Reflections

What is home? Beyond the cliques and the poets, the song lyrics and the comics…what makes us feel home?  For my mother-in-law (my belle-mére) this apartment with the views of the sea is home for her.  With the collections of  pictures on every surface and every wall, with the piano in the corner with the bust of Beethoven sitting on top, staring sightlessly out at me.  With the orange awnings that must be wound up or down throughout the day depending on the location of the sun. The sound of scooters and motorbikes zooming by and the parking lot below her balcony with its constant traffic to keep her occupied and entertained.  Home to her is here, in France.  No matter how hot it gets or cold, no matter how far it is from her children.  This is where her sweaters are and her slippers.  This is where her memories are. This is where she wants to be.

I remember most the smell of home.  Earliest memory tells me that the smell of safety and home was imbedded in my mother’s sweater.  Not just any or every sweater she had. It was one specific sweater, ivory colored with big buttons.  Not scratchy wool, most likely cotton and it smelled like mom.  Like comfort.  Not a specific perfume or product.  Just the essence of my mother and no matter what, with that sweater I felt everything would be ok.  It was powerful.  It was home. When I felt scared without her, the sweater calmed me down.

Here, living in a foreign land with no markers of my own, I feel like I’m drifting through a current, in someone else’s home.  I have no mom sweater.  I’ve heard people say that home is where your love is.  Well, my love is here.  My heart is in France.  But my spirit is adrift. Maybe I am without physical location currently and therefore am not at rest.  I have been rootless for so long, drifting from roommate to parents to living with my in-law…perhaps my soul is in a holding pattern..like a hummingbird not ready to land.  For me, home is what I carry with me, deep inside me.  The stories I know, told and untold, the memories I cherish and the dreams I hold dear.  And some day I will have walls to pin those memories up on and slippers to keep.  But for now, home is a goal, a distant hope and the reality is constant movement and change,  the sweet nectar of a passing flower.

Heat Wave

It's a heat wave.  The weather has turned on me and we now are enjoying 90 degree days with tons of humidity and no breeze.  The water of the Mediterranean is still and the tops of the trees outside my window are likewise motionless.  The fan I depend on in our room stopped turning, just began to slow and then completely gave out a few days ago and refused to move.  So we were forced to move the portable AC unit into our room and we keep nice and cool while we sleep.  Denise is not bothered by the heat at all and so when I woke at 2 AM for a drink of water I noticed that every door was shut in the house and Denise was sleeping deeply, covered up in her flannel sheets and several wool blankets.  I quickly ran down the hallway and dove into the cool bliss of our room.  An added bonus is that the whir of the AC blocks out almost all scooter noises at night from the road. We live along a very busy route between Monaco and Italy with constant traffic coming and going.  Even in the small hours of the night, scooters and motor bikes throttle along on their way to where ever but with the cool wind from the AC unit I've named Gus, I am not disturbed from my dreams.

A few nights ago, we had taken Denise for a walk down by the water at dusk.  With the setting of the sun, the tourists and locals take to the streets looking for food and entertainment.  It was about 8 PM that we found ourselves on the cliff walk listening to the waves crashing along the rocks, sneaking a peak at an outdoor restaurant with tables set right on the rocks and the smell of barbeque wafting up towards us.  Once the land begins to cool a heavy scent of wild jasmine fills the air.  We have searched  for the flowers themselves but can never seem to find them. However, the scent is every where like a mist hanging about your shoulders as you walk at night here. Only at night.

Once we could no longer maneuver Denise's chair in the dark along the sidewalk and around the ancient trees that break through the pavement and hang toward the water, we came home and ate a late late dinner on the rear balcony, watching the lights of Monaco twinkle in the distance.  With one candle lit on the table, we sipped wine and listened to Denise tell us stories of the farm she lived in as a child.  Of washing clothes over the fire, of reading by kerosene lamps at night.  For entertainment, her step-mother played the piano in the evenings. She spoke fondly of the 'modern' house in Marseilles that they moved into after her father sold the farm/vineyard and how she remembers how excited she was by the bathroom with its running hot water. When Dennis would ask something that Denise could not remember she would say to him in her French accent, "I don't remember Denny, I didn't think to write it down". And when we spoke of how different life is now she said, “we did not know what we were missing or what we did not have. We didn’t miss electricity or running hot water or washing machines because we never knew of them. We were happy as we were”.  And as she spoke with the soft candle light flickering on her face, with her eyes cast back through to the years of her youth, I could see a glimpse of the young woman she must have been, smiling at her future, living in a simpler time before war came to the country and changed everything.

"Who sees this?"

It something Dennis and I had begun to say to each other during our first visit to France together last summer.  Every direction we looked, we saw something amazing.  We experienced things that most people just never get to.  It left us feeling awed.  And we feel it still.

This visit is no different.  So far the weather has been very kind to me. None of the humidity that I feared. Clear skys and cool breezes.  We haven't needed to plug in our tiny portable AC unit, not even once yet.  And now that we have the mosquito net, I am practically without bites.  Horray!!

Yesterday we spent the day allowing cousin Bernard to drive us up and into the Alps.  We wove in between France and Italy, winding our way through roads that disappeared into nothing just beyond the edge of the car. The air was cool and clear, it gave you the feeling that you were the very first person to breath it.  We drove right to the top, above the tree line.  There were quite a few people along the way but its not surprising since this is the vacation season for most of Europe. Cyclists and 4x4 drivers alike, rumbling along roads that have been carved along the side of the mountain. The view constantly changing as you turn each corner and always the feeling that you should be yodeling.

Dennis loves all things historic and especially WW II artifacts so we walked through a desserted army barracks.  With the roof and all other bits of wood gone and only the stones to testify to where man had left his mark, we wandered through the ruins. Amazing that this building was placed at the very top of the mountain, surrounded by nothing all around. Where did the stone come from? What was it like to be here over 60 years ago......all that work for the sake of war. It felt so gloomy and desolate, walking in the shadows of those walls.

Even with the hot August sun in the cloudless sky above us, there was a feeling of chill that I am certain never completely leaves this ruined spot. Only imagine what it must look like in the darkest hours of winter.

We stopped in a local sky lodge area and feasted in the sunshine as only the Europeans can. Lamp and fresh veggies, bread and bread and more bread along with local cheese and a blueberry tart that my husband fought me over every single bite. Lunch took several hours and the break from sitting in the car was lovely.  Soon we were off again, driving roads that no 20+ Mercedes should be able to handle.  Bernard, our fearless guide, knew the story of every nook and cranny we passed.  There was always a waterfall to investigate or a mountainside farm to stop at and buy cheese and honey.

Literally, we were driving one moment, climbing along when we crested the very top of the mountain. Along a valley to our right was a tiny house and one car parked in the drive. There were the sound of cow bells tinkling from the cow herd walking by.  Bernard urged us to go buy some cheese.  'From where?' I thought.  But without hesitation, we left the car behind and walked down to the house.  There was no sign and no sign of life. But sure enough, within the open door was an Italian woman wearing an apron and gesturing for us to come in.  She let us sample her stock and we purchased not only cheese but honey as well. 

Back into the faithful car and off we go again.  Winding through tunnels and rock strewn roads, drinking in the view until we became intoxicated and still we wanted more. Always, which ever way you looked, you thought "who get's to see this?, who does this?"  Well, we did and we still feel amazed. 

Thoughts

A photograph is one second of one breath of one’s life, frozen.  A glimpse, just from the outside. We see a shell, a flash without substance. It can speak to us and yet says nothing at all.  The picture can be taken without the subject even knowing or remembering.  Violence, beauty, death and judgment.  All in a single frame. 

It feels powerful to have a camera in my hands.  It’s always been this way.  I think even before I had a camera I saw life through the lens….still images..caught on the film of my mind, suspended …with me, viewing them at a distance…an observer in my own life. Frozen and alone.

Even my memories are like snapshots that I am viewing with a critical eye.  I am the subject in the picture but somehow I feel detached from the image. I can look back and see this young girl, maybe around seven, climbing a huge oak tree, for example.  She has a book and a blanket tied to a rope that she is hauling up into the tree with her.  She keeps climbing until the branches are close enough together were she could sit jammed in between them…looking out over the neighborhood….reading her book.  She sits up there for hours until her legs go numb.  The breeze rustles the leaves…she feels completely peaceful. She feels safe.  And alone.

I am the girl.  I recognize her face in my memories as my own face, my own hands holding on as I am climbing the tree, yet I feel as though I am watching her from a distance…she is framed behind glass and hanging on the wall in front of me.  The label on the wall just below her reads

“Sarah- age seven, climbing the oak tree in the front yard of her childhood home”.

I think my total detachment for life started with my name. It feels like a name that should apply to a small, lovely creature.  Shy and demure. With a lovely voice and a laugh like bells tinkling. Needless to say, that’s not me.  Or at least that isn’t how I feel.  I kinda wish my name were Roxy.  Maybe my life would have turned out different.

But knowing me, even with a name like Roxy, my life would have been exactly the same. Riddled with mistakes and ugly photographs.  Or at least it seems that way to me. 

I'm sure I'm not the only one to feel not completely myself. Not real.  I spend whole days not really feeling real. My mind will flit over and under, around and through a subject, a memory, a fear, a thought and never ever really land.  Almost like a hummingbird. 

Lunch has been cooked and consumed.  The dishes are done, the clothes are folded.  Dennis' shirts need ironing but I am avoiding them.  I feel like they are staring at me over on the dresser.  Sitting in my room, the window is open but the awning is pulled down to block the heat of the sun.  I can hear the jackhammer sounds from the house across the way.  For two solid weeks men have been tearing down the front walls of that house.  Every day the holes where the windows were are getting bigger and bigger.  We daily try to guess what the end goal will be.

What have we been up to?  Yesterday, after breakfast, Dennis and I spent 2 solid hours emptying, cleaning, organizing and restocking just one cupboard in my mother-in-law's tiny kitchen.  We came across glass jars filled with rubber bands and pieces of string.  Containers of leaven dated 2007.  Tons of jello packets (not the friendly fruit flavored and wiggly variety but the non-flavored kind made from boiling some poor animal's bones, no doubt)  I discovered a huge bag of ancient cookie cutters, ranging from the obvious Santa Claus to the not so usual bat and owl.  The pig, naturally, is my favorite.  I have the overwhelming desire to make sugar cookies now.  And speaking of baking, I had a little run in with the celsius oven when I tried to make banana bread yesterday afternoon.  I popped my bread out to cool...yet found that parts of it were cooked and parts were quite raw.  The sad part of this story is that I was so preoccupied yesterday that I didn't make this discovery until an hour after removing the bread from the oven.  MMMmmmmm.. not to be outsmarted and have my bread worthless, I simply turned the oven back on and placed the pan back in and 20 minutes later the bread was cooked.  Interesting looking but tasting just fine. No one ever need know.

The highlight for me yesterday was Dennis drilling a hole in the ceiling above our bed in order to hang my mosquito net.  The ladder, which he dug up from the magical storage unit I have begun to hall Mary Poppin's bag, looked like it was home made...by elves or gnomes.  It has a weight limit for sure.  So we pushed our tiny bed out of the way and Dennis begins to drill through what must be the oldest plaster ever.  His mother is in the hallway, propped up on her walker, shouting to Dennis while the drill is buzzing and dust is covering him  "But what if the upstairs neighbors don't like it?"  Dennis tried to explain that the ceiling must be a foot thick and there is no way a half inch screw will bother anyone.  I can only imagine what my World War II survivor mother-in-law must think of me and my need for netting around the bed.  Needless to say, the net is up and Dennis hates it.  He calls it "The Tent".  I think its lovely but what do I know?  I can't even get banana bread right.

Well, that was a little bit of yesterday.  This past Sunday we enjoyed the company of some Italian friends Dennis has known for years.  In order to reach their home we drove up a seemingly endless road that climbed drastically uphill and around and around blind corner after blind corner.  You actually have to beep the car horn in order to warn oncoming traffic of your presence.  Very entertaining as a passenger.  Once we arrived, Dennis and a few fellows had to push Denise in her chair up the remaining hill to the house.  What I love about it is that nobody thinks its unusual to do so.  She is in a wheelchair and we live on the side of a mountain..no problem, we just push her up the mountain.  Easy. No fuss.

We enjoyed a lovely meal of pizza cooked in an outdoor oven along the outside of Tatiana and Tony's home while drinking in the view and the sunset.  It was comical to have a group of people together, enjoying each other's company, without one fluent language between us.  I speak only English.  Several of the guests spoke only Italian.  Tatiana speaks Italian, some French and very little English.  Dennis speaks only a little Italian.  Denise goes back and forth between French and English without realizing it.  And everyone was speaking at once. I felt right at home. The smile and nod hasn't failed me yet.

We ate until we burst and then we had gelato and then we went inside their cozy stone house to have coffee.  Everything was handmade by Tony himself. Every stone, every timber of that house was planned and built a little at a time, as the money presented itself.

Serous pizza oven

 We enjoyed every moment with our Italian friends and, as is often the case, the hour became late long before we were ready to say farewell.