Saturday–Sunday 25–26 June 2011
Ferme de la Salamandre, Les Rives, France
At a certain point last evening at the Fête de la Saint-Jean here at the farm, Brian (another one of the WWOOFers) leaned over and asked quite seriously, “Is this really happening? How did we end up in the Middle Ages in France?” It was a legitimate question. We concluded that the year was not 2011, but 1237 A.D.
La Fête de la Saint-Jean is a popular summer holiday, celebrated primarily in the countryside on June 24, three days after the summer solstice. In the Christian tradition, the holiday celebrates the birth of the saint the Jean the Baptist. The celebration conveniently coincides with the summer solstice, one of the primary holidays in the pagan tradition. Frustrated by failed attempts to suppress “pagan rituals” in the countryside, la Fête de la Saint-Jean was eventually declared an official Christian holiday. As is the case in many (if not all) common Christian holidays, many of the rituals of la Fête de la Saint-Jean are appropriated from the pagan tradition. The festivities at the farm Saturday evening were no different.
The evening started with lentils, rice and corn salad, spinach quiche, bread and cheese, pâtés vétégaux, cherries, fruit salad, couscous, locally brewed fruit and honey beer, and plenty of wine to go around. While the adults ate, drank, and chatted, the children went out into the surrounding fields to pick des millepertuis—small, yellow flowers that are used in oils as a relief for severe sunburns (similar to the effects of aloe). Later, the women sat around a table to pluck the fragile yellow flowers off of the stems and filled little pots with petals and olive oil. The pots will be left out in the sun for about a month and then the infused oil will be drained and kept for use throughout the year.
As twilight began to fall, the children disappeared to the woods to build a lean-to, and Dani and I set up the bonfire. By the time the fire was roaring, the children were called to help perform an annual flower ritual under a teepee made out of logs in the yard behind the WWOOFers caravans. When I joined them, they had set up a bed of flowers with a candle in the center, and the little children were dancing in circles around the flowers. Gabrielle set the mood with melodic and mysterious airs on a wooden flute, and Sophie accompanied her on a small drum. After we had set up candles in each of the four cardinal directions, Gabrielle (an older woman) recounted us a traditional tale: http://rachelmgrimm.blogspot.com/2011/06/once-upon-time.html
After Gabrielle’s tale, we gathered around the campfire, where the children were roasting bread dough on sticks. After some chanting and singing (it was only appropriate), Nel (9) urged his father (Benoit) to jump over the fire. Apparently, if you jump over a bonfire on la Fête de la Saint-Jean, you will have good luck for a year. As it were, nearly everyone jumped over the fire to much clapping and cheering. And yes, I jumped over the bonfire too. There is nothing that can stop my bonne chance now.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Once Upon a Time
Once upon a time, a mother lived with and her three sons in a small, modest house on the edge of a village in the mountains. One night, a bright light awakes the mother. When she goes to investigate, she is surprised to see the familiar village transformed into an idyllic paradise, full of gardens bursting with fruit bushes and flowers, rolling hills populated by kind animals and twittering with songbirds, and a clear stream that ran through the center of the magnificent village.
In the morning, the mother was so moved by the night’s dream that she started immediately embroidering a tapestry to recreate the paradise that she had seen in her beautiful dream. She worked incessantly from sunup to sundown, lighting candles in the evening so she could continue her work after dark. She was an older woman, and after the first year of embroidering, she became tired, but she was determined to finish her work. In the second year, she often became sad, and the tears from her tired eyes that fell on the tapestry became the clear water of the stream. In the third year, her tired eyes began to bleed, but the tears that fell on the tapestry were transformed into the luscious fruits in the overflowing gardens of the idyllic village.
Late in the night on the last day of the third year, she finished her tapestry. In the morning, she reveled in her work and called her three sons to come admire the paradise that she had created out of thread. They were amazed, and declared that they should lay the tapestry outside in the sun as to better admire the work. They lay the tapestry out in front of the humble hut and the sun illuminated the beautiful threads. Suddenly, a gust of wind lifted the tapestry from the ground and carried it over the ridge and far into the valley below. The three sons set off immediately in search of their mother’s tapestry. They searched all day and all night but came back to their mother’s house empty handed.
In her depression, the mother’s healthy quickly waned. The three sons tried to cheer the mother up, but they were unsuccessful. Finally, the mother declared that she would die if they could not retrieve her tapestry. She sent her first son off in search of the tapestry, telling him that if he could not find it in a year, he would not see her again alive. A year passed, but the first son did not return. Disappointed, the mother sent her second son off in search of the tapestry, telling him the same as she had told the first son. A second year passed, and the last remaining son watched as his mother’s health and morale continued to fade. The second son did not return.
Finally, the mother sent off her final son, and like his brothers, he promised that he would bring back his mother’s beautiful tapestry. He searched all throughout the mountains, descending into the deepest valleys and ravines and climbing the highest peaks, stopping in villages and farms and asking everyone he saw if they had heard anything about a tapestry of unequaled splendor. Finally, the third son came upon a little cottage nestled in the mountains. Outside, a magnificent horse stood perfectly immobile, as if paralyzed. Curious, he approached the cottage but found that the horse that he had seen from the road was made out of stone. He knocked on the cottage door to inquire about the horse and his mother’s missing tapestry.
Inside, he found an ancient woman living alone. “I know why you are here, my son,” she said to him. “You have come in search of your mother’s tapestry, yes?” He nodded. “Your two brothers have passed by here, asking after the very same tapestry,” she continued. “I told them that I knew how to find it, but it would be a very difficult and dangerous journey. I gave them a choice: either they could learn the whereabouts of the tapestry and promise to undergo the journey, or they could accept a bag of gold and disappear into the village, never to return to their mother. Both accepted the bag of gold. I have not heard from them since. But you, my son, which will you choose?” the old woman asked.
Without hesitation, the third son said he would like to know where the tapestry was. He had no need for wealth, or material success, or towns. He only wanted to see his mother again, happy and healthy.
“Very well,” the old woman said, “I will tell you how to find the tapestry. You must take the horse that stands outside my house and cross three treacherous obstacles, and then you will find the tapestry. You will have to cross a mountain of fire, a mountain of ice, and a stormy sea, and beyond you will come upon a beautiful and golden land, and there you will be able to find the tapestry.”
“You see,” she continued, “when Nature saw your mother’s tapestry, She was jealous of the beauty of the creation. It was so beautiful that Nature sent the Wind to carry the tapestry off so that She could study and reproduce it for Herself.”
“I am ready and willing to go, but your horse is made of stone,” the third son said.
“Yes, he has stood there immobile for so long that his teeth have fallen out and he has forgotten how to eat, and he has turned to stone waiting for someone to take care of him. You must give him new teeth and teach him how to eat, and then he will prove to be the fastest and strongest mare you will have ever seen,” she said.
Straight away, the third son braced himself and knocked out his own teeth and delicately placed them in the horse’s mouth. He then collected grains and placed a bucket just below the stationary horse’s muzzle so the scent would waft into the horse’s nostrils. And just as the old woman had promised, the horse began to shake and tremble and broke out of its stony immobility.
After the horse had eaten and regained its strength, the third son said goodbye to the old woman and set off on his journey. He crossed mountains and valleys until he came upon a black and singed plain. Sure enough, as he crossed the plain he came up on a mountain engulfed in flame. He spurred the sturdy horse on and they sped through the flames of the fiery peaks. Suddenly, the flames died down and the third son saw stretched out before him a shimmering, white field and an icy peak beyond. The third son and the horse skidded across the icy plain and climbed the slippery paths buried in heavy snow. Finally, they emerged from the mountainous winter and found themselves on the banks of an angry sea. Although the third son and his horse were tired and singed and shivering, they plunged into the waves and swam until they thought they would be engulfed by the valleys and peaks of churning water. But the third son and his horse did not drown, and they eventually reached the other shore, where they collapsed, exhausted.
When the third son looked up, he could not believe his eyes. He saw before him the tapestry of his mother: the golden hills where animals pranced and birds sang; the nestled village where a clear stream gurgled; the gardens filled with berry bushes and flowers. And by the clear stream in the quaint village, a golden-haired girl stood alone, looking more like a fawn than a girl. The third son approached her, but he did not have to speak.
“I know why you have come,” she said. “You are looking for your mother’s tapestry. Look what Nature has done with her beautiful pattern!” She motioned to the gilded hills and the crystal liquid of the stream.
“Nature is not quite done yet,” she continued, “but she will be in the morning. Come, walk with me along the stream and then sleep and in the morning you will find your mother’s tapestry.”
The third son walked with the fawn-girl along the stream until the sun set behind the hills. He slept well, and in the morning, he found his world even more beautiful than he had the night before. As promised, the golden-haired girl returned with the tapestry whose absence had so long plagued his mother’s fragile and aged heart.
“Go back to your mother,” she said. “Make her heart glad again. But before you go, let me add something small to her creation.” The fawn-girl took a spool of thread from her pocket and with a slender needle embroidered a little golden figure standing next to the stream onto the tapestry. The third son thanked the girl and set off with his horse to return at last to his mother, mountains and valleys and miles away.
When the third son finally returned to his mother’s house, her smile and the beautiful tapestry illuminated the room of their small house.
“Come, let us lay it outside to better admire its color,” he said.
They lay the tapestry outside the house, and again, a breath of air from the mountains again stirred the fabric. But this time, the tapestry did not fly away. Instead, it seemed to get bigger. It covered the doorway of the little house, and then the whole house, and began to stretch down the street to the village beyond, and then climbed the hills and the mountains beyond. Fruits and flowers bloomed in the gardens and a clear stream gushed from a hidden spring. The mother cried with happiness. She was once again standing in the paradise of her dream!
But something small had changed. Standing by the banks of the clear stream was a golden-haired girl who looked more like a fawn than a girl. She approached them slowly but confidently, and when the third son saw her he ran to her and embraced her. They were married three days later, and they all lived happily ever after.
Once upon a time, a mother lived with and her three sons in a small, modest house on the edge of a village in the mountains. One night, a bright light awakes the mother. When she goes to investigate, she is surprised to see the familiar village transformed into an idyllic paradise, full of gardens bursting with fruit bushes and flowers, rolling hills populated by kind animals and twittering with songbirds, and a clear stream that ran through the center of the magnificent village.
In the morning, the mother was so moved by the night’s dream that she started immediately embroidering a tapestry to recreate the paradise that she had seen in her beautiful dream. She worked incessantly from sunup to sundown, lighting candles in the evening so she could continue her work after dark. She was an older woman, and after the first year of embroidering, she became tired, but she was determined to finish her work. In the second year, she often became sad, and the tears from her tired eyes that fell on the tapestry became the clear water of the stream. In the third year, her tired eyes began to bleed, but the tears that fell on the tapestry were transformed into the luscious fruits in the overflowing gardens of the idyllic village.
Late in the night on the last day of the third year, she finished her tapestry. In the morning, she reveled in her work and called her three sons to come admire the paradise that she had created out of thread. They were amazed, and declared that they should lay the tapestry outside in the sun as to better admire the work. They lay the tapestry out in front of the humble hut and the sun illuminated the beautiful threads. Suddenly, a gust of wind lifted the tapestry from the ground and carried it over the ridge and far into the valley below. The three sons set off immediately in search of their mother’s tapestry. They searched all day and all night but came back to their mother’s house empty handed.
In her depression, the mother’s healthy quickly waned. The three sons tried to cheer the mother up, but they were unsuccessful. Finally, the mother declared that she would die if they could not retrieve her tapestry. She sent her first son off in search of the tapestry, telling him that if he could not find it in a year, he would not see her again alive. A year passed, but the first son did not return. Disappointed, the mother sent her second son off in search of the tapestry, telling him the same as she had told the first son. A second year passed, and the last remaining son watched as his mother’s health and morale continued to fade. The second son did not return.
Finally, the mother sent off her final son, and like his brothers, he promised that he would bring back his mother’s beautiful tapestry. He searched all throughout the mountains, descending into the deepest valleys and ravines and climbing the highest peaks, stopping in villages and farms and asking everyone he saw if they had heard anything about a tapestry of unequaled splendor. Finally, the third son came upon a little cottage nestled in the mountains. Outside, a magnificent horse stood perfectly immobile, as if paralyzed. Curious, he approached the cottage but found that the horse that he had seen from the road was made out of stone. He knocked on the cottage door to inquire about the horse and his mother’s missing tapestry.
Inside, he found an ancient woman living alone. “I know why you are here, my son,” she said to him. “You have come in search of your mother’s tapestry, yes?” He nodded. “Your two brothers have passed by here, asking after the very same tapestry,” she continued. “I told them that I knew how to find it, but it would be a very difficult and dangerous journey. I gave them a choice: either they could learn the whereabouts of the tapestry and promise to undergo the journey, or they could accept a bag of gold and disappear into the village, never to return to their mother. Both accepted the bag of gold. I have not heard from them since. But you, my son, which will you choose?” the old woman asked.
Without hesitation, the third son said he would like to know where the tapestry was. He had no need for wealth, or material success, or towns. He only wanted to see his mother again, happy and healthy.
“Very well,” the old woman said, “I will tell you how to find the tapestry. You must take the horse that stands outside my house and cross three treacherous obstacles, and then you will find the tapestry. You will have to cross a mountain of fire, a mountain of ice, and a stormy sea, and beyond you will come upon a beautiful and golden land, and there you will be able to find the tapestry.”
“You see,” she continued, “when Nature saw your mother’s tapestry, She was jealous of the beauty of the creation. It was so beautiful that Nature sent the Wind to carry the tapestry off so that She could study and reproduce it for Herself.”
“I am ready and willing to go, but your horse is made of stone,” the third son said.
“Yes, he has stood there immobile for so long that his teeth have fallen out and he has forgotten how to eat, and he has turned to stone waiting for someone to take care of him. You must give him new teeth and teach him how to eat, and then he will prove to be the fastest and strongest mare you will have ever seen,” she said.
Straight away, the third son braced himself and knocked out his own teeth and delicately placed them in the horse’s mouth. He then collected grains and placed a bucket just below the stationary horse’s muzzle so the scent would waft into the horse’s nostrils. And just as the old woman had promised, the horse began to shake and tremble and broke out of its stony immobility.
After the horse had eaten and regained its strength, the third son said goodbye to the old woman and set off on his journey. He crossed mountains and valleys until he came upon a black and singed plain. Sure enough, as he crossed the plain he came up on a mountain engulfed in flame. He spurred the sturdy horse on and they sped through the flames of the fiery peaks. Suddenly, the flames died down and the third son saw stretched out before him a shimmering, white field and an icy peak beyond. The third son and the horse skidded across the icy plain and climbed the slippery paths buried in heavy snow. Finally, they emerged from the mountainous winter and found themselves on the banks of an angry sea. Although the third son and his horse were tired and singed and shivering, they plunged into the waves and swam until they thought they would be engulfed by the valleys and peaks of churning water. But the third son and his horse did not drown, and they eventually reached the other shore, where they collapsed, exhausted.
When the third son looked up, he could not believe his eyes. He saw before him the tapestry of his mother: the golden hills where animals pranced and birds sang; the nestled village where a clear stream gurgled; the gardens filled with berry bushes and flowers. And by the clear stream in the quaint village, a golden-haired girl stood alone, looking more like a fawn than a girl. The third son approached her, but he did not have to speak.
“I know why you have come,” she said. “You are looking for your mother’s tapestry. Look what Nature has done with her beautiful pattern!” She motioned to the gilded hills and the crystal liquid of the stream.
“Nature is not quite done yet,” she continued, “but she will be in the morning. Come, walk with me along the stream and then sleep and in the morning you will find your mother’s tapestry.”
The third son walked with the fawn-girl along the stream until the sun set behind the hills. He slept well, and in the morning, he found his world even more beautiful than he had the night before. As promised, the golden-haired girl returned with the tapestry whose absence had so long plagued his mother’s fragile and aged heart.
“Go back to your mother,” she said. “Make her heart glad again. But before you go, let me add something small to her creation.” The fawn-girl took a spool of thread from her pocket and with a slender needle embroidered a little golden figure standing next to the stream onto the tapestry. The third son thanked the girl and set off with his horse to return at last to his mother, mountains and valleys and miles away.
When the third son finally returned to his mother’s house, her smile and the beautiful tapestry illuminated the room of their small house.
“Come, let us lay it outside to better admire its color,” he said.
They lay the tapestry outside the house, and again, a breath of air from the mountains again stirred the fabric. But this time, the tapestry did not fly away. Instead, it seemed to get bigger. It covered the doorway of the little house, and then the whole house, and began to stretch down the street to the village beyond, and then climbed the hills and the mountains beyond. Fruits and flowers bloomed in the gardens and a clear stream gushed from a hidden spring. The mother cried with happiness. She was once again standing in the paradise of her dream!
But something small had changed. Standing by the banks of the clear stream was a golden-haired girl who looked more like a fawn than a girl. She approached them slowly but confidently, and when the third son saw her he ran to her and embraced her. They were married three days later, and they all lived happily ever after.
In the morning, the mother was so moved by the night’s dream that she started immediately embroidering a tapestry to recreate the paradise that she had seen in her beautiful dream. She worked incessantly from sunup to sundown, lighting candles in the evening so she could continue her work after dark. She was an older woman, and after the first year of embroidering, she became tired, but she was determined to finish her work. In the second year, she often became sad, and the tears from her tired eyes that fell on the tapestry became the clear water of the stream. In the third year, her tired eyes began to bleed, but the tears that fell on the tapestry were transformed into the luscious fruits in the overflowing gardens of the idyllic village.
Late in the night on the last day of the third year, she finished her tapestry. In the morning, she reveled in her work and called her three sons to come admire the paradise that she had created out of thread. They were amazed, and declared that they should lay the tapestry outside in the sun as to better admire the work. They lay the tapestry out in front of the humble hut and the sun illuminated the beautiful threads. Suddenly, a gust of wind lifted the tapestry from the ground and carried it over the ridge and far into the valley below. The three sons set off immediately in search of their mother’s tapestry. They searched all day and all night but came back to their mother’s house empty handed.
In her depression, the mother’s healthy quickly waned. The three sons tried to cheer the mother up, but they were unsuccessful. Finally, the mother declared that she would die if they could not retrieve her tapestry. She sent her first son off in search of the tapestry, telling him that if he could not find it in a year, he would not see her again alive. A year passed, but the first son did not return. Disappointed, the mother sent her second son off in search of the tapestry, telling him the same as she had told the first son. A second year passed, and the last remaining son watched as his mother’s health and morale continued to fade. The second son did not return.
Finally, the mother sent off her final son, and like his brothers, he promised that he would bring back his mother’s beautiful tapestry. He searched all throughout the mountains, descending into the deepest valleys and ravines and climbing the highest peaks, stopping in villages and farms and asking everyone he saw if they had heard anything about a tapestry of unequaled splendor. Finally, the third son came upon a little cottage nestled in the mountains. Outside, a magnificent horse stood perfectly immobile, as if paralyzed. Curious, he approached the cottage but found that the horse that he had seen from the road was made out of stone. He knocked on the cottage door to inquire about the horse and his mother’s missing tapestry.
Inside, he found an ancient woman living alone. “I know why you are here, my son,” she said to him. “You have come in search of your mother’s tapestry, yes?” He nodded. “Your two brothers have passed by here, asking after the very same tapestry,” she continued. “I told them that I knew how to find it, but it would be a very difficult and dangerous journey. I gave them a choice: either they could learn the whereabouts of the tapestry and promise to undergo the journey, or they could accept a bag of gold and disappear into the village, never to return to their mother. Both accepted the bag of gold. I have not heard from them since. But you, my son, which will you choose?” the old woman asked.
Without hesitation, the third son said he would like to know where the tapestry was. He had no need for wealth, or material success, or towns. He only wanted to see his mother again, happy and healthy.
“Very well,” the old woman said, “I will tell you how to find the tapestry. You must take the horse that stands outside my house and cross three treacherous obstacles, and then you will find the tapestry. You will have to cross a mountain of fire, a mountain of ice, and a stormy sea, and beyond you will come upon a beautiful and golden land, and there you will be able to find the tapestry.”
“You see,” she continued, “when Nature saw your mother’s tapestry, She was jealous of the beauty of the creation. It was so beautiful that Nature sent the Wind to carry the tapestry off so that She could study and reproduce it for Herself.”
“I am ready and willing to go, but your horse is made of stone,” the third son said.
“Yes, he has stood there immobile for so long that his teeth have fallen out and he has forgotten how to eat, and he has turned to stone waiting for someone to take care of him. You must give him new teeth and teach him how to eat, and then he will prove to be the fastest and strongest mare you will have ever seen,” she said.
Straight away, the third son braced himself and knocked out his own teeth and delicately placed them in the horse’s mouth. He then collected grains and placed a bucket just below the stationary horse’s muzzle so the scent would waft into the horse’s nostrils. And just as the old woman had promised, the horse began to shake and tremble and broke out of its stony immobility.
After the horse had eaten and regained its strength, the third son said goodbye to the old woman and set off on his journey. He crossed mountains and valleys until he came upon a black and singed plain. Sure enough, as he crossed the plain he came up on a mountain engulfed in flame. He spurred the sturdy horse on and they sped through the flames of the fiery peaks. Suddenly, the flames died down and the third son saw stretched out before him a shimmering, white field and an icy peak beyond. The third son and the horse skidded across the icy plain and climbed the slippery paths buried in heavy snow. Finally, they emerged from the mountainous winter and found themselves on the banks of an angry sea. Although the third son and his horse were tired and singed and shivering, they plunged into the waves and swam until they thought they would be engulfed by the valleys and peaks of churning water. But the third son and his horse did not drown, and they eventually reached the other shore, where they collapsed, exhausted.
When the third son looked up, he could not believe his eyes. He saw before him the tapestry of his mother: the golden hills where animals pranced and birds sang; the nestled village where a clear stream gurgled; the gardens filled with berry bushes and flowers. And by the clear stream in the quaint village, a golden-haired girl stood alone, looking more like a fawn than a girl. The third son approached her, but he did not have to speak.
“I know why you have come,” she said. “You are looking for your mother’s tapestry. Look what Nature has done with her beautiful pattern!” She motioned to the gilded hills and the crystal liquid of the stream.
“Nature is not quite done yet,” she continued, “but she will be in the morning. Come, walk with me along the stream and then sleep and in the morning you will find your mother’s tapestry.”
The third son walked with the fawn-girl along the stream until the sun set behind the hills. He slept well, and in the morning, he found his world even more beautiful than he had the night before. As promised, the golden-haired girl returned with the tapestry whose absence had so long plagued his mother’s fragile and aged heart.
“Go back to your mother,” she said. “Make her heart glad again. But before you go, let me add something small to her creation.” The fawn-girl took a spool of thread from her pocket and with a slender needle embroidered a little golden figure standing next to the stream onto the tapestry. The third son thanked the girl and set off with his horse to return at last to his mother, mountains and valleys and miles away.
When the third son finally returned to his mother’s house, her smile and the beautiful tapestry illuminated the room of their small house.
“Come, let us lay it outside to better admire its color,” he said.
They lay the tapestry outside the house, and again, a breath of air from the mountains again stirred the fabric. But this time, the tapestry did not fly away. Instead, it seemed to get bigger. It covered the doorway of the little house, and then the whole house, and began to stretch down the street to the village beyond, and then climbed the hills and the mountains beyond. Fruits and flowers bloomed in the gardens and a clear stream gushed from a hidden spring. The mother cried with happiness. She was once again standing in the paradise of her dream!
But something small had changed. Standing by the banks of the clear stream was a golden-haired girl who looked more like a fawn than a girl. She approached them slowly but confidently, and when the third son saw her he ran to her and embraced her. They were married three days later, and they all lived happily ever after.
Once upon a time, a mother lived with and her three sons in a small, modest house on the edge of a village in the mountains. One night, a bright light awakes the mother. When she goes to investigate, she is surprised to see the familiar village transformed into an idyllic paradise, full of gardens bursting with fruit bushes and flowers, rolling hills populated by kind animals and twittering with songbirds, and a clear stream that ran through the center of the magnificent village.
In the morning, the mother was so moved by the night’s dream that she started immediately embroidering a tapestry to recreate the paradise that she had seen in her beautiful dream. She worked incessantly from sunup to sundown, lighting candles in the evening so she could continue her work after dark. She was an older woman, and after the first year of embroidering, she became tired, but she was determined to finish her work. In the second year, she often became sad, and the tears from her tired eyes that fell on the tapestry became the clear water of the stream. In the third year, her tired eyes began to bleed, but the tears that fell on the tapestry were transformed into the luscious fruits in the overflowing gardens of the idyllic village.
Late in the night on the last day of the third year, she finished her tapestry. In the morning, she reveled in her work and called her three sons to come admire the paradise that she had created out of thread. They were amazed, and declared that they should lay the tapestry outside in the sun as to better admire the work. They lay the tapestry out in front of the humble hut and the sun illuminated the beautiful threads. Suddenly, a gust of wind lifted the tapestry from the ground and carried it over the ridge and far into the valley below. The three sons set off immediately in search of their mother’s tapestry. They searched all day and all night but came back to their mother’s house empty handed.
In her depression, the mother’s healthy quickly waned. The three sons tried to cheer the mother up, but they were unsuccessful. Finally, the mother declared that she would die if they could not retrieve her tapestry. She sent her first son off in search of the tapestry, telling him that if he could not find it in a year, he would not see her again alive. A year passed, but the first son did not return. Disappointed, the mother sent her second son off in search of the tapestry, telling him the same as she had told the first son. A second year passed, and the last remaining son watched as his mother’s health and morale continued to fade. The second son did not return.
Finally, the mother sent off her final son, and like his brothers, he promised that he would bring back his mother’s beautiful tapestry. He searched all throughout the mountains, descending into the deepest valleys and ravines and climbing the highest peaks, stopping in villages and farms and asking everyone he saw if they had heard anything about a tapestry of unequaled splendor. Finally, the third son came upon a little cottage nestled in the mountains. Outside, a magnificent horse stood perfectly immobile, as if paralyzed. Curious, he approached the cottage but found that the horse that he had seen from the road was made out of stone. He knocked on the cottage door to inquire about the horse and his mother’s missing tapestry.
Inside, he found an ancient woman living alone. “I know why you are here, my son,” she said to him. “You have come in search of your mother’s tapestry, yes?” He nodded. “Your two brothers have passed by here, asking after the very same tapestry,” she continued. “I told them that I knew how to find it, but it would be a very difficult and dangerous journey. I gave them a choice: either they could learn the whereabouts of the tapestry and promise to undergo the journey, or they could accept a bag of gold and disappear into the village, never to return to their mother. Both accepted the bag of gold. I have not heard from them since. But you, my son, which will you choose?” the old woman asked.
Without hesitation, the third son said he would like to know where the tapestry was. He had no need for wealth, or material success, or towns. He only wanted to see his mother again, happy and healthy.
“Very well,” the old woman said, “I will tell you how to find the tapestry. You must take the horse that stands outside my house and cross three treacherous obstacles, and then you will find the tapestry. You will have to cross a mountain of fire, a mountain of ice, and a stormy sea, and beyond you will come upon a beautiful and golden land, and there you will be able to find the tapestry.”
“You see,” she continued, “when Nature saw your mother’s tapestry, She was jealous of the beauty of the creation. It was so beautiful that Nature sent the Wind to carry the tapestry off so that She could study and reproduce it for Herself.”
“I am ready and willing to go, but your horse is made of stone,” the third son said.
“Yes, he has stood there immobile for so long that his teeth have fallen out and he has forgotten how to eat, and he has turned to stone waiting for someone to take care of him. You must give him new teeth and teach him how to eat, and then he will prove to be the fastest and strongest mare you will have ever seen,” she said.
Straight away, the third son braced himself and knocked out his own teeth and delicately placed them in the horse’s mouth. He then collected grains and placed a bucket just below the stationary horse’s muzzle so the scent would waft into the horse’s nostrils. And just as the old woman had promised, the horse began to shake and tremble and broke out of its stony immobility.
After the horse had eaten and regained its strength, the third son said goodbye to the old woman and set off on his journey. He crossed mountains and valleys until he came upon a black and singed plain. Sure enough, as he crossed the plain he came up on a mountain engulfed in flame. He spurred the sturdy horse on and they sped through the flames of the fiery peaks. Suddenly, the flames died down and the third son saw stretched out before him a shimmering, white field and an icy peak beyond. The third son and the horse skidded across the icy plain and climbed the slippery paths buried in heavy snow. Finally, they emerged from the mountainous winter and found themselves on the banks of an angry sea. Although the third son and his horse were tired and singed and shivering, they plunged into the waves and swam until they thought they would be engulfed by the valleys and peaks of churning water. But the third son and his horse did not drown, and they eventually reached the other shore, where they collapsed, exhausted.
When the third son looked up, he could not believe his eyes. He saw before him the tapestry of his mother: the golden hills where animals pranced and birds sang; the nestled village where a clear stream gurgled; the gardens filled with berry bushes and flowers. And by the clear stream in the quaint village, a golden-haired girl stood alone, looking more like a fawn than a girl. The third son approached her, but he did not have to speak.
“I know why you have come,” she said. “You are looking for your mother’s tapestry. Look what Nature has done with her beautiful pattern!” She motioned to the gilded hills and the crystal liquid of the stream.
“Nature is not quite done yet,” she continued, “but she will be in the morning. Come, walk with me along the stream and then sleep and in the morning you will find your mother’s tapestry.”
The third son walked with the fawn-girl along the stream until the sun set behind the hills. He slept well, and in the morning, he found his world even more beautiful than he had the night before. As promised, the golden-haired girl returned with the tapestry whose absence had so long plagued his mother’s fragile and aged heart.
“Go back to your mother,” she said. “Make her heart glad again. But before you go, let me add something small to her creation.” The fawn-girl took a spool of thread from her pocket and with a slender needle embroidered a little golden figure standing next to the stream onto the tapestry. The third son thanked the girl and set off with his horse to return at last to his mother, mountains and valleys and miles away.
When the third son finally returned to his mother’s house, her smile and the beautiful tapestry illuminated the room of their small house.
“Come, let us lay it outside to better admire its color,” he said.
They lay the tapestry outside the house, and again, a breath of air from the mountains again stirred the fabric. But this time, the tapestry did not fly away. Instead, it seemed to get bigger. It covered the doorway of the little house, and then the whole house, and began to stretch down the street to the village beyond, and then climbed the hills and the mountains beyond. Fruits and flowers bloomed in the gardens and a clear stream gushed from a hidden spring. The mother cried with happiness. She was once again standing in the paradise of her dream!
But something small had changed. Standing by the banks of the clear stream was a golden-haired girl who looked more like a fawn than a girl. She approached them slowly but confidently, and when the third son saw her he ran to her and embraced her. They were married three days later, and they all lived happily ever after.
She's So Heavy
Sunday 26 June 2011
Ferme de la Salamandre, Les Rives, France
In the words of Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things, it all goes back to “the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.”
Someone, somewhere, told me what I should love. Whom. Where. When. How. How much. Preferably an upstanding gentleman, close to my own age, English speaking (although a second language or a pleasant accent can hardly hurt), with a clean criminal record or a damn good explanation, perhaps with a family business to inherit or a boat off the coast of New England. No one told me what to do if I fell in love with a country, or the ruins of a fallen city from another epoch, or a dead author, or a woman, or a field of sunflowers. And no one told me what to do with joy.
Joy can be lonely. Back in the states, I could watch others experience it but when I ran through they scattered and the joy dispersed with them. Like pigeons on a square in Italy. So I took my joy hostage and stowed it in the overhead bin on a transatlantic flight.
At one point, I thought that I was only happy when I moved, traveled, ran. Alec evoked one of my most feared musical artists (i.e.: David Bowie, who was ruined for me by the movie Labyrinth) and designated my personal anthem as “Born to Run.” It’s a simple explanation, easily defended and rarely questioned. I have found that people are much more willing to believe that you are happy as a wandering vagabond than to accept that you are happy somewhere that happens to be far away from them.
There is a particular sentiment that I have when I travel abroad, but I haven’t quite succeeded in explaining it either to myself or to others when they ask what continually draws me back to France year after year. Rousseau, in the fourth book of his Confessions says it better than I perhaps can. He writes:
“ . . . l’éloignement de tout ce qui me fait sentir ma dépendance, de tout ce qui me rappelle à ma situation, tout cela dégage mon âme, me donne plus grande audace de penser, me jette en quelque sorte dans l’immensité des êtres pour les combiner, les choisir, me les approprier à mon gré, sans gêne et sans crainte.”
(A poor, modified translation: “Distancing myself from all that makes me feel dependant, from all that reminds me of my situation in life, engages my very soul, gives me greater audacity to think, throws me into the immensity of Beings to combine them, choose them, appropriate them to my liking, without care and without fear.”)
I deeply value something in that distance that Rousseau evokes, that perspective shift, that immense emptiness that forces me to reconsider who, what, and where I am. But it’s not the distance that matters the most; it is the joy that comes creeping up out of that void, surprising at first, but soft and delicious and profound once I let it penetrate my skin, the spaces between my toes, my eyelids, my fingernails. I lie flat on my back in the middle of a field of carrots. I allow myself to share and listen and learn about the people around me, and I love them even with the knowledge that I will leave them in a week, or a month, or at the end of the fleeting summer. I have begun to say yes. I walk instead of run. I float instead of swim. I read instead of work. I write instead of research. I eat my dessert, and my vegetables too. I drink my wine. An ocean away from the family and friends and land that I do love very much, I am happy. Je suis.
It’s not that French cuisine unquestionably trumps American food; it’s quite simply that we take the time to actually enjoy it here, dessert and wine and all. It’s not that the French landscape has so much more to offer than the sprawling geography of America; it’s that here I have the time explore it on foot instead of merely seeing it pass by the open window of a speeding car or under the shadow of an airplane far above. It’s not that the French language is more eloquent than the American tongue; it’s that I am forced to truly listen and engage with the words that stream into my ears and out of my mouth. It’s not that the technological difficulties of rural France (internet, cell phones, easily accessible cars or public transportation) make life simpler and thereby better than in America; it’s that in reconsidering my modes of communication and transportation, I am forced to build genuine, personal relationships with the people that surround me.
Three months ago, on a stage with lights and an audience, I said: “Qui suis-je, vous me demandez. Ben, je suis comme une copine en train de tromper mon amante. Ou bien, je suis comme une sale métèque, enterrée jusqu’aux chevilles au rivage étranger. Ou je suis comme la fille de parents divorcés, qui hurlent l’un à l’autre à travers des vitres opaques et fermées ; qui ne se comprendront jamais ; qui ne se réconcilieront jamais ; qui déversent en invectives un océan menaçant entre les deux. Et moi ? Moi je noie là-dedans. Oui, je m’y noie. Venez me cherchez avec un gilet de sauvetage. Mettez-le autour de mon cou comme la corde de potence. Sauvez-moi-en.’’
Three months later, a translation: “Who am I, you ask me. Well, I’m like a girlfriend cheating on her lover. Or I’m like a dirty immigrant buried up to my ankles on a foreign shore. Or I’m like the daughter of divorced parents who scream at one another through opaque and closed windows; who will never understand one another; who will never reconcile their differences; whose insults gape like a menacing ocean between the two of them. And me? I drown in their angry sea. Come search for me with a lifesaver. Put it around my neck like the executioner’s cord. Save me from it.”
I refuse to drown anymore in the ocean that perpetually separates me from home, regardless of the continent I find myself on. It is time that I reconcile my two identities, my two lives, my summers and my winters. I can’t continue like this, condensing my life to airport regulation size and compacting my joy to three months a year, thousands of miles and an ocean away from whatever I am supposed to call home.
* * *
At this morning’s Café Philo—a monthly round table philosophy discussion group hosted here at the farm—we decided to take a Promenade Philo instead of sitting around the picnic tables under the tilleul tree. We spent a few hours discussing the human experience of movement via walking and examined how mobility influences society, for better or for worse. We were enjoying a picnic of pâté végétal, fourgasse, and chocolate fudge cake when the question of travel came up. The discussion leader, a local philosopher named François, invoked the provocative image of traveling across the American Great Plains. I know from personal experience that driving across Nebraska (especially in a car without air conditioning) oftentimes seems like a complete void of motion. The utter lack of distinguished landscapes and the featureless horizon make all motion seem illusionary, as if the car were stationary and the flat, straight road were just an endless conveyor belt going in circles around the globe but arriving nowhere. Even on a map, the car hardly appears to move. The state of Nebraska seems to stretch once you’re inside its borders, prohibiting you from leaving, from reaching the other side. That empty space seems to break all ties with civilization, with the people that wait for news back home, with the eventual destination shimmering on the Pacific on the other side of the Nebraska plains and the Nevada desert and the California mountains. America! Whither goest thou in thy shiny car in the night?
In my three years of traveling abroad, I have felt in many ways like that car traveling at 75mph on a pin-straight path through the endless expanses of Nebraska. I search for the words to explain my experiences here in France but I find none in a horizon too wide and too beautiful to describe. To my friends and family back home in America, my movement often seems illusionary, fleeting, as if I am fleeing their reality and plunging myself into a territory that a map or a photograph or a letter can never quite capture, and I can never quite leave.
Please, leave me at peace with my joy. With my love. With my cicadas and wine and sunflowers and poppies and mountains and olives and goat cheese. With my tongue too sweet to taste. With my afternoon Cezanne sun that will shine over America six hours from now. With my coffee and sugar and tiny spoons. With my loneliness sometimes, and my fear. With the waves and the salt of the Atlantic that I know from both shores.
I love you all. I miss you. I think of you often. Steph, I wish we could bake key lime pie in our brand new kitchen. Alex, I wish we smoke hookah and eat cheese and drink wine on our porch. Rachel, I wish I could take a swim to the other side of Dow Lake with you. Alec, I wish you could teach me how to throw a football. Adam, I wish we could climb a roof and look at the stars like we used to. Jesse, I wish we could drink ginger beer on Radar Hill and wander the Ridges until we’re lost under the new moon. Jess, I wish we could drive to a cemetery or a new state or a tiny Appalachian town and talk everything out. Mama, I wish I were around to pick blueberries and grapes and zucchinis and beans with you. Dad, I wish we could go for a bike ride and stop for ice cream. Ben, I wish I could go for a motorcycle ride to someplace new with you. Athens, your hills shimmer under the humidity of southern Ohio humidity. Kidron, your wheat fields turn golden and your sweet corn tassels burst with or without me.
And I wish you could all be here with me, to go for walks in the mountains, to sell vegetables at a farmer’s market, to swim in the Drac river, to drink wine and fruity beer around a bonfire, to weed onions and pick black currents, to talk philosophy over fresh salad at lunch, to sleep in a caravan and wake up with a view of the Alps, to deliver bread to local food co-ops in Grenoble, to meet the people that I know, to see the towns that I cherish, to share this part of the world that somehow feels like my own. To love what I have come to love.
She’s so heavy, France, just like love, liberty, choice. She weighs an ocean.
Ferme de la Salamandre, Les Rives, France
In the words of Arundhati Roy in The God of Small Things, it all goes back to “the days when the Love Laws were made. The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.”
Someone, somewhere, told me what I should love. Whom. Where. When. How. How much. Preferably an upstanding gentleman, close to my own age, English speaking (although a second language or a pleasant accent can hardly hurt), with a clean criminal record or a damn good explanation, perhaps with a family business to inherit or a boat off the coast of New England. No one told me what to do if I fell in love with a country, or the ruins of a fallen city from another epoch, or a dead author, or a woman, or a field of sunflowers. And no one told me what to do with joy.
Joy can be lonely. Back in the states, I could watch others experience it but when I ran through they scattered and the joy dispersed with them. Like pigeons on a square in Italy. So I took my joy hostage and stowed it in the overhead bin on a transatlantic flight.
At one point, I thought that I was only happy when I moved, traveled, ran. Alec evoked one of my most feared musical artists (i.e.: David Bowie, who was ruined for me by the movie Labyrinth) and designated my personal anthem as “Born to Run.” It’s a simple explanation, easily defended and rarely questioned. I have found that people are much more willing to believe that you are happy as a wandering vagabond than to accept that you are happy somewhere that happens to be far away from them.
There is a particular sentiment that I have when I travel abroad, but I haven’t quite succeeded in explaining it either to myself or to others when they ask what continually draws me back to France year after year. Rousseau, in the fourth book of his Confessions says it better than I perhaps can. He writes:
“ . . . l’éloignement de tout ce qui me fait sentir ma dépendance, de tout ce qui me rappelle à ma situation, tout cela dégage mon âme, me donne plus grande audace de penser, me jette en quelque sorte dans l’immensité des êtres pour les combiner, les choisir, me les approprier à mon gré, sans gêne et sans crainte.”
(A poor, modified translation: “Distancing myself from all that makes me feel dependant, from all that reminds me of my situation in life, engages my very soul, gives me greater audacity to think, throws me into the immensity of Beings to combine them, choose them, appropriate them to my liking, without care and without fear.”)
I deeply value something in that distance that Rousseau evokes, that perspective shift, that immense emptiness that forces me to reconsider who, what, and where I am. But it’s not the distance that matters the most; it is the joy that comes creeping up out of that void, surprising at first, but soft and delicious and profound once I let it penetrate my skin, the spaces between my toes, my eyelids, my fingernails. I lie flat on my back in the middle of a field of carrots. I allow myself to share and listen and learn about the people around me, and I love them even with the knowledge that I will leave them in a week, or a month, or at the end of the fleeting summer. I have begun to say yes. I walk instead of run. I float instead of swim. I read instead of work. I write instead of research. I eat my dessert, and my vegetables too. I drink my wine. An ocean away from the family and friends and land that I do love very much, I am happy. Je suis.
It’s not that French cuisine unquestionably trumps American food; it’s quite simply that we take the time to actually enjoy it here, dessert and wine and all. It’s not that the French landscape has so much more to offer than the sprawling geography of America; it’s that here I have the time explore it on foot instead of merely seeing it pass by the open window of a speeding car or under the shadow of an airplane far above. It’s not that the French language is more eloquent than the American tongue; it’s that I am forced to truly listen and engage with the words that stream into my ears and out of my mouth. It’s not that the technological difficulties of rural France (internet, cell phones, easily accessible cars or public transportation) make life simpler and thereby better than in America; it’s that in reconsidering my modes of communication and transportation, I am forced to build genuine, personal relationships with the people that surround me.
Three months ago, on a stage with lights and an audience, I said: “Qui suis-je, vous me demandez. Ben, je suis comme une copine en train de tromper mon amante. Ou bien, je suis comme une sale métèque, enterrée jusqu’aux chevilles au rivage étranger. Ou je suis comme la fille de parents divorcés, qui hurlent l’un à l’autre à travers des vitres opaques et fermées ; qui ne se comprendront jamais ; qui ne se réconcilieront jamais ; qui déversent en invectives un océan menaçant entre les deux. Et moi ? Moi je noie là-dedans. Oui, je m’y noie. Venez me cherchez avec un gilet de sauvetage. Mettez-le autour de mon cou comme la corde de potence. Sauvez-moi-en.’’
Three months later, a translation: “Who am I, you ask me. Well, I’m like a girlfriend cheating on her lover. Or I’m like a dirty immigrant buried up to my ankles on a foreign shore. Or I’m like the daughter of divorced parents who scream at one another through opaque and closed windows; who will never understand one another; who will never reconcile their differences; whose insults gape like a menacing ocean between the two of them. And me? I drown in their angry sea. Come search for me with a lifesaver. Put it around my neck like the executioner’s cord. Save me from it.”
I refuse to drown anymore in the ocean that perpetually separates me from home, regardless of the continent I find myself on. It is time that I reconcile my two identities, my two lives, my summers and my winters. I can’t continue like this, condensing my life to airport regulation size and compacting my joy to three months a year, thousands of miles and an ocean away from whatever I am supposed to call home.
* * *
At this morning’s Café Philo—a monthly round table philosophy discussion group hosted here at the farm—we decided to take a Promenade Philo instead of sitting around the picnic tables under the tilleul tree. We spent a few hours discussing the human experience of movement via walking and examined how mobility influences society, for better or for worse. We were enjoying a picnic of pâté végétal, fourgasse, and chocolate fudge cake when the question of travel came up. The discussion leader, a local philosopher named François, invoked the provocative image of traveling across the American Great Plains. I know from personal experience that driving across Nebraska (especially in a car without air conditioning) oftentimes seems like a complete void of motion. The utter lack of distinguished landscapes and the featureless horizon make all motion seem illusionary, as if the car were stationary and the flat, straight road were just an endless conveyor belt going in circles around the globe but arriving nowhere. Even on a map, the car hardly appears to move. The state of Nebraska seems to stretch once you’re inside its borders, prohibiting you from leaving, from reaching the other side. That empty space seems to break all ties with civilization, with the people that wait for news back home, with the eventual destination shimmering on the Pacific on the other side of the Nebraska plains and the Nevada desert and the California mountains. America! Whither goest thou in thy shiny car in the night?
In my three years of traveling abroad, I have felt in many ways like that car traveling at 75mph on a pin-straight path through the endless expanses of Nebraska. I search for the words to explain my experiences here in France but I find none in a horizon too wide and too beautiful to describe. To my friends and family back home in America, my movement often seems illusionary, fleeting, as if I am fleeing their reality and plunging myself into a territory that a map or a photograph or a letter can never quite capture, and I can never quite leave.
Please, leave me at peace with my joy. With my love. With my cicadas and wine and sunflowers and poppies and mountains and olives and goat cheese. With my tongue too sweet to taste. With my afternoon Cezanne sun that will shine over America six hours from now. With my coffee and sugar and tiny spoons. With my loneliness sometimes, and my fear. With the waves and the salt of the Atlantic that I know from both shores.
I love you all. I miss you. I think of you often. Steph, I wish we could bake key lime pie in our brand new kitchen. Alex, I wish we smoke hookah and eat cheese and drink wine on our porch. Rachel, I wish I could take a swim to the other side of Dow Lake with you. Alec, I wish you could teach me how to throw a football. Adam, I wish we could climb a roof and look at the stars like we used to. Jesse, I wish we could drink ginger beer on Radar Hill and wander the Ridges until we’re lost under the new moon. Jess, I wish we could drive to a cemetery or a new state or a tiny Appalachian town and talk everything out. Mama, I wish I were around to pick blueberries and grapes and zucchinis and beans with you. Dad, I wish we could go for a bike ride and stop for ice cream. Ben, I wish I could go for a motorcycle ride to someplace new with you. Athens, your hills shimmer under the humidity of southern Ohio humidity. Kidron, your wheat fields turn golden and your sweet corn tassels burst with or without me.
And I wish you could all be here with me, to go for walks in the mountains, to sell vegetables at a farmer’s market, to swim in the Drac river, to drink wine and fruity beer around a bonfire, to weed onions and pick black currents, to talk philosophy over fresh salad at lunch, to sleep in a caravan and wake up with a view of the Alps, to deliver bread to local food co-ops in Grenoble, to meet the people that I know, to see the towns that I cherish, to share this part of the world that somehow feels like my own. To love what I have come to love.
She’s so heavy, France, just like love, liberty, choice. She weighs an ocean.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Les Mouches
Grenoble, La Mure, Les Rives; Ferme de la Salamandre
Friday 17 June—Thursday 23 June
In Jean-Paul Sartre’s theatrical rendition of a Greek myth, Les Mouches, the condemned town Argos is punished for the sins of its adulterous queen (Clytemnestra) and treacherous king (Egithe) with endless swarms of flies. I now understand why Sartre chose flies as the eternal punishment of a corrupt and decaying kingdom. There are few mosquitoes at la Ferme de la Salamandre, but good god, there are certainly flies.
Some explanation is in order. Over a year ago, overcome by the winter blues in slushy Athens and determined to return to France, I invested all possible avenues that would make a return trip feasible and somewhat cost-efficient. Although I eventually found work as an au pair for the de Lannoy family in Montfavet (near Avignon), in my expansive search I discovered something called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farmers). It is an international network of organic farms and farmers that welcome volunteers from all over the world. In exchange for a few hours of work a day, WWOOFers are fed and lodged and have the opportunity to participate in the hosts’ family and farm life. Since I didn’t get a chance to WWOOF last summer, I decided to investigate the system and get some pesticide-free soil under my fingernails before heading to Nice for my TEFL program. And as such I found the Gilles family and la Ferme de la Salamandre, deep in the rustic heart of the French Alps and on the periphery of the magnificent Trièves region and the Vercors mountains. It is stunning, even with the flies.
For two weeks (until the beginning of July, when I will go back up to Paris to meet my brother at the airport), my living situation is as such:
• I live in a caravan, complete with a double bed and candles (but no light or sink or electric plugs).
• My neighbors are very nice stoners (Joséphine and Daniel) that live in a yurt lined with bookshelves and decorated with creeping vines, tapestries, and hanging mobiles made out of driftwood, buttons, and pebbles.
• We have what is called une toilette sèche—a dry toilet. The toilet is situated on a platform built above a deep pit filled with sawdust. Toilet paper is disposed of and burned in a bin.
• Instead of an indoor shower, we have une douche solaire—a solar shower. We fill black solar-heated bags with water and then lay them out in the sun while we work in the fields in the morning. Believe it or not, by the end of the afternoon, they water is rather tolerably warm. The shower has a breathtaking view of le mont aiguille (google it—it is the most recognizable symbol of Trièves), and it is all-in-all rather agreeable. Shaving is completely other story. Thus far, my most efficient method of shaving involves standing in a basin in the yard and making a fool of myself. I might end this adventure with rather hairy legs, but I don’t think anyone here minds much.
Today is rainy, so we didn’t work in les champs, but an average day goes something like this:
• Work starts at 8:00am, and so we gather in the kitchen for tea and bread before heading out into the fields. Our work consists mostly of le désherbage (weeding). All of the hours and days spent weeding throughout my youth in Ohio certainly paid off, eh? Thus far, we have finished a field and a half of onions and a field and a half of carrots. If we’re lucky, the work varies a bit—the other day we spent a few hours picking des cassis (black current berries) and I’ve been promised a day in the bakery next week.
• Lunch is around noon, and all of the workers (including WWOOFers, family members, interns, employees, etc.) take turns cooking and doing dishes. Our lunches as a group have proved to be a wonderful opportunity for conversation and exchange. Today, we spent the better part of an hour talking about the nuclear disaster in Japan and France’s incongruous reaction, followed by a somewhat in depth discussion on the philosophy of art and its role in politics and society. Tuesday, it was Western neocolonialism in Africa. And it helps that we eat completely organically, and most of the fresh fruit and vegetables are raised here on the farm. Food miles = >1km. Our meal generally consist of some sort of grain or starch (rice, pasta, bulgur wheat, couscous, potatoes) with a fresh green salad (oftentimes with beets, carrots, radishes, and/or other vegetables from the farm), or sometimes homemade pizza or quiche.
• The afternoons are free. Usually, we spend them reading, writing, washing clothes, feeding the cats, taking hikes in the area, going on excursions to lakes, heading to La Mure or Mens for book-shopping or garage-saling or picnicking (if we find a car), etc. Our afternoon hikes have been a wonderful way to explore the nearby towns and mountains. Over the weekend, I walked up to St. Jean d’Hérans, a tiny village of about ~150 inhabitants just on the border of Trièves. This afternoon, Emilie and I hiked up a nearby ridge to an arboretum with a beautiful view of the Drac river below and La Mure across the ravine. We got somewhat lost, but our detour was hardly fruitless. We found a great spot for picnicking on top of the ravine with a magnificent view of the surrounding peaks, and we ended up in St. Sebastian, a charming little village about 10km from the farm. Yesterday, I had the chance to spend my afternoon with Stéph delivering vegetables, cheese, bread, and eggs to various organic grocery stores and AMAPs (food co-ops) in the Grenoble area. I was entirely impressed by the network of organic stores and their loyal customers.
• In the evenings, the WWOOFers take care of our own dinners (usually leftovers + salad) and then head to bed when the sun starts to set. There are some advantages of not having electricity—an early bedtime is certainly one of them when work starts at 8:00am.
Currently, the farm “family” includes:
• Benoit (the father), Stéphanie (the mother), Alice (15), and Nel (9). Benoit and Stéph moved to the Alps ~9 years ago, and they were fortunate enough to come into possession of the farm ~6 years ago. Before, they did a variety of things. Benoit studied fine art and Stéph was a guidance counselor at a junior high school. They also briefly lived in Guadeloupe and attempted to set up a commune of sorts. Let it suffice to say that they are a splendid, quirky, friendly family.
• Sylvie, Justine, and Sophie are all interns/employees of the farm. Sylvie and Justine often accompany the WWOOFers into the fields, and Sophie is responsible for the bakery, along with Stéph.
• Jo and Dani (the aforementioned inhabitants of the yurt).
• Three dogs: Bigs, Pioche, and Bodet; five(ish) cats/kittens: Fleur, Feu, and the baby-daddy of the two kittens (who are as of yet unnamed). There were originally four kittens, but two died of a brain disease. The two remaining are steadily recovering. When I arrived, the kittens still took milk only out of a bottle, but they have made continual progress over the week. Their eyes are no longer stuck shut with mucus and grime, one of the kittens is learning to chew, and they can both lap milk out of a spoon or bowl quite well now. Progress!
And of course, the WWOOFers:
• Adeline is a twenty-something speech therapist from Grenoble. She is busiest with her work during the academic year, so she is spending her summer WWOOFing and volunteering at a nearby commune (Emilie and I actually stumbled upon said commune while walking towards St. Sebastian today . . . quelle coincidence!) Her chocolate mousse and her homemade chantilly (whipped cream) are phenomenal.
• Brian (25) is taking a trip around Europe after two and a half years in Senegal, where he was volunteering with the Peace Corps. He studied architecture at the University of Virginia, and when he returns to the United States, he will go on to get his master’s in public politics at NYU.
• Emilie (21) was raised in Chicago but has been studying at the American University in Paris for the last three years. She finished her undergrad degree in international law in three years, and she will be moving to Holland to pursue her graduate degree in European Union law with a specialization in agricultural law. She is WWOOFing for two months this summer to get a hands-on experience on a farm. She is an avid hiker, prides herself on being quite a wine connoisseur, and speaks with an impeccable Parisian accent.
Bref, I have been thus far pleasantly surprised by my life her on la Ferme de la Salamandre. I can hardly complain about the flies (or the lizards in the shower, for that matter). Life is slower here, quieter. It gives me time to think. Exist. Sit down in the grass. Breathe.
More to come. I have a week left on the farm and a month’s worth of places I’d love to visit before I leave.
(P.S. You’ll excuse me for my extended silence, all. As you can imagine, there is no wireless connection here. The closest internet is about an hour and fifteen minute walk. It’s not for lack of love that I’ve been so absent from the interwebs, it’s for lack of wifi and motivation to carry
Friday 17 June—Thursday 23 June
In Jean-Paul Sartre’s theatrical rendition of a Greek myth, Les Mouches, the condemned town Argos is punished for the sins of its adulterous queen (Clytemnestra) and treacherous king (Egithe) with endless swarms of flies. I now understand why Sartre chose flies as the eternal punishment of a corrupt and decaying kingdom. There are few mosquitoes at la Ferme de la Salamandre, but good god, there are certainly flies.
Some explanation is in order. Over a year ago, overcome by the winter blues in slushy Athens and determined to return to France, I invested all possible avenues that would make a return trip feasible and somewhat cost-efficient. Although I eventually found work as an au pair for the de Lannoy family in Montfavet (near Avignon), in my expansive search I discovered something called WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities for Organic Farmers). It is an international network of organic farms and farmers that welcome volunteers from all over the world. In exchange for a few hours of work a day, WWOOFers are fed and lodged and have the opportunity to participate in the hosts’ family and farm life. Since I didn’t get a chance to WWOOF last summer, I decided to investigate the system and get some pesticide-free soil under my fingernails before heading to Nice for my TEFL program. And as such I found the Gilles family and la Ferme de la Salamandre, deep in the rustic heart of the French Alps and on the periphery of the magnificent Trièves region and the Vercors mountains. It is stunning, even with the flies.
For two weeks (until the beginning of July, when I will go back up to Paris to meet my brother at the airport), my living situation is as such:
• I live in a caravan, complete with a double bed and candles (but no light or sink or electric plugs).
• My neighbors are very nice stoners (Joséphine and Daniel) that live in a yurt lined with bookshelves and decorated with creeping vines, tapestries, and hanging mobiles made out of driftwood, buttons, and pebbles.
• We have what is called une toilette sèche—a dry toilet. The toilet is situated on a platform built above a deep pit filled with sawdust. Toilet paper is disposed of and burned in a bin.
• Instead of an indoor shower, we have une douche solaire—a solar shower. We fill black solar-heated bags with water and then lay them out in the sun while we work in the fields in the morning. Believe it or not, by the end of the afternoon, they water is rather tolerably warm. The shower has a breathtaking view of le mont aiguille (google it—it is the most recognizable symbol of Trièves), and it is all-in-all rather agreeable. Shaving is completely other story. Thus far, my most efficient method of shaving involves standing in a basin in the yard and making a fool of myself. I might end this adventure with rather hairy legs, but I don’t think anyone here minds much.
Today is rainy, so we didn’t work in les champs, but an average day goes something like this:
• Work starts at 8:00am, and so we gather in the kitchen for tea and bread before heading out into the fields. Our work consists mostly of le désherbage (weeding). All of the hours and days spent weeding throughout my youth in Ohio certainly paid off, eh? Thus far, we have finished a field and a half of onions and a field and a half of carrots. If we’re lucky, the work varies a bit—the other day we spent a few hours picking des cassis (black current berries) and I’ve been promised a day in the bakery next week.
• Lunch is around noon, and all of the workers (including WWOOFers, family members, interns, employees, etc.) take turns cooking and doing dishes. Our lunches as a group have proved to be a wonderful opportunity for conversation and exchange. Today, we spent the better part of an hour talking about the nuclear disaster in Japan and France’s incongruous reaction, followed by a somewhat in depth discussion on the philosophy of art and its role in politics and society. Tuesday, it was Western neocolonialism in Africa. And it helps that we eat completely organically, and most of the fresh fruit and vegetables are raised here on the farm. Food miles = >1km. Our meal generally consist of some sort of grain or starch (rice, pasta, bulgur wheat, couscous, potatoes) with a fresh green salad (oftentimes with beets, carrots, radishes, and/or other vegetables from the farm), or sometimes homemade pizza or quiche.
• The afternoons are free. Usually, we spend them reading, writing, washing clothes, feeding the cats, taking hikes in the area, going on excursions to lakes, heading to La Mure or Mens for book-shopping or garage-saling or picnicking (if we find a car), etc. Our afternoon hikes have been a wonderful way to explore the nearby towns and mountains. Over the weekend, I walked up to St. Jean d’Hérans, a tiny village of about ~150 inhabitants just on the border of Trièves. This afternoon, Emilie and I hiked up a nearby ridge to an arboretum with a beautiful view of the Drac river below and La Mure across the ravine. We got somewhat lost, but our detour was hardly fruitless. We found a great spot for picnicking on top of the ravine with a magnificent view of the surrounding peaks, and we ended up in St. Sebastian, a charming little village about 10km from the farm. Yesterday, I had the chance to spend my afternoon with Stéph delivering vegetables, cheese, bread, and eggs to various organic grocery stores and AMAPs (food co-ops) in the Grenoble area. I was entirely impressed by the network of organic stores and their loyal customers.
• In the evenings, the WWOOFers take care of our own dinners (usually leftovers + salad) and then head to bed when the sun starts to set. There are some advantages of not having electricity—an early bedtime is certainly one of them when work starts at 8:00am.
Currently, the farm “family” includes:
• Benoit (the father), Stéphanie (the mother), Alice (15), and Nel (9). Benoit and Stéph moved to the Alps ~9 years ago, and they were fortunate enough to come into possession of the farm ~6 years ago. Before, they did a variety of things. Benoit studied fine art and Stéph was a guidance counselor at a junior high school. They also briefly lived in Guadeloupe and attempted to set up a commune of sorts. Let it suffice to say that they are a splendid, quirky, friendly family.
• Sylvie, Justine, and Sophie are all interns/employees of the farm. Sylvie and Justine often accompany the WWOOFers into the fields, and Sophie is responsible for the bakery, along with Stéph.
• Jo and Dani (the aforementioned inhabitants of the yurt).
• Three dogs: Bigs, Pioche, and Bodet; five(ish) cats/kittens: Fleur, Feu, and the baby-daddy of the two kittens (who are as of yet unnamed). There were originally four kittens, but two died of a brain disease. The two remaining are steadily recovering. When I arrived, the kittens still took milk only out of a bottle, but they have made continual progress over the week. Their eyes are no longer stuck shut with mucus and grime, one of the kittens is learning to chew, and they can both lap milk out of a spoon or bowl quite well now. Progress!
And of course, the WWOOFers:
• Adeline is a twenty-something speech therapist from Grenoble. She is busiest with her work during the academic year, so she is spending her summer WWOOFing and volunteering at a nearby commune (Emilie and I actually stumbled upon said commune while walking towards St. Sebastian today . . . quelle coincidence!) Her chocolate mousse and her homemade chantilly (whipped cream) are phenomenal.
• Brian (25) is taking a trip around Europe after two and a half years in Senegal, where he was volunteering with the Peace Corps. He studied architecture at the University of Virginia, and when he returns to the United States, he will go on to get his master’s in public politics at NYU.
• Emilie (21) was raised in Chicago but has been studying at the American University in Paris for the last three years. She finished her undergrad degree in international law in three years, and she will be moving to Holland to pursue her graduate degree in European Union law with a specialization in agricultural law. She is WWOOFing for two months this summer to get a hands-on experience on a farm. She is an avid hiker, prides herself on being quite a wine connoisseur, and speaks with an impeccable Parisian accent.
Bref, I have been thus far pleasantly surprised by my life her on la Ferme de la Salamandre. I can hardly complain about the flies (or the lizards in the shower, for that matter). Life is slower here, quieter. It gives me time to think. Exist. Sit down in the grass. Breathe.
More to come. I have a week left on the farm and a month’s worth of places I’d love to visit before I leave.
(P.S. You’ll excuse me for my extended silence, all. As you can imagine, there is no wireless connection here. The closest internet is about an hour and fifteen minute walk. It’s not for lack of love that I’ve been so absent from the interwebs, it’s for lack of wifi and motivation to carry
Adventureland
Athens, OH; West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York; Melville, NY; JFK airport; Reyjkavik, Iceland; Paris, France
Tuesday 14 June—Friday 17 June
We (Jess, Mary Brett, and I) followed a rainbow into New Jersey and a rainstorm into New York City, and we arrived on Long Island a bit after 10:00pm, exhausted. In short, the accommodations that we had arranged at Adam’s place were not as we had expected. We encountered a grumpy security guard who frowned at our sleeping bags and duffels and forbid us entrance into the building. Adam apparently lives in a high-security dorm where he is treated as a temporary “conference guest” and not a resident. We had no option but to sleep elsewhere. At 11:00 at night, that “elsewhere” ended up being the trunk/backseat of Adam’s car, where we quietly drank Yuengling, ducked every time we saw headlights pass, and distractedly watched late night construction and the immobile rides at Adventureland across the street. In the morning, we did saluted the sun that seemed so late in coming after a restless night and did yoga in the parking lot to loosen our stiff muscles and creaky joints. To continue our brief homeless adventure, we took adventure of the Target bathroom down the street to brush our teeth and hair and smooth out our baggy eyes with foundation and creative makeup techniques. I am only slightly ashamed to say that for the first time in my life, I ordered a vente latte at the Starbucks in Target. Yes, I was in desperate need of three shots of espresso, and yes, I was willing to spend my last American dollar bills for overpriced steamed milk, if only to add a bit of class to my night of homelessness.
We got to the JFK airport without any more problems, navigated the airport’s eight terminals to find Icelandair’s departure gate, and said goodbye. MB is off to Israel for the summer, and Jess will be working at a YMCA summer camp a couple hours outside of the city. And without further ado, I checked my bags, carefully removed all potentially dangerous objects that could peg me as a socialist or a terrorist from my person, and proceeded through security without a problem. While waiting for the plane, I met and chatted with a certain Alex(andra) Brown, who is working for a publishing house in L.A. We commiserated on the woes of the publishing business and the somewhat sadistic pleasure of rejection letters until she boarded her plane back to California.
My seatmates on the plane were just as pleasant as the aforementioned Alex. I found myself next to a pair of siblings, John G. and his sister (whose name has slipped my mind). They were born in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, but moved to the states some seven years ago or so. They were returning to Belgium to visit their sister and meet her newborn son. John had just finished his undergraduate degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Maryland, and he is pursuing a master’s degree in the same subject, again at the U of M. He would eventually like to enter the astronaut corps and/or work for NASA, and he is doing everything possible to improve his chances of being accepted into the corps, including working towards a private pilot’s license. He explained to me why the wings of airplanes have curved tips, how cold fronts always pass under warm fronts, and what happens when a scuba diver ascends to the surface too quickly. His knowledge base reminded me of the conversations between my brother and my dad, but with vocabulary that I could actually grasp and understand. Once we arrived in Reyjkavik (the capital of Iceland) I was frankly sad to see them go. It of course helped that John was a beautiful specimen of “tall, dark, and handsome,” and his sister was charming and kind.
From what I saw of Iceland, it is cold, sparsely populated, mountainous, and somewhat mysterious. My sense of time was entirely confused once we finally landed—not only was I exhausted from a night of sleeping in a trunk and increasingly jetlagged, the sun only set for an hour in Iceland. We touched down at 11:30pm local time in a rosy sunset. The sun disappeared behind the horizon for about an hour, but by the time my plane to France took off, the sun was already creeping back up in a grey dawn.
My arrival in Paris was inconsequential, and I got on the RER to Paris centre without a problem, but once I arrived at la Gare du Nord to meet Tom, I could not find him for the life of me. (Tom, for those who do not know, is a friend of mine from Ohio University. He graduated from the Honors Tutorial College when I was a freshman, and he now lives in L.A. and works for Digital Domain as a video effects designer). Bref, it was my fault. I had positioned myself on the right side of the train station, but at the wrong exit. Finally, I found a tabac to buy credit for my French cell phone, spent an obtuse amount of money to call Tom’s iPhone, and finally corrected my error. Hungry and exhausted, we finally arrived at the Hôtel Gérando, where I collapsed into the deepest 45-minute nap I have perhaps ever taken.
Tom finally roused me so we could find caffeine and food. The hotel was conveniently positioned in Montmartre, so before looking for something to eat, we first ascended the hill to Sacre Coeur (the Cathedral so prominently featured in Amélie, for those of you who know the film) and ducked inside to observe the ostentatiously pious interior. Descending Montmartre, we successfully avoided the Sénégalais selling tie on bracelets and miniatures of la Tour Eiffel (you’d think they’d make a miniature Sacre Coeur too, but no) and found caffeine on a quiet street. From there we took the métro to la Tour Eiffel. As we waited for our sandwiches at a nearby café-snack, we were entertained by a passing manifestation (strike). It is said that the American national pastime is baseball; in France, it is striking. This time, it was cheminots (railway workers) who were dissatisfied with something or another. They passed with much chanting, megaphone shouting, blank cannon firing, and sulfur flare lighting. We briefly joined the stream of parading strikers to get to the other side of the street, where la Tour Eiffel stood regally, buffeted by the din of the striking crowd and a sudden strong wind.
Although Tom and I had both ascended la Tour Eiffel before, we decided to climb to the second level to search for a note that a young friend of his had left for him under a table a while back. We both doubted that the note would still be there, but it gave us an excuse to participate in overt tourism and take cheesy pictures with the Parisian cityscape as our background. After descending, we treated ourselves to drinks—des Monacos (blonde beer, limonade, and grenadine syrup), a drink that we had both been introduced to by our mutual French friend Julien. Before dinner, we bought a bottle of cheap champagne and entertained ourselves by la Seine. I had missed Tom, really. By the time the “magic hour” of the evening had cast Paris in gold, we were pleasantly punchy. We wandered towards l’île de France to see Notre Dame bathed in the amber light of the magic hour, and then headed towards le quartier latin for dinner. We had the good luck to stumble upon a hole-in-the-wall Tunisian restaurant that turned out to be quite a hidden treasure. Although we had planned to return to la Tour Eiffel after dinner to watch the hourly light show, I was overcome by exhaustion that rendered me somewhat incoherent, so we returned to the hotel and for the first time in ~36 hours, I slept for a full night in a bed with sheets. What a luxury!
In the morning, I had the chance to shower in a real shower (again, quite a treat after days of travel grime), and we packed up our belongings. After caffeine, we took our daily bread up to Sacre Coeur and enjoyed our pain au chocolat with a magnificent view of Paris stretched out below. When I first met Tom nearly three years ago, we jokingly promised that one day we would have a baguette sword fight in Paris. We finally fulfilled our own promise. We borrowed a confused American tourist to take a picture of the indelible act, of course.
I said goodbye to Tom for who knows how long at la Gare de Lyon, from the window of a train headed towards Grenoble. A brief séjour à Paris after an incredibly long journey does the body good.
Tuesday 14 June—Friday 17 June
We (Jess, Mary Brett, and I) followed a rainbow into New Jersey and a rainstorm into New York City, and we arrived on Long Island a bit after 10:00pm, exhausted. In short, the accommodations that we had arranged at Adam’s place were not as we had expected. We encountered a grumpy security guard who frowned at our sleeping bags and duffels and forbid us entrance into the building. Adam apparently lives in a high-security dorm where he is treated as a temporary “conference guest” and not a resident. We had no option but to sleep elsewhere. At 11:00 at night, that “elsewhere” ended up being the trunk/backseat of Adam’s car, where we quietly drank Yuengling, ducked every time we saw headlights pass, and distractedly watched late night construction and the immobile rides at Adventureland across the street. In the morning, we did saluted the sun that seemed so late in coming after a restless night and did yoga in the parking lot to loosen our stiff muscles and creaky joints. To continue our brief homeless adventure, we took adventure of the Target bathroom down the street to brush our teeth and hair and smooth out our baggy eyes with foundation and creative makeup techniques. I am only slightly ashamed to say that for the first time in my life, I ordered a vente latte at the Starbucks in Target. Yes, I was in desperate need of three shots of espresso, and yes, I was willing to spend my last American dollar bills for overpriced steamed milk, if only to add a bit of class to my night of homelessness.
We got to the JFK airport without any more problems, navigated the airport’s eight terminals to find Icelandair’s departure gate, and said goodbye. MB is off to Israel for the summer, and Jess will be working at a YMCA summer camp a couple hours outside of the city. And without further ado, I checked my bags, carefully removed all potentially dangerous objects that could peg me as a socialist or a terrorist from my person, and proceeded through security without a problem. While waiting for the plane, I met and chatted with a certain Alex(andra) Brown, who is working for a publishing house in L.A. We commiserated on the woes of the publishing business and the somewhat sadistic pleasure of rejection letters until she boarded her plane back to California.
My seatmates on the plane were just as pleasant as the aforementioned Alex. I found myself next to a pair of siblings, John G. and his sister (whose name has slipped my mind). They were born in the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium, but moved to the states some seven years ago or so. They were returning to Belgium to visit their sister and meet her newborn son. John had just finished his undergraduate degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the University of Maryland, and he is pursuing a master’s degree in the same subject, again at the U of M. He would eventually like to enter the astronaut corps and/or work for NASA, and he is doing everything possible to improve his chances of being accepted into the corps, including working towards a private pilot’s license. He explained to me why the wings of airplanes have curved tips, how cold fronts always pass under warm fronts, and what happens when a scuba diver ascends to the surface too quickly. His knowledge base reminded me of the conversations between my brother and my dad, but with vocabulary that I could actually grasp and understand. Once we arrived in Reyjkavik (the capital of Iceland) I was frankly sad to see them go. It of course helped that John was a beautiful specimen of “tall, dark, and handsome,” and his sister was charming and kind.
From what I saw of Iceland, it is cold, sparsely populated, mountainous, and somewhat mysterious. My sense of time was entirely confused once we finally landed—not only was I exhausted from a night of sleeping in a trunk and increasingly jetlagged, the sun only set for an hour in Iceland. We touched down at 11:30pm local time in a rosy sunset. The sun disappeared behind the horizon for about an hour, but by the time my plane to France took off, the sun was already creeping back up in a grey dawn.
My arrival in Paris was inconsequential, and I got on the RER to Paris centre without a problem, but once I arrived at la Gare du Nord to meet Tom, I could not find him for the life of me. (Tom, for those who do not know, is a friend of mine from Ohio University. He graduated from the Honors Tutorial College when I was a freshman, and he now lives in L.A. and works for Digital Domain as a video effects designer). Bref, it was my fault. I had positioned myself on the right side of the train station, but at the wrong exit. Finally, I found a tabac to buy credit for my French cell phone, spent an obtuse amount of money to call Tom’s iPhone, and finally corrected my error. Hungry and exhausted, we finally arrived at the Hôtel Gérando, where I collapsed into the deepest 45-minute nap I have perhaps ever taken.
Tom finally roused me so we could find caffeine and food. The hotel was conveniently positioned in Montmartre, so before looking for something to eat, we first ascended the hill to Sacre Coeur (the Cathedral so prominently featured in Amélie, for those of you who know the film) and ducked inside to observe the ostentatiously pious interior. Descending Montmartre, we successfully avoided the Sénégalais selling tie on bracelets and miniatures of la Tour Eiffel (you’d think they’d make a miniature Sacre Coeur too, but no) and found caffeine on a quiet street. From there we took the métro to la Tour Eiffel. As we waited for our sandwiches at a nearby café-snack, we were entertained by a passing manifestation (strike). It is said that the American national pastime is baseball; in France, it is striking. This time, it was cheminots (railway workers) who were dissatisfied with something or another. They passed with much chanting, megaphone shouting, blank cannon firing, and sulfur flare lighting. We briefly joined the stream of parading strikers to get to the other side of the street, where la Tour Eiffel stood regally, buffeted by the din of the striking crowd and a sudden strong wind.
Although Tom and I had both ascended la Tour Eiffel before, we decided to climb to the second level to search for a note that a young friend of his had left for him under a table a while back. We both doubted that the note would still be there, but it gave us an excuse to participate in overt tourism and take cheesy pictures with the Parisian cityscape as our background. After descending, we treated ourselves to drinks—des Monacos (blonde beer, limonade, and grenadine syrup), a drink that we had both been introduced to by our mutual French friend Julien. Before dinner, we bought a bottle of cheap champagne and entertained ourselves by la Seine. I had missed Tom, really. By the time the “magic hour” of the evening had cast Paris in gold, we were pleasantly punchy. We wandered towards l’île de France to see Notre Dame bathed in the amber light of the magic hour, and then headed towards le quartier latin for dinner. We had the good luck to stumble upon a hole-in-the-wall Tunisian restaurant that turned out to be quite a hidden treasure. Although we had planned to return to la Tour Eiffel after dinner to watch the hourly light show, I was overcome by exhaustion that rendered me somewhat incoherent, so we returned to the hotel and for the first time in ~36 hours, I slept for a full night in a bed with sheets. What a luxury!
In the morning, I had the chance to shower in a real shower (again, quite a treat after days of travel grime), and we packed up our belongings. After caffeine, we took our daily bread up to Sacre Coeur and enjoyed our pain au chocolat with a magnificent view of Paris stretched out below. When I first met Tom nearly three years ago, we jokingly promised that one day we would have a baguette sword fight in Paris. We finally fulfilled our own promise. We borrowed a confused American tourist to take a picture of the indelible act, of course.
I said goodbye to Tom for who knows how long at la Gare de Lyon, from the window of a train headed towards Grenoble. A brief séjour à Paris after an incredibly long journey does the body good.
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