one with a swimming pool, I’m told. Now the new Notre Dame will look exactly like the old Notre Dame. Which makes me glad. “The French Senate rejected calls to replace the spire with a modern design, ultimately voting to restore it to its “last known visual state.” But France’s National Heritage and Architecture Commission did approve proposals to modernize Notre-Dame’s interior with new additions like contemporary artworks—a plan that some critics described as a “woke Disney revamp.” “A parallel initiative to invigorate Notre-Dame’s surroundings is also underway. Funded by Paris City Hall, the redesign includes planting more vegetation in the area and installing a cooling system, the New York Times’ Aurelien Breeden reported in June. Per the Times, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo said that Notre-Dame “had to be left in its beauty and have everything around it be a showcase for that beauty.”—smithsonianmag.com

This is what Notre Dame will look when finished.

And finally, I’ll end with a word about the peacocks in Parc de Bagatelle. I took my Sunday walk to the park four days ago. The first thing I do when I arrive is check up on the cats. If there is a volunteer there feeding them, I have a chat. That’s how I learn the stories about them. And now that I know that peacock tail feathers have a life cycle, I’m watching the male peacock carefully. I saw a peacock before a cat. He was looking in the opposite direction. It looked as if some pine needles had gotten caught under his back feathers. As I got closer, I realized what I thought were pine needles was the very beginnings of the new feathers.

Scattered on his back are what look like tufts of cotton. When the tail is completely grown out and he makes a fan to attract a female, it’s possible to see all the white fluff. This seemed unusual to me – to be able to see so much fluff even when both back wings were flat on his back. But I’m just learning and watching. I have no idea what the norm is.

It seems that today has been about cycles. The life cycle of the peacock tail of feathers, the cycle of a beautiful cathedral that has had parts destroyed by fires in the past, and the lifecycle of a political movement. With nature, it is truly a cycle. I lost my home in California to fire and built a lovely home from the ashes. With what’s happening in the US, one can only pray it cycles out and get into action to give it a big shove. That means Go Vote!

A bientôt,

Sara

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