Sharing
A Key Part of Our Vision Is Finally Realized
Readers, it has finally happened: we have an old friend using our Montpellier apartment while we are here in the US! David is a professor (a French major in college) and an old friend of Carolyn’s going back decades. He will be in our apartment for about two weeks. It is fun to be the Montpellier experts and send him names of our favorite coffee shops, restaurants, and bars. Dave has been great about sending pictures of himself in those places along with short, enthusiastic reviews.
Carolyn and I recently had our annual meeting with the experts who give us financial advice. The meeting always includes a touchy-feely part where they ask, “What does financial success mean to you?” and read back to us the definition that Carolyn and I settled on years ago, which includes the phrase “…having the ability to be generous to the causes we care about and the people we love.” The meeting is specifically about finances, but we aspire to be generous with all of our resources: time, money, expertise, homes, contacts. Everything.
Carolyn and I have always been on the same page about one aspect of having a home in France: we will share it with friends. We want to host people when we are there and we want to make our home available to friends when we are not there (this goes for our home in Austin too). And we don’t mean a discount on the VRBO rate - we want to say, “please use our place” and hand them the keys. We love the idea of sharing what we have, of making a vacation more affordable for friends who might not have the resources we are fortunate to enjoy, or simply to reduce the hassle and increase comfort for friends who are visiting our area.
There are dozens of people we have individually or jointly told that they’re welcome to the place, even if we aren’t there, “Just pay the cleaner,” we say.
We were in France during most of the Los Angeles fires, but we offered our Austin home to a number of friends who lived in evacuation zones (nobody took us up on it). Similarly, when we talk about current events with friends and family we tell them - if things really go off the rails, come to France. We’ll find a place to put everyone. Let’s hope nobody ever needs to take us up on that either.
We have both been on the receiving end of this sort of generosity. I remember feeling incredibly grateful to the people who treated us so kindly, who made us feel loved and protected, who welcomed us and trusted us with their valuable, beautiful homes. We love the idea of putting that kind of positivity out in the world ourselves and we feel lucky to be able to do so.
Yesterday, Dave reached out on a video call and we had a wonderful long conversation with our apartment in the background. As much as we loved seeing Dave there in our home, it also made us wish we were back in France. We wanted to be in our apartment, enjoying Dave’s company in person! I’ve rarely felt closer to Carolyn than after our call with Dave; we gushed about how much we liked the idea of him using our place, we talked about how much we missed good bread, Carolyn was reminded of several old stories about traveling and laughing with Dave on past adventures, and we both felt homesick for our life in Montpellier.
The news is dark these days, it feels like an hourly barrage of fresh outrages and personified incompetence. Selfishness and cruelty are controlling a lot of the national narrative here in the US. Sharing what we have makes us happy, but it is also form of resistance. When governments and institutions are cold and brutal, it’s even more important for individuals to be generous and kind. It makes me incredibly happy that we have put those ideals in writing as part of our definition of success.
Jusqu’à la prochaine fois (until next time),
Roberto & Carolyn
If Dave wants to have a coffee one day with someone other than himself, please feel free to share my contact info
Sharing is caring. Thank you for sharing this and for spreading your good will. It truly defines you as American. Et moi aussi. Keeping my door open in Montréal du Gers.