Month: October 2013

“Why don’t we try that way instead of going directly to Avène?” I suggested, pointing straight ahead. A tiny flicker of surprise rolled over Remi’s eyebrow. He is the suggester, the spot finder and an incredibly talented one at that. I am more of the “Can we head back now?” variety I have to admit. A lazy adventurer. But Remi is the real thing and there is never too far, too wide or too long to go.

So up the road we started and the further the car crawled, the steeper the hill, the blinder the turns and the worse the condition of the road. If I didn’t have supreme confidence in his driving (and I do, this is a man who has driven down Africa from north to south), I would have peered continuously over the cliff’s edge but instead I kept gazing forward, eager to see where the trail would lead. 

The sign had indicated a distance of two kilometers and yet that small journey seemed a world away. “Who would live here?” we both wondered. We pulled to a stop in front of a smattering of homes, each more neglected and sadder than the next. Appropriate, as the village is called Sadde. It is what had piqued my curiosity in the first place. And then to arrive in the middle of what is already the middle of nowhere and find it abandoned…well, it was a mystery. What had happened here?

Perhaps it was the ambiance, perhaps it was tom-foolery of the light but I had trouble finding my focus.

So many locked doors and shutters closed tight.

Paint left to chip and iron to rust.

A breeze chased and found me, trembling tough flowers and vines overhead.

It sent a deep chill through my bones. All of this loss…left me feeling sadder than Sadde.

“Heather, come on up here,” Remi called to me quietly. I picked my way up a sloping stone staircase and took a sharp intake of breath.

“Nu-uh.” I couldn’t believe it for there, hidden amidst the ruins was a gorgeously renovated home, replete with a kidney shaped swimming pool suspended over the hills. It had been impossible to detect from the front but my, what a secret hideaway.

We laughed and began to see the village in a different light, especially eyeing (as we are want to do) un bergerie or sheepfold. Hmmm…we would keep the original elements of the sliding iron…

…and wooden doors but fill them in with steel-mullioned windows on the inside, add a sleeping loft, a fireplace and voila! The perfect vacation hut…

…with 360° of mountain tops for a view. Ah, not looking so triste after all, now is it? 

Appearances are tricky and this particular discovery was enough to make this adventurer, lazy or no, feel a warm glow of the heart. 

Have a wonderful weekend!

There are minutes of the ticking kind and minute, minutieuse, of the little. I have a tendency to be fond of both, most especially when they meet. 

High up on a mountain, a butte points over the Grands Causses, a valley known for its vultures swooping on currents of hot air.

A see of big and little so close, so close that they exchange confidences in the winds cupped around my ear.

…searching for the sea that can be traced at the horizon…

…I wonder at the waves at my feet. Rock, field and flower.

We feel content and languor beneath the shadows of rolling clouds.

Do you remember turning the pages of your books when you were a child? Each was to be savored and the choice of when to touch the corners and pull was a weighted one, met with a springing delight of discovery slipping down the spine. “Frederick” by Leo Lionni had this effect on me like no other. Do you know the story?

The introduction describes it well: While the other field mice work to gather grain and nuts for winter, Frederick sits on a sunny rock by himself. “I gather sun rays for the cold dark winter days,” he tells them. Another day he gathers “colors,” and then “words.” And when the food runs out, it is Frederick, the dreamer and poet, whose endless store of supplies warms the hearts of his fellow mice, and feeds their spirits during the darkest winter days.

While trying to lasso my thoughts and photos this morning, I stared at the screen, this screen, until my glassy eyes latched on to a figure dangling from a side column. “Number of posts published: 400.” Four-hundred? Four-hundred. After the initial bounce subsided,  I was pleased as punch to realize that I had passed that benchmark while writing about the serious joys of a simple rose.

And so this post is number four-oh-one. 

A few months ago, my friend Judith Ross asked about interviewing me for a column in Talking Writing magazine. I enjoyed the exchange that followed tremendously and I hope that you will appreciate Judith’s wonderful perspective as well. Living in France, where the word blogueuse (the feminine version of ‘blogger’) is pronounced with a sneer, I am absolutely delighted to have been featured as a writer in a magazine for writers. Thank you, Judith.

My life, while full of good things, is unusual. My future is so open-ended as to be not exactly secure. Sans filet, they say in French. Without a net. At times, my worries of “what if and what then?” threaten to overwhelm me. But perhaps, like Frederick, I am doing something helpful in making this blog, in storing up colors and words for the unknown path that is spooling out in front of my feet. Lost in Arles just might be my 401k plan.

To read Judith’s column “When Blogging Becomes Art”– please click here.

And to discover her own beautiful blog, Shifting Gears — please click here.

Some of my photography has also been featured in the Fall Issue of Talking Writing, to see them and discover a fine magazine — please click here.

To listen:

PS. James Vincent Mcmorrow’s cover of “Higher Love” is on the album “Silver Lining” — all of the proceeds of which go to Headstrong, an Irish charity for youth mental health.

As always, thank you so much for being here…

…You don’t need more than this.

As I caught up with him, he sighed with mock-exasperation. “Kipling leapt in and tried to go after some ducks!” And yet neither of us could feign surprise. For despite our best efforts to teach him city manners, Kip, who we adopted seven months ago, has retained his wild character and it expands in the country, puffs up right to the tip of his tail pointing up over his head. Ben, on the other hand…our sweet Ben. He had waited for me and was looking, expectantly… “Ok, go on Ben, go!” With a delicate splash he dove in, did a turn or two for kicks but mainly let the cool water run through his fur. 

After an appropriate amount of bathing time, we whistled and walked on quietly, listening to the burble of little symphonies…

…until we came to the ducks again. 

Now, it isn’t always easy when you bring a new dog into the household, especially one where the puppers spend as much time with their owners as ours do. We have had Ben since he was a wee thing and at times, I could swear he believes that he is half human. As my friend Sonny says, “Ben has soul.” And he does. Not to mention he loves everyone. Thank goodness, for a lesser dog would have struggled with the arrival of a bossy barker like Kipling, no matter how much we have bent over backwards to give him as much love (if not more!) as he has always had. 

Both dogs get along (thankfully) but pretty early on into the game I saw Ben figure out that he needed to have one area where he was clearly the boss, where it was his thing. And that thing was swimming. He had the light bulb moment one day at the beach as he watched Kipling’s fear of the waves. So, as we had been walking, Ben’s little pupper mind had been turning. When we came across the ducks a second time, he knew that his moment had come. There was no way was he going to let that young upstart Kipling be the only one! He stopped, tensed up, looked back at us a little nervously and then dove in. He paddled, paddled right towards the ducks…

…and then paddled, paddled quickly back as soon as the quacking had become too ferocious!

My Ben. I knew, with all of my heart, that he was incapable of hurting them. I think he was just going out to say, “Hi.” 

He looked a tad sheepish as he pulled himself out of the river and shook himself dry. That silly Golden grin. We encouraged him though, saying, “Yay Ben! Bravo! You showed those ducks who was boss!”

He trotted on down the trail proud as could be, sure of his place in the world and in our hearts…

We left the ducks in peace and continued on, our little family intact and theirs too…

Have a wonderful weekend!