Even after so many years of living in France, I can’t help but be drawn to the parfum d’antan, that ephemeral feeling of the past, one often wafting around me like the scent trail left behind by a beautiful woman. My eye roves towards that sense of time worn, time known.
It is little wonder why I am so taken by such beauty. Only those that are born here seem to be oblivious to it. And yet I wonder if all of this past pulls me by the arms at times, holding me back. My Sister is visiting. One of the fascinating aspects of seeing family members after an absence is that the changes in them stand out as if drawn in bright colors. Robin has been working hard on herself and seems so less caught by the cobwebs of the past than before. She stands clear in the present with an open face towards the future.
So best then to appreciate the past with its style and substance without letting it take roots within. To linger in the parfum d’antan without getting caught under its spell…
Bon weekend!
PS. As I was about to hit publish, I had a lovely surprise from my friend Virginia in Melbourne. She is a talented and successful designer and yet shares her world generously in her incredible blog, Glamour Drops. Today’s post involves me and our friendship. And while the French have taught me not to say thank you for a thank you, what she wrote is just too beautiful not to acknowledge. And it also is very similar in its way to what I have been pondering here. So far away and yet on the same wave-length. There is nothing old-fashioned about that. Friendship lives out of time, doesn’t it?
Isn't that true as gold? And as for the idea of our younger selves, I just sent to Tish something that is vaguely tangential to that idea. We go in, we shout out, it rushes back in.
Thanks for stopping by BLW, as always you give me something to chew on. 🙂
Good morning David! Yes, I passed on what you wrote to Remi and it really made him feel wonderful. Having worked for the press for so long, he is used to just putting his work out there with little to no feedback. That is why it was so wonderful having the gallery and selling the prints–it made his photographs live and created connections. So, this is wonderful and it makes me happy too. A little bit of us (for I went back to that village in Mali with Remi and the young boy, then a young adolescent introduced himself, of course he remembered Remi's kindness, it was amazing) is there with you both.
As for my Sister, well, if anyone is going about Blanching it would be me, alas. Robin is a sweetheart through and through. Actually, Blanche was one of the roles that I dreamt the most about playing–it would have worked perfectly in my canon of "go crazy then die" roles.
And no, I was less stunned by the size of your kitchen (it is the States after all) than the revelation of 568 works of art!!! I understand, you are an artist and all but isn't that a bit crazy? 😉 Thank goodness the house is so big! And the neighborhood sounds like a true dream. The best of everything to be so close and yet so quiet. All of those big thoughts swirling around the neighborhood has to do a body good.
Bisous et Bon Dimanche my friend,
H.
PS. Fete worse than Death is up there on my list of all time favorite David Terryisms.
No, no–you probably had too much wine!! 😉 Just that my Sister is forging ahead without being too trapped or tangled up in her past. Trust me, she loves these old stones as much as I do!
Bon weekend ma chere Contessa!
Hello my rebel friend! Yes, manners or la bonne manniere is awfully complicated here at times. Best to just say what you feel and make someone (me) happy! 🙂 And hooray that you like these photos so much! Yes the gorgeous lighting helps and so does practice. Remi is slowly showing me things by pointing out what doesn't work because he knows that if he tries to tell me what to do, I will just do the opposite!!
Hoping you had a lovely weekend…
I got my current camera for Christmas and love it so much! But the lighting was especially lovely that day…
Jackie, thank you so much for this. Your kind and thoughtful comments are what blogging is all about!
Hope you & your sister are relishing your marvellous time together.
~ Clare x
I loved all your photos, the were beautiful. Thanks for sharing them.
What a deceptively simple and yet important reflection. Le parfum d'antan. I think that is part of what I miss about France, about Europe in general, about where I once grew up but left. The texture of what is worn and gracious and quiet in holding back it's secrets and stories, but if we listen, we imagine we can hear them all.
Just as we hear our younger selves in our idealism, our possibilities, our variations that aging may attempt to hide but in fact, the years add to our interest as we stand in the present.
If only this country understood that – while in this country. Perhaps we would destroy and degrade less, and respect more.
P.S. I know…..you'll have just read "20' by 30' kitchen", and you're thinking what-the-hell-?….
It is, however, that big. Hillsborough isn't Arles, Paris, New York, or any place where 20×30 feet would be regarded as an enormous apartment in and of itself.
Just for the record?….Hillsborough (established in 1740 and wildly prosperous, as the colony/state's capital intil 1830)has been, for at least 150 years, a complete backwater, despite its being only 20 or so miles from Durham and Raleigh (which has been the state's capital since the 1830's). NOTHING of any note has happened here since the Civil War (which pretty-much bypassed the town). Consequently…no walmart, no mall, no "development"….just a grid of six 18th century streets, and a remarkable cluster of lovely, old, 18th-19th century houses and a big courthouse with a clock given by George III.
There are, to be sure, a gaggle of writers here (one magazine recently ran an article on the town, titled "The Best Little Literary Town in the South"). Allan Gurganus & Lee Smith (Dolly Parton's favorite writer, among many other accomplishments) live in houses that are a stone's throw from my front porch. About twenty other well-known littry-names live hereabouts.
All in all, it's a lovely place to live, and we all get to have bigass kitchens.
Next week, I'm going to the rest-home to have lunch with the 85 year old, last-surviving member of the family who built this house in 1790 and had it until the 80's. She was born in the joint when the kitchen wasn't even attached to the rest of the house. I don't know which of us got the better deal; the fact remains that, when she was growing-up here, you may have had to go outdoors to visit the kitchen, but at least it was manned by two or three folks who were paid to do all the work there.
—David