HERE AND THERE A SNOWSTORM

February 12 2013        

The days continue to amaze!  Last weekend, we checked the weather reports for New York City, hoping that the forecasted blizzard wouldn’t bring more tragedy to an area of America that had already been dealt the blows of Hurricane Sandy. Having family and friends in NY who had suffered during the hurricane we were relieved that they received only enough snow to experience the stillness of that great city and not its sorrow. And, although it’s been over a year since we sold our seaside cottage, I found myself checking the Provincetown forecast, the high tide chart and wind predictions, still afraid for that little wooden tent we called home for so long. But it and everyone survived and so we were free to relish our blue skies and sunshine, here in Provence.

So it was a shock to wake up on the Monday morning and find the world outside our window in a snowstorm of its own. It kept up for most of the day and as Joel was still shaking off a cold we lolled on the couch, fed the fire and our faces and read.

Toward late afternoon the snow stopped, the sun once again bright in its blue sky and so we bundled up and walked up and around the deserted village, all the way to the top from where we looked across to the lavender field and it’s seven cherry trees sitting like an etching on the side of the crest. Then we carefully picked our way down the slushy, icy, ancient steps and slopes and streets, the snow already melting off roofs, cascading down pipes, dripping off eaves in a veil of tears whose music was yet light-hearted. And thus we made our way back to the warmth of the fireplace and a game of Scrabble.

Having been housebound for a few days, we decided to drive to the village of Cucuron the next morning. Tuesday is market day there and we thought it would be fun to check it out. What a difference from our last visit to that village in mid-October, 2011. That day had been an Indian Summer one and in the village center, around an ancient reflecting pool, locals and tourists were eating at a string of outside cafes, faces turned to the sun, the reflecting pool a virulent green, the trees already turning copper.

Today the pool was frozen solid, some of those copper leaves suspended beneath its surface, reminiscent of a Kaiseki dish we had in Kyoto many years ago. The air was raw and damp and we were chilled to the bone within minutes. But nothing deters the locals on market days, vendors and shoppers alike.

Our favorite Patisserie man from the Lourmarin Friday market was there so we fortified ourselves with a mouthful-sized lemon merengue tart apiece and bought one of his brioche loaves to make ourselves French toast for breakfast on Valentines Day. Not to be outdone by the locals, we moved on to the fish stall for a piece of cod for dinner and then the vegetable stand for some grand-looking artichokes, by which time we were ready for the warmth of the car, but how can you leave without buying a petite handful of wild figs, oh and look at those capers?

Back in the car we turned up the heat, put in our Adagio CD and set sail through the back lanes, past winter-bare fields and remote farmhouses, smoke curling from every chimney, and every once in a while another little village would appear, each one a temptation to explore, but the day did not beckon. A rare grey sky and the damp of the valley cast a pall on us and suddenly that which can be so beautiful seemed sad and lonely and as the strains of Samuel Barber added to the atmosphere, I found myself feeling bereft of all that was familiar. Not that I longed to be in New York, I didn’t, but that I longed to feel the nearness of loved ones and for a melancholy moment wondered if I would ever see them again.

We continued east for a few miles and then turned northward, deciding to make a large circle home. And so it was that we found ourselves climbing up and up the Grand Luberon, the road becoming more deserted, the terrain changing from the flat fields of the valley to the terraced ones of the crest.  The weather, too, changed; where the valley had shown only scratchy remains of snow now, on either side of the road, the landscape was deep in it and huge clumps still clung to the pine forests; hardly a house in sight. And up we went, our hearts lifting along with the light, the sky now a pure, deep blue, the sun glinting off every branch and needle.

At the top of the crest, like the Hallelujah Chorus, vast swaths of scrub oak shone rusty red, vying for prominence against the rich greens of the firs and pines, the all of it dazzling, like a jewelry display in which every precious stone on earth has been flung at random and then adorned with diamonds of melting snow drops. It took our breath away.

As did descending the other side of the crest, which because it is north-facing had not been thawed by the sun, the road a snaking surface of snow and ice with a steep drop on one side and of course, no railing. We made it down in second gear.

And so another day closes. Peach colored clouds, riding on the backs of slate grey ones are scudding across the evening sky, hurried along by a brisk wind. The fire is crackling and cackling away and soon we’ll prepare the fish and artichokes, once again grateful for this particular journey on this particular day.

Dear Readers, We have moved our blog to WordPress.com but it will continue for the next few posts to appear in both locations. Our new address for your reading pleasure is:

   http://www.feelingourwayaround.com

As always, a reminder to submit your email address so we can land directly in your mailbox, and do tell your friends about us. Please let us know your comments on the new format once you have seen it. Maggie and Joel

BOOK ENDS

February 9 2013              

It feels like a minute ago that I was standing at my desk in New York covering this journal with French linen, making the holes for the elastic binder, gluing the edges down to the inside covers, then inking Book IX on the front. Now, in a little while, I’ll go over to my desk here in Bonnieux and cover the next journal and ink Book X on its front; Ten journals since March 1^st, 2011 when we started this blog; 6 trips to Provence, 3 to Paris, 2 to Tuscany, 3 to England, and 1 to Los Angeles. 

         Maggie's photo

Inside the covers of this journal are housed a hurricane, a presidential election, the slaughter of 20 children, a lot of dental work, wonderful times spent with my daughter, an exuberant Christmas and a great celebration of Joel’s 50 years of photography, and yes, the publication of our Provence book which, while disappearing into near-oblivion, garnered some nice emails and more than that is the vehicle that brought us here, not only on our 8th trip to Bonnieux, but to these months of living here in peace and joy, to sharing the wonder of our friendship with Sharon and Paul which, although at 2 years may seem in its infancy, actually holds many lifetimes of kinship.

Now we spend our days allowing for death’s accompaniment, tapping us on the shoulder as it does at times throughout each day, its inevitable forefinger beckoning. We do not follow yet but, after the initial icy jolt of its reminder we let it be and allow for its gift which is the knowledge that everyday is precious only for what it is, not for how we spend it, but that we spend it guilt-free, without desire, ambition or the need for achievement of any kind save that of love and gratitude.

Sure, death isn’t the only outside visitor; regret whiffs at the door now and again, along with a waft of sadness. They deserve their place on the doorsill, for how can one live life fully without realizing one will never have lived to maximum capacity or kindness.

The afternoon is late. Joel is making a pot of Earl Grey tea between shooting still-lives. The fire is busying itself as fire’s do, burning itself up yet leaving us enough embers to rekindle the flame of this day.

         Maggie's photo

HAPPINESS, PLAIN AND SIMPLE

February 7 2013          

It’s a mischievous day. The mistral is here, lunging and pirouetting, then quivering en pointe before leaping here and there maddening the trees, and me; the mistral plays the chimney like a Peruvian flute sending a twirl of smoke toward the opening of the fireplace and then I’m up, en garde and parrying, pushing a log further back or more to one side in the hopes of getting the flames

to hungrily lick up the wayward smoke.

Joel is home after two days on the road, and in the air, to Barcelona and back where he was the keynote speaker at an HP conference. He left with a sore throat and returned with it, and a bad chest; mileage isn’t the only thing you get when you fly. So we sit now, by the fire, drinking hot chocolate and looking out to the valley all a-bluster below a pale blue sky with low-lying white clouds tumbling along the crest like almost-clean laundry, and we are happy; happy to be alive, and to be living in such peace and harmony both with each other and with this beautiful part of the world we’ve landed in.

Much like the mistral, the unpredictable, impulsive energy of which cleanses the air and revives the spirit, we, too, are experiencing the rewards of our recent emotional work. “Feeling our way around” suits us well, although I’m aware that it might make for a boring blog: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” as Tolstoy famously wrote in his opening line of Anna Karenina, and we all know how that turned out….

So, is happiness boring? It certainly isn’t boring me. Nor did it yesterday when, spending my second day alone and having just brought in a load of firewood, I found myself twirling around the living room shouting, “I’m so happy!”

There were many reasons I felt that way, not the least of which was waking up and finding I had slept through the night without being robbed or raped, neither of which are happy experiences, as I well know. There is always an element of fear that arises the first night I sleep alone in a strange house. No matter how many times I rationalize that the likelihood of disaster befalling me the minute Joel goes away is very slim, still I find myself double checking the locks, contemplating taking a knife to bed, wondering if the car not being parked outside (Joel having driven it to the airport) will be the all-clear sign the local robber/rapist has been waiting for.

So, yes, I was extremely happy to awake unsullied and further more to a crisp clear day, the morning sun spreading its rosy blush on the ruins of the Marquis de Sade’s castle (thank god he’s long gone!) and one of the neighboring cats sitting stock-still in the pollarded branches of the plane tree. And who wouldn’t be happy to walk to the Boulangerie for a baguette and a croissant, the latter of which I slathered with goat cheese and honey, relishing every flaky morsel accompanied by café au lait?

It’s funny really, or not, to think of all those moments in life, especially when we 

are young, or younger, moments of deep unhappiness when we fantasize about what we think would make us happy. The lists of ‘if-only’ tending toward the grandiose; fame, money, a bigger house, more of something, or everything and hey, I know I’m living in a nice house in Provence and I don’t have to set the alarm, or get the kids off to school, or borrow money – I did all that – but the point is, the things that made me happy yesterday (and today) have nothing to do those fantasies of bigger and better.  What made me happy was waking up; that walk to the bakery, every flake of the croissant, sweeping the floor, doing a load of laundry, bringing in 3 loads of firewood, preparing a pot of soup, making a drawing, sitting outside during a few moments of becalmed sun, reading by the fire, and watching the evening sky; the golden light parrying with a bank of storm clouds, the gold changing to orange and red and in the distance veils of rain descending and somewhere, I thought, there’s a rainbow.

   Maggie's Photo

And here’s a happy coincidence: as I was musing on the rainbow that I could feel but not see, Joel was driving toward me, capturing it in frame after frame. Talk about bringing home the bacon!

UNRAVELING

January 30 2013             

I write this date and remark to Joel how this month has flown and he says, it’s been so great it’s hard to know how to measure it.

Why do we even try? To measure it, I mean. It seems to me that the inherent problem with measuring – or any sort of quantifying – is that the answer is never adequate enough; we measure and then we compare. For example, a month has gone by since we arrived in Provence and the moment I say that I’m immediately trying to measure it in terms of how much time have left here in the hopes of discovering that it is more. Well, there you have it. I always want more. Of course, if it had been a rotten month I’d want to measure it so that it came up less. Absolutely absurd.

Even more absurd is that I’m writing about this instead of writing the harder thing; that which follows on from the last post. Let me digress a little more. I received a lovely email in response to the last post in which the writer said, “The difficult, ugly and beautiful are often entwined in ways that can’t - maybe shouldn’t - be unraveled.” I agree with her, in terms of the necessity of accepting the flawed nature of reality as it exists, instead of how we think it should be or want it to be.

However, in terms of personal evolution, while it is necessary to accept that we are, and will always be, works in progress, nonetheless it is also necessary to unravel the ugly and difficult so that they no longer warp the beautiful, nor hide in its shadow.

My “ugly,” (or one of many, I’m sure) of ‘rage’ which came rearing to the fore a few days ago and of which I spoke in the last blog, has been unraveling for some time. Yet I see now, that until this week I’ve only let it unravel so far, giving it a little lip service before winding it back around the core of my nature.

So here’s the beauty of making a commitment to healing ourselves and each other: once we have articulated the wound, out loud, to another human being, we free the space to allow the healing to begin. (Shame being the thing that takes up all the space.) It’s a bit like when you get a deep cut; first you stitch it, then you put on a dressing. Most of us when we are psychically or emotional cut will take those first two steps but not the final one, the one that is necessary for total healing i.e., the step of taking the dressing off (or the defense/mask) and letting the barely knit-together cut get fresh air. 

Remember when you were a kid and your parent said it was time to take the plaster off your scraped knee and you were terrified because maybe it wasn’t healed and would start to bleed again? That’s how vulnerable we feel when we take the defense/mask off our emotional cuts: we are always afraid we aren’t ready to be exposed, that the skin hasn’t healed over enough and we’ll get hurt in the same place.

My ‘rage’ is a defense against the pain of feeling I am not worthy of being held, unless it is sexually. I’ve known this for many years, but it wasn’t until this week that I knew it down in the subcutaneous layer of my being.

As most of you know by now, I was adopted as a 2 month-old baby (and it’s right around here that I can hear my adoptive mother shaming me to just “get on with it”) having spent those first months in a post war hospital. I must have been held by nurses, but nurses, like my blood mother, came and went. I was then adopted by two emotionally crippled people. My adoptive mother obviously must have ‘held’ me as an infant and yet I have no memory of her ever holding me. Whatever unexplored wounds she lived with did not allow her to show warmth and affection. My adoptive father, with whom I felt a deep attraction, also never held me. In hindsight I came to realize that he and I held a spiritual attraction for each other that neither of us was equipped to grow, and so the attraction carried only a frisson of sexuality, which my father never abused. The price for his good behavior was that he had to remain distant from me, both physically and emotionally. My father was always withdrawn and no matter how hard I tried to get his attention, I never succeeded.

We are all “patterned” by our childhoods. All of us. Our mothers and fathers represent all women and men in our little worlds. So, being heterosexual it would follow that I would always choose distant men and that I would take into my adult life the misconception that in order to be held by a man I must have sex with him.

All of this, as you our readers know, is psychology 101. What becomes a little trickier to see is how we build our defenses against the pain of those misconceptions and how those defenses end up ensuring that those misconceptions become reality…the very reality we originally misconceived and the one we fear the most. Continuing to use my own story as an example let me explain.

The loneliness and unworthiness that I felt as a child never being held was, once I became a teenager, superficially ameliorated by having sex. And so I had a lot of it. With a lot of men. But underneath the quick fix I still felt worthless and I began to get angry as a way of defending against the loneliness of being unworthy. Being angry felt stronger and while indulging in it I could blame everyone else for not giving me what I wanted…to be held. But who wants to hold an angry person? Circle complete.

Here’s how the circle of negative energy looks:

As I said earlier, the way to healing is to share these discoveries with someone capable of loving. In my case, I had healed enough on the surface levels (thanks

to sobriety and a wonderful therapist) to be able to choose Joel, a man capable of loving. So Joel has been holding me a lot this week, which has made me feel worthy and therefore not angry and therefore Joel not only does not retreat, but holds me some more.

Here’s how the circle of positive energy looks:

I realize that’s a lot of unraveling, maybe more than some of you may have wished to read at this moment in time. Yet it is my sincere wish that by unraveling in front of you, it no longer is all about ‘me’ but connects to some of you in the places where you are feeling frayed.  

PORTRAIT OF A MARRIAGE

January 27 2013             

When Joel and I decided to make a book about this year in Europe it was because we wanted to make “our” book, not a commissioned one, as have been the 3 we’ve collaborated on so far. We wanted the shared experience of creating an artists’ book free of imposed preconditions. We thought it would be fun to allow ourselves to go beyond the frame, so to speak, and include anything and everything; not only photographs and essays, but drawings, recipes, videos, bits of string, blood stains, inserts and pull-outs.

With these criteria in mind, Joel came up with the idea - before we left New York - of drawing/painting/inking a line a day in a separate book which we will scan, shrink and concertina into the finished book. So every day, starting on January 1st, we have alternately made a line, the only pre-condition being that each line must start where the previous one left off. A linear calendar, you might say, or a one-liner made up of many; each unique, each individual and yet each intentioned and willing to take energy from the one before yet be freely in the moment.

The making of this book is, of course, a gift to ourselves, but we hope it will also be of interest and value to our readers in that it will be a document describing what it’s like to be in your 60’s and 70’s and leave behind all that is familiar and beloved to go live “abroad” for a year – or more – as both a married couple and as two artists working on separate projects as well as the shared one. 

To this end we agreed that we would not only let you in on the fun and hilarity, the beauty and the splendor, but also the horrors, disappointments and fears that accompany all of us throughout the course of a year, no matter how old we are, how much we love each other or where we are living. The previous post: “To Paris And Back,” was a fairly good example of the former. In today’s post I will try to have the courage to explore the latter, as it is presently arising.

We’ve noticed since we’ve been away (and note that I write been ‘away’ as opposed to been ‘here.’) that we can just about handle 3 consecutive days of joy and happiness before we resort to negative behavior. For what it’s worth, Joel is a Pisces and I’m a Leo. When I first learned that Joel was a water sign I was somewhat dismayed. I’m fire, and my fear was that he would dampen my spirit. But then an acquaintance remarked, ‘Oh, fire and water: steam.” (And at our best we do indeed make steam.) We each have qualities that are representative of our respective signs. I tend to burst into action, while Joel can retreat like the tide.

What we are now realizing is that we often experience these qualities in each other as defects, which allows us to judge the other instead of looking deeper within. For instance, when my fiery nature is coming from a negative source, it presents as anger, while Joel’s retreat presents as withdrawal. And here’s where what I call the Matrimonial Two-Step turns into the Death Spiral: I get angry when Joel withdraws which makes him retreat more and I get angrier and so on.

But why do we need to be enemies after 3 days of bliss? Is it really so pathetically banal as needing to be in control of the loss of bliss? Or do we need to hate each other just a little every once in a while as a misguided way of maintaining independence? Sorry to leave you hanging, but we don’t have all the answers yet. However, it is all of apiece with the commitment we made on New Year’s Day to heal ourselves and each other in the place of deepest wound: my defensiveness, Joel’s constraint.

My daughter, in a recent text, observed that relationships are complicated. I’ll say. Of course, it is we the people who complicate relationship. Yet isn’t it so incredibly wonderful that we tend to choose partners who will not only bring out the best in us, but also the worst? What a gift it is that we provide each other with the opportunity – over and over again – of working on these painful issues. Yet, oh, how we resent it at the same time. To be reflected back to oneself at one’s ugliest…who wants to see that?

Well, actually, I do. I’m tired of the pursuit of unattainable perfection. Bring on the ugly and let’s have a good look. What Joel reflects back to me is my rage. What I reflect back to him is his cowardice. It doesn’t matter that those qualities are not who we are, but only a part of our humanness. What matters is that when rage and cowardice are abroad, love is absent.

In a little while, I’ll go to the table and look at the line Joel made yesterday. How interesting to note that, if one didn’t know better, one might think I had made it: it’s a highly energized, almost enraged line of thick red acrylic paint. When I saw it yesterday I envied its courage. But more than that I love Joel’s courage. Perhaps I can carry on from where he left off and have the courage to make a line so gentle as to barely leave a trace.

Note:  We have heard that some of you have trouble finding the “submit your email "place. You need to go to the Blog-site itself for this.  http://joelandmaggie.blogspot.com  If you are receiving these posts by email, it will not show up. You will have to click on the Title of the blog. For instance, on this post you click on “Portrait of a Marriage.”  Only by doing this and being taken to the website can you “submit your email” or “leave a comment.  With love, M + J.

TO PARIS AND BACK

January 24 2013            

We took the bullet train last Friday, hurtling through the snow-clad fields and villages to the great city of Paris where, courtesy of La Maison Europeenne de la Photographie, (MEP) we were to stay for the next 5 days at the Hotel Lutetia.

To our surprise we were given the David Lynch Suite, complete with his lithographs and photographs. One could almost feel the atmosphere of Blue Velvet and the horror of Dennis Hopper’s imminent approach. Or had he already been and left? The suite was ice-cold, the air duct exhaling a whisper of barely warm breath; the Nespresso machine was on the blink, literally, while outside a heavy snow began its descent. 

We called the front desk for help. Apologies were profuse; the suite had just been vacated by a heavy smoker - Dennis, methinks -  and so while the maids had prepared the room they’d kept all the balcony doors flung open. It was 21˚F in Paris that day. Two space heaters were sent up, tout suite, along with a man and his ladder to attend to the heating vent. A florist arrived with an armful of the most glorious poppies for me from the Director of the MEP, but no vase. I call the front desk again. Meanwhile I’m trying to have a Skype conversation with my daughter in New York while Joel prepares to leave for a meeting at the museum. 

The doorbell rings again; the vase. Back to my daughter. Doorbell; Nespresso man (not, unfortunately, George Clooney). Daughter. Front desk calls; have the heaters arrived? Daughter. Nespresso man, ici, regardez vous la machine, ca va? Daughter. Joel leaves. But not before turning both space heaters up to 2000 volts instantly blowing all fuses and plunging the suite into heatless, nespresso-less, daughter-less, dark-ness. A British farce couldn’t have done better.

And so the days went by in a blur of snow and ice; the parks heartbreakingly beautiful in their white velvet attire, the streets and sidewalks a slick challenge, cars at a crawl. The Parisiennes, nonchalant as ever, sitting at outside cafes with their coffee and cigarettes, pursed lips exhaling smoke and vapor. The air perfumed with butter and sugar, and a chocolate shop on every block; the women a study in the art of wearing a scarf and men carrying baguettes, albeit sans berets.

January in Paris is a feast. The month of soldes, or sales, you could just drool over the bargains – or go bankrupt buying them! It is also the month of the Gallette des Rois, the airy almond filled flaky cake inside which a little crown hides…or if really traditional, a favé bean. Whoever gets the slice with the trinket becomes King or Queen for the day and wears the gold crown that comes in the cake box.

I don’t think I’ve ever been in a northern city in January that is so filled with warmth. You hear so much bad-mouthing of the French, particularly the Parisiennes and their attitude, but I have never experienced this in the many years I’ve been coming here.

I first came to Paris as an 18 year-old, back in the 60’s. It was my first stop on a 3- month hitch-hiking trip around Europe. I had worked 2 jobs a day for months, in London, in order to be able to make that long-held dream come true. I had decided, as a 5 year-old, that I was destined for France after we had a French student live with us that summer. Pierre was 16 and spoke no English when he arrived, but he called me Marguerite and I fell in love with him and the sound of his language. Many an hour I spent in my room speaking pretend French and then, as he gradually learned English, I, too, would speak it with a French accent deigning it superior to the affectless accent of our region. 

Pierre was fluent by the time he left, 6 weeks later. I, on the other hand, after 5 years of grammar school French, was shocked to discover on that first and heady trip to France, that the French I had been taught by a Welsh teacher, was far from fluent. But really, who cared? To be that young and yet to have dreamed for so long of Paris, and then to arrive at dawn, just as the city was waking up! The sluicing of the streets, the chairs being put at outdoor tables, awnings unfurling, metal shutters rolling up with a squeak and a clang and yes, the air, perfumed with butter. 

Paris is still that magical to me and this sojourn no exception. On Sunday, we had tea in our dear friend’s home near the Seine, the fire ablaze, the tray of luscious dates and plump apricots. The two cats as storybook as ever. Our friend’s son a surrogate son of ours whose generous heart always makes us feel ageless. The snowy walk back to the hotel hours later, sharing a cone of caramel ice cream as we went.

And there were soufflés that lifted us heavenward, white truffle and hazelnut macaroons, crab bisque and steamed bar…well, enough with the food, because really this trip was about Joel’s retrospective exhibition at MEP (it will be up for 3 months in case any of you have a trip to Paris planned).

What an exhibition! Look, I’ve lived with this man for more than 22 years, I know his work pretty well, but here’s the thing about Joel’s photographs: they keep on coming. Every image gives you more the more you look. The wonder of his vision, timing, humor, his toughness and his tenderness fills me with awe every time…as it does everyone else. The opening was packed; hundreds and hundreds of people shoulder to shoulder for 3 hours. Bravo my Joely! Bravo!

After the opening our generous friend, Philippe, took 9 of us to dinner, including our friend and her son and friends from London who’d come over just for the opening. We ate and talked and laughed until midnight; 9 of us ranging in age from 27 to 75, all of a piece. We closed the place and then stood on the street fooling around like teenagers before going our different ways; on foot, by metro, and taxi. And so perhaps the lasting image for me will always be our friend who lost the love of her life last spring. A true Parisienne and a profound spirit, we watched as she bicycled into the night, golden hair and coat flying in the icy wind.

We, too, took flight the next day; back on the bullet to Bonnieux, to the beauty of this medieval village and the tranquility of the countryside. Back to the fireplace and our cozy bed. And this morning, blue sky and sun warm enough to enjoy our cappuccinos out on the terrace.

In a little while we’ll make dinner; fresh chicken livers with salad from the farmers’ market. Oh, and we’ll be shaving some of that black truffle we bought on our afternoon walk…up there on the hillside, far from the madding crowds.

NOTE: a reminder and a request:

            Remember to submit your email address on the Blog-site’s opening page 

            upper right hand. That way you’ll receive each post directly into your   

            inbox. And we would love it if you would recommend our blog to friends

            (give them the “submit” instructions). We also would be thrilled to hear 

            from you.  With thanks, Maggie and Joel.

TRANSITIONAL WOES

January 15 2013              

A couple of days ago I received an email from my good friend K, in response to the last post, wherein I moaned about our adventures with French cell phone plans. He wrote, “I’m sure there was a bunch of other transitional woes….” K is a musician and writes like he composes, eerily on pitch and somehow between keys.

Transitional woes. Yes, in both senses: the woes that come from transitions and the woes that transition, themselves. So, yes, there’ve been a few of the former since we arrived: the toaster that takes 10 minutes to heat up and then, in one fiery second, devours the bread into the unreachable-without-electrocution depths of its slat-y coils. The firewood, which must first be seasoned inside the fireplace before it will burn, the fire needing to be lit with store-bought, kiln-dried wood the cost of which makes one think of the phrase, “money to burn.” The narrow turn at the top of the lane between centuries-old stone buildings; the façade of one now wearing a layer of paint from the front right fender of our rented Citroën. The oven controls, the hieroglyphics of which were totally unfathomable to us until finally deciphered courtesy of Google. 

All of the above being absurdly trivial hurdles compared to those which the truly suffering have to face everyday of their lives. Nonetheless, when you are of a certain age and alone with your spouse in a foreign land these ‘woes’ can give your sense of reality a good shake. In these moments, we are feeling our way around like sightless kittens and the realization that we are each other’s sole teat, can be very frightening for two independent adults like us.

But these woes come and go and are balanced by the daily shock of beauty that surrounds us. This morning we awoke to snow, the kind that obliterates distance and, as such, the future. What solace to be ensconced inside a moment of silent beauty; the pollarded plane tree embracing an inch of snow on every skyward-reaching limb; the cypress trees as still as eternity, their dark, densely-woven forms dusted with flakes.

 After breakfast we walk to the Charcuterie; we have decided on lamb navarin for dinner and in stumbling French, ask the butcher which cut he recommends; the meat case of red loins and legs, livers and kidney, a stark contrast to the grey and white world outside.

Back home, while Joel prepares the navarin, I sit by the fire and watch the snow come and go, come and go and, finally, address a woe that has been a constant since we arrived: the steady drip of anxiety which, at first, I had put down to jet-lag or exhaustion had not only not abated but seemed to be ratcheting up to the point where, and shame scalds me as I write this, I was on constant alert for danger: the car too close to a roadside ditch; the merging traffic at every roundabout; the image of myself falling down stairs. What the hell, I thought, am I always like this? Is this a transitional woe or a way of life? Haven’t I been over this, countless times? Does this shit ever stop? What else is there to learn?

Finally I talk with Joel about it and, as always, re-learn that sharing feelings is the first step to changing them. Of course I’ve been anxious. Why do I always forget that every time I manifest something positive in my life the old fear that it will be taken from me or that there will be some awful price to pay, arises immediately? Some things really are so ingrained that it takes a lifetime of work to smooth the rut. You can’t be told as a child, almost daily, that if you laugh too much before dinner you’ll be crying before bed and not internalize that as an unconscious belief that pleasure will always end in pain.

This time 24 years ago, I was spending my last evening as an active alcoholic, working like a mad scientist with bottles of booze in my kitchen. I was convinced that if I could just make the right concoction I would be able to drink “properly” for the rest of my life. I’m not sure at what point, after hours of drinking my experiments, divine intervention made me realize it was never going to work, nor where I found the courage to pour the remains of every bottle down the sink. But I did, and after spending the next day in bed with the shakes, managed to get myself to an AA meeting where I would learn over the next few years that some woes are only transitional if you surrender your will and accept that you are powerless. 

So it goes with anxiety. It will, for those of us prone to it, arise time and again. The only way out of it is to accept it when it arises and speak it out loud, thereby banishing the need to indulge it.

The snow stopped this afternoon, making way for a pure blue sky. We walked to the top of the village and looked out to the crest of the Petit Luberon. There, nestled in its side, lay the lavender field with its seven cherry trees, still dusted with snow; a perfect gateau. 

We’ve picnicked there in the months of lavender and cherries and we’ve lain there on an autumn afternoon. Three days ago we walked its perimeter, the trees sturdy in their nakedness. In the neighboring field we noticed a swing had been hung from the branch of another cherry tree. How could one not sit on it, kicking off, legs pushing and pulling, propelling oneself higher, watching it all come and go?