Womenwho value themselves as intelligent, independent beings, live more satisfactory lives. Dialogue III portrays the financial problems that plague single women of aristocratic families and the ruses to which they resort in order to maintain their lifestyle.
It features a young woman, Mariane, who brags to her friend Hortense about how she exploited an older gentleman who was in love with her, just to have money to buy the latest styles in clothing. Hortense, unable to convince her friend of her wrongdoing, has the last word:.
Instead, Hortense accuses Mariane of abandoning her self-respect. At the same time, she seems rather unsurprised, as if this was a kind of repeat performance that she had observed often among women of her station. Through her female interlocutors, Durand encourages both unmarried and married women who have active social lives to make wise choices if they engage in gallantry.
The female interlocutors who act as a foil to the voice of reason serve as a warning to other women who neglect their reputations. They emphasize that, even in polite society, women are judged more harshly than men, and that women should take care not to compromise their reputations for a romantic fling. This contrasts the lessons found in the writings of Maintenon, who sought to keep young aristocratic women born into poor aristocratic families from making similar choices. Her own life served as a model for the young Saint-Cyriennes in whom she attempted to instill such values as hard work and modesty.
Because of their extreme poverty, Maintenon was raised by relatives and educated in an Ursuline convent in Paris. As the relationship with his mistress deteriorated, the king grew fond of Mme Scarron, and he gave her an aristocratic title, after which she became known as Mme de Maintenon. He and Maintenon built Saint-Cyr, a boarding school for daughters of poor aristocratic families, which she directed until her death there in They were never intended to be performed in public, but on some occasions the King and members of the court were present for private performances.
Maintenon further develops the dramatic dialogue genre by assigning it a pedagogical purpose. Yet, let us not forget that the dramatic dialogue first developed in the salon. Like Durand, Maintenon notes the double standards that place women at a disadvantage. Yet Maintenon encourages women to embrace the private sphere and find satisfaction in the home rather than in society. At the same time, she emphasizes the satisfaction that may be found in domestic work:.
Hortense indirectly criticizes the mondaines who damage their reputations by participating in inappropriate activities. In the end, Mlle Hortense is unsuccessful in converting Mlle Odile, who is more interested in imitating the mondaines. This dialogue illustrates the difficulty that Maintenon had in convincing the Saint-Cyriennes to accept work values that they must have more or less associated with the bourgeoisie, and even with their servants. Unlike her contemporary Durand, Maintenon does not advise women to engage in gallantry or to find pleasure in the company of men.
She does however encourage young women to speak wisely and with confidence in their presence. At the same time, it is clear that gallantry is strictly forbidden.
Addressing these young women of impoverished noble families, Maintenon sets out to remind them that they must hold fast to the only thing that remains—their honor. Ils le sont en effet…. While Durand depicts a successful society woman as one who engages in gallantry, here Maintenon proposes that women will always fall prey to ill-intentioned men.
She discourages those Saint-Cyriennes who wrongly associate marriage with freedom:.
Et qui est-ce qui est libre? While Durand depicted marriage as a stumbling block for mondaines , Maintenon believed that women would find a sense of peace and a sense of self-worth only in their domestic lives. Their dialogic format allowed women to discuss and rehearse the codes of conduct. These women writers also merit our attention since they participate in the development of new genres. As Delphine Denis states, there is a need in the university and academic settings today to understand the culture mondaine and acknowledge its collaborative contribution to the belles-lettres University of Chicago Press, Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press, La Haye et Rotterdam; A.
Words to live by. Presses Universitaires de France, The University of Chicago Press, Les Loisirs de Madame de Maintenon. Dialogues by Renaissance Women. The University of Michigan Press, Rococo Fiction in France, — Bucknell University Press, In fact, the dames present are not considered worthy participants of their exchange.
It is suggested that the women would have little to contribute to their exchange. Conversations sur divers sujets ; Conversations nouvelles sur divers sujets ; Conversations morales ou La Morale du monde ; Nouvelles conversations de morale and Entretiens de morale Perry Gethner and Allison Stedman Detroit: Wayne State University Press, The agonal model is initially associated with the writings of Aristotle, but would be imitated by authors in other centuries.
See also Smarr For instance, see This kind of philosophy was much appreciated by many of the mondaines. Maintenon would posit the idea that these two lives were not compatible, and thus stopped frequenting the salon altogether. Gender Performance in Seventeenth-century Dramatic Dialogue: From the Salon to the Classroom Karen Santos Da Silva. The Difficult Case of Female Salvation La Motte, Antoine Houdar de.
Literary Knowing in Neoclassical France: From Poetics to Aesthetics. Pennsylvania State UP, Lecture sartrienne de Racine: Visions existentielles de l'homme tragique. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Review of Siefert, Lewis C. Stanton Eds and Transl. The Toronto Series, vol.
From Ancient Myth to Tragic Modernity. University of Minnesota Press, In the second chapter, on Andromaque, Greenberg argues for the central importance of visual metaphors in the tragedy. Through distorted and non-reciprocal gazes, Racine's characters struggle with their desire for identitary unity, a desire constantly frustrated by their fractured subjectivities.
An interesting feature of this section is Greenberg's focus on the interrogative mode as expressive of the connections between desire and power: With Bajazet, "more self-consciously than in his other plays, Racine makes voyeurs of his audience" as they contemplate "the other" in the form of the phallic Oriental woman, Roxane Greenberg incisively revisits the openness of the ending of Mithridate, where the rebel king reappears only in order to disappear, thus suggesting, exceptionally for the Racinian tragic universe, the promise of a future.
The altar, absent from the stage but ever-present in the spectator's imagination, marks the ambivalent point where an emerging nation contemplates both its troubled origins and its proleptic fate. The characters dramatize the internal, and thus modern, struggles of the subject under seventeenth-century absolutism, a system based on the desire for unity but fractured from within by subjective multiplicity.
In the final chapter on the sacred tragedies, Greenberg contends that the elements of psycho-sexual disorder that seem to come under the tighter control of Biblical cosmology still threaten to re-emerge to disrupt absolutist order. While the theoretical developments and textual analyses are presented in a convincing and engaging way, multiple errors in transcription of passages from Racine's plays produce at times a jarring effect for the reader.
More than a fourth of offset quotations from primary sources contain errors, some of them affecting versification. For example, line 1. Nonetheless, the reconsideration of Racine's tragedies in the light of Freudian analysis that this study proposes makes a strong and provocative contribution to the field of early modern theater studies. The book will appeal to students and scholars interested not only in early modern theater but also in the political culture of absolutism.
In a series of parallels, we see, in every case, the original idea at Vaux and its replication at Versailles. The work of decoding and interpreting such expertly reconstructed scenes is equally lucid and cogent. The melding of the natural and the artificial in garden theory is similarly well explained. Many of these ideas seem extravagant, Goldstein explains, when applied to the individual man who was king; however, when related to the infinite, meta-subject created by the fiction of the king, such extravagant ideas produced powerful emotions and deep identifications.
The only argument I found myself resisting in this work is its insistence on the originality and ideality of Vaux, at the expense of a totally derivative and dystopic Versailles. The disappearance of the individual courtier into the royal essence at Versailles had its progressive and historically inevitable aspects. Such collective fusion inspired emotional and aesthetic responses that were as intense and authentic as the experiences Fouquet created at Vaux.
Where Goldstein sees erasure, theft, and destruction of an artistic heritage, one could also see continuation and reabsorption, as the Bourbon kings, through their appropriation of Vaux, continued to forge an alliance with the noblesse de robe and the rising middle class. University of Michigan Press, Such is the condition of masculinity in seventeenth-century France, according to Lewis C. Written with precision, clarity, and humility before a surprisingly complex subject, Manning the Margins has much to recommend it, equally for specialists as for scholars of sexuality studies or those interested more generally in the way texts mediate the cultural field.
Through this multi-faceted approach, Seifert's is part of a current strain of research striving to destabilize the view of seventeenth-century France as a homogeneous culture defined by a rigid hierarchy. France, both before and during the reign of Louis XIV, emerges as a site of ambiguities, tensions, and evolving cultural figures.
Seifert's contribution to this body of work is unique, however, since he is offering a work of what might be called literary historical sociology. In turn, masculinity studies has much to learn from this study. Scholars outside our field might benefit most from this first section, with its critique of the question of "civility," a topic well-known to scholars in our field but less studied outside of it.
Seifert starts with a simple enough observation: Recently, scholarship on civility has emphasized how, as a uniquely French phenomenon it ensured increased liberty and pleasure for both women and men Habib, Viala. In contrast, Seifert shows how the specter of effeminacy created constraints for both men and women.
Here, Cauche depicts blancheur as the marker of authority, as well as being a phenomenon subject to its own internal hierarchy to judge by the respect he claims Europeans were afforded. Th show has had a large impact on my life — from fashion adventures through friendships to the men talk. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. It made my four weeks in Paris unforgettable. Il y a aussi ceux qui l'ont lu jeunes. Conversations sur divers sujets ; Conversations nouvelles sur divers sujets ; Conversations morales ou La Morale du monde ; Nouvelles conversations de morale and Entretiens de morale
In doing so, he both offers a subtle critique of recent European trends that seek to rehabilitate the habits of elite social practices as a model for respectful and meaningful heterosociability today. The second section, with chapters focusing on marginal sexuality practices, also places the seventeenth century's own contestation of marginal sexualities in conversation with our own. This is the kind of book where a specialist reader will be engrossed by even the footnotes. In the spirit of other recent works on masculinity and literature LaGuardia, Reeser in which poetry or prose is less a medium for contestation or refusal than for an exploration of the limits of one's gendered positions, Seifert's presentation of the sodomite and the cross-dresser's literary imaginings suggests a desire to write instability and dynamism.
Instead of seeing these ambivalent, nameless positions as failures or insufficiencies, Seifert makes the case for their very searching fluidity as one of the key early modern "sources of the self" Taylor. Manning the Margins offers a measured and thorough critique of some long-standing concepts informing our view of the Classical Age, from civility to salon culture to the role of the marginal writer, and does so by opening up the historical and literary archive for our renewed attention.
But—perhaps equally significantly—it is also a model of literary history, where the historical archive and the search for a definitive answer about what might have been are treated as precisely, but as ambivalently, as the construction of masculinity. In this regard, the chapter on Voiture is a model of a new kind of reception history that respects literary aesthetics as well as the shifting ground of the archive itself: The University of Michigan Press should also be commended for producing such a beautifully edited book, with an excellent index and clear footnotes—a paratextual apparatus that, while marginal, affords a dynamic and fluid reading of Seifert's scholarship.
Intertextual Masculinity in French Renaissance Literature. Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture. Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Harvard University Press, Aldershot, Hampshire and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, The organization of the book is original. She does not deny—indeed, it would be impossible to do so—that misogyny was a dominant discourse in early modern society.
However, she asserts it was not the monolith it is sometimes imagined to be. For example, misogynistic views were employed both to attack and to defend witchcraft trials. Because of their predisposition to melancholia, women are more susceptible to demonic possession than men—a claim that runs counter to other views associating melancholy with male genius Rather than hidden within the female body, truth is in plain sight for those who can see clearly—like physicians.
By gendering nature as a female who will not give up her secrets easily, he validates the use of violent means to find what is hidden. Weyer had portrayed women as weak and susceptible to delusions in order to strengthen his authority as a physician. This theme is recast in chapter 3, which deals with the neo-Stoic response to the intellectual and political crisis of the late Renaissance. Wilkin adds the element of gender to this mix, arguing that masculinity becomes an unstable category in the writings of the neo-Stoics. But unlike Weyer and Bodin, du Vair does not found these gender oppositions solely on anatomical differences; rather, gender roles are grounded in the will.
Hence, exceptional women, by their actions, can choose to demonstrate male virtue. As a result, belonging to a particular gender cannot be guaranteed: Horace tragically fails to sustain his performance of vertu whereas his sister Camille displays male constancy. Thus, men who succumb to tristesse may as well be dressed as eunuchs or castrated.
However, they can avoid this fate by eschewing melancholia and embracing vertu. For Du Vair and Du Laurens, then, gender differences are not uniquely grounded in the body. Yet as Wilkin points out, women do not escape the strictures of gender so easily: Wilkin sandwiches her analysis of Montaigne between two works relating to the contemporaneous querelle des femmes: The set-up discussion of Agrippa allows Wilkin to clarify the opposing uses of skeptical argumentation in this period.
Its purpose is not to uphold Christianity but to attain personal tranquility. Despite his speculations about the flexibility of gender, Montaigne is not interested in changing social practice. In his correspondence with Elizabeth of Bohemia, Descartes shows himself to be more open than in his published works, arguing that qualities of mind are gender free. She also shows a thorough understanding of classical, medieval and Renaissance thought. While not easy to read or summarize, this important book merits study by philosophers and historians of science as well as scholars of literature and gender studies.
Sunspots and the Sun King: Sovereignty and Mediation in Seventeenth-Century France. University of Illinois Press, Expanding her focus on God and the sovereign, McClure explores issues of authority and delegation in a series of power couples that reproduce and complicate the tensions of the original duo: If Louis XIV won at what cost? The conflicts of authorship and influence inherent in theater, which McClureadroitly unravels in warring texts of the querelle du Cid and in seventeenth-century considerations of the role of the actor, magnify the challenges of the king who, like the playwright, seeks to define his own creativity and agency against the forces that would erase or corrupt his action.
A valuable addition to scholarship on absolutism, theater, and authorship, this compelling treatment of mediation shows writers, political thinkers, diplomats, and the king wrestling with the modalities of the delegation of absolute power through its limited instruments. Printable PDF, Gethner, — Even though one of the most common themes in French tragedy and tragicomedy was war, and even though the glorification of heroic conduct was a central feature of dramatic ideology, the treatment of combat raised many types of problems and was far from uniform.
Jean Rotrou, one of the most prolific and most successful playwrights from the second quarter of the seventeenth century, can be seen as a representative example of what was possible and acceptable at that time. Although war-related scenes could be a source of dazzling visual spectacle, the presentation of battle episodes on stage, often done in medieval and Renaissance plays, was abandoned in Rotrou's time.
But another reason was more technical in nature: Even later in the century, with the advent of tragic opera and the resources of the royal court, combat was mostly kept hidden from view.
However, during the first half of the century, playwrights found other ways to incorporate elements of war-related spectacle. Ramparts or city walls allowed for one or both of the following: Elaborate tents set up for one or more of the commanders could also convey the atmosphere of battle without having to show actual fighting. In Antigone Rotrou uses all of these.
We see Polynice, leader of the besieging army, meeting in his tent with family members, one of whom is another principal commander I. There could be as many as four characters inside a tent at one time, and presumably there were chairs for them to sit on. Other elements of spectacle involved costumes and props. Entering companies of soldiers carry banners Antigone v. Trumpets are typically featured in plays involving heralds, and it is possible that drums were also used in combat-related scenes. The opening scene of Crisante , for which the location is not specified, may well have begun with a military procession into the city center, since the dialogue that follows, between the Roman commander Manilie and his chief generals, focuses on celebrating the victory they have just achieved.
Standards may have been used here and later in the council chamber scene IV. Obviously, the number of participants in military procession scenes was limited by the size of the troupe, but we know that extras were sometimes engaged to beef up the spectacle and that these could be drawn from relatives or even servants of cast members. If combat could not be shown directly, there were several obvious methods to create the sensation of a war environment, depending on whether the scene occurs before or after the fighting. There were a variety of possibilities for showing the preparations for battle.
But Agamemnon is torn between his love for his innocent daughter and his desire to achieve a new level of glory as commander-in-chief of a monumental Greek force. Even the soldiers are allowed to make their views known. In the spectacular fifth act, showing the preparations for the sacrifice of the heroine, a group of Greek warriors is present on stage. Although they say nothing, their position is represented by Calchas and Ulysse and they presumably participate in the scene through gestures.
However, Rotrou provides ambiance but very few specifics. The play does in fact end with a military spectacle, but not that of combat: If the battle has taken place prior to the start of the play or occurs during the course of it, the principal way to present those events was through narration. Although audiences were capable of appreciating lengthy speeches if delivered with gusto by a skilled actor, playwrights became increasingly concerned with making such passages integral to the action and not merely bravura set pieces.
Instead, they recount and praise the deeds of their fellow commanders. Dom Lope de Cardone is unusual in that two very lengthy battle stories are juxtaposed in the same scene. But the episode is crucial to the forward motion of the plot in that it presents the tense relationship of the two young generals: A second function of the paired narratives is to illuminate the character of the two rivals, who appear in this scene for the first time in the play.
They are undeniably courageous, valiant and charismatic, but they are also incredibly foolhardy, engage in perilous maneuvers that no prudent commander would advise, and even commit immoral acts. Dom Sanche, seeing his forces outmatched, resorts to treachery. He changes clothes with a common soldier, pretends to flee with a hundred picked men, asks to be taken directly to the Castilian commander, claims to have born in Castile and offers him his services.
He and his men, as soon as they are placed at the rear of the army, suddenly draw their weapons and massacre the soldiers they have supposedly come to assist, and Sanche personally kills the commander, in what appears to be an assassination rather than a fair fight. This bold strategy, however questionable from the standpoint of the chivalric code, turns the tide of battle, and the king has nothing but praise for it. The combination of self-assertiveness, recklessness and disregard for authority is what will land the young commanders in trouble during the latter part of the play.
Significantly, it is not the narratives that cause laughter, but rather the lack of attention they receive from the on-stage audience. Although the king is delighted by the successful outcome of the recent campaign, which has gained Spain control of Sardinia for the first time, he is constantly distracted and thus keeps failing to reward his most meritorious general, Dom Lope de Lune. In the first act, when Lope himself begins to recount the campaign, the king hears not a word of it.
That is because, before Lope can even begin, two messengers arrive with tidings of greater urgency: But the two generals are unaware of this and do not even notice that the king has dozed off. Lope is demoralized when the king bestows generous rewards upon Bernard and upon the other commanders who are named during the final portion of the narrative, but does nothing to acknowledge or reward him.
The king manages to stay alert during the third narrative passage in Act IV, but this time a series of misunderstandings works against Lope. He and Bernard, under the mistaken impression that the king has taken offense at something Lope has recently done, agree that when Bernard recounts the battle against the rebel forces that has just taken place he should not mention Lope by name, but rather refer to him as a nameless but valiant soldier. The king assumes that Bernard is designating himself by that euphemism, out of modesty, and again he rewards Bernard while doing nothing for the luckless Lope.
Nevertheless, the friendship between the two young generals remains firm, despite the difference in the way they are treated and despite the fact that they briefly become rivals in love. His major concerns are the use of underhanded tactics in battle and the crimes perpetrated against civilians. In Crisante , the Roman general in charge of guarding the captured enemy queen falls madly in love with her and finally rapes her.
The second half of the play focuses on her determination to clear her name and take revenge on her assailant, which she eventually does. Significantly, the Roman commander-in-chief agrees with Crisante that the raping of female prisoners, especially those of high rank, is unacceptable, and even the assailant, Cassie, finally repents and publicly takes his own life. By showing the tendency of soldiers to believe that all standards of morality and civilized behavior are suspended in wartime, Rotrou questions the ethos of heroism based primarily on military valor and insists that aggression and the desire to achieve superiority must be subject to moral limits.
Projecting this discussion onto the ancient Romans, seen as the ultimate heroic model by seventeenth-century audiences, makes it especially powerful. Cassie is so highly esteemed by his fellow officers that a number of them plead to have his life spared, insisting that his contrition should suffice as his punishment. When the commander-in-chief confirms the death sentence, the stage direction reads: In tragicomedies unethical conduct in war goes unpunished and is even viewed as justified, provided that the perpetrators emerge victorious, though Rotrou seems more dubious about such things than his characters.
Lope, having succeeded in scaling the walls though none of his men managed to follow, has jumped down into the ranks of the enemy and attempted to fight them single-handed. He is, not surprisingly, badly wounded and near death when reinforcements arrive to save him. But in the process Sanche and his forces massacre everyone in sight, including women and old men.
Brief but graphic references to the gory side of warfare also occur in Crisante v. Rotrou never loses sight of the unpleasant realities of war, though he refuses to dwell on them. In order to end a protracted siege, Lope de Lune pretends to be a deserter fleeing a tyrannical ruler, alleges that he has been mistreated by his own side, and to make this charge more believable he wounds himself in the face and in the chest.
He then gains admission to the enemy city and wins over a group of citizens who secretly open the gates to admit the forces of the other side. At least this stratagem, though explicitly compared to the one used by the Greeks against the Trojans, does not involve mass slaughter of civilians or the assassination of the commanders. Another area in which Rotrou could be seen to question war is his choice of plots where the cause of the conflict is flimsy or at least questionable.
In Antigone the war pitting two brothers against each other is viewed by all the other characters as shocking and unnatural, and several family members try desperately to prevent the final battle from taking place. The uncontrollable hatred between the brothers leads to their deaths and to those of nearly their entire family. The military conflict in the two late tragicomedies is sparked by rebellions, and these are speedily put down.
Because wars are typically fought for political reasons, both their conduct and their outcome reveal the competence, or lack thereof, of the rulers and their commitment to justice and order. Usually the conclusion of a war, or its prevention, leads to a desirable political outcome: She allows herself to be so consumed by passion that she makes undignified offers to the man she loves, even indicating a willingness to abdicate and follow him to another country if he feels unequal to the burden of sharing her throne. And she unjustly condemns him to death when she believes that he has fought a duel over another woman, though the fact that the execution is halted just in time keeps her hands clean.
The negotiated settlement that averts a war allows her to retain her title and a measure of dignity through marriage to the new Epirot king. However, the real power will pass into the hands of her husband, who seems to be a more rational and more capable ruler. In Dom Lope de Cardone the king is capable and scrupulously fair, but also weak and dependent on the strength and loyalty of his top generals. The face-saving solution whereby he condemns the generals to death for violating his order not to fight a duel but pardons them at the last minute actually bolsters his authority: In Crisante the victorious Roman commander vindicates the honor of Rome by punishing a rapist in his ranks.
To this extent war can be seen as a kind of purification, ensuring that those leaders who can combine military might and good governance are the ones to survive. Rotrou's concern for maintaining order and stability leads not just to the praise of good rulers but also to the condemnation of civil war or other forms of civil disorder, which are invariably crushed. In a world where legitimate kings enjoy special divine protection, challenges to their authority must never be allowed to succeed. In Dom Lope de Cardone , where the plot is totally fictional, the conflict between Aragon and Castile, which in historical reality were independent kingdoms, is presented as a civil war, and the forces loyal to the king of Aragon win a quick and decisive victory.
The victory of the forces loyal to the king is swift and decisive. The enemy army is quickly decimated, and the killing of their commander makes the survivors instantly lose heart. Although some Castilians fight alongside the rebels, the episode is presented as essentially a civil war. That act not only offends the gods, but also shows his refusal to try to heal the wounds of civil war through forgiveness and reconciliation. Another area where Rotrou explores the tense connection between warfare and politics is the relationship of rulers to their military commanders.
In some cases the monarch is himself the lead general, whereas in other cases the general is separate from the ruler and viewed as a potential challenge to him. Having a division of labor may be fraught with peril, but it is still preferable to letting the king combine the two roles. Indeed, every time it is the king himself who leads his troops into battle, things do not go well.
The most disastrous case is in Crisante. Although the Corinthian king Antioche never specifically states that he commanded his forces in the abortive struggle to free Peloponnesian Greece from Roman domination, no mention is made of any other leader, so we must assume that he served as his own chief general.
While it cannot be held against him that he lost to the superior might of the Roman legions, Antioche merits condemnation for having fled his city with a few followers just before the Romans destroyed it and then making not the slightest effort either to ransom or to rescue his wife, who is being held captive. Far from thinking and acting like a hero, Antioche spends practically all his time on stage lamenting. He believes that he was defeated only because the gods were punishing him for the sins of his subjects, and he never takes any of the blame.
Even in his final speech, just before he commits suicide, he thinks only of personal matters he expects to join his wife in a better world where they will at last be free from persecution by the Romans , while giving no thought to the subjects he leaves behind. He is thus a model of both an inept general and an inept king, unable to govern in either peace or war. An obsession with our external image is not the most important thing and usually reflects other insecurities.
Finding what works for us and not for others is the key and applies to all areas working life, friendships, relationships and lifestyle. Realizing that people actually love you, feeling it somtimes is not as easy as we think. I was LOL with what you were saying about saying hello to everyone, in the countryside in Uruguay is common for locals to say hello to each person who passes by and wave to every car.
Un article encore au top, merci! Fuck, we are who we are! Ne pas vouloir, a tout prix et a quel prix! Savoir dire non, gentiment. Porter un bikini et manger des tartines le matin sans culpabilite. Pour ma part, je suis encore en chemin. I am reading all of the comments and just completely agree with everyone!
I love the secret delights we all have; such lovely common ground. Thank you always for writing such wonderful and meaningful posts! For the moment, loving Zumba for my workouts! I suspect yoga will be on the front burner in the near future! Loved the New Yorker article too. As always, Garance, your observations and revelations about yourself are an inspiration. What an inspiring post, you always make me want to write something down myself even though I always end up just checking all the other blogs: Ah Garance, you rock.
But reading how you have slowly come to terms with yourself is really inspirational. Ouais parfois je suis un petit peu Ghandi. The older I get, the better I know myself and there has come a certain happiness I never felt when I was younger. Merci Garance pour ce post tellement vrai! I loved your text! We just need to accept who we are and enjoy it! Not at all but time helps us getting there. What can I do!?
Gros bisous and a big smile! Merci pour ton post je me sens moins seule. Hi dear GArance, I love your article. I am in for letting go, relaxing in a bikini, I have also changed. I mean, I came to SEattle with pounds even less and now I am pounds and I eat healthy, exercise, etc. What can I do? Do I look fat? Do I look cute? Do I look like before? I have aged, I look like who I am, a 40 year old attractive woman. Of course, like you, I could sometimes specially when during those RED days miss being so light, thin, etc.
Of course, I try and am healthy but what can I do… Just let goooooooooooooo! Thank you for an inspiring commentary, Garance. I agree with quite a few of the replies you have received so far, and would like to add mine, as the topic has not yet been mentioned.
I have been married, and have two lovely daughters, but I kept searching for Mr Right after my divorce. And click it must, otherwise there is no point. Overcoming my neediness and learning to enjoy what I have has taken a long time, but now I feel I have made the right decisions.
Et Darling are you gonna leave me. We need to break this mindset by embracing our imperfect selves, then we will finally be ready to embrace each other. Happiness is always willing to sit and wait patiently outside your door. You can open it now, or wait until you lose a few pounds. I stopped trying to change my body and all of a sudden I started to be content with my body. And then I went to England and spent two weeks singing amazing music, eating fish and chips, drinking huge quantities of cider, and watching Muppet movies with the most amazing Englishman.
When I came home, everybody I saw told me I looked like I had lost weight.
What it can do! I have also stopped apologising for being an introvert — I cannot be social all the time, I must have my alone time. The body issues — still struggling with that one… But I lovelovelove people who are fine with it!! If more people were, it would be easier for all of us! Garance, I wanna be your friend and have breakfast carbs and all with you now and talk about some personal issues.
Et regardez donc le colloque I picked up on your comment regarding eating your carbs but not snacking between meals. I heard that its a French thing and thats how the french women stay thin even though they eat what ever they want, but in moderation. It would be great if you could tell us more about that mentality..
Perhaps what your mother or grandmother taught you from childhood about food? Like focusing on your meal when you are eating and not multi tasking? What was it like and was it hard to stick by those values as you grew up and your environments changed? Or perhaps it wasnt like that for you at all? Et depuis, je me porte mille fois mieux! I did a huge career change in that compelled to adapt in totally new scenes. But after a while, I felt tired. Sometimes I spend the entire weekend at home doing nothing i. I should really stop to feel guilty about it and enjoy the fact that sometimes all I need is a film and a book to be happy.
What an interesting topic. You get the idea. So no more feeling ashamed of it. Only you Garance can make me write a comment in the whole internet universe! That has to mean something: Have a great day! You are a great woman! This is fun and inspirational. Just relaxed and do how you feel in any aspect of life. Th show has had a large impact on my life — from fashion adventures through friendships to the men talk.
Sorry, but this show is immortal, and I can see my daughter watching it one day…. This post makes me want to go to New York and stay there even for just a few weeks. Some day I will, with my love. I think most of us could be more comfortable with ourselves and just accepting, embracing, and appreciating how we are different or the same. Garance- I have followed your blog for years now and I have to say- you are just the sweetest, most genuine, lovely individual. You have style and class and you are still just one of us girls. Then you start doing the real stuff — things you love at your core — and no one can stop you.
It is sosososo wonderful! I have learnt to accept my flaws and not to care that much about what others think about me.. Well, how nice for you!
I agree with everything you say….. Thank you for this sweet honest post! I completely agree that when we start living life in harmony with our true selves, we become a happier, healthier and we just start living in that sweet spot of life. I loved your oatmeal rant! I also tried to do the oatmeal or juice in the morning thing, total no-go for me. Love your spirit, love your blog: Hurray for normal eating!
I have been snacking, i. After spending several weeks in Europe, I now realize it is better for me to eat regular, satisfying meals and stop eating in between — even the almonds! I do enjoy a few cups of tea or coffee in the mid morning and afternoon.. Je ne sais pas si tu as su, mais ils ont fait un remix avec Kenza Farah: Fine with being married to another woman. Fine with having a blog about little things I like and fine with not everyone being fine with me!
I am fine with being in a wheelchair. I am fine that my lovely two year old daughter was born via surrogacy bc that allowed me to not only forgo a possibly life threatening pregnancy and delivery, but it also gave my cousin and me the chance to grow closer she carried the baby and of course we have our daughter! What I loved most about living in NY was the people. I was in awe the first days and I just loved it: Also with speaking my mind and not worrying so much about judgment.
It seems that a lot of people are insecure about their thoughts and opinions. Same with work meetings or whatever, or setting boundaries and being honest about what you need. You should be honest. Bring back the tartine!! Hello Dear, are you genuinely visiting this web site regularly, if so then you will definitely get good experience. You seem to be answering all the mental questions a confused 21 year old me has. Your blog is like a breath of fresh air and it came at the moment when I was loosing all hope on fashion blogs.
And in a few weeks, we will definitely be in the