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Running from the bulls

We have run from the bulls of the September Feria and returned to the safe haven of the safari tent in the Haut Languedoc. The puppers sniff through the woods by day and we dive in the galactic waters of The Milky Way each night. A gift? We have pretty much no internet. The best gift? We are going through Noise Detox and it feels sublime.
Have a wonderful weekend…

The jangle of time’s keys

“Produits du paysans!!” I point and yell with the glee of a willful child that has just won the final round of “I spy” during an exceedingly long car trip. After catching his startled breath, Remi swings the Range Rover over to the side of the road. We are in need of supplies, red wine namely and where better to procure them than a shop offering “Peasant products” (oh all right, that is the literal translation but I couldn’t resist).  Remi dives under the yellow awning, a tiny bell rings as he opens the door and I step out to stretch. We are in Lodève, unexplored territory, on our way to rent a safari tent in the Haut Languedoc region. The dogs are panting in the back so I pop the hatch to give them some fresh air and ruffle the fur on top of their Golden heads. 
Proper scratchies take time and so I let my gaze wander while my fingers do the work. As luck would have it, we have pulled up in front of an impressive and mysterious building. Closed, abandoned? No. There is a bright green metal mailbox tacked to the side of giant wooden entry doors like a sparrow on a rhino’s back. The something something Archeological Society. Hm. 
I tilt my head up and up to take in a stone portico, sober and sobering. This must have been a church before and for quite some time by the looks of…what?…the details. As if stepping in to a darkened room, my eyes adjust and I see them. The oddly placed numbers carved into the planks, a connect the dot code of a lost language. It is no less secretive than a barely legible chalk scrawl…”il faut a les…” no, I can’t make it out. What is it that we “had to do” here? Something before entering? A warning not to enter?
I pull myself a part from the dogs to run my fingers in and out of the swiss cheese holes of what once must have been smooth stone. How very long it must have taken for that to happen. How very long for the paint to chip and then be painted over and chip again. Rust has oxidized around the locks but not enough to close them off. They are still open and waiting. As I touch them, I can hear the jangle of time’s keys approaching and soon.
The tinkle of the bell pulls me out of my reverie and I see Remi laughing over his shoulder as he says his merci‘s and aurevoir‘s, a characteristic I love about him, always with a kind word. We pull away but before the adventure continues, I take one last look at the nameless, faceless building, one that becomes more so by the minute with distance until it resembles a blank slate of nothing. And yet I know it’s tiny secrets and feel quietly reassured by having read through their layers like Braille. “On and on and on, we keep going,” they whisper. I listened. I nod. I know.

Today’s post is for the September issue of the By Invitation Only International blog party. 

This month’s theme is “patina,” a subject close to my heart. While I have the good fortune to live amongst spectacular scars and beauty marks that portray two thousand years of history in Arles, I thought that this doorway of a forgotten church in a forgotten town conveyed the essence of what patina means to me  as well.
To discover the other fine entries–and I am sure that there will be wonderful takes on such a gorgeous subject–by all means…Please click here.
I am especially excited that the incredibly talented and lovely Penelope Bianchi is joining the group, now in it’s third year. To see her contribution…Please click here.

Walking in the paths of Van Gogh


When Remi first made the fateful suggestion that we swing by the town of Arles on our way home from the Visa Pour L’Image Photography Festival in 2003, one name flashed into my mind: Vincent Van Gogh. It was reason enough for me to quickly agree, as I used to regularly visit his masterpieces at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and MOMA in Manhattan (and I still make pilgrimages to say hello whenever I return for a visit). I was only vaguely impressed by the town’s Roman monuments but was immediately transported by the light, his light. It was one of the reasons why we fell in love with this small Provençal town.

Van Gogh only lived in Arles for a year and yet it was the most prolific period of his career. He was as equally inspired by the color found in the landscapes as he was by the city’s seamier underbelly. He was a believer and wished to create an atelier du Midi, an artist’s collective similar to that which Claude Monet had formed in Giverny. After months of insistent demanding, Paul Gaugin joined him and yet it was immediately clear that he was not willing to stay. Their fighting increased until it lead to “the ear incident” where, in a fit of rage and despair, Van Gogh cut off a part of his left ear (most scholars agree that it was a little bit more than the lobe). When Gaugin found him passed out in a pool of blood later that evening, he hired several young men to carry him to the Hôtel Dieu.

During his recovery, thirty townspeople signed a petition against the fou roux or red-headed madman, which lead to the closing of his carefully decorated Yellow House (later bombed by the Americans during World War II). After a brief interval, Van Gogh agreed to leave Arles and enter the Saint-Paul de Mausole hospital, located over the Alpilles hills in St.-Rémy-de-Provence. 

He stayed for over a year and created one hundred paintings and as many drawings while there. Initially, his treatment forbade him from leaving the closed gardens…
…and the magnificent 11th century cloister. Unsurprisingly, they became frequent subjects of his pieces…
…as did the view from the series of rooms that his Brother, Theo, had requested.
The first was his bedroom, the second his studio and then an additional room was added in which to stack up his quickly accumulating canvases.
Initially, Vincent felt that his medical treatment was a success and he was eventually allowed to paint in the fields and olive groves outside of the asylum’s walls. Today, there are plaques throughout (as well as in Arles) that indicate the precise spot that had inspired certain scenes. 
It is as thrilling as the surrounding lavender garden is calming to the senses. This land has been sacred ground for over one thousand years and that enduring peace is pervasive.
Unfortunately, during the end of his stay, Vincent suffered a severe relapse and after just over one year of treatment, he left the hospital to be closer to Doctor Gachet in Auvers-sur-Oise. His life ended two months later.
By all accounts, Vincent Van Gogh took great solace in nature during his stay. His greatest masterworks were created at St. Paul, including, Starry Night, The Irises and Vincent’s Room in Arles.
This corner of Provence is still largely what it was during his time there and yes, the beauty remains. St. Paul continues on as an active psychiatric hospital. I often see some of their patients out for a guided walk through Arles on a Tuesday.
Inspired by their most famous occupant, the Valetudo Association has been helping the patients of the asylum demystify their illness through the use of art therapy. The site’s boutique offers their work for sale. It is a beautiful link to the past, one creating a positive future and a living piece of the vibrant legacy of Vincent Van Gogh.
Maison de santé Saint-Paul de Mausole
Route des Baux, St.-Rémy-de-Provence
Website in English: please click here.
Site en français: veuillez cliquer ici.
A portion of the site is open to visits from the public and it is well worthwhile.
This seemed like an appropriate post for the end of Summer and the beginning of Autumn as well as a fitting follow-up to my previous post. Thank you all for your wonderful comments.
For those in the States, I am wishing you all a wonderful Labor Day weekend. 
May it be a peaceful one for us all.

Freedom and tenderness

Do you have seventeen and a half minutes to spare?
That is the duration of  Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I have a dream” speech. You might think that you know it, on this, the 50th anniversary from when it was delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial but then again, you might be surprised. If you actually listen to it, to him, in its entirety, well, it is the true essence of the best of what we can achieve in our limited existence. I can’t not show up today to talk about this. Here is a link to watch it and if you can get through it without tears, you are of sterner stuff than I. We have come far, we have far to go.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2013/08/28/mlk_i_have_a_dream_video_watch_martin_luther_king_jr_deliver_his_famous.html
(I chose this link as it also has the speech written out below, it is breathtaking in its beauty and power)
But I have a second lien for you today, another that touched me deeply, in such a quiet way that I had to strain to hear. And yet the words are echoing through me. My friend Aidan first brought my attention to the podcast On Being with Krista Tippett, I believe it was for the exceptional interview that she did with Brene Brown on vulnerability. Since then I tune in weekly while I iron. Today, I listened to Jean Vanier, who is the founder of L’Arche, a system of communities in 40 countries that works with the developmentally disabled. He spoke of how those that were not so long ago immediately shut away in asylums have much to teach us about what it is to be human. It is also very much worth your time and I agree that there is a profound Wisdom in Tenderness. 
The link to: http://www.onbeing.org/program/wisdom-tenderness/234  
It was really something to hear both of these on the same day, overlapping despite the stylistic differences. So again, much good has been done but it is up to each of us to keep passing it along. I think. N’est ce pas?

***
I am very surprised and grateful for the recent influx of new email subscribers. Not to worry, I don’t spend too much time up on my soapbox–at all actually–but if you are here, well, we might just be of like minds.
With all of my Best from Arles,
Heather

Abracadabrant

There are words that, after all of this time in France, still twist between my tongue when speaking or dart out of reach when typing. Abracadabrant, is one. I casually tossed out to my Mom that I was pretty sure that it meant something along the lines of “everything but nothing at the same time.” However, Wiktionary swung me wildly back to Planet Earth by declaring, rather, “ludicrous, preposterous.” Oops. Or as the French say, “oups.” Perhaps those two definitions are not so entirely far a part from each other in the immaterial dreamloop that I have had on repeat as of late?

And yet it was with feet solidly on the ground–one two, one two, huphuphup–that Remi, the puppers and I went for a rather lengthy hike in the hills of the Alpilles yesterday evening. The clouds were playful and I was grateful for the shapes of shade and the cooling wisps of…silence. I have become convinced that we are suffering from noise poisoning in our apartment in the center of Arles. One that somehow trumps my former residence off Time Square for it’s determined non-stoppedness. Not so in the Alpilles, especially along the paths of this inconnu corner far from all…

…save for one truly envy-inspiring home with an eagle’s nest view and an infinity pool that I seriously considered walking down and falling in to. Would they mind? Probably. I kept walking.
How I love the tug between above and below. 

As we climbed, the olive groves smeared into Seurat dots, marbles rolling across a plain.

We zig-zagged over the trail, ankles wobbling dangerously, dogs panting noisely…

…until we reached the upper crest, at such an altitude that sprigs of wild lavender had sprouted, surprising us with their smoky sweet scent.

Quieted, I saw a landscape that was preposterous in its beauty. Abracadabrantesque? Absolutely.
Just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. 
***
Now, while my vocabulary might be as slippery as an eel, there are times when I know EXACTLY what I am saying and this would be one of them, so please do gather ’round and listen up. 
I believe that most of you that have been reading here for some time get as big of a kick out of the comments and stories left by David Terry as I do. But have you ever clicked over to discover what a truly unique and wonderful artist he is? If not, there has never been a better time to do so. You see, the lovely Sharon Santoni of the exceptional blog My French Country Home is offering a giveaway of one of David’s portraits, to be commissioned by the winner. 
Remi and I are the proud owner of three of David’s works and I can assure you that they are far more beautiful in person that his website can portray. As his pieces can sell for up to thousands of dollars, this is quite an opportunity. So what are you waiting for? 
To enter (and see the portrait of Ben and Kipling that Sharon included in her post), please click here.
To discover David’s work, please click here.
But do hurry, I believe that you only have until next Saturday.
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Have a wonderful week everyone…
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