O c t o b e r 2 0 1 7 6 3 L’Esprit de l’Escalier staff Ta Vie dans l’Maine I ’m listening to the “Chansons” chan- nel of Canada’s SiriusXM radio station when a song by Julien Pilon entitled “Ta Vie dans l’Maine” brings me to the jolt- ing realization that I live in a linguistic lim- bo. Not by my own choice but because I’m a first-language, mother-tongue Franco- phone living in an English-speaking coun- try. I was so overwhelmed by the sight of the word “Maine” on the car radio screen that I took a picture. Who is this person in French Canada that is so tuned to us, so aware of l’Maine, that he’d write a song about the es- trangement of Francophones living in an Anglophone country? I search for les pa- Translation: Your life in Maine. The snippet of a song overheard on the radio can awaken buried emotions of a lost homeland. By Rhea Côté Robbins roles, the lyrics, but cannot find them, so I hit the contact button on the website. I just have to know what this song is about. I get a response from the artist himself, who tells me it’s a story about people who love each other but are not together–and then one goes to live in Maine. It’s a love song in re- verse, “a kind of an ‘au revoir song,’” Pilon says. “Ta Vie dans l’Maine” is a personal sto- ry and yet also a metaphor for the ones who remained in French-language Canada ver- sus those of us, over the generations, who’ve left to live our lives in Maine and beyond. There are other songs that provoke this ache of displacement, such as Maryanne Cô- té, who shares my name and sings “1949,” or Yann Perreau and his ballad “À l’amour et à la mer.” Songs whose lyrics speak to me in my language, my world view, my accents, my thoughts, my way of being. As I listen, I un- derstand I have been living in a strange land among strangers all of my life–that is what I think and feel. It’s a heavy topic to address while driving up I-95 on my way to work in the morning, but it can’t be helped. Like Smokey Robinson sings: “You really got a hold on me” or “Ca m’a poignée bien dure.” n RheaCôtéRobbinsistheauthorof‘downthePlains,’and editorofHeliotrope–FrenchHeritageWomenCreate.