On Life Changes (and Retirement)

The only journey is the one within. — Rainer Maria Rilke

I was sitting with two *older* gentlemen over coffee, just done with the morning marketing. Both of them are on the verge of retirement, straddling the world of working full time and whatever they want their new life to be. One of them made the remark : “I’m ready to begin my fifth life.”

He, like the other gentleman (who happens to be my husband) — and I, if we’re going to be exact — have lived many lives, changing professions, moving to new cities, slipping into new personas. It wasn’t about having no fear of change, but rather a compulsion to change, born of restlessness, wanderlust, and curiosity.

And it often had as much to do with being ready to move away from something as much as towards something else. We’d get bored of the familiar, of the predictable, the routine and other people’s expectations, the aspects of life that, quite frankly, we were fed up with. Who has the time (and by time I mean counting the years) to waste with unhappiness?

I suddenly blurted out something I’ve been telling myself for decades: “We have the possibility to do anything with our life that we want to. We set our own rules. We only have one life and how we live it is completely up to us. Most people live a well-ordered life, following a straight path from A to B to C to D to E to F to G… as society dictates (or maybe “facilitates” is a better word). It’s the unspoken rule.”

The first gentleman answered : “It’s easier when life is ordered; It’s reassuring to live our life “au carré” - structured, disciplined, by the book - to know what to expect, whether or not we enjoy it.”

Most do just that. But I’ve never been able to. Circumstances change and I follow not so much opportunities but whatever happens to present itself. A little bit of instinct, a lot of impulse. I know that I have never fit in, so I never quite got from A to B in the first place.

“Being able to change my life as I see fit, whenever I want to, setting my own rules” is a cliché I’ve embraced and repeated to myself ad infinitum, ever since that day I found myself standing on a New York City street telling my cousin I was quitting my job and moving to Paris. “I wish I could do that,” he replied, slight heavy hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Maybe I would if I didn’t have a real job.” His stress on the “real” was a stab, as if my working in an art gallery 11 to 7 was a hobby that could easily be dropped on a whim. Not serious. And he clearly saw my leaving to “move to Paris” as a whim, another frivolous impulsive decision by someone who had yet to choose her path and settle down.

“Maybe I would if I didn’t have a real job.” I remember thinking to myself : “Oh, how wrong you are. You could if you wanted to. You can do whatever you want to do.” But I didn’t have the heart to argue or the energy to defend myself.

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.” — George Eliot

It’s an awfully strange thing to think about where I am now, so many years later, owning a business in the middle of France. Writing about French food. None of it was planned. None of it was expected. Many of you know my story — I’ve written about it before : three years out of college and my life was in shambles. I was unhappy, working a job I didn’t like for less money than I needed to live decently in the city that never sleeps. I had flushed my antidepressants down the toilet and was holding on day to day, trying to figure out how to pull it all together. I didn’t know where to go or how to get there; I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. After a terrifying health crisis and an even worse run-in with the American healthcare system, I decided to run. I quit my job, gave notice to my landlord, packed 2 battered old suitcases (one had what mysteriously looked like a cigarette burn in it, and I never figured that out), and dumped everything else I owned on the street in front of my fifth-floor ungentrified Brooklyn walkup, most of it stuffed into black trash bags. But that’s okay…I didn’t have very much anyway.

And I walked away. Correction : I ran away. With those 2 suitcases and $400 cash, everything I owned.

And I struggled. For 2 years, strolling through the streets of Paris, seeing art, eating croissants and the best summer fruit imaginable, counting my meagre stash of francs to see what I could afford, flying back to the USA when my money would dwindle down to the cost of a one-way ticket back, and temping until I earned enough to return to Paris. And then I did it again. And again. Several times. I wasn’t particularly drawn to Paris — I had never really had that enchanted vision of the city of lights. That might be because I was running from something more than I was running to something. I was trying to escape the old me.

It was neither romantic nor adventurous. It wasn’t even particularly enjoyable. It was just something I had to do.

Haven’t you ever felt like starting over? Running away and starting over, I’ve discovered, are the same thing, just looking at it from different angles. As Jacques said sitting over coffees on that terrace in the sunshine : “I’m ready to begin my fifth life.”

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.” ― Oscar Wilde

I’ve read so many memoirs of young women who have dropped everything and moved to Paris or Rome. It’s so wildly romantic, don’t you think? Leave a husband, quit a job, reject a career, forsake the life everyone expected of you. Start over. And like any good novel, every memoir must have tension, conflict, struggle, transformation, desire. And a happy ending. Oh, and it should be aspirational, so not too much of the tension, conflict, and struggle (but one might add a touch of friction or worry when there is none, just to keep things interesting). It should be relatable, every reader must be able to see herself in the author’s shoes. I imagine there are good editors everywhere guiding an author’s hand, tempering the story, keeping the narrative compelling but not too bleak. Aspiration doesn’t thrive on despair.

Mine won’t be anything like any of those I’ve read because my story is unlike any of them. Mine is full of despair, messy, resistant to moving cleanly from one state of normalcy to another. But I could say my story has a heroine that more people might recognize, one that has lived a life more familiar to readers — and that ordinary life, with its upheavals, bad choices, grief, unexpected adventures and unusual outcomes, might, in fact, be more aspirational than all those pretty little fairytales.

Oh, sorry—I’ve gotten completely off track. These thoughts were triggered by that conversation at 10 a.m. last Thursday morning, at a sidewalk café in Chinon. And by the dozens of astrology accounts I seem to follow on Instagram, each one trumpeting that 2026 is the year for Aquarians — which I am. They each promise a year of success and riches, my wildest dreams coming true. A lifetime of feeling strange and out of sync with the world, they predict, years of struggle and anguish, suddenly blooming into something magnificent — everything I’ve lived and experienced leading up to this moment and the exceptional woman I am about to become.

It’s not hard to let myself be convinced that greatness is just around the corner, the idea that everything — the confusion, the false starts, the years of feeling misplaced — has been building toward something, and that it will all resolve into a story that makes sense, that happy ending. I’ve been working so very hard, yet sometimes it just feels like movement, back and forth, pitching side to side, one step forward and two steps…you know how it is.

But now I have allowed myself to believe the astrological hocus pocus, and I actually feel like there has indeed been a shift. I just went through a reckoning: I was offered something I thought I really, really wanted and, after a long struggle, turned it down, only to be offered something else — something that I may have wanted even more, and this is only just dawning on me because of this unforeseen turn of events.

My life has been a series of impetuous, impulsive decisions, unanticipated detours and experiments, surprises and unexpected trajectories. I haven’t always felt like I was moving forward, but looking back I know I have. I don’t always feel like my hard work is justly rewarded — sometimes I don’t even feel like I work very hard (I’m the queen of procrastination, taking on too many projects at the same time, and just plain laziness), and yet it has led me here.

I know I have been neglecting my Substack - I’ve been neglecting my Substack readers…. Hotel season got off to a bumpy start, having to hire one new full time employee (and train him) and two new seasonal workers; we renovated room 21 by ourselves — I was called in to hang wallpaper, the tv, artwork, and select new deco; two of our employees each took a week off this month of April and I am filling in. So I have had no time to devote to my Substack. But the news is I am starting a new project that I hope will turn into a book if I am able to gather enough information, and I already have someone interested in helping me get it published. If I write it in French. We’ll see.

By May 1, things should begin to calm down and I’ll get back to developing new (old) recipes for you. I have been working on one that I know you will love.

Today I decided to go all-American and share a favorite classic layer cake with you, a golden vanilla yellow cake, stacked to impress, and frosted with my favorite - and easiest - buttercream frosting.

Classic Yellow Layer Cake with Creamy Mocha Frosting

2 cups (400 grams) sugar

3 ¼ cups (420 grams) flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

12 tablespoons (170 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

1 ¼ cups (300 ml) milk at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

4 large eggs at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C).

Grease (I brush with softened butter) three 8-inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each with a round of parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the softened butter in large chunks all at once and beat on low speed until the butter is well and evenly blended in and it resembles sand.

Combine the milk and vanilla and add to the bowl all at once; beat on low speed for 30 seconds then increase the speed to medium and continue to beat for another 30 seconds. Scrape the bottom and sides of the bowl.

Add the eggs one at a time, beating first on low speed for 30 seconds to blend then on medium speed for 30 seconds after the addition of each egg, scraping the bowl as needed. Once all four eggs are blended in, beat at medium or high speed for an additional 30 seconds.

Divide the batter evenly among the 3 prepared cake pans and bake in the preheated oven until the cake is set in the center and lightly golden, from 25 – 35 minutes, depending on your oven (keep close watch). The cake should just be beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan either in the oven or as you set it on a cooling rack to cool. Allow the layers to cool for about 10 minutes or so before turning out onto cooling racks to cool completely before frosting.

Creamy Mocha Frosting

Old faithful — my favorite buttercream frosting is so simple to whip together and the variations are endless. I beat in a small amount of ricotta to this recipe, but you can replace the ricotta with fresh mascarpone, if you prefer. You can replace the brewed/prepared coffee with very hot water; if you do, beat in a little vanilla to the frosting.

12 ounces (350 grams) powdered/confectioner’s sugar

8 tablespoons (120 grams) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

1.8 ounces (50 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder

4 tablespoons very hot, strong brewed/prepared coffee

2 - 4 tablespoons fresh ricotta cheese, optional but sublime

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and the powdered sugar together. Add the cocoa powder and the hot coffee and beat, scraping down the sides as necessary, until well blended and fluffy. Beat in the ricotta (or mascarpone, 1 tablespoon at a time until desired consistency.

Chill in the refrigerator until beautifully spreadable but firm enough so that when the cake is frosted the layers does not slide when stacked.

Frost the tops of each of the three layers then stack, placing the bottom layer on a cake or serving plate. I slip strips of waxed paper or parchment under the edges of the bottom cake layer before frosting the sides in order to keep the plate clean and frosting-free. Smooth the frosting on the sides of the cake. Gently slide the strips of parchment out from under the cake and retouch as needed.

Chill the cake in the refrigerator until the frosting has firmed, if needed. Because the frosting contains butter, it is best to store uneaten cake in the refrigerator.

Thank you for reading and subscribing to my Substack Life’s a Feast. Please leave a comment, like and share the post…these are all simple ways you can support my writing and help build this very cool community. If you would like to further support my work and recipes, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

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