OUR DAILY BREAD

April 5 2013I went to bed last night thinking about today’s breakfast; a runny goat cheese lay under a glass dome on our counter, drooling all over itself in anticipation of the croissant it would soon enter, along with a good daub of local honey.The cheese arrived yesterday, courtesy of Sharon and Paul, a luscious addition to a late lunch of ceci soup, broccoli and mushroom omelet scented with thyme and chives from the garden and the inevitable baguettes. Then we drove to Avignon to see a film, but first a cobblestone walk along the ancient streets to get our ice-cream and espresso fix and then the four of us, like double-dating teenagers, hurried through the rain to the cinema. You can’t be late here…they won’t let you in; just another measure of respect that the Provençal have for the effort of the artist.The cinema itself was a work of art; nestled at the far end of a centuries old courtyard whose trees glistened with dripping rain. Inside, a small brasserie to the left and an even smaller café to the right, then up the winding staircase and voila, a well proportioned room with a hundred plush red velvet chairs complete with headrests. This is the second time since we’ve been here that we’ve gone to a French movie…no subtitles. A courageous endeavor, in that beyond taking care of our basic needs, none of us can claim to speak French and of course when the French speak French it’s not only fluent it’s at high speed.But who needs language when you have Juliette Binoche and a filmmaker of Bruno Dumont’s caliber. The film: Camille Claudel 1915, takes place in the asylum where she was incarcerated by her barbaric family for being crazy enough to be both a sexy woman and a brilliant artist. We’re talking less that 100 years ago, and while it is true that some women in some countries have made some progress toward equality, total equality exists for very few of us and for most women it is totally unimaginable. This reality remains largely ignored in spite of the continued stoning of women for being raped, the facial disfigurement via acid if a woman’s dowry isn’t big enough, and the horrendous practice of cutting off the clitoris. . .The film was riveting, the audience rapt, and the ride home blessedly cleansed by a spring downpour. Sharon and I sat in the back seat, deeply saddened to be reminded of how very few women have the freedom to live in the manner that we do.Sadness has been part of the atmosphere this week; we lost another friend on Sunday, a vivacious, generous, spirited woman, gone too young. She and her husband were teenage sweethearts and were, all these decades later, still sweethearts. On Wednesday we went to Lumiere, a tiny village just a few kilometers from here, and discovered there a sanctuary. Although neither of us is religious we are still capable of being moved, in some places of worship, by the universal need to believe in something larger than ourselves along with the yearning for redemption.This sanctuary held the surprise of a sunlit grotto – hence Lumiere – and the innocence and joy that emanated from it reminded us of our friend and we lit a candle for her there.Off to the side of the grotto, a small room called to us and upon entering we saw two tree stumps placed on simple rugs before an equally simple coffin. I thought it an extraordinary invitation, to sit on a stump and become one’s own tree of life while contemplating one’s death. Beyond the coffin, high up on the wall, was a small window of rapturous stained glass, which for some may represent the possibility of an afterlife, but for me was a window of opportunity; opportunity to accept that all things exist simultaneously. My death is daily with me as is the light.Photo; Maggie BarrettWe sat awhile, and then wandered out into nature, taking a walk up the stony winding path to a small chapel faced-down by an enormous overhang of rock face and it seemed to me to be both a metaphor for the ridiculous scale of man in relation to nature as well as an example of the hubris of faith.

So it was with great pleasure and gratitude that I walked up our lane early this morning and turning on to the village street was greeted by the perfume of the Boulangerie, and in that same moment felt some small waft of sadness that soon we will be gone from here.