We're all just strangers here

 

Yesterday we went to the best place we have been to in all of France.

In all of France!

"Oh, this is why we moved to France." One of us even said.

This is not the tale of that trip, nor any pictures of it neither. Maybe that later.

Today I would just like to briefly talk about a single moment from that trip.

First, maybe you would you like to know where it is?

Perhaps you too would like to go to the best place in France, maybe on a little trip, eh?

Why not. I recommend it.

But keep in mind; best book, best meal, best place on the Internet, best cheese, best song, best river, best town and your experience may vary. We have to try everything for ourselves.

Ha! Just kidding. The best place on the Internet is...

Clerkmanifesto!

But for the rest of it I stand by the statement.

And so without further ado: 

We went to St. Paul de Vence. 

Sorry, it is properly written: Saint-Paul-de-Vence. And towards the end of our day there we wandered down through the back walls of the impossibly pretty hill town, into the cemetery, and visited the well marked, but simple tomb of the great painter Marc Chagall.

It was in a modest but utterly gorgeous small cemetery looking down to Cagnes Sur Mer, where Renoir spent his last years, and the ocean. The Cemetery was full of crosses and Christian graves. There was plain engraved stone on the tomb with Marc Chagall's name and dates, and a couple other people of his family. Visitors had piled small stones on the grave, some with tiny notes written on them.

To my absolute surprise I became emotional, and tears welled up in my eyes.

Here he was, after a long life of 97 years, dead another 41, and as far from his childhood and never forgotten home of Vitebsk as he could be.

I don't know why tears formed in my eyes.

I guess I'm pretty far from Vitebsk too.