A nocturne

 

For a person who has never been able to handle well the stresses of life, and is prone to paroxysms of anxieties about everything from health issues to having to ask for something at a store, it may not have been the wisest thing to move to France. Every doctor, every interaction, every procedural requisite of life here is just a little, or a lot, more stressful. And though my interests in clerkmanifesto generally don't carry to a discussion of what we might or might not need in order to open a bank account, it would be disingenuous to go on about how good the cheese is everywhere without at least letting you know that all of this this this... paradise... 

is full of shadows. 

It is full of all the shadows I've carried in my life, and all the new ones that accelerate as I roll into my sixties. The sun is amazing here in this Belle Epoque fantasia of a city, but, you know,

shadows.

And so, when I tell you about tonight, with all my high falutin ecstacies, just, it's still life. And life, yours, or mine, is as good or as bad as it ever was.

But if you could come here, you should see it.

We went to the beach.

We went down to the vegetable and flower market at the old city, which, of course, was long finished and completely washed down, which workers do with great hoses every afternoon,  as sunset approached. Now it was a lovely place to stroll, lined with cafes and restaurants in various stages of opening. On a cool Sunday night the ever present buzz of people was there, even after the holidays in early January, and all those people were up to too many things to really account for here. The waterfall in the sky was maybe lit up in reddish lights, or perhaps that light was a quirk of the setting sun. The light is often strange and wonderful here, and this descending night was especially rich, seeming to fill up the lush Roman colors of the buildings with an illuminating power.

Through some columns were glimpses of the nearby beach, and as we had been stopped from our morning visit to the shore by what appeared to be a large marathon, we decided on a brief visit. Looking out at a particularly intense sunset, more down over the coastline than out over the horizon, we heard piano music and drifted over.

Along the large promenade someone had brought a piano. He had some system for pushing it on temporary wheels, and was now set up above the beach playing classical pieces. A crowd gathered, though not a huge one considering all the people about. The song ended and he started a new one, a particular favorite of ours, one of Chopin's Nocturnes, something we listen to at home as it is one of our very small new collection of record albums. In a state of unadulterated wonder, where all things are perfect, we gazed around us at everything that was beautifully dipped in dusk and sprinkled with night music. And as we acknowledged the unimprovable ecstacy of the moment, one by one, all the old streetlamps and strings of lights on the palm trees turned on, in a glorious, orderly, astonishing procession up the coast.

We sometimes talk about "plus one" here, where things that are complicatedly difficult always seem to have one more problem, one more layer to deal with. And just as you solve one issue it turns out there was one more thing in it, plus one. You get your medicine but they don't have the last one you need. They send you to the place that does. They have it, but not quite enough. Come back tomorrow.

But standing there listening to Chopin while the surf whispers in the background and palm trees light the way out into the Mediterranean, it must also be acknowleded that the "plus one" can work both ways, and sometimes you think things cannot get more lovely, but they do.