Word of the Week: Éparpillé

How do you say “scattered” in French?

🌹 Éparpillé.

As in: outside our window, scattered sunflower petals.

Related, how do you say “the scattering”?

🌹 L’éparpillement.

As in: The scattering of rose petals on the table was magnificent.

Can you “scatter” yourself? Indeed.

🌹 S’éparpiller.

As in: Je m’éparpille trop. I’m spreading myself too thin.

Lastly, when it’s time to take what’s scattered, and bring it together, what do you do?

🌹 Rassembler: gather, bring together. Or, concentrer: concentrate, focus 🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹🌹 ← Look! A gathering of roses!

Éparpillé means “scattered.”

Create a temporary art piece on a counter, table, shelf, coffee table, wherever. Scatter petals, shells, pearls, beads, feathers, leaves or something else in an artful way. You can clean up next week. This week, enjoy your temporary art! :)

If you’d like to share your éparpillé temporary art fun on Notes, tag me at J’ai Fait du Thé so I can see and restack! I can’t wait to see.

Try copying some of the éparpillé sentences below, for a little handwriting fun and soul stirring.

Playing with the Past Tense Again: The Passé Composé

Use this tense to describe completed actions or a series of actions in the past. Just combine the present tense of an auxiliary verb like avoir (to have) or être (to be) with the past participle of the main verb, as follows:

j’ai éparpillé = I scattered
tu as éparpillé = you scattered (informal)
il/elle/on a éparpillé = he/she/one scattered

nous avons éparpillé = we scattered
vous avez éparpillé = you scattered (formal/plural)
ils/elles ont éparpillé = they scattered

Sentences to copy by hand

J’éparpille des feuilles de thé sur la table — I scatter tea leaves on the table

Tu éparpilles des pétales de roses sur les marches — You scatter rose petals on the stairs

Vous éparpillez de la beauté partout — You scatter beauty everywhere

Elle a éparpillé des histoires dans ses poèmes — She scattered stories through her poems

Les pétales de roses éparpillés sur les vieilles marches gardent encore leur parfum — Rose petals scattered on old stairs still hold their fragrance

Le parfumeur éparpille ses notes de cœur comme un poète ses mots — The perfumer scatters his heart notes like a poet scatters words

Elle a éparpillé des pétales de tournesol dehors sa fenêtre pour ne pas oublier l’été —She scattered sunflower petals outside her window so as not to forget summer

Réinventer sa vie, c’est ramasser les morceaux éparpillés et en faire quelque chose de lumineux — To reinvent your life is to gather the scattered pieces and make something luminous from them

Whatever comes to your hand today, softly and with beauty, I hope you scatter it into the world with generous spirit. Even if it begins simply at your own table.

(translation: as always, L.L. :)

P.S. For the art in this post, I photographed loose black tea on top of a photo by Cig Harvey called “Rose Petals,” featured in The Rose Book from Phaidon. I really love layering art like this—creating a kind of photo collage, if you will.