By Susan Poulin

       French was my first language, but I don't speak it anymore.  I stopped around the time my grandfather died and I started school, and my Mom and Dad no longer spoke it around the house.  Well they did sometimes, when they didn't want my sister and I to know what  they were talking about.  

      Over the years, I've tried to relearn French.  I really have.  I took it for three years in high school, where we mostly just read the language.  I can't tell you how many Conversational French classes I've dropped out of.  I paid big bucks to a tutor thinking that would make a difference.  Nope.  What I got was twelve weeks of one-on-one "conversation":  she, bored, asking the questions, me, nervous, replying in as short a sentence as possible.  I even tried a one day immersion course, where I excelled at lunch (eating it, not talking about it).  

     I have French books, French music CDs, a French/English dictionary, and a French language CD Rom that was selected by the Peace Corps, the U.S. State Department and NASA.  It's called the Rosetta Stone French Explorer.  It sure looks great! I even have one of those calendars that has a new French phrase for the day.  It's on my desk now, and reads, "J'ai peur des araignées!  (I'm afraid of spiders!)  Mercredi(Wednesday), 9, Fevreir(February), 2000".  But the truth is, I'm so embarrassed by the way I sound and the mistakes I make, and so frustrated by the block I keep hitting my head against that it's hard to push the words out of my mouth.   

     So, I recently went to a hypnotherapist friend to help me find the French language in my head, or at least relax me enough to let the French come through.  I think I was hoping for a Helen Keller-sort-of-moment, where water splashes on my hand and I understand intuitively that the word for water in French is "l'eau", and the whole language tumbles out of some dark recess in my mind, flowing effortlessly out of my mouth. 

      I like being hypnotized.  I've gone several times.  There's something about paying a modest fee for someone to help me relax and tell me how creative, unique and brilliant I am.  It's like getting a massage for my ego.  

      My friend is good.  She counted me down, "One, two, three", and before I knew it, I was under (or whatever you want to call it) in a trance.  We went through all my body parts (even the ones I don't really like to think about, like internal organs) and relaxed them.  Then it was time to picture myself going down a staircase to my special place.  For me, this is usually a garden that's filled with beautiful, fragrant flowers and trees with the sound of running water.  No insects, no allergies.

      I started going down the stairs when I noticed something odd.  Usually, there is a gracefully flowing white marble staircase with the polished banister that I glide down, but I looked up and saw a wooden bannister high on the wall above me. Then I realized that I was sliding down the stairs on my butt like a little kid, one step at a time, descending to my Grandmother Dora DeBlois' store in Jackman, Maine.
   
     When I got to the bottom, I could smell that old familiar smell of the store, and I looked down and noticed the worn but waxed linoleum behind the wooden cases of penny candy.  My Grandfather was waiting for me, and seeing him made me cry.  It had been a long time.  He smiled and took my hand.  

     Then all of a sudden, I was in my garden.  I had on a pretty white and pink dress with lace and a crinoline, and I was running and twirling.  I had on white ankle socks and the kind of white patten leather shoes my sister and I always got new for Easter, a white straw hat with fake flowers and an elastic under my chin, white gloves and a matching white straw purse.
  
     I looked up, and there was Grammy and Grampy, Mom and Pops, and Aunt Rita.  Then the hypnotherapist said people who were alive could be there, too, and my mother and father appeared.  She said that these people had been holding my French until I was ready to come for it:  keeping it safe.  

     Then Grampy stepped forward with a small treasure chest made of rich, dark wood and black leather with a big, brass buckle.  He put the chest in my hands, patted my head and smiled.  I knew what was inside this treasure chest.  It was the entire French language.  I wanted to throw the chest open, dig my hands in and let the words and phrases flow through my fingers.       

     I opened the chest a crack and was dazzled by the jewels within.  But then I thought, "No. This chest is not pretty enough, not feminine enough.  It's the wrong color, texture.  It's not what I thought it ought to look like."  

     The lid of the chest slammed shut.  I wanted to open it, I really did, but for some reason I needed it to look right first.  The chest had to be the perfect chest before I could see what was inside.  So it stayed closed.  

     All of a sudden, the hypnotherapist had me swimming and breathing underwater.  I thought, "Please, don't make me find a treasure chest down here.  Please!"  Instead, she directed me to some sea sponges swaying on the bottom and had me look at them closely.  I watched them absorbing everything, letting the sea flow through them without effort.  

     Then it was time to come out of the trance.  My friend slowly counted me up, "One, two, three,"and totally relaxed, I came to the surface thinking, "Un, deux, trois."

     We looked at each other expectantly, but that was it.  There was no Helen Keller moment, no tumbling forth of my long, lost French.  I rose to leave, but my friend stopped me.  She said that before she left her house to come to the appointment she had impulsively taken an object from the kitchen to give me.  "It wanted to come along", she said.

     She rummaged in her purse and presented me with a gift.  It was a ceramic, soft boiled egg holder, but not just any egg holder.  Across the front, written in French, is the word for egg.  "Oeuf".  It's sitting on my desk now, beside the French phrase calendar indefinitely stuck on February 9, 2000.  It gives me hope. 
  

Susan Poulin is a writer and performer whose plays, "In My Head I'm Thin", "Ida: Woman Who Runs With the Moose" and "Spousal Deafness... and Other Bones of Contention" have toured throughout the Northeast.  She is currently working on a new show about her Franco-American heritage called "Franco Fry" which will debut in fall 2002.  Susan will be traveling around the state doing research.  If you have stories you'd like to share with her about your Franco-American experience, please contact Susan at 24 Brattle Street, South Berwick, ME 03908, 207-384-4526, poolyle@aol.com.  Or visit Susan's web site at www.poolyle.com