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.

Clerkmanifesto goes analog!

 

Bay leaves

 

I have read my fair share of memoirs of people moving to France or Italy. I didn't really believe at the time that I and my dear wife would actually be people who did the same mad thing one day, so I could freely laugh at and enjoy all the crazy fish out of water hijinks comfortable in how it had nothing to do with me.

"Tres fous" I would say to myself over some insane bit of nonsense poor Peter Mayle, for example, might have been getting mixed up in.

"Tres fous" means "very crazy", and to be honest I wouldn't have said that at all because I had no idea what it meant at the time. 

Now I do.

Oh boy do I!

Once at one of the markets, a modest but reasonable walk from here, I bought a little bundle of herbs for a euro or two. They were mostly dry already and have been a great addition to my cooking. They included rosemary, thyme, and bay leaves. Almost all the rosemary and thyme is gone, but I can look over right now at my fruit basket and see that quite a few of the bay leaves are still there. And seeing them invariably makes me think of one of the stories from one of those memoirs of someone moving to France.

In this story, the author, possibly a midwesterner if I remember correctly, was making some sort of proper, traditional meal and needed bay leaves. He went to the market and couldn't find any. He went to the stores and he couldn't find any. He asked people and no one seemed to have any idea what on earth he was talking about. Was it his French? Was he asking for the wrong thing? Did no one use bay leaves in their cooking?

Finally, in all his relentless pursuit he said something to the right person in the right way, and they could finally explain: almost all the trees in the area were bay trees. Bay leaves were everywhere! One would as soon sell them as they would bottle the air!

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Tres fous.

I mean, obviously I liked the story and remembered it. But I'm afraid my perspective on it has changed a bit.

You know what we have everywhere here, and I mean everywhere?

Oranges! 

Oranges are growing on trees in gardens. They are in the parks. I can see some out my window. And sometimes they line whole streets. Tree after tree full of oranges! They are really pretty, and there are tens of thousands of oranges everywhere right now. Some clearly belong to someone somehow, and some seem as public as anything could be. And yet, I would no sooner pick one of those oranges and try out eating it than I would, well, pick a leaf off a tree and go home and cook with it.

It's not my tree!

Although, I don't know, maybe it should be.

And if no one sold any oranges around here because people just got their oranges from any handy tree, I suppose I might adapt. 

And then maybe I'd write for you a cute little story about it that would make you eat your heart out.

Free bread!

 

Among the many wild and small dietary changes that have come into my life by moving to France, none is so significant as the free bread. That's right, while most food is cheaper here, some the same price, and a rare thing or two more expensive, the French are deeply committed to their free bread.

I think every culture should have one free food to get by on. The Italians are almost there with coffee. In Japan it was onigiri, their little rice ball sandwiches. The United States if it had any sense could do French Fries. And here in France, for good or ill, it is the baguette.

Okay fine, the baguette is not free, exactly, but it is so cheap that anyone who can eat bread, or even just wants to feed seagulls, can hardly afford not to buy them. I often see people walking down the streets here with five or six baguettes in their shopping bag. What on earth can they do with six baguettes?! I don't know, but who cares? The entire lot of them cost that person some loose change! They'll figure it out. Croutons? Bread pudding? Avocado toast? Bread crumbs? Something to stop a person from eating too much cheese? It all works, or it doesn't. But the point is it is a risk free venture.

I rarely wander home without a baguette because I usually have a pocket full of change, so why not grab one somewhere? And thus I often have a freshish baguette around the house, and then a couple of older chunks varying from probably okay to 80 percent stale. But I strangely find I rarely have to throw any baguette out. I heat some back up in a bit of olive oil for my aforementioned avocado toast, or have the fresh stuff with some cheese I fell for so the local cheesemonger wont think I'm wasting his time, but more so I find my baguettes replacing anything like rice or pasta I might usually have used in my cuisine. If I'm cooking some nice eggplant with peppers and fresh herbs, putting fresh or old little bits of baguette into it seems to be just the thing to round it out into a full meal.

Is all this white bread good for me?

I don't know. 

I feel okay, and I'm hoping our casually walking for hours and hours every day can cover a vast assortment of sins.

Yeah, I'll drink to that.

The bookstore

 

In the spirit of unadorned photography from around my Belle Epoque City, I have some pictures to show you today of a bookstore, or "librairie".

But a few things before we go. First is the funny, and initially confusing reversal of the English words "Library" and "Bookstore", something that led me to confusion and misunderstanding the first time I went to Paris. A "Library" in French is a "Bibliotheque" which, at least to me, sounds like it would be a bookstore, whereas, as stated, a "Bookstore" is, in French, a "Librairie" which, of course, sounds like it would be a library. It's all a bit Goose Juice and Moose Goose from Dr. Seuss, where the trouble comes when Mooses dream of goose juice and Gooses dream of moose juice.

As an aside, we walked to what we remembered as the truly amazing main library here in this city, which shares a sort of fabulous complex, bridge, and elevated park, with the modern and contemporary museum. But the whole thing was closed down for some major refurbishment project and had no indications of when it would open again. 

But, on the subject of unaltered photos, here are a couple pictures of the terrific dragon fountain in the park above the library and museum:

Anyway, to return to the subject of bookstores here in France, I haven't been into very many. After all, while they seem terribly appealing, how terrible to be faced with so many intriguing books that I AM INCAPABLE OF READING.

Nevertheless, the one pictured below, elaborately Christmassed up, looked so full of charms and treasures, we did venture in to just its vestibule to moon at its displays and all the promise of its antiquities. We could not bear to enter its front doors though, and instead we wandered off to buy chocolate.