WHICH DIRECTION HOME - 1 May 2011
Sunday, 1st May 2011
Three mornings ago we were taking our daily walk in Riverside Park and on the return loop came across a bank of violets. We were immediately taken back to our first week in Provence and the Violet Festival in TSL.
It felt both comforting and sad: the former because it reminded us of the beginning of our love affair with Provence and the latter because the circle was now complete. It was also slightly disorienting – how could it be that the violets were only just now blooming here, seven weeks later than there, and even that was a bit comforting, to know that America isn’t first in everything.
We’ve been “home” for a week and a day now and yet a part of us doesn’t seem to have arrived. Were we changed by our experience, or are we just aging and priorities are changing? The truth is we miss the rhythm and a certain kind of peace we experienced in Provence. The wild, restless and relentless energy of New York is not quite as exciting for us as it used to be.
Of course, it has to be taken into consideration that those weeks we spent in France were not “ordinary” life . . . or so we and others try to tell us. It’s true we weren’t opening the daily mail and paying the bills – our dear Studio Director, Ember, was doing that as well as fielding calls and making decisions on our behalf. But in what other way was it not ordinary life? We shopped for food, cooked, did the laundry and hung it on the line to dry. We cleaned the house and we worked. We worked everyday, not only on the book, but each of us separately: Joel communicating with the studio, answering emails and making decisions only he can make, me doing Skype sessions. So what’s the difference?
Joel will maybe have a slightly different answer, but for me the difference is that there I felt on my clock, as though the internal rhythm of my nature was in sync. This feeling of moving at the right pace seemed to bring forth a more gentle side of my personality. I felt in my skin, so to speak, and as a result felt an ease that allowed me to open up to the world around me.
Yes, it took us a while to really open to Provence. Our deep attachment to Tuscany brought out a certain kind of loyalty to that love and as a result we did a lot of comparison in the early days and found Provence coming up short. It was much like the way the memories and qualities of an ex-lover interfere with our willingness to see and accept the attributes of the new lover.
So is this what we’re doing now, in New York? Are we holding on to Provence to such an extent that we cannot see and enjoy what this city has to offer? I think to some extent we are. I think if I’m really honest I’d have to say that when I first saw those violets in the park the other morning I was resentful. How dare they exist here, too? But that feeling quickly softened to a sort of poignant gratitude and as I bent to pick a single flower I knew that I would press it into these pages, knew that it would become that which violets are meant to become: a symbol of remembrance for that which we hold dear.
I look out the window and see a flock of Canadian Geese returning north for the summer, their perfect V formation like a dark arrow in the sky. Then, suddenly, they fall into chaotic disarray, turn, and start to head back south. What’s going on? The cause of their disorientation enters the frame; a mad, whirring helicopter carrying tourists back to midtown. The geese collect themselves, fall into position and head for home.
