What I learned speaking French with my grandfather 30 years after he passed
Time is just a construct. 🤍 🤯
Sidelined by house arrest thanks to a positive Covid test in the summer of 2022, I found myself immersed in my past; packing up 40 years of house history from my grandparents and unpacking a new life from boxes I recently moved from California to North Carolina.
For those of you who don’t know (likely most of you), in 2022 I purchased a house in High Point, NC.
It’s not just any house though, it’s the house my grandfather built for my grandmother in the late 70’s—their “aging in place home”, where they spent the final 40 years of their lives and where I will now call home when I’m in the US.
My grandfather was a lot of things in his long life—an architect, an urban planner, a realtor, a musician, an entrepreneur, a furniture man, a painter, a tinkerer, a father, a grandfather.
A committed gin drinker. 🍸
(And, from his reputation with the old-timers of High Point, apparently a legendary bridge club host too!)
But a polyglot? I wasn’t sure….
He was always into the newest technology, the first to have any sort of new media device to record sound or video, and the first to share what he was creating with friends and family.
Growing up, we enjoyed watching footage of shaky and often blurry events and holidays that captured a chaotic cast of characters both known and unknown to our family, those whose names and relation are long lost to history.
People who didn’t get to crop, filter, or edit their presence in that moment, but who simply exist forever delivering a funny joke or adding to the laughter and merriment of the moment.
It seems I’ll be packing up boxes and boxes of VHS and cassette tapes for months, and while the contents of many will remain a mystery, others become treasured discoveries…
Finding a cassette tape labeled French 2 in my grandfather’s careful capital script seemed like a tiny gift to me sent into the future from our distant, shared past.
Walking through the pleasantries of a very basic French conversation 30 years after he passed seems like the closest thing to time travel I’ll ever experience.
Since I’m dividing my time between the South of France and the US, I’m on my own French language journey, and found this to be yet another moment of serendipity in a year filled with tiny miracles.
Would he have ever imagined that these recordings he was making would one day live on, capturing a moment in time that folded over itself and inspired me in the present day?
Or was he simply exploring the options available to him, having fun in the process and bringing people along on his journey to preserve the moments of his life?
My takeaway from this discovery is simple: Your voice matters. What you’re doing makes a difference and keeping it to yourself serves no one, now or in the future.
So stop editing so much. Stop letting the worry of perfection keep you from sharing what you’re doing in your business and your life.
Have more fun with your storytelling—let it inspire you, even. Just get it out there and the right people will find it.
You never know who you might reach and what impact your voice may have. ✨
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*About the author
Ericka Saurit (enchanté in case we haven’t met! 👋) is a designer and brand strategist, obsessed with how our built environment shapes the human experience.
Through this blog and her popular newsletter, she shares stories and insights about marketing, branding, and the home industry’s creative pulse.
*My hope is to spark ideas that help you grow your business and build a brand that truly shines.✨
