Welcome to the greener side

2020 was not a Good News year. I bet every single person on this green and blue planet has suffered in one way or another. A tremendous number of people were put to rest too soon. I was lucky to not lose anyone. But, as a Canadian living in Paris, I have now gone more than a full year without seeing either my Mom or my brother. A first.

I’m sure you all made sacrifices as well, or at least viscerally felt so many of the sad stories of people saying goodbye to their parents on Zoom, of mental health anguish, of jobs lost and hard times.

The climate crisis also worsened. We celebrated, although maybe that’s the wrong word, the 7% decline of emissions during the beginning of the pandemic. But since then, emissions rose again and even quickly enough to mean that 2020 was an overall increase. Despite the net zero declarations by many national governments, we are still on the back foot.

This shitty year made me realize the heavy toll that so much bad news has on all of us. In a connected, globalized world, we are all carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders.

So we won’t talk about any bad news here. This is the greener side.

We are here to laugh, to learn and to talk about uplifting news about energy, climate, languages and general awkward expat life, productivity and anything else that comes to mind.

I work for a non-profit that reports on the incredible progress that renewable energy is making around the world. This week, we released a new report on cities and renewables that showed more than one billion people live in a city with a renewable energy target or policy. There are reasons to be optimistic.

And where there is humour, there is hope. So that is a big part of the greener side. Let’s find a reason to enjoy ourselves, shall we?

To kick things off, let me tell you about the time I met my French girlfriend’s parents and repeatedly said “dick” to them.

I was trying to impress them, of course, when it happened. We had visited Musée Pompidou the week before and one artwork that stuck out to me was a painted can of beets by a Russian artist in the 1970s. It was a lone can, with a clear picture of beets visible on the label and even painted in the same tones to make it clear that it was a reference to Andy Warhol’s famous “Campbell’s Soup Cans” work from 1962. I think the title was even, “Hi, Andy!”.

So I thought it was funny stuff and liked the clever tension between the Soviet Union and the United States at the time that underlined this reference. I wanted to explain it to her parents, possibly in an attempt to impress them with how sophisticated I was ooh lala. How I understood artisitic reference. How I liked humour.

I did show them the my goofy “knack” for humour, but in a different way than I meant to. It started out by explaining, in my quite-broken French, that we had visited the museum. Back then, I still found plenty of French words difficult to say. Thankfully, “Pompidou” was not one of them. Pom. Pee. Doo. Two types of toilet activity squished together into one former President’s name. RIP and such. Of course I did say the “m” in “Pom” instead of hitting it nasally like the French do. But they understood me.

In fact, I was laying out the scene with such a relative and personally palpable fluency, that I surprised even myself when I suddenly hit a wall. I had regaled them (ahem) with path through the modern art museum, the sculpture made of tires and coat hangers, the television set playing a black and white, silent film of an old man sleeping (?) in a bed. Like a toddler accidentally ripping the tablecloth off the table during a dinner party, somehow I found all these words. And now I came to the most amusing piece: a can of beets painted against a white backdrop. I loved the humourous political critique that was equal parts sharp and inviting. I wanted to describe it to my girlfriend’s parents.

But I didn’t get very far. I knew the word for “can” — une conserve. Despite my accent, that one landed fine.

“Wee, say-tay oon ta-blow d’un are-teest roose. Say-tay oon con-sairve de…” Yes, it was a painting by a Russian artist. It was a can of…

I blanked. How do you say “beet”?

They were looking at me, their expectant faces deepening in confusion as my mind continued whirling. Anyone who has ever learned another language KNOWS this moment all too well. Pressure cooker.

“Wee, uh, je say pa. Come-on dee ton ‘beet’ en fron-say?” Yes, I don’t know, how do you say “beet” in French,” I asked, hoping they, somehow, would know what I was talking about.

My partner’s mother looked away. Her father raised his eyebrows. “Bite, tu veux dire ?” You’re trying to say “beet”?

“Wee. Beet, beet, beet, come-on dee ton ‘beet’?” I felt like I was missing something, so I kept repeating myself. “Wee, oon con-sairve de beet.” Yes, a can of beets.

That last sentence, through my thick accent, got the attention of the whole table. Now all of the aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents were looking at me. My face felt hot. I needed a drink of water.

Seated next to me and no longer engrossed in another conversation, my partner turned. “Wha… why… why are y… why do you keep saying “dick” to my parents?”

Then it dawned on me. “Beet” was pronounced the same as bite in French. One of the many words for dick, cock, penis.

I turned beet red. Before meeting my partner’s parents, I had gone through many different scenarios in my head for how the meeting could go. I was prepared to not know certain words. I was ready to make mistakes. I had prepped my Je ne comprends pas and my Tu peux répéter, s’il te plaît ?

But nothing had prepared me for this. I excused myself, Je swee day-zo-lay. Someone broke the tension with a joke I didn’t understand. Even if my French had been better, I probably wouldn’t have caught the joke because my head was spinning so much. Dizzy from embarrassment. I thought I was smiling but I wasn’t sure. I then tried to force a smile, not knowing whether I was already smiling or not. That probably looked weird, I thought. Surely it did.

Several years later, it has never come up again. I’m not sure if the parents even still remember. But I sure do!

And it is in this spirit that I wanted to open this blog. I’m going to try to fill it with lighthearted stories from my personal life as an expat, about energy and climate, about anything that comes to mind. Hope you join me.

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