At 36, Natasha leaves her French husband in America and moves to Paris to seek work in the film industry. After six months of phone calls, knocking on doors, expensive coffees, chain-smoking and trying to meet anyone in the film business she’d only found two short gigs; hired to translate a screenplay from French to English and one job as assistant on a shoot for a Pierre Cardin perfume commercial (hired by the ex-husband’s brother). But really, this is not working. One spring afternoon she thinks, perhaps I should consider alternatives! She asks herself ‘what do I really love?” The resounding answer ripples through her body, ‘MOTORCYCLES!’ Natasha embarks on her new path with renewed vigor and determination.
Within hours of her decision, she’s at the Paris hub of motorcycle activity, the Place de la Bastille, trying on full leather riding outfits. These are very sexy, but a deep fear of being run over by a crazy taxi driver gives dirt bike riding a certain appeal.
‘Hummm, don’t I know SOMEONE in Paris in the motorcycle world?’ Natasha wonders. She recalls Gilles, an off-road motorcyclist she met in 1992 while working at her ex-husband’s grandparent’s campground in southern France . Unlikely as it seems, she still has that phone number he gave her five years before! She phones him. Not only does he have an off-road motorcycle school, he invites her to an upcoming weekend in the French countryside where he will guide eighteen Belgian businessmen through the mud tracks and forests of the Berry in the center of France.
Things look promising for Natasha and her new passion.
Within a couple months she has redirected her vision completely. After the weekend in the forest near Peyrat-le-Chateau, she decides she must learn herself, and signs up for a dirt bike training class in the forest of Fountainbleu. Her instructor says she has ‘natural’ talent! Great.
Well, then, why not do some racing. Fueled by irrational thinking, the prospect of hanging out with good looking French guys in motorcycle outfits, drinking champagne and the lure of the Sahara, Natasha decides it is her mission to become the first American woman to cross the Dakar finish line at Lac Rose on a motorcycle. She arranges a sponsorship meeting with Honda France racing, stages a photo shoot complete with a real motorcycle at the Palais du Chaillot with the Eiffel Tower looming in the distance, meets veteran Dakar racers with tales of their desert exploits.
At the big motorcycle show in Versailles, Bernard Rigoni, the head of Honda France racing tells her ‘vous brulez trop chaud’. That’s ‘you are burning too hot’ in French. She ignores this sage advice and continues on her reckless path to secure sponsorship for the 1998 race.
With only months until the race start, Natasha conceives of an idea to document her race experience and turn it into a video game. Heedless of the seeming impossibility of this, she masterminds a proposal and a meeting strategy. She sends a series of faxes to the offices of Sony Playstation presenting herself as the game character, Natasha. Knowing no one and nothing about video games, within six weeks of her original inspiration, she is in a meeting with Kaz Hirai, the president of Sony Computer Entertainment. He tells her ‘If you finish the race, you can sell this game to anyone.’
Armed with this impressive validation of her idea, she returns to a cold apartment in Paris, where her electricity has been shut off. Ditto the phone. But upon unlocking the door to her chilly apartment, she discovers a letter from Electronic Arts in England lying on the cold floor. They are interested in sponsoring her for the race!
While her dream of racing in the 1998 Dakar was dashed, she did make it to watch the start of the rally on New Year’s eve 1997. Thousands of drunken French spectators filled the large place before the glowing palace of Versailles. Television crews and lights and cameras created a circus-like atmosphere as the revelers wandered around the parc ferme, gazing with lust at the shiny motorcycles, race cars and trucks. At 5 am the rally roared to life, and riders mounted the podium one at a time and were introduced to the sleepy wine-soaked fans before accelerating into the icy darkness.
Paris is a lonely place on a good day in the winter. It is cold, gray and the denizens of this lovely city become particularly morose as the sun refuses to shine day after day. Natasha’s best efforts to find work in the new year were unsuccessful and soon she had to find another place to live, and leave her beloved apartment in the sky.
But as luck would have it, on the evening of January 16, 1998, the night of her birthday, she happened to meet a young screenwriter in a cafe near her apartment, who said he had a friend who perhaps had a cheap room she could rent. Armed with only this reference she contacted the Dutch woman he’d recommended and within a couple weeks she had moved north to the 17th arrondisement, around the corner from the festivities of the Place Pigalle.
Her new abode was more or less a storage room, connected to the main apartment by an exterior walkway. Hemingway wasn’t kidding when he said ‘and then there was the bad weather’... or however he said that. Her room was barely insulated so she’d snuggle into her wonderful antique French bed and smoke cigarettes and make plans. With no money left and no job prospects, planning was a bit of a challenge! By the end of February, it became increasingly obvious that the only realistic plan was to return to the United States and regroup! If she could just get to Taos, she would have a job teaching skiing, and friends, and places to stay and then she could focus on her Dakar dream.
Thanks to the generous offer of an old friend from England, whom she’d met teaching skiing, she found a way back. “Get yourself to London” he said, “and I’ll fly you to New Mexico.” What an offer! She sold a vacuum an old roommate had left her, and that covered the price of the Chunnel train to the UK, and a couple days later she arrived at Victoria station. After a refreshing visit with her friend in the English countryside, featuring a stop at Stonehenge, she hailed a cab, threw her bags into the back, got to Heathrow and with $40.00 and a pair of skis, landed back in Taos.
