I bought the world. We were late to arrive at the déballage. The antique dealers were already starting to pack up as the heat was intense. I sent L in to ask the price of the globe, then flashed two raised palms in response behind the seller’s back. Sold, to me, for ten euros. I paused before clicking the switch once we were home, but believe it or not, it works. The world still lights up. It lights me up despite its faults. It is outdated, this world, with countries holding names like kingdoms, drawn disproportionately so that one might guess that the mapmaker was from Africa in general or a Madagascar as long as China, in particular. It is an explorer’s map, with grand-sailed vessels dusting the seas and portraits of Cook and Vasco de Gama here and there, their faces stern. I was an adventurer, too. With a sparkly fingernail, I can point and trace the many places where I have been. Just the act of doing so makes me smile. It is a private joke, for I don’t speak of those travels now. No one would believe me. But I bought the world… to remember. Even as the tectonic plates are shifting – and like the globe, that former life is now a misnomer – it remains, the world, a very big place. When I am frustrated or feel blocked, I like to say so to myself, quietly. At night in the dark of my apartment, the globe, turned on, glows surprisingly red. “It is like Life,” I think. “It is like my heart.”
I took the garbage out just now. On the corner, there is a giant old house with a walled-in garden. Sometimes there are birds singing and that was the case today. So I stood really still, tilting my head upwards, craning my neck to look past the waves of bamboo and into a new-leafed tree. “Magpie?” I wondered. But I don’t really know their calls and could see nothing so I simply stayed and listened to the melody. It was insistent. A refrain repeated over and over that could have been titled, “Joy” but for all I know that winged one was just complaining to his neighbors. I realised that the sun was touching my skin, that it was warm, that I was just fine without a coat or woollen anything. It felt good and I was lifted, me, just there, in the middle of the street.
The wind has been busy and the rain overfloweth to the point that the Rhône threatened to come into town. The fête foraine, or amusement park, set up just on the other side of the rampart wall from where I live, decided to leave early because of it, much to my relief. I prefer birdsong to adolescent screams, no matter how filled with wonder they might be. My box of an apartment is quiet again while the world is breaking into being outside, over and over and over. What difference this is from the covid lockdowns where silence was everywhere and a warning. One that left its imprint on me. I am different now than I was before in more ways than I can count, fingers and toes included.
Yesterday, I finally rolled out the red antique carpet that my ex had dropped off a few years ago; practically the last that I have heard from him. It’s funny how fifteen years can be so easily swept underneath. He left me the carpet and a coffee table from Rajasthan, perhaps because they reminded him of me, of the life we had together, for that was where we ate for the first three years of living together. The rug is heavy and worn. I dragged it into place and was not prepared for the scent of my dogs that arose, both now deceased, their golden hair still stuck in places along with a dried up cockroach who had come along for the ride. I told myself that it was ok to cry if I wanted to, but I couldn’t. My tears would have been like the river and swept me off to sea. I got out the vacuum and opened the transom above the door instead, uncertain as always.
My current companions apartment down the way is tiny but it has a tub to sink in, plus views to wish upon and a small yard. In French we would call it un jardin, a garden, although nothing is really cultivated in it beyond new memories. I have just gotten back from some time there, time suspended as in parentheses, as if the world was on hold again. The last evening, my sweetheart encouraged me to get out and go for a walk. I grabbed my phone to have a camera that would make me look at the light. The light and growing things, things that are new. This person stepping gently so as not to crush the weeds and wildflowers was me but she was who? I don’t really know or at least am not as certain as I once was. So very, very much has happened I must be not the same, but different, musn’t I?
I am not sure if I will keep the carpet. If I can just make it only memories about my sweet pups Ben and Kipling and not the representative weight of an elegant past, then maybe. I can admire the deep ruby color, like the wine I no longer drink and walk upon it barefoot, imprinting anew. For here or in my boyfriends garden, there is love as well. That word stops everything in its tracks, doesn’t it? Things may well get worse before they get better on our planet blue but happily, luckily, that one word is still here – never the same but different – and it sings like the Magpie, true.
All that I have done: I danced on bars and climbed the Pyramids at sunset, Have kissed movie stars and refused their further advances, Drank next to Keith Richards and walked past Mick Jagger in the park, under snow. I have cried deep with relief from finding a twenty on the pavement, knowing then I could eat, but fed a homeless man and his dogs during the Covid lockdowns because I had lost a home too, a big one, and not only in my heart. I went on expeditions up the Niger River and down the Amazon as if it were normal because that is how everyone around me behaved. I kept so many tears and plentiful awe close to hand, to write; Because the Taj Mahal is really something, at sunrise.
Love and love and love.
I have died while playing the role of Cleopatra and shed the veils of Salomé on a New York City stage. So I can put myself in your shoes or combat boots for I have survived treason and bankruptcy, moral and monetarily held. There is nothing, not a dime, coming in for my retirement.
So I rub my eyes red, dry from too much drifting, this breath of in-between. A January seeming says “look back” with an encouragement that leads me to books. Look what I have done and ready my stretched limbs for coming Spring. One not for youth, a tender time of petals pushing, hoping for the surprise of blossoms, yet expecting none.
All that I have tried, and what I know only I have done.
Just down the street from where I live, there is a hole in the ancient fortified walls that opens on to a tunnel, the Passage Oratoire. If you cross it, a wobbly cobble stone path leads you to the heart of Avignon, even to the Pope’s Palace, le Palais des Pâpes.
There must be hundreds of people who take that route most days, on their way to work or Les Halles or shopping. It is a locals thoroughfare. And yet, how few would acknowledge the seated thin man with legs tightly crossed, over one another, his head nearly always tucked deeply into a time-browned paperback. Perhaps this laissez-faire was due to the two massive Rottweiler mixes perched on each side of him, despite their rubber muzzles. His own personal gargoyles. A folded baseball cap turned on its belly was hap-hazardly left as far away from the dogs as possible, the less to intimidate and there was often a few shiny coins within it.
And yet this man, although often completely drawn into his thoughts (or perhaps because of it), had a regular relationship with quite a few of the passer-by. That was easy to see. Eventually, I too became one of his “regulars,” overcoming initial shyness to ask how he was doing, what his book was about. I would offer my hand for his dogs to sniff and soon they would see me coming before he did, their stubby tails thumping. More than once, I was left with deep scratches on my wrists from their jumping hello’s but that is ok. It was up to me to pay attention to their weighty affections, not them.
The man’s name is Cyril.
I understood and respected that he didn’t want to tell me too much of his story. That he was on the streets because his dogs were his life and they are not welcome in the shelters. Also that he was here, far removed from the many panhandlers on the main street of la Rue de la République because he didn’t want any trouble for the three of them. I never saw him in a state where he appeared drunk or high and he finally gave me the hint that what would be really helpful was food rather than money so that he didn’t have to go to the stores and risk leaving his dogs alone outside. He showed me frightening wounds from dog fights when things didn’t go well but would wave fingers in front of his face as if chasing a fly, “Oh, I will be fine, I have had worse,” followed by a toothy grin. Once opened up, he would show a confident, if chortled, laugh.
And then the COVID lockdowns started. At their most extreme, we were limited to a one-hour walk per day within a one-kilometre radius of our residence with signed “attestation de l’honneur” in pocket always. The Passage de l’Oratoire was empty.
However, at this point I had already started bringing him cans of ravioli or lentils and sausage, usually at around a cost of one euro each plus ten for the dogfood when he needed it (and he would say, “No, I am good,” when he did not). I wasn’t the only one. Someone else had given him a portable stove which he kept at his camp, just over the wall. I remember how proud he was the first time that he showed me his temporary home: “I have fresh city water that comes out of a tap from the parking garage and bushes for privacy. This is public land but the cops won’t bother me here.”
Cyril prepared me for how to visit. “Give me a shout, call my name before you come so I can hold back the dogs.” And I can tell you, the first time that he decided to let them run up to me freely without muzzles, I sucked in my breath and hoped for the best. He would come ambling down the incline towards me, barefoot and those few minutes of chat made me feel human, so much less alone. Our banter was simple but real. As it got colder, sometimes he would just stick a tousled head out from his tent and I would leave the sack for him to retrieve when he could. Always a thank you or at least a wave of appreciation was given.
The temperatures dropped as they always do right before Christmas. So I went to H&M and bought him the thickest fleece jacket that I could afford. Along with the usual offerings, I had put together tupperware boxes to share of what I had made for myself for that night, the 24th. I was so excited that I was practically bouncing as I made the walk to his camp.
Immediately, however, I knew that something was different, something was very wrong, so much so that the air crackled not with cold but as if it had been torn open. Cyril saw me staring, my bags at my sides and started to scream at me. “No, no, no. No more!” I couldn’t tell if he was pacing or stamping the ground but the dogs were growling at me from a distance and I started to be afraid. “But it is Christmas! I have…” I gestured…”I will just leave these…” but I could not finish my phrase. He was again, yelling in a high pitched voice, “NO! I don’t want ever again! Go!” The dogs were starting to make a slow slink towards me.”Gooooooooooooo!” He was howling, his face twisted. I realised that I was in danger and backed away.
I cried when I locked the door behind me at home. This was a mental breakdown that I had witnessed. I knew that I could not call for the paramedics because of his dogs or the risk that they would be taken away from him if he was hospitalised. I cried when I returned the jacket and the cashier asked no questions. I still have some of the cans in the back of my kitchen cupboard. The rest I have given away.
He was gone once the lockdowns were lifted, his camp cleared out several months later. I have only seen him once since then and again it was the dogs who recognised me first from quite a distance. I changed my path, respecting his wishes.
We can never know what others are going through or how they (or we) might behave given a change of circumstances. I am still so grateful for the exchanges that we had. Brief as they were, they were filled with resilience and light. Livelihood and shared concern.
For Cyril, I hope that he is well wherever he may be and that his dogs continue to give him much love and hope. There is a part of me that feels certain that this is true. Somehow.
It took me many months to tell this tale.
If you would like, you can hear me reading this post here:
A video that I posted on Instagram from that period:
*****
if a light burns i will find it stumbling foot forward nose to the air billowing below my blindfold.
my many floundering. ways but ceaseless days of searching have kept my senses sharp
a mother yet not with child i lean on the connecting strings another life of listening for that giving harp
****
If you would like to hear my reading of this poem, you may do so here:
I miss you all. I miss writing and sharing all that I love. Such an incredible community you are. These are strange times, still, for so many of us. All the more reason to be grateful for what is real.
Aaah, I may be a few days late to the Thanksgiving feast but gratitude still reigns supreme in this quirky heart of mine. Valiant of stomach, I hied myself through a bristling Mistral wind to see my friends at a wonderful restaurant, Première Édition, here in Avignon. I actually hadn’t been given any choice in the matter as my food-writer friend, Marc Fournié, told me simply that I had to try cheffe Aurélie’s chicken. Yes, Marc, ok, twist my arm, but…I was in a conundrum. For I had also seen something on this week’s menu that especially tempted “les papilles,” aka Yee Olde Tastybuds.
As gluttony was inherently excused in honor of the celebration, after a brief discussion with the cheffe and her sous-cheffe, I went full monty (all while keeping my clothes on).
For what I really had come to try was the pita. No, not the college dorm version of yore for it was not cardboard stiff but outright pillowy, even though it had been just barbecued “à la minute.” When it arrived, I lowered my face far nearer to the plate than sheer politeness would allow to take in the perfume of the creamy goat cheese, cooked raclette-style and…truffles. Truffles. Just let that word roll around on your tongue a bit and even if you have never had the pleasure to try these particularly pungent fungi, you might get a whiff (pun-intended) of how luxurious they are. All of this was hidden under fresher than fresh greens from the Alpilles (and knowing Aurélie they might have been picked that morning). I would bite and savour slowly, on repeat.
As I did, with the arrival of patrons a mounting cacophony of gossip and laughter ensued at the surrounding tables. “Jonathan?” I asked of the co-owner/reliable charmer, “Do you know what I hear when I listen to everyone?” “Well, I don’t have the time to hear them myself, really…” “No, not word-for-word but in general,” I interrupted. “I hear contentment, people letting go and relaxing. You know, that doesn’t often happen in France…not quite like this.” He nodded. “A happy face,” he responded. Yes, a happy place too.
Alright, then now on to the afore-mentioned stand-in for the big turkey: an even-finer chicken. One that comes from the farm of “Elisabeth” and of course is as organic and cossetted as they come, served here with deep cooking juices, a citrus ouzo oil, along with mandarine shiva mikan (don’t worry, I had to look them up as well). As if that wasn’t enough, on the side was a bowl of corn polenta that was truly more like a porridge that I wanted to close my eyes and have my Mom spoon-feed to me, even at 53.
Food is such a delight. Isn’t it? Literally, like Turkish Delight, which I first read about in “A lion, a witch and the wardrobe” and was startled to learn as an adult that it is actually something that exists in the world. When food is this deeply satisfying (or as dynamic as in the cooking of Florent Pietravalle in my previous post), we are not only eating other people’s thoughts, we are eating their dreams.
So perhaps that is why it was especially perfect to finish with something so simply lovely as my dessert. I did try to convince myself not to have it. I did. But Jonathan assured me that it would “help me to digest” my previous indulgences (insert snort of laughter here) and Marc had also insisted about this so here we go: pear and tea-infused sorbet with mandarine keraji flakes (shrug), whipped yogurt and candied crunchy hazelnuts. As if I needed to say anything possibly more than that. Sweetness rendered.
And it was doubly so, as a lovely young person stopped by my table on her way out. She told me that she recognised me and loved what I put on Instagram. As she turned to go, I nearly blurted out, “Wait, wait, tell me more please!” Isn’t that beautiful? I might have blushed but shh.
So here we are at the end of the meal. Jonathan had brought me my espresso WITH my dessert without any judgement. The music was good, the cacophony rendered into a lullaby symphony. And while I was sitting there technically “alone” – the chair across from me, empty – the feeling during the entire meal was that I had been anything but. Not only was there the very palpable “bonhomie” extending from everyone at Première Édition but also all of my personal loves, right there beside me, right up close in my heart. They are great company.
It has been a hard time – sorry, hard times – for my tribe. My wonderful man L would have been with me if not for having just contacted COVID (again). I have been going through some things that are not appropriate for me to talk about fully but he has unfailingly been my rock. The tougher the times, the more solid he is. If that doesn’t make you want to do a turn about, what does? My family were there with me too. There is so very much on the table (again, sorry for the pun). And yet they still joke when needed and listen with the same sincerity. I try to do likewise for I love them so. I have had an unimaginable gift of reuniting with a nearly lost for forever friend. And yes, there is all of you. I did declare as much via Instagram on Thanksgiving but there are many of you that have still held on to this blog, no matter what. Forgive me if I have tears in my eyes as I type that for “my heart overfloweth.”
It is certainly lovely that there are happy drops on my keyboard just as I am grateful that my belly is full after such a wonderful meal. I don’t take any of it for granted. Not one tiny bit. It is never too late to say thank you, so to everyone at Première Édition, my love, my family (including those gone) and my friends known and unknown all over the world, I do.
