The Message Is Out

This past week, I went to one of the biggest cocktail parties ever. I wore my little black dress and heels. It was mom’s night out.

It’s wasn’t to the presidential palace, or to a corporate banquet.

It was to the annual meeting of my support group—Message. I joined the group some 16 years ago when I was pregnant with my first (and only) child. Life as a mom can be difficult anywhere, but in a foreign country without family and friends, it can be daunting.

Message was there to help.

At first I was a bit wary. I didn’t need a “support group.” Was it some kind of 12-step program? Would I have to bare soul or my lactating boobs in front of strangers?

The short answer was that I found a surrogate family who were willing to care and share.

The idea is simple: moms (and now dads) host a playdate or outing. Members sign up. You get together, the kids play and the parents celebrate … or commiserate. And it’s free, beyond the reasonable annual membership fee.

The idea is so simple and powerful that Message grew from a handful of members in 1984 to more than 2,000 today! It’s one of the biggest English-speaking associations in France. And entirely volunteer-run.

Through Message, I found a neighborhood playgroup for my daughter, then started one of my own. In the playgroup, my timid 2-year-old found her first friends. And I found some long-lasting bonds too!

Beyond activities, the association hosts parenting classes and trained breastfeeding help. There are programs about education and health. The website has a wealth of information … including about my current worry, raising teens. One of my friends purchased all of her baby gear second-hand through the site’s classifieds.

Message Easter egg hunt in 2010 at Les Arènes de Lutèce in Paris 

The group is always ready to rally to the support of a member truly in need, whether they’ve lost their job, their spouse, or their baby—totally anonymously.

Without Message, I think I would have truly lost my sanity. Instead, I think I’ve retained about more than half—not too shabby!

It goes to show you the power of community, even in France, where people tend to look to the government first for help.

One reason I’m writing this post is to “get the Message out.” Together, we can do so much when alone it might feel impossible. Together, we can kick up our heels once a year and say: We made it!

Paris Is Crying

Living out of harm's way in the south suburbs of Paris, I was spared by Friday night's terrorist attack in the eastern part of the city. Spared but deeply saddened.

The country has long been the target of terrorism. In December 1994, nine months after we arrived to live in Paris, seven were killed in the hijacking of Air France Flight 8969 by members of the Armed Islamic Group.

In July 1995, members of the same group killed eight people in the underground bombings of the Metro and RER commuter train in the heart of Paris at St. Michel. As a journalist freelancing for USA Today, I ventured down into the empty caverns of the subway to report on the story. The odor of destruction still haunts me.

By French graphic artist Jean Jullien, Nov. 14, 2015

Friday's attack was the deadliest ever, with more than 150 killed and counting. Suicide bombers did their dirty work on innocent Parisians and visitors out on a lovely November evening to hear music or have a meal together.

Yesterday, I was overcome with grief. For those who lost loved ones, the city that has been deeply scarred, and the nation that has for so long been my second home.

At the same time, I was overwhelmed with the kindness of dozens of you who messaged and called with your thoughts and prayers—and so many from my fellow Pittsburghers, yinz are the best! Merci beaucoup! Je vous aime! I am touched and blessed.

I think I worried some people by my silence. I wasn't thinking that anybody would be worried about me! I set my Facebook status as “safe,” and wrote back to everyone to say I was safe--sort of.

Safe is an overstatement. I was not harmed, but don't feel “safe.” I went to church today feeling vulnerable in the second row, and have to admit that I was half-listening for gunfire during the sermon. I quizzed my daughter about what to do in an attack, and she answered correctly (fall to the floor).

Words are failing me, but one thing is resonating. It's the “Paris for Peace” symbol that's gone viral, drawn by the Frenchman Jean Jullien in the hours after the attack. It shares my hope for Paris, for France, and everyone who wants to find a way forward—peacefully.

The Female French Resistance: Truth Or Fiction?

Simone Segouin, a woman combatant in the French Resistance, near Chartres, August 23, 1944.

“The Nightingale,” by Kristin Hannah, is about how ordinary French women summoned up extraordinary courage during the German occupation of their country in WWII. I wasn't expecting much from this New York Times best-selling author, but about half-way into the novel, I was hooked. How could things become worse? They did.

The story is about how two rivalrous sisters of Carriveau, a fictional town somewhere in the Loire Valley, play out their roles during the war. Courageous Isabelle becomes a member of the resistance. She's a runner, leading fallen British aviators out of France across the Pyrenees mountains into Spain and out of danger. Her sister Vianne seems more like the typical woman of her time. A mother. A teacher. And dependent on her husband, who is forced to enlist and leave. We fear she will betray all and become a collaborator--in order to survive.

Through this book, I learned much about how women coped in wartime France, thanks to the author's research. Women queuing for hours to buy very little with their ration coupons. Wearing shoes with wooden soles when the leather ran out. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time when a bomb hit, or a when German soldier decided it was time to maintain order at a border crossing. Or being rounded up as a Jew, a spy, or for breaking curfew. It left me in tears.

In this book, you'll find only heroines, however, no female “collabos.” As if to say that all French women faced ambiguous situations where it may have “looked like” they helped the enemy in some small degree or other, but, in the end, they all slayed their occupiers. I'm not underestimating how difficult it must have been for French women to survive under occupation. But there were certainly other women, like Coco Chanel, who found it convenient and lucrative to become very close to the enemy (read Hal Vaughan’s “Sleeping With the Enemy: Coco Chanel’s Secret War”).

Ms. Hannah gives us the happy ending we all want. And the version of history that France desperately reaches for. In May 2015, France interred Geneviève de Gaulle-Anthonioz and Germaine Tillion, two female heroes of the resistance in the Panthéon, the resting place of the nation’s great, in addition to two male members. It's no doubt that these women were brave. But was there a French Resistance, or more or less acts of resistance? The latest book about the WWII resistance, "Fighters in the Shadows," by Robert Gildea, sets out to answer that question.

(More resistance reading: “The Secret Ministry of AG. & Fish: My Life in Churchill's School for Spies,” by the British author Noreen Riols, who helped support French Resistance fighters.)