It is a bit of a catch-phrase between Remi and I. Because it is oh-so true. Discovery…the power of it, the adventure…has been a long link in our relationship. As a perpetual revelation of the new, it can be addictive. We roamed the world wide to sip its brew but now find our panoramas more confined.
I spend a lot of time in our little village. It is a Provence that is off the map and that too holds a bit of a thrill. But the challenge has been to keep seeing, to keep discovering and not fall prey to its lullaby, no matter how charming it may be.
I want to wrap the beauty of the world around me so tightly that it courses through my veins. And it is right there, everywhere, this ultimate luxury, our great gift.
Lately, the morning dew or la rosée on the grass has been wicking at my ankles as I walk the dogs. And so I open my eyes a little wider, let my heart get a bit more quiet and relish in the splendor of having diamonds for breakfast.
Today’s post is my contribution to the monthly international blog party, “By Invitation Only” on the theme of “Life’s Luxuries.” To read all of the other takes on this theme, please hop over here.
PS. Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw that the lawn where these photos had been taken…had been mowed! I try not to be too moralistic around here but Life was certainly saying:
But, as always, when I turned into the gardens, which, kindly are available for the gander before the museum’s entry, time did what it always does in that particular spot: pirouette, curtsy, stop.
I must have had that goofy smile on my face for I could feel one of the gardner’s gaze swish across me like a shadow. She was about my age and also a redhead, just a more miniature Parisienne version of me. Yes, she even had that certain panache despite her bright green “Jardins de Paris” jumpsuit.
“You have an amazing job,” I blurted out with a vaguely show-girl arm sweep towards the topiary surrounding us.
She laughed, startled by my directness but nodded her head in agreement. “It isn’t always so glamorous though,” she added and I responded with “I am not so sure about that” head shake. We chatted a bit more and then wished each other a Bonne Journée.
As I continued towards the rue des Rosiers to sate my months-long craving for a felafel with all of the fixings (truly one of the great take-out options in Paris at only 5.50 Euros a pop), I thought, “That is why I am still mad about the Marais and always will be.”
For despite that every. single. storefront has been transformed into a clothing boutique featuring cool goods the likes of which I could never begin to afford…
…it is in this neighborhood that I feel the bonhomie that often eludes me elsewhere in the City of Light. And that makes the city not quite so big after all. I sat down on a bench in one of my favorite little squares and munched happily, shivering slightly while I did so and sighed a little valentine to the beautiful Marais.
It is a word true to its sound, both expansive and bright, reaching upwards. And that is the feeling floating through our courtyard these past few days. Remi and I – yes and the dogs too – are waking up slowly to the Spring that has arrived on our doorstep in full force.
Suddenly, everything needs to be clean, to be swept, to be made new in order to echo the sudden growth all around us. Finally, the rusty iron candelabra has been hung above our old teak table. We have been planting and repotting – including a new jasmine that I will watch crawl over our walls until it emits that sweet, true perfume that is most certainly…glorious.
This happiness.
Soundtrack for this post:
I am sending out my Very Best Wishes to those of you that are celebrating either Easter or Passover this weekend. And Peace and Joy to everyone…
I needed to find the eye in the storm of the energy swirling around me and to get reacquainted with her under the best of circumstances. I had to remember…je connais cette ville, ça va, respire…I used to live here, I am no stranger.
But the truth of it was that I was also quite nervous about meeting my friend. Taking that leap from virtual to real makes my heart pound even if it is someone that I know I will adore (“but will they feel the same about me?” I always wonder). I am shy.
And so I bought my metro tickets while still on the TGV in order to directly hop on the 1 after weaving my way through the madness of the Gare de Lyon. In only three stops, I had arrived at the Saint Paul Station. I turned down the rue Saint-Antoine and tucked myself under the arches of the Place des Vosges.
Voila. An old friend was right in front of me and I sank into the closest bench with a sigh of relief.
It has always been one of my very favorite endroits à Paris. The architecture of the Palais du Louvre is magnificent but so grand as to be overwhelming – that was the point. I think that Henri IV had a far better scheme in building this royal residence, even if he did not live there. I wonder what it could have been like for the court if he had. How they would be able to keep an eye on each other from across the square, what intrigues would be laid out under the vaulted arches. And how lovely it must have looked at night with the hundreds of bougies burning in the multi-paned windows. I can almost hear the click click of 17th century satin shoes sashaying across le parquet…
My reveries were rudely interrupted. It was the lunch break for the nearby college and a group of ten young ados started boisterously competing for a game that might well have been called “impress the tourists.” It wasn’t the only time in the day when I would be surprised by French teenagers acting surprisingly…American. How time passes. Or does it? I looked at the scene in front of me, changing and unchanged from when I first visited so many years ago with my family – when the Marais neighborhood in which it resides was still quite scruffy around the edges – and then yet again when I moved to France to live with Remi in 2001.
How different it was because how different I was as I projected my dreams upon the landscape. Nearly fourteen years ago, I would take the metro directly here as well from our apartment in the suburbs to sit and ponder – despite the enormity of my Love for Remi – the adventure that I had thrown myself into by moving to a foreign country where I had no words, none in French at least, to describe the complexity of what I was feeling. Within the confines of that square, neither too big nor too small and soothingly symmetrical, I felt protected and halted in what at times resembled a free fall into the unknown.
And in 2015? I became so still as to no longer be of interest to the young men jumping from bench to bench until I blended into black and white, a part the scenery. Once so calmed, I took stock and realized that I was contented as well as reassured. My sole agenda was simply to enjoy with something approaching an ironic distance…sans l’amertume. No bitterness or confusion, none at all. My life is elsewhere now and I have the words. I gathered myself around me, tight like a cloak not an armor and with a silent merci let the gate swish shut as I left the Place, moving swiftly on.
I have been taking photographs of the blooms everyday. I currently have “510 items” in the Magnolia Tree 2015 folder, many of which I haven’t even opened yet. For just the active looking at beauty within the multifold leaves is my meditation and it does me good. Well, that and I am never disappointed, no matter the weather or time of day. Beauty is most certainly found and ample for the taking. Not to mention that time is of the essence as the weather forecast has warned that the Mistral winds will rise today to scatter the blooms into a forgotten pink snow. I can hear it rising outside my window and know that like the seasons, soon I will have to wait for another year to see this particular example of exceptionnelle.
Yesterday, the sun was glorious and created rosy shadows on the leaves. I hoisted Remi’s telephoto lens (it is heavy) and pushed it roaming through the tree searching for something to take shape. I have to scrunch my left eye shut to grasp for focus in the viewfinder and when I pull away, it is watery from the effort. So I wasn’t entirely sure of the fluttering that I had sensed in the fuzzy zone. But yet with a blink and a further twist of the lens I could see a baby bird taking a bath in the gouttière or water-pipe on our neighbor’s roof across the way.
I know this little guy. He is a mésange or chickadee and of all of the others in his flock, he seems to prefer our garden, especially the magnolia tree. Perhaps he feels safe there, hidden without hiding. Or maybe he is just still too young to fly farther.
He took such delight in his bath. In he would plunge and spray the water over his back with outstretched wings. Then he would jump back up to the rim, tap the each side of his beak against the metal with a sniff, give a hearty shake, fluff out his feathers and repeat. In, bathe, tap, shake, fluff.
He seemed vachement content…or quite “chuffed” as my English and Australian friends would say. Such a simple act but an important understanding for this baby bird. How we learn through doing and how we learn through what we feel. My delight was total in watching him. My heart was brimming. Yours would have been too, I am sure of it. It is why I am sharing this other example of little bursting into big. Although, the more that I write about that, the clearer it is to me that they are two sides of the same coin.
Mais hélas, the birds are not alone up on the rooftops of this village. Les chats – of which there are far, far too many in so small an area – are quite confident that they rule above as much as below and slink along the tiles with the confidence of John Robie. I even know one who likes to sit and watch the sunset. That is all well and good but I photographed this fine fellow mere seconds after following my twittering friend. You may be extremely handsome, Mr. Bowie Eyes but stay away from my peeps, I mean it!
Similar to that expansive rocket burst of the magnolia and zooming from little into big that crowds the magnolia’s branches is that hypnotic waltz of back and forth…in time. By happenstance or maybe as the random not random gift of the baby bird, I stumbled upon this song, “Your Silent Face” by New Order in my itunes list. It once meant so much to me and I find that it still does. Just the same, only I am different. I think.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose…
I have been listening to the song on repeat. Just as in dreams, my recent dreams, the past and the present (and maybe the future?) are looping the loop until they come together full circle in a picture as experiential as if it is trying to teach me something. In, bathe, shake, repeat. Or at least that is how it is these days.
I nod at you, to the bird and the blooms and at all that is Hope-filled like Spring.
