Mademoiselle Moulin. Miss Windmill.
That’s what her name meant
Though I’m not sure she
Taught us that or
Necessarily wanted us to know
Petite
But square with cropped red hair
A kind of Buster Brown
In peasant pants and big buttoned top
Dallas not Paris was her home
Wherever
She was born and grew up
She came to us with a smell
Different from my mother
Who favored Yardley’s
Mademoiselle’s
Scent was enhanced by
Her bike ride to school
And the small yard which she cut
With her push powered mower
Living alone
If that’s what she did
Seemed to agree with her
And we only incidentally
Wondered why she was a miss
Ageless
Intense and slightly irritable
It wasn’t clear she was meant
For children and only now
I wonder about her life
She drew
Large hilarious protruding lips
On the blackboard in
A valiant effort to move our
New French words farther forward
Americans
Swallow their words keeping
Them locked in their throats
And mumbling their meaning
She said let them out
On her chalkboard
La Tour Eiffel took shape and
And a whole new take on French poodles
Who often sported berets
Like the one she wore
Un petit effort
And months and years of exposure
To the sounds from her mouth and
From the LP’s on the turntable
Introduced us to the larger world
Of a woman
Herself a long-playing record
Well-aged when we first met
And timeless to me today
Miss Moulin and her big lips
Jan FoxIn the 1950's, storytelling on the schoolbus was my entertainment. By the mid-1970's, storytelling in the courts had become my profession. Today and always, storytelling set to music and sung from the heart is my joy.
Your description of her is indelible, Jan. “Miss Windmill”, I love it! One didn’t think about lifestyle choices when we were young, did we? But it sounds like she was good at teaching how to properly speak French and that’s what it was all about, n’est pas?
Jan! So glad to see you here again, with your own imitable style! Great to learn about Mlle. Moulin, your wonderful French teacher. Love that she wore a beret and introduced you to a larger world, drawing big lips to help you with your French pronunciation. Dallas in the ’60s may not have been an easy place for her, but it sounds like she made it work.
Wonderful Jan, love your style!
Welcome to Retrospect, hope we see your stories every week!
Brava, Jan, j’aime Mlle. Moulin. She was an intriguing personality and very memorable to you, and I love her unorthodox methods and blackboard drawings.
Love your description of Mademoiselle Moulin. Perfect details to make her come alive.
Well, this is just brilliant, Jan. I’ve come back several times to re-read. Thank you.
You evoke her complexity well, and recreate an indelible impression. Teachers can spend so much effort trying to reach the students, and clearly her efforts paid off. And created some good memories too.