Gerard and little Montmartre (or playing petanc in private)

French people have been very kind and helpful. The taxi drivers, the villagers, passers by and all plethora of any bodies everywhere we have been. Distinctive in their immaculate clothes, silk shirts and always quality leather shoes, tanned legs and natural styled hair, thin and unmarked bodies, Paris has been assaulting in its difference to the bold and aggressive "look at me and I dare you.." big and brash in your face impressions of home.

Gerard met us outside the vineyard. The last vineyard in Paris. A warm welcome, kids, kiss, kiss. Old friends. He showed us all around his secret nooks and crannies unknown to the wide eyed tourists meandering by. We saw the graveyard full of famous people and heard their stories. We saw the place of artists. The boules players quiet and intense in the dappled sunlight on the pitted patches of earth behind the hotel and beyond the locked iron gates.
Gerard took us to the place of Vincent, where he lived on the fourth floor, and through the alleyways where the artisans work, but not on Monday after Sunday. More random acts of closure on a Monday.
Gerard took us to his apartment up four flights of steps. It is actually two apartments with a door knocked through. And another upstairs he says. The bathroom theatrically hidden behind a secret closet door. All small and squishy to our Aussie standards, all decorated and filled with little works of art, and lots of paintings...lots and lots of paintings. A visual feast. His paint and brush stands side by side and next to the green leather sofa on which we sat and were entertained with drink and stories and considerations. Where to buy the perfect macaron, how to see the Moulin Rouge girls who are in America this week but will return, so go next week, but check. All of art, and Misha and Bernard, and many many paintings, and books and stories. Overwhelmed by kindness and stories and visual feasting we wandered back the small distance to our apartment in Rue Veron. Just up from the Moulin Rouge. That big red windmill on the Clichy road or something like that.
Gerard is generous. We are to go to his place after the exhibition. Madame Gerard is more than kind. She will entertain after the exhibition.

Gerard is our friend. He will do a painting of his admired artist friend Richard. They will entertain us on the night of our exhibition. He will paint his friend. He will not distract us before the big event. There will be time after to do more things together.
Thank you Gerard. Meeting you for the first time is excellent.

Merci. Merci beaucoup.

Mum said that Gaye said that Terry said we are living the dream... (Or the not so fun things )

This is all the yucky stuff, so quit reading if you like.
Quit here and read no further.
If you continue reading start with a smile and a sense of humour.
This is the stuff travel is all about.
Yeah yeah we all like to know about the pretty scenes, idyllic lifestyle and all the good stuff.....boring......yawn.....zzzzzzzzz

What about Tim and Michelle losing all their luggage...twice!! Or was it three times!!!!!
What about when the Williamsons had to repackage and sort in the airport, casserole dishes in bins....not boring....

Here are some (but not all....indeed not all...some just don't bear...).

Four heavy bags and extra money...three full of paintings
Lots of steps
Aching arms and frayed tempers...patience long gone
Uncertain toilets
The smallest toilet in the world in the "apartment" a long way down the hall. Harldly room to turn let alone ........
Expensive food, like $10 for a salad roll
$60 just for cheese on toast and pasta
Carrying on a business using free wifi from a nearby cafe, standing, sitting, trying to be inconspicuous.
Getting lost
Scratching the hire car
Not being able to get petrol
Getting lost
Getting on the wrong road
Getting lost
Going to the airport
Finding the right road
Wiping away tears (relief or stress ...)
Stepping in dog poo
Banished for stepping in dog poo
Being reminded of childhood same occurrences
Being told to go play in the dirt to get rid of the smell
Travelling a long way with offending shoes smells
Being banished again ... Dog poo smells stay forever...
Awkward toilet moments
Smelly train passengers
Now we will be the offending passengers due to dog
...and this is just week one... To be continued....

Country mouse or town mouse ( or Provence or Paris...a bit reluctant)

I loved the nursery story of the town mouse and the country mouse. Of course it was always the country mouse, and still is for me.

Provence has been kind. No watches and simple things governing our day. It is light, we arise. Dark, head to bed. Markets day and local produce. Eggs on display, bearing marks from where they came and unashamed of it at that, fruit on vines, buzzy things.
Not really relishing the thought of heading to a bustly crowded pushy place. With stairs and bags and lots of small spaces with lots of small stairs.
The watch is back on. Trains to catch and all that.

Paris is groaning with expectation, the gallery and the exhibition, painting and classes. Uncertain providing and squishy little places. Tiny bathroom with no space to stand under the shower, sort of bend or somehow sit?
This country mouse will fit in and rise with the clock rather than the light. Adapt as best she can because she does at home in the shadow lands of country and city. Not one but not the other.

A special time in this beautiful place, cherished. This respite from our normal lives has been therapeutic. Richard very sad to leave, he wants to stay, wants to live here! Has been madly working out a way in which to stay or stay for longer!

The country mice may come again, but in the meantime try as best to bloom where planted. Make the best. Do the best. Work the best and love the best.
Farewell Lourmarin. Bon jour Paris. 

Arles (or how to go a little mad with Vincent)

We went to Arles yesterday. That is serious Vincent territory.
This is where the cafe is.
This is where the Vincent Van Gogh foundation is. Of course it is closed. For a month. The place he bought his art supplies in Paris was closed too. Random acts of closure.

Impossible to get a park in the centre of the city. So we ate our lunch in the car park of a pharmacy and sort of stole a ride on a bus to the town centre. We thought it was a tourist hop on hop off for free bus....but later we found out is wasn't.

We walked around in ever increasing circles to find the cafe. They sort of all look alike, until the real one appeared bright yellow and with a sign. Unchanged they say and we believe them.

Richard the mad artist set up his stand and flustered and fiddled under tourist gaze to be the artist to paint the cafe. The roadie took pics and guarded gear and checked for approval of other cafe owner.
A quick likeness and pack up for later finishing. The gazers on, nodded sagely when identity established of course he was not French, they never are these artists. Canadian, Belgian, Italian, but never French, he nodded or shook his head as he muddled away.

Bussing back legally after a hot and tiring day, with tempers frayed and a lot of work and not much fun, the children pushed and shoved, while Richard protected the wet painting between his legs, a precious cargo.
Car still there. An hour to get back home. The scenic route. Bliss.
Except he dropped his glasses near the brambles where the car was parked. Too late realised. And no fit mood to travel back.

It was all a crazy. These artists must have a little of the touched about them to do what they must do. Their work has the smell of inspiration and divine. Their call to inform and glory.
The call answered in Arles. 

Breaking down the citadel (or how to have an 8 o'clock breakfast in the olive grove).

Asleep with the birds and awake with the dawn. It is easy to fall into the rhythms of the world here. A break from our familiar world of off to work in the dark and home in the dark to start the life of us.

It would be nice to think that this is the sum of life, to just exist and put on top the things we like that add to beauty.
A leisurely cooked breakfast at 8 or nine if we like. Outside with a view and quietude. The few pots and pans cleaned quickly, left to dry. The rest of the day to decide what to do around art and poetry and drawing.

The supermarket is out of town. A bit hard to find, nestled in the trees. There is a sign. It may even be neon. It is by itself and looks small, but it is everything in one. Past washing machines and cooking chooks, you enter the sliding doors. Wine and techno, laundry and fish, clothing and canned goods. It is all there, all here.

At the market the was a rockmelon, small and round and super sweet. My father would approve. Wish I could take it back for him. Weighed and charged, about $1.40.
At the supermarket was a rockmelon. Weighed and charged, it was not $1.40. It may have been much much more, or was it the wine. Never really figured it out. It was either free or heaps. Or the wine was free or sort of ok.

What value. They keep this village pretty. They keep the village pure, or sort of.
We call or mall "the square" The Square.
The square is huge. The square is the biggest mall in the Southern Hemisphere or will be when it is finished. It is big and bustly and full of noise. Imposing. A shrine to rampant consumerism. They all worship there. We all do in some form. My mother refuses. She abhors the task of fighting for her place in the queue to add more and more and even more to the huge houses full of stuff and more stuff and maybe one being. Maybe two....maybe even a precious extension of the self, a child.

How are we able to bring this simple beauty back into the world from which we came? We pay a lot for this simplicity. How to cut the noise. Not worship at the citadel of self indulgence.

Help me Lord, O help me.

Aix en Pains

Awake at dawn. Quick check of sore and stiff joints, muscles and hair. You know you ache when your hair hurts.

"Good morning my darling. How does it feel to wake up in Provence in a lovely cottage near an olive  grove? Was it worth the trip?" He says.

From Shell Cove to Aix carting around four heavy suitcases, three of which contain paintings, was a bit of a slog. The stairs and small lifts were fun (for Richard). 

Why are we doing this? I thought as I wandered around the market in Lourmarin.

I was watching the chef demonstrate French cooking. Could hardly see. Craning neck and understanding little I appreciated the artistry. 

The fringe dwellers dined on little bits of plain bread or pastries (pains is the French for breads), delicate slivers of pancetta maybe a tiny olive and a glass of red wine. They don't eat much. And the food is expensive. We paid nearly $60 for cheese on toast and pasta and sausages. It was the best cheese on toast I have ever eaten and the sausages were superb. 30 euros. I just double it. Rough calculation.

So why? 

Why travel?

Sometimes it is luxury.

Sometimes it is fun.

Other times it knocks off rough bits. 

Makes you appreciate home. 

.....but I do appreciate home.....and I have squirmy discomfort moments just stepping from warm shower to cold tiles....so why the effort. At one stage during the last leg of our flight I was fantasising about jumping out of the plane I was so claustrophobic and not enjoying the experience.....

"Good morning! It is so nice to be here. What a gorgeous day!"

Looking out the window it is worth it.

Seeing his excitement about painting and showing his paintings is worth it.

Reading stories and then being part of your own is worth it.

Air brushing, photoshopping, gilded lilies, romanticising, ooh and ahhh and oh it is all just so easy is part of the modern hype. It inspires jealousy and denies effort. 

The trick is to enjoy where you are, to bloom where you are planted. Travel teaches that nothing good is ever easy. Effort is worth it wherever you are. The effort of raising children, the work of teaching children, the informing process of art. The performance of an Olympic athlete. 

The modern lie of everything is and should be easy is shamed when we look behind the scenes.

Here's to more behind the scenes looking. 

Joon-say-pa. a song for Amelia

A song for Amelia. To be sung with great license and self abandonment. And gusto. And a smile. Shameless stereotyping and political incorrectness. Chorus something like Jimmy Crack Corn. Verses with vague indicators.

The French they love their baguettes,
They wear most pretty shoes,
They cycle to the city,
And hum a happy tune.

Joon-say-pa and I don't care
Joon-say-pa and I don't care
Joon-say-pa and I don't care
Bon joor, ovwaaa to you.

The French they love their music,
They love to walk their dogs,
They cycle in their trench coats
Or sometimes they will jog.

Chorus

The French they love their coffee
They call it une cafe
They sit along the sidewalk
And chat away all day (they actually smoke all day but we will leave that part censored)

Chorus

The French they built a tower
And lots of bridges too,
You see the tower on t shirts
We'll bring back one for you.

Je ne sais pa...I don't know
Bon jour....good day
Au revoir...good bye
Although I am happy to be corrected please.

Which Cloud (or how to wear your hat at a rakish angle in Paris)?

Tinsel on the Eiffel Tower. Old trees shaped to fit the side walks and paths, intertwined with street lights and ornate fences. Flashing lights and yellow lamps.

Old movies are wonderful. Simple plots, gorgeous gowns, music and black and white. History was in black and white and shades of grey.

The residence is named something something Palaise. Opposite the Luxembourg Gardens. Arriving in Paris at night is very pretty. Little crashing noises here and there with old and new jostling for space. Three doors and codes and stairs and winding, narrow corridors into a rooms not changed for decades. Sort of old. A bit not romantic or glam. Not a palace or much to do with palaces. Not a problem when your eyes are shut tight with overdue sleep. A roof right near the gardens.

Korean care and clean and neat is still on my mind. The ladies in front of us in the queue a link from yesterday. She had on a Parisian hat perched at a rakish angle, shirt and hot pink platform sneakers. The girl wore shorts, neat and high, short shorts and orange. Neat and trim. They all were. Turned her head. Middle aged, not a girl.

My mother told me a story. A great kerfuffle at the club. A lady as old as me wore a skort to bowls. Very very short. You know the thing. A blend of shorts and skirt. Bad bending look for bowls. There were many conversations and rules and etiquette opinions on the skort. And she is as old as me. And no model. Apparently.

Richard watched a program on storage on the plane. How digital storage is a limited thing. Stone lasts for thousands of years, paper a thousand maybe and digital not long. It is a problem. There are people working on solutions. So much data. So may selfies to keep forever. Our quest for immortality. Apparently storing in the cloud is a better thing. It is not corrupted by dust. The real thing made by dust but this cloud longer lasting.

All these things will pass. It will all go. What of immortality. What pics and vids will my great grandchildren see of me? How will they know what I look like? A bust in stone? How will the new embrace the old and how will we grow old? Skorts to keep youth close? Never change the room behind the wooden doors and call it something palace like?
Sort of does the mind in and lets in fear.

Maybe the cloud is the answer. The sky. Speak to the sky. The one who made the sky and the clouds and us for Himself. It is for Him we are made. If immortality is what we want, the lasting and everlasting knowing this all will pass, trust the One who made us to last, with Him, for Him, through the one who spoke all into creation.
Jesus, amen.

Rolling Stones (or how to leave the world empty)

Preparing for Paris, you would think it would be fun. The past few weeks have been packed with all the stuff of a non-minimalist lifestyle so familiar to all. We have both felt like stones rolling down hills very very fast only to fall and wedge into a crevice unable to move. The seats on the plane were good. The inability to do was claustrophobic.

The themes of the past few weeks have been minimalism and commandments. This quiet background music played while we worked insane hours and made decisions on life directions in snatches, completing thoughts on the run, finishing sentences between illness and performance.
The simple life is complicatedly elusive. The white space becomes filled with every sort of colour immediately it appears.

Richard was on his knees. How to choose the paintings for the exhibition in Paris? Themes and colours and styles, some to complete, others to frame. Then to pack. The suitcases were are taking over carry those paintings, our clothes squashed in to just one other. Simple.

I was on my knees, choosing lessons, themes and styles. Cleaning and sorting. How to leave with all washing done. What about that last towel, and when is that the last bit of rubbish?

A lady told of a lady who was very sick. She paid her to clean. The lady knew she was dying but the words were left unspoken. The washing was done, the last piece of rubbish was taken out.

The lady needed a passport for her grand daughter. She ignored the forms for months. She prayed. She was in a prayer meeting with phone on silent. She missed the call. The call to action. She snail mailed when express was needed. Others phoned and did and rang. Down to days, hours even and the passport approved to be sent.

I was reminded that I had not done much praying. So I prayed. I unpacked the car for the morning in an empty car park at school. Five heavy bags and a full box of marked work and a long walk. God, please help. Send someone to help. Two appeared at once. Out of nowhere.

The exhibition is soon. The paintings have been chosen. We are on our way. The washing has been done, the basket just a little full of that which is left, our towels, one-day-worn clothes. Rubbish out but not picked up yet.
We are on our way. Aches and pains and coughs and dagger throats and red red eyes. On our knees. I must be on my knees. Camel knees. I should have camel knees. To do what I must and pray before the doing. Not just pray. Not just do. Without ceasing. Thanks. Rejoicing. Until there is just a little left to clean, a little left to do.