Month: March 2013

Can you hear it? No, not the peaceful munching of the lambs. Listen closer…

Olé…olé…OLÉ!! The flamenco guitars are rising to a crescendo. Yes, as hard as it is to believe, it is already that time of year again, the Easter bullfights or La Feria de Paques. Think that a bit of a dichotomy? Yes, I do too. But rather than philosophize, Remi and I are going to take the high road and…“Run, better run, faster than my bullet”… straight of out of Arles and dive into The Quiet of the Luberon.

While our previous cabanon had already been reserved I let my fingers do the walking and found what I believe will be an equally charming option right outside of the little village that I dearly love. 

Can I hear a hooray?

I may be exchanging bunny hopping golden light for a drizzle of gray. The Sun Will Set but me cares not. Not one whit. I have a stack of books and a demanding nap schedule to adhere to. Light a fire in the fireplace, pour a glass of wine…these Foolish things remind me of you.

So, I am going to take a bit of a breather (save for perhaps a By Invitation Only post on Tuesday, internet service permitting)…but promise to come back with stories to tell…

…best to pack up the puppers…

…and take flight.

Because can you hear it? The road is calling…

For all of you that are celebrating, I wish you a very Happy Easter and an Excellent Passover!

PS. And as if I haven’t left you with enough links to explore while I am gone, here is one more an exceedingly charming interview on France 3 with Nancy Kate, the blogueuse behind the hilarious blog Bread is Pain.

I haven’t felt like talking much and so it goes that I haven’t felt much like writing either. Opening up the drawers of my desk, I look to see if there are any extra words laying around, in the bottom, in the corners and find only perfume vials and paper clips. It is not sadness, nor its opposite, just quiet. I close the drawers and let my gaze rise out the window like a balloon escaping a tiny fist. The clouds are lazy. 

They drag behind the beat of the guitar strum of the homeless man who is sitting on the sidewalk just to the right of our front door. I say homeless but I don’t know if that is true, SDF in French or Sans Domicile Fixe. He was there yesterday evening as well, drinking a beer and asking about the dogs. He used the polite “vous” form and wished me a pleasant evening. In turn I offered that he would have Bon Courage with the rain. Which is gone today. So perhaps that is why he is playing.

Remi walks past my desk and the orchids near my screen shake their hearts with each step. How thin these old floors are, how differently built. We must have sounded like elephants to the family that lived below. But now they’ve gone and we have the building to ourselves. Which feels both luxurious and isolating, the space that contains us. Luckily, we have the country so close at hand, the land where we can keep walking and often in silence. I don’t have to find the words to express the precision of such beauty. Cowboy rope mountains, twilight petals. I can get lost in the looking. We all have our internal answers, those without syllables that we just know. What comfort that brings. It sings.

Have a wonderful wag of a week, everyone…

Detroit continues.

Even if an Emergency Manager has been brought in and there are persistent rumours of the city declaring bankruptcy. 

I was literally overwhelmed by all of your comments regarding my previous post in this series.  How to begin to respond? I admit, I felt defeated in the face of something I am grappling to understand but it would seem that the people of Detroit aren’t down for the count just yet. 

*Update: I am really thrilled to be working with the amazing D. A. Wolf again today on her fantastic blog, Daily Plate of Crazy. So if you are looking for a Provence fix, you can find it here!*

Feeling cheated by the arrival of “spring”? Um hum, I hear you. 

There are a fair amount of mopers around these parts as well. Why? Ah, you see the puppers were in a tizzy because leur maître, Remi, was out of town for a few days and so they were stuck with…sigh…the girl…me. No big romps in the country. Oh, the utter sadness of sofa surfing and resting weary heads on velvet pillows…

I also felt a touch out of sorts but not exactly for the same reasons. You see, when you spend as much time together as Remi and I do, when one of us suddenly goes missing it is as if an arm had been misplaced. I spend an inordinate amount of time looking for it too. However, one way in which I let my “freedom” sing is in the kitchen. 

Now I love to cook, don’t get me wrong, even in the truly closet-like “turn around and there you are” space in our current apartment. It is the “what” that tires me. As I often cook for both lunch and dinner, that is a whole lot of menus to scramble. So when Remi is gone, I don’t think, I copy. Things like the really perfectly balanced goat cheese, radish and arugula “tartine” (I used Wasa crackers instead for the crunch factor) drizzled with fruity olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt from La Tartine Gourmande (minus the endamame–again, Trader Joe’s how I long for thee!). Or my version of Ella Coquine’s “Italian Girl Stir Fry” aka “Pasta sans Pasta”.

It goes a little something like this: chop broccoli into florets, slice up red papers, prepare cooked chick peas. Sauté all of the above with a sliced onion and several cloves of garlic plus more spices than you can shake a stick at (chipolte, cayenne and ancho pepper? Uh, yup), add in enough coulis de tomates to coat, top with a blanket of melted emmenthal and then plop down in front of the most unapologetically girly American movie, because you can.

It was so good that I did exactly that two nights in a row.

And if that doesn’t warm you up (and it will)…?

Find a buddy to cuddle up to and hold on. No matter what might be happening outside of your window right now, the real deal is right around the corner.

PS:

“I got it!” I stared at the screen on the back of my camera. An extra blink to be sure and yet there it was, a frozen bolt of lightning. Remi and I laughed. It seemed lucky, crazily lucky, somehow.

We had turned back swift as sparrows as a rainstorm ruined our afternoon ramble. It approached swiftly with pelts of rain on the windshield in a “Ha. Ha. Ha.” The clouds billowed heavier than smoke and yet, when we saw the little cabanon perched at the end of a field of wizened vines, we had to explore.

How different it must have looked in other times. Big tree giving shade to workers dipping handkerchiefs in the well.

We peeked inside to discern…wire traps for the creek running below, freshly cut wood and a forgotten chair that once gave relief.

And I couldn’t help but wonder, why oh why in France is the horseshoe always the wrong side down?

No wonder this poor little cabanon was ill-used. Perhaps we could look up the proprietaire, rent it out, fix it up and then it would be our get-to for the weekends?

You know us and how we like to dream.

But the rain pressed on and worryingly while the wind sucked the oak leaves upwards in spirals. “This is a bad storm coming, Remi.” I knew it in my bones. You can’t grow up in the Midwest and not have a feeling for that sort of thing. So back we scuttled as the rain pelted, turning eventually to hail.

Pop rocks that would burst our momentary daydreams but not let them be forgotten. The country is calling and I am listening…

Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead.

 I can here the question mark in your head. But I have a series of photos that I took in Detroit that I would like to share even though it is a subject far from the usual fare at Lost in Arles. 

I was moved by my brief time in the Motor City. The push pull energy while questioning, bitter bites of decades decay and small nickel tokens of hope raising up like flags of non-surrender. 

It is an American dilemma. 

There are a whole lot of symbols out there.

It was a hazy morning and the heat took us by surprise. And yet the ground had not yet dried. An oily mud clung to our boots and the brambles of barren blackberry bushes pulled at our jacket sleeves. It wasn’t magic, it was slightly oppressive. But it was where we needed to be.

As the extremely dangerous chenille processionnaire are out, we can’t take risks with the dogs and so brought them to the path behind the Chateau de Barbegal as it is a relatively pine-tree free one, which means less potential for trouble. Remi and I both love to let them run ahead, to forget their small town limitations for a bit. It does us the same good. 

That change of view, that infusion of emerald rice stalks cut through an inner and outer fog. At last the path widened and the remains of the Roman aqueduct rose up to our left. Shaking stones of nothing than nothing of the all importance it once was. But more of that another time.

I struggled to keep my footing in the uneven terrain and looked down to do so. And there I found, as I always do, the Alpilles that fascinates me the most. The texture and just so juxtapositions that draw me in until I forget about my buzzing numbness, tired cobwebs or questions.

These messages. My messages. I remember them and count them off like beads on a rosary or a mala.

These old stones underfoot, they have been here so much longer than I have. So keep following the path…

…keep following a path.

One has to be prepared…

…and willing to bump along mercilessly pot-holed unmarked dirt roads that have left previous adventurers stranded far from civilization…

Ready to pass mysterious ruins that have been backhanded by history…

…and continuing on, persevering even when your goal is still not in sight…

Until at last you have arrived at the (in)famous plage de Beauduc and have the entire beach to yourselves. 

Beauduc, a secret passed on between fellow Provençaux. A wild place that is literally off the map…

We felt as though we had fallen into fortune’s sea on this first true day hinting happily of spring.

Out the puppers bounded, muzzles low sniffing, breaking into wide arcs of zoomies. Faster than faster for the sheer joy of it.

And yes, there was reward a plenty for the humans too.

Paté en croute, saucisson, cornichons, caperberries, tiny peppers stuffed with anchoiade, caviar de tomates and crunchy baguettes to spread it on, authentic German potato salad, Colummiers and Comté cheese. Not to mention a bit of wine. 

Isn’t it amazing how much better everything tastes at the sea?

…the dogs had their fill of falling crumbs. Beach time is a generous time…

…and finally beyond time. At some point it had slowed to gentle disparition but no one had noticed.

We were too busy enjoying ourselves. 

 At the end of the afternoon I lead one last toast declaring, “We don’t need more than this.” The moment would not have been any finer if Champagne had replaced the Bandol or caviar the caviar de tomates. All we needed was to be right where we were, in fine calm company, sipping in the sun. At the end of the world we all were given another beginning, a pebble to put in our pocket as a souvenir of good times well won.

Two photos, taken on the same gorgeous evening stroll through the Alpilles.

I hope that they tickle your fancy as much as they did mine…

Speaking of feathers, in the “Light as a…” kind, because can you ever see this too many times?

I didn’t think so.

More soon. But wishing you all a wonderful weekend ahead…

PS. Just wondering, is there interest in a separate blog for photo updates of Ben and Kipling?

“Tell us about the thing you most want to do, reality or fantasy, that you have never done…money is no object.” This was Marsha’s directive for this month’s theme in the By Invitation Only series. Now, I know, you might be shaking your head wondering, “And how did she get here exactly?” 

While I am incredibly grateful for all of the extraordinary adventures I have experienced so far, I also feel confidence welling in my heart when I remember that at times the “perfect” moment is right where you are. With that thought, I had prepared something else entirely, which I will share with you soon. It is happy and very French. 

And yet, after returning from my walk this morning, I sat down and wrote this poem. It felt appropriate too, that unreachable, mysterious beauty in the everyday. So I headed back out with my trusty little camera to try and capture a bit of that moment. It was like chasing after balloons.

And just so you know, the man out of time was nowhere to be seen…

To discover what I am sure will be a truly fascinating range of responses from the others in this international group, please click here.

I also want to thank all of you so much for your wonderful responses to the news of my Mom’s engagement. As she herself correctly noted: 

“Heather’s readers are the most articulate and charming clan ever !”