BACK IN THE SADDLE

Ahhhhh

Vide-Grenier going on the other day

Yup, so there I was, standing in the middle of Place de Prêcheurs at a Vide-Grenier, or city-wide garage sale, overwhelmed and wondering how I got  there. But as at Brimfield, the only thing to do is narrow the vision and be content to let things pass by. Not a lot of details, but I can tell you there was in abundance black clothes, children's plastic things and used tomato sauce jars. I was pumped to score a good quality white button down shirt that turns out is too tight for me and likely will be too short for the girl. Bargain shopper extraordinaire! But the olive wood mortar and pestle will bring me years of joy. 

It's in rehab now, but can't wait to bang some fresh , local garlic in there

This lady, selling costume jewelry,  was my favorite

​So back in Aix, yes, and this time committed. The summer in Boston, filled with work and fun and friends and tennis, was made complicated only by deliberations about what of my things would be shipped to France, ending with a resounding crescendo of commitment to two Le Creusets, winterish clothes I'd no longer need there, books and items so random that I'm told explain how my brain works. They're in the big box below and their contents will be shared when they arrive, hopefully beginning of November. 

When I was packing, I kept thinking about not wanting to be Steve Martin in The Jerk, who when he and his wife split up, starts by saying "I'll only tae xxx", but then keeps adding on. 

You can't really tell, but this bag is big enough for me to get in and be zippered up. Small le Creuset safely wrapped inside, big one in the middle box above, with a straw hat and a new down pillow.

There was also the precarious task of renting out my furnished place for half the year, which took until the 11th hour.  I had become desperate enough to work with a local rental realtor that I'll call Fetro to protect their reputation, who brought me a couple who happened to be friends of the agent's, both 26, with backgrounds that made me nervous. As well as not flexing on the rent (in their defense, foreign student attendance is down by 15% in Boston thanks to new visa requirements, depressing the one and two bedroom market by an average of 25%, a first since I purchased in 1995) or timing, as well as insisting I give up my locked storage closet so that she could have somewhere to put her Christmas decorations. Bad bad vibes. Ready to sign with them, in the nick of time, Philippe, a French Harvard professor showed up with Einstein hair, an expensive bike, a violin and a suitcase. When I passed on the original couple, the agency sent me an email with so many profanities that I was physically scared to pick up the set of keys I had loaned them.  Tampis pour moi, as they say.

Empty bedroom closet. It's not a little work emptying everything out.

Impromptu drink, night before, with Jenn and Laura, who had just come from paddle, sigh.

Ciao, ciao

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Now I'm not one for logistics, as anyone can attest, so the thought of coordinating this move, and then dealing with French bureaucracy, had been sitting heavy since last April, when I began researching long-term rentals. To rent an apartment, I needed a bank account, and to get a bank account, I needed a permanent address....  Some people are good at dealing with this sort of thing, but my way of dealing with it was to being looking into Bulgaria's reputation as a welcoming place for digital nomads.  Realizing that might not be a good Lon-term solution, I instead ponied up some cash early this summer to hire a well-recommended-by-Aix-ex-pats relocation expert, who would find me a place to live and handle all the logistics. And to make a long and not very interesting story short, I'll just say that I'm in an airbnb for a month with fingers crossed that  it will all be over soon. 

Apparently I will have to beg someone to let me give them money to live in their otherwise empty place, and some will still not take it, despite being tenantless.  So when I was at the grocery store two days ago, laden with items, and got a text saying "Can you be in Centreville in 20 minutes?" I dropped everything, did my best to aggressively shuffle home in Birkenstocks that are a size too big, changed into my sneakers and literally ran up the hill, only to wait for half an hour, heheheh, jokes on me. Oh, these French are so funny, they are. My real estate lady had been sending me potential apartments that were not at all what I was looking for; new with low ceilings and small windows, so when Jean-Luc finally arrived and showed me the apartment, I warmed to the ancient stone stairs and balustrade that winded gracefully, the high ceilings with a medallion, old glass in the tall windows. But the apartment itself was an odd configuration that seemed to only make sense in its iteration,  a doctor's office with three examining rooms.  When I expressed my confusion (in French, I'll have you know) about ways to lay things out to make the space livable, Jean-Luc agreed and shrugged, which made it all worthwhile.

Doctors office with a face lift, examining rooms lined up on the left

​After, we stood outside for about 45 minutes so that he could tell me about his son who had studied Russian and been there 40 or 50 times. This led to him sharing his unsolicited opinion of why Putin was actually a good leader whose people appreciated his strong oversight, which of course led to the scary "Ah, Americaine, Trump" blah blah blah (which according to google translate, is bla, bla, bla in French). I learned that Trump had been right to have berated the French for abandoning the manufacture of gas-powered cars. On and on. But here's the thing. While Jean-Luc may have been talking at me and doing his best to bait me, he was playful, with a sparkle in his eye, and handsome. For the most part I didn't bite, rather employed skeptical facial expressions and taught him a new expression. "Even a blind squirrel can find an acorn every once in a while." He laughed.

Goldens that are actually delicious

Back jaw flapping at La Mado with Julia

Waiting for the bus

A reassuring sky

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Atypical Aix colors, good nonetheless

There's more time here for things that matter to me

My favorite hike smelled of jasmine

The sky really was almost this color. Tour Cesar

I can eat this, right? It's mushroom season.

The real deal at the market

Huge selection

My walk home down the enchanted road

​But of course it's not all oligarchs and disappointments, there's the life of Aix that seeps into one's soul after a day or two. There's the food, always the food, friends whom I've missed, color, such color, content voices in the cafes echoing softly off the buildings in Place Richelme in the evening, a reassuring sky and the smell of my aunt's perfume permeating a certain road. And while my temporary apartment originally felt disappointingly a 25 minute walk outside of Centreville, I've come to love the back road I take that always has beautiful light. The other day at sunset, I was grateful my friend Uta had given me a book of Mary Oliver poems, one of which I had just read that morning.

Why do people keep asking to see
     God's identity papers
when the darkness opening into morning
     is more than enough?
Certainly any god might turn away in disgust.
Think of Sheba approaching 
     the kingdom of Solomon.
Do you think she had to ask,
     "Is this the place?"