A Sunday Market - 25 September 2011
25th September, 2011
It's a lonely sort of Sunday; grey, slightly damp. We decide to let it be low-key. We both feel a bit dyspeptic, partly from a too rich dinner last night at a local restaurant, where we celebrated our 21st Anniversary by being presented with 2 candlelit desserts accompanied by 2 waiters singing Happy Birthday to us. Okay.
When I blew out my candle I wished for another 21 years of us.
And it is just us,here; no friends, no language. There's a particular loneliness to being a couple alone in a strange place. A little bit of horror when looking at each other and realizing "it's just you and me, babe." We have, after all, Flown the Coop. And it's surprising to be this old and still feel like baby chicks. Then again, we don't feel like baby chicks at all but like two vulnerable, aging people.
The toe injury didn't help. What is it about Provence? On our first trip here in the spring, you may remember, Joel burned his hand, badly, on Day 4. On day 4 of this trip I injured my big toe. It's spooked me. You burn your hand or jamb your toe when you're in your 20's and it's a drag. You do it in your 60's and 70's and it feels like a warning. Then again, we did scale that second story terrace in July!
Like I said it's a lonely kind of Sunday. If I wasn't 65 I'd think I was getting my period. Yet we did make a lovely breakfast, Joel trotting down the hill for a baguette and croissant, me in my nightie cooking pancetta and boiling the water for the eggs. It really was just fine and yet we both knew we were fragile today.
Still, driven as we are, we just had to put in a load of laundry before taking off for the market in Coustellet. Why? Why do we have to do a laundry when we have no dryer and it's a chilly damp day. Are we insistent upon defeat? Why, when we're this fragile and need each other to be perfect do we ask of ourselves that we study an array of bottles and cartons - all in French - trying to figure out which is detergent and which bleach. We're doing a colored wash - the langauge needs to be specific. We're at each other within minutes.
Is it merely human to make one's partner the enemy when you need them the most? Are we that terrified of dependance or is it the inevitable disappointments we guard against?
And then suddenly we're both so glad we're not in our 20's because it would be days before burying the hatchet. And that's it, isn't it? When you're younger you just bury the instrument of hacking each other to death. You don't actually chuck it out. You just bury it under a foot of sod and wait to see who unearths it first. Now all it takes is one good whack, which now that our aim is not so good fails to wound, and then we're in each other's arms.
Having finally found the detergent and hit the departe button, we depart ourselves for Coustellet, driving along some pretty back roads which we will revisit when the light returns. We pass a beautiful orchard, the tops of the trees appearing sunlit, even thought the sun is not in residence today. It was merely the bronzing of autumn's onset. As our side of the road had no shoulder, we decided to stop on the way back.
The market was sweet and easy as can be. Some Provencal markets can be quite aggressive, not so much the sellers, but the shoppers, greedy to get to the best of everything, first. But this one, maybe because it was Sunday, was one to stroll through, which we did, stopping first to buy 2 old egg cups. Then someone called "Jo-el," and we ignored it because it's just the 2 of us here, right? And then again, like a dove call, "Jo-el." We turn and there are Caro and Paul and suddenly we're like shy teenagers, we're so happy to "know" someone in this foreign land.
They give us the insiders' tip on a special onion and we part company. The stalls are about to close, but we manage to find herb plants for the kitchen window sill: a pot each of oregano, thyme and rosemary. And then we locate the onion lady and buy a huge one, along with an equally enormous tomato. Next we make friends with the goat cheese lady, Patricia, who invites us to come to her house next Saturday so that we can see her process.
Amazing what happens when you leave home.
On the way back we stop so Joel can photograph the orchard. I don't have my glasses on so I have no idea what sort of orchard it is, but I'm guessing cherry. It's so comforting to look at, stately even, and I long to walk in there and wonder, now, why I didn't. While Joel shoots, I pick some wildflowers and some fennel, growing right here by the road. It feels so kind. A wayside offering to a weary traveller.
Back home we make lunch from the cheese, onion, tomato and the last of the baguette. The onion is sweet and doesn't make us cry.