Here is another polaroid taken last week. Summer in the south of france is hot, we can barely go out in the afternoon sun. Time for a siesta in the hamac, or inside our cool house under shades.
Cleaning the garage, which have been filled up for the last 30 years, i discovered an old Polaroid Camera.
Not knowing how to use it, or if it was even working, i decided to play with it, ordered films (expensive films!) and 3 weeks later, here i am, completely addicted to this new toy.
Each picture is instant, and hm, expensive (a 8 pictures film is 18 Euros, that makes 2 Euros per picture!), and you have little control on how the result will be. However, the results are precious, romantic, spontaneous little slice of life, which you can hold onto, and i just love it.
A few snapshots of the last weeks. We are now settled in our new house in Mérindol, near Aix en Provence, south of France. Spring is already leaving the stage to a nice summer, and we can barely realize that we are here, we made it happen, considering where we where at that time last summer, and the summer before. Whew! We can *really* make anything we want happen, that’s what we hear in our heart each morning walking around our 3000 sm ground with about 100 olive trees, our hamac, our 2 cats and our swimming pool.
We went through a lot, but nothing felt heavy – that is a major learning for me, to move through lots of changes, and keep calm and carry on!
Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here are a few.
Chris with his mom, last summer, austria.
I am experiencing a new level of love and communication with life, with nature. I love every day of it.
I hope we can soon find a nice house, a new nest, comfortable and bright, joyful and calm, surrounded by trees, mountain views, and my little growing farm (2 cats and more coming…!)
Again, there would be so much i could share here, but since i dont plan to live over an hundred years old, there are always choices i must make about how to spend my days: sitting in front of this screen, or be with the trees.
I let you guess which of these 2 options i cherish most.
I’m still here, this is still happening. I dont know if i have just been silent on this blog, or just totally absent. There would be so much to write about, so many observations, ideas, new views on life – that just the thought of having to write it all makes me feel exhausted! Right now, i just had to post this picture of me and my mom, taken last september on their first visit in europe, i think it speaks a lot about our time together.
Paris, so beautiful under the rainbow yesterday evening!
Time for us to decide if we stay or leave. I dont really want to leave, now that i feel at home in the city of light, but at the same time, i crave for a comfortable and spacious home, and long walks at the sea and in the mountains. Staying in Paris would delay again my project of living on the country side, project which i feel both excited and afraid about. Another time of decisions and changes, movement and all that comes with. Another leap, another way for me to tell the Universe, “I trust your plans for me – please dont let me down!”.
C’est maintenant chose faite, je me joins à l’agence Parisienne d’illustration Marie & Nous!
“Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment is better than rest, that doing something–anything–is better than doing nothing. Because of our desire to succeed, to meet these ever-growing expectations, we do not rest. Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the compass points that would show us where to go, we bypass the nourishment that would give us succor. We miss the quiet that would give us wisdom. We miss the joy and love born of effortless delight. Poisoned by this hypnotic belief that good things come only through unceasing determination and tireless effort, we can never truly rest. And for want of rest, our lives are in danger.”
From Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives, via.
Today i took 3 walks, 2 short strolls, and just now, a wonderful 30 minutes walk. This might sound ordinary, but walking is nothing ordinary when you had to stop doing it, and hardly re-learned this simple gesture.
I hurted my knee during our last holiday, and today, almost 4 weeks later, i was able to walk freely and safely again. Walking feels magical — such a basic and grounding movement — allowing us so much freedom.
After watching (and learning to keep faith in) the process involved in healing my knee, i feel more confident in my body’s ability to heal himself — maybe this step was needed on my way to heal my back pain.
These last 4 weeks, confined home and unable to walk, were spent reading the memoirs of Gertrude Stein and Simone de Beauvoir. I could not think of a better place to be reading these books: in our flat, on the 6th floor of the rue Froidevaux, with a beautiful sky view over the Montparnasse cemetery and one of Simone de Beauvoir’s appartement.
In my despair and frustration, i felt grateful to have found these books at this moment of my life, for the universe to allow me another way to freely travel trough this city, it’s history and it’s great spirits.
It is a pure synchronicity that we found ourselves here, we had no idea about this area of Paris, and it’s history, before moving in. Back in march when we arrived, walking boulevard Raspail was nothing exotic, but then, after reading these 2 memoirs, my walk on Raspail today took a completely new twist: my view of this boulevard, the people who have lived here (SDB, Picasso, ..), the historical events that have taken place, it’s bars and coffees that hosted and inspired so many — all this scenery is totally taking me, and talking to me.
That is how i feel about our time in Paris.
March was cold and gray, we just arrived, exhausted after weeks of preparation, and i felt deeply tired, cold and homesick. April and May were time for us to go trough the loss of our little lilo. June started, we left for a much needed time off in nature, which was beautiful, and yet another drama, i felt on the rocks and my knee will need 2 to 3 weeks to recover.
From my window it feels like Paris is a city i ought to visit, some day.
Some days are easier, more light filled than others. Some days, i just crash and let tears poor over me. It is hard to let C. see me like this, vulnerable and in distress. In the past, if i did not feel good, i just retreated in my flat (we had 2 apartments), so i could take the hours or days needed to get back on my feet, by myself. Here, in this furnished 55 sq. meters, there is not so much place to hide my tears and discouragement — my bed, my bath tub, my balcony, my grounding walks on guilford street under its trees — all my hiding/grouding places are gone and i must find new ones. My despair can be felt in the air, and there is C. to witness it. Despair added with the frustration of being seen like this, not able to hide and be seen just when i am in some sort of control.
Some days are much lighter. I discovered that the part of me which calls for rest as i know it is in fact dragging me in the dark. If i stay in bed and listen to this part of me, who wants to stay in and wait until i feel better, it is not helping. These days, i feel my spirit rest much more if i fill my days with activities, simple ones: going writing at the coffee, going shopping, visiting a new area, visiting a park, reading. So the rule of thumb is, i must get out of this apartment, as often as i can, and this is big surprise to my ego who just wants me to stay inside and rest, which in fact is a perfect recipe for thinking and ruminating too much over things that drag me down (dad sickness, my backpain, the sudden loss of my loved cat, the homesickness, the change of country, the lack of social activities, and so on). When i re-read this list, i see how compassion i should have for myself, for taking such a leap of faith and take so many risks while my feet where deep in the mud.
I discovered that i must not surrender to my ego worrying — worrying seems like a drug, an addiction i must not slip in. If i leave too much empty space in my head, if i dont keep myself busy with fun activities, if i let my mind ungarded, the space will be filled with deadening thoughts, sending me swimming in a dark pool. This empty space feels huge, and for the last years i have been assigning my unhappiness to many labels: boring work, lack of money, my relationship with C, back pain, the city we lived in, my dad sickness and so on. I went on running from one drama to the other, this because i was, and still am, deeply unfulfilled somewhere. From one drama to the other i go, pointing my finger at any event i find to be the cause of my unhappiness. This goes on and on, one drama to the other, but i must find what lies under all of this, where i am unfulfilled, what do i miss.
Play and fun are definitely missing. For the last 15 years, the only fun times i had where mostly related to my creative work. I was on fire, and felt passionate and alive in my work. Since some years, my work is no source of fun and play anymore, and no play for too long is no good for anyone. So today i look for what could bring me joy, what could light up my heart, what would bring happiness at the core of me. The voices in my head are running around like headless chicken ‘just work on your art, there is so much to do!’, but work is exactly what i have no feeling for. Pushing, trying, producing — my heart calls for fun, easy going time away from the computer — writing, reading, walking in the park, being close to nature – simple things to ground myself, recharge my batteries, get my head clear.
One thing i learned the first week of my 35th year is that there will always be many unanswered questions in my head, and i must live with that. What i cant afford is to let my ego fill out the emptiness inside me, how he likes to.
Un court message pour vous remercier de tout les commentaires sur mon dernier billet, vos courriels et messages laissés ici m’aident énormément.
Je fais des démarches pour aider mon corps à retrouver son équilibre, son harmonie. Des anti-douleur prescrit par ma doc, des scéances de kiné 2 fois la semaine, tests sanguins pour être certaine que je ne déraille pas à cause d’une carence ou d’un dérèglement de ma machinerie interne, et écographie pour me rassurer.
Pourquoi suis-je devenue si craintive de la maladie? Est-ce l’âge, ou le fait d’avoir plusieurs cancers autour de moi?
Ma belle mère adorée nous dis qu’elle est aussi passé par là autour de ses 35 ans. Il semblerait que sur une trop longue période, les questionnement et insécuritées engendrent une forme de détresse, qui engendre à son tour un vide si grand, que l’égo prend en charge de remplir ce vide par tout ce qu’il peut immaginer comme scénarios d’horreur. Si on ne se charge pas de s’occuper par ce qui nous rend heureux, les maux apparaissent.
Ma doc me dis la même chose : les maux de dos trouvent très souvent leurs origines dans la tête. Soigner l’humeur du patient et les maux s’estompent.
Comment me soigner, reprendre le dessus naturellement?
Depuis des années que je me cherche, que je cherche ma voie. Je me rend compte qu’il n’y a rien à trouver, qu’il faut peut-être que j’arrête de chercher, que je prenne ce que la semaine en cours a à m’offrir. Essayer de garder un objectif, la direction de mon voyage, mais arrêter de m’accrocher à trouver *la* réponse à ce que je vais faire de cette vie.
Mon égo aimerait tellement avoir un plan clair et précis, avec des chiffres et des résultats. Un agenda remplis, des to-do rayés, des objectifs atteints, une direction, la reconnaissance et le succès.
Et pourtant, tout ce dont je suis capable, c’est d’avancer, d’un projet à l’autre, sans trop savoir.
Flâner à travers la vie comme on le fait à travers un champ. Profiter, essayer, jouer.
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