Carol Callicotte

I, like so many before me, am joining the memoir club. I intended to start on my memoir four years ago, but kept getting sidetracked by other projects. But now I am finally working on it. I’ve struggled with how to write it: the crux of the story focuses on the time I spent living in Paris and attending a French language school, but also integral to the story are my adventures with several French friends while they were in San Diego in an English immersion program. I’m not quite sure how to frame the story – chronological seems boring, so I’ve settled, for now, on framing it in Paris, with flashbacks to the experiences in San Diego. At this point, I’m not going to worry about it. I’m just writing; I’ll piece the puzzle together when it’s on paper.

These memories, and how best to write them in a story, have been swirling around in my head ever since my time in Paris five (!) years ago. I’ve written clips of narratives over the years, but only now am I diving head-first into the pool of memories. Time, many more trips to France, and marriage to a Frenchman have affected the way I interpret my experience there and have tempered my approach to this memoir. Funny how that works. The memoirist writes as two authors: the person they were at the time, and the person they have evolved into. I think it’s good that I’ve waited to write this story, for I feel it will be a much better book now than it would have been had I written it right away. So far, my approach is to write what I remember, then to compare this to the extensive journals I kept. It’s a fun time to revisit. I only hope I can capture the passion I feel for Paris, for the French language, for the people of France, for traveling, and on a more personal level – turning 30 and learning how I wanted to define my life.