Year: 2016

In this corner of the world, nature is waking up with a stifled, slightly embarrassed yawn. Winter has overslept its welcome and the ground is buzzing with the stretch of new greenery while tiny fists have pushed out of the barest of branches overnight. A tip of the hat to the tip of the clock for yesterday was the Spring Equinox.

And with it energy is spiraling up through my brain like vines climbing beyond the roof. My thoughts are spinning, swinging from one puffed up cloud to the next on a verbal trapeze, uncatchable. While at times that makes me smile at the folly, I also feel strongly the need to focus towards something centered at the root. 

Do you have a meditation practice? I have always danced around one, just as I have with my pick and choose spiritual beliefs. But at this time in my life, it seems like the biggest gift that I can give myself, along with healthy doses of self-care and kindness. So I am taking a cross-legged seat, closing my eyes and focusing on my breath, that greatest of gifts, never to be taken for granted. 

My mind will only calm for mere moments and so I listen to Jack Kornfield‘s instruction to treat those rollicking ideas as I would teach a puppy to stay, gently. Over and over, I come back to just being. At times that feels like it is all that I do. Start over, start over…reconnect. But it is wonderful to be able to peak around a new corner with a taste of hope untarnished in my mouth…

…so ripe for this time of year, here…and now. A beginning.

As today is World Poetry Day (thank you, Edgar!), 

I thought that I might share a poem that I keep coming back to from Mary Oliver’s new collection called Felicity:

The World I Live In

I have refused to live

locked in the orderly house of

    reasons and proofs.

The world I live in and believe in

is wider than that. And anyway,

    what’s wrong with Maybe?

You wouldn’t believe what once or

twice I have seen. I’ll just

     tell you this:

only if there are angels in your head will you

Whether you are winding up or down, please know that I am sending my best thoughts to you as we enter another season, one ripe with opportunities.

Thank you for being here,

Heather

So today, I am offering up an address for your consideration but with a hanging clause attached to it (which makes me remember the “hanging chads” which forces me to say, “People of Florida, for the love of all that you hold dear, get out and vote today!” But I digress…).

Now, if you are at all like me – and something tells me that if you are reading along at Lost in Arles, there is a strong possibility that might be the case – each opportunity to eat out is epic, worthy of scrolling through reviews both informed (the France board at Chowhound) and uninformed (Tripadvisor’s restaurant selections for pretty much any touristy town in Provence).

 

But what if we take it down a notch for a second? What if you just want say, a pretty space that is lively, where you can munch on a reliable standby such as…

This is why I am suggesting L’Harmonie in Nimes (or Nîmes as it is normally written, to please my friend B who works for the city). Now, they call it a restaurant but it is definitely more of a bistro. Natasha runs the front of house and she doesn’t moving stop for a minute. Because this joint is jumping. Why? It is a very good rapport qualité-prix or value for your money and I think that is especially true if you go for dinner, where the
three-course menu (with ample choices) is set at 24 Euros, exactly as it is at lunch.

Call me spoiled but I tend to have low expectations for the brocante or flea market in Arles held on the first Wednesday of the month. It might be, possibly, one of the few things that I do tend to take for granted in this mythic 2000 and change year old city. I don’t know why. So I graze and glaze. I am still there mind you! Just not with the bit between my teeth, ready to run, as I can be at, say, the déballages in Avignon or Montpellier.

I actually appreciate enormously that the vendors really aren’t trying to prove anything. You buy or you don’t, well, that is your choice and they will most likely be occupied preparing a mid-morning snack of vin rouge et saucisson de taureau anyway, perhaps over a game of cards. The goods are there, even if you may have to have a very keen eye – or a lot of patience, something which I think we have already established is not this particular redheads point fort – to wade through The Rusty and The Dented (a possible name for a Provençal cowboy film if ever there was one)…

One aspect that is unique to the Arles brocante is the plethora of pieces evoking the traditions of both the Gardians, the cowboys of the Camargue and les Arlésiennes, their beautifully attired female companions, such as the linoleum cut stamps above and the portrait (in the first photograph up top) that I truly kick myself for not buying. These wares add another dimension to the proceedings and call to the local women who carefully examine swathes of antique lace and silks to use in their costumes each May Day.

But of course, there are plenty of more straightforward baubles to please and entice such as this set of a Napoleon III lustre and sconces…

Perhaps a Quimper platter would be more to your liking? Surprisingly, it was offered by the same vendor. Shall we just say that he was catering to everyone’s tastes?

It was only afterwards when formatting these photos that I noticed the perfect pique-cierge or candleholder amidst this pile. I would have been interested as it could have made a nice addition to the pair that we already have, even if that meant dealing with the seller, who is especially grumpy and absolutely tenacious when it comes to sticking to his price. And no, that is not just because I am L’américaine!

For truly, he is a character, one with a regard nearly as piercing as the one present in this waist-high representation of Mr. George Washington that he had propped up towards the far edge of his stand. Don’t you love trying to imagine who might be the person to be tempted by such an object? I do.

But maybe I am in the wrong, perchance you have seen quite a bit amidst the chaos here that caught your eye. Hmmm…well, you know, the brocante season will soon be firing up throughout France…you could always fly over. I can promise that Provence would certainly welcome you…

Or, if that isn’t quite feasible, you might enjoy extending your brocante stroll by visiting a few of my friend’s wonderful online sources:

To see Ellie’s shop at Have Some Decorum, please click here and head to the antiques section.

To visit Sharon’s selection at My French Country Home, please click here. 

To visit Corey’s always changing items at Tongue in Cheek, click here please. 

And for those of you on the West Coast in the States, I am pleased to share that my friend, Elizabeth, aka The Vintage Contessa is going to have her always popular booth at the Remnants of the Past Show on April 15th-16th. For more information, click here.

Voila! Ah, a little bit of antique happiness for your weekend. I know that it always does the trick for me – wishing for a bit of patina personified, a touch of history that you can hold in your hand. 🙂

Before I sign off, I want to thank everyone who responded to my previous post. For those of you that missed it…honestly? The comments are worth a look. They gave me so much to think about and I am honored to have such generous, intelligent and ‘from the heart’ readers. You inspire me to no end. 

Gros Bisous, 

Heather

*Friends, it is only as I was getting ready to publish this post that I discovered that Ellie has written a post to let everyone know that she is currently in a palliative care center in Paris. I know that quite a few of you are very fond of her. If you haven’t seen the post already, you can find it here. As I have said before, she is one of the most amazing people that I have ever had the privilege to meet. Despite this physical setback in her 6th year of living with ALS and giving up her new home in Provence, she remains strong and determined. But I will still be praying for her in my way, as I always do and invite her fellow friends to join me. A bit of Love goes a long way…

 Bonsoir, mes amis.

I thought it was high time that I check in with you all, especially as some of you have been preparing to send out the search dogs.

While I have been slowing down the pace of posting, I do have plenty of material prepared to share with you, including more from
the Fondation Van Gogh in Arles where these photos were taken.

The play of light and shadows caressed the timeworn surfaces as I skated across the well-oiled parqueterie. Until finally, I stopped moving and just stood in the center of the room, surprised to find myself alone. It is amazing how in such moments one can feel lifted by something so far beyond the here and now as to seem eternal. Or maybe it doesn’t just seem but it is. How lucky then to breathe a bit of forever amidst our ever-changing lives.

I traced the shadows repeatedly, following the directions they were whispering that I should follow, then lifted my chin. That light, so bright that not even the blinds could tame it…it made me want to wrap it around me like a cape, open the windows and fly.

Tell me, where are you headed? Dites-moi tout.

“Do you think that we have time to visit that street that you mentioned?” “I think that we do.” I was standing on the main thoroughfare of the rue de la Republique in Avignon, questioning the elegant Madame L. We had missed the bus back to the little village that we both live in and did not quite have time for a museum but only a bit of exploring. It had been one of those forays into the former Cité des Papes where nothing had worked out as it should have, from restaurants and errands and the like so I was bit sur ma faim, still hungry for a little something else. 

She had already mentioned the rue des Teinturiers a while back but somehow we had never quite made it, not having strayed far enough. With a click in her patent heel boots, she turned and we were off with only a pause as she asked directions from a gentleman smoking in the doorway of an epicerie fine. 

“Here we are,” she announced with that warm smile of hers. And as I turned the corner, I sighed happily. Yes, I knew that the name of the street has sounded familiar, I had read about this area after all. I recognized it by the canals from the Sorgue River turning the neighborhood into a several block French Venice. The suns rays folded back the shutters of the surrounding hôtel particuliers on one side and ran down the terracotta tiles of the former ateliers on the other until they flicked the surface of the water into diamond-like beads. 

For an area imbued in such long-reaching history (of which I will share more with you in the next post), there was a playful spirit in the air, perhaps buoyed by ghosts from local theaters past and present. It turns out that many of the smaller venues home to the famous Avignon Theatre Festival’s “Off” segment can be found here as well. We popped into a friperie where the salesgirl laughed at our trying to tempt each other into buying vintage Céline and Girogio Armani…”No for you,” “What? I was thinking for you“…and continued on past a pair of old friends bantering over a pitcher of cider at a café under the plane trees. 

The light was warm, the day was beautiful, I wanted to clasp it tightly and hold it dear…until I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a monster, albeit in the form of a very small boy dressed in a wolf costume. He seemed especially proud of himself so I dared to ask if I could take his photo. He agreed with a silent nod of the head but was too frozen under the cameras gaze to acquiesce to my pleas that he scratch at the air with his “claws.” His father looked on, biting his lips into a grin. And then it hit me. “Is it carnival already?” “Yes, of course,” he responded, bemused at my ignorance as he reclaimed the little ones hand.

A time of trickery, of shifting sands then right below our feet and all given with joy once we dared to take those few steps beyond the well-known beaten path. A fine reward.