Day 16 - SkyLines from the French Lock-down: Silent Spring?

 Bonjour nos amis! (Hello Friends!)

Paris - one evening last year.

I got up early to write this morning - that made it easier to pretend that life is normal.  We opened the windows to air out the house and discovered it was still really cold.  But it's a Wednesday according to my computer and there is no sound coming in the windows.  It should be market day with the bustle and color of visitors and trade.  The village is silent.  It's almost a Silent Spring, except instead of it being pesticides killing the ecosystem, it's a virus that is spreading like wildfire.  Nearly 500 died yesterday in France.  America, Spain, and Italy lost 912, 837, and 748 respectively.  England and numerous others had shocking losses too. I can't talk about it anymore today.  How about I tell you a love story instead of the news, okay? 


Day 16 - If you had told me last year that the government was going to confine me to the house for weeks with the handsome, interesting man I had just met, I would have said it sounded like an unlikely rom-com plot line.  It could be funny, emotional, tender, domestic, snarky, full of language confusions (as he is French with only a smidgen of English and I'm an American with

Dali - in Perpignan

what we will call "working" French) and it would definitely test the strength of the newly formed relationship. The actors would make us laugh with how they rolled their eyes over the challenge of the woman who has a cat with "la personnalitéé" (to put it mildly) and the guy who has never had a pet in his life.  Throw in that she's a vegetarian learning to live with a man who is a dedicated omnivore and has "the fridge full of meat" angle to add a certain tension.  

So far, the plot has only strengthened our belief that we are good for each other and stronger

Part of the  château in my village

together than apart.  We do have laughs at the confusions we cause for each other.  Like the fact that neither of us was actually excited about a coffee colored wall paint but each thought the other loved it.  Yes.  There is a small feature wall that we are gradually getting used to.  At the moment there is no way we can change that so we just smile.

More of the château 

We are both independent people each with our own houses and rooms full of books. Life under quarantine for many people is stressful.  But we are very fortunate in our confinement.  

The village of Argelès sur Mer where my partner, Y, bought a house last year, is ten times the size of my village.  There are several places to buy groceries, a number of cafes, and the doctor's office is about four blocks from us.  

My bank is on the main street.  I have many friends here and drove in from my village often for the twice weekly market.  So I enjoy being here.  My village is wonderful, but has only a small grocery store with a coffee machine.  When

My village is rural!

I say small, imagine I'm talking about the size of a small living room in America.  Yes, very small.  To get most of my basic supplies, I have drive to the next town or beyond.  But I've always liked the drive because the countryside is stunning.  Think Provence with longer sandy beaches and artichoke fields instead of lavender. The classic stone buildings look very much the same.

We met in February last year and spent the first six months dating, mostly in Perpignan where he'd rented an apartment.  He was working nearly every day on his house which was being renovated from the ground up.  I was writing a steamy romance novel. 

A bit like Provence

Getting together in the brasserie in Argelès or meeting up to have lunch in a sunny plaza in the lively Catalan city was fun.  He took me to the Arab market and we drank mint tea that was far too sweet for me under the leafy shade of the Plane trees.  There were long summer days at the beach and I made efforts to windsurf because it is his passion and I do enjoy being active. Eventually we decided to see if domestic life would work.  Some days I stayed at his place and on others he stayed at mine.

My neighbors liked him, my ski club buddies said I'd found a keeper when he joined us on the weekly outings.  I knew that I felt the same.  At last the house was ready to be lived in.  Y invited me to bring the cat and that was the moment I was sure it was love.  I mean, I knew how irritating she could be and she had decided she loved him too.  Which meant she was especially irritating toward him, trying to convince him that she was really a lap cat. (She isn't) I packed a bag.  

 We developed a routine of breakfast at home then an hour or more sitting in one of our five cafes.  Y would read and people watch, I would write.  Friends would join us at our table and we often ate out since our culinary skills were basic. The warm summer days gave way to the beauty of autumn.  The book was finished and the love story in it felt pale in comparison to ours.  Christmas came and we

A Paris sunset in December

traveled.  Paris has always been "the city" to me because my parents were stationed there in the sixties, my sister was born there, and I went to pre-school for in the suburbs before we returned state-side.  Five visits as an adult confirmed what I suspected as a youngster. Paris is in my heart. 

 But when Y took me to see "his Paris" all the wonderful memories I already had of it became entwined with the stories of his life as a gendarme in the City of Light.  We ate in brasseries he'd frequented and bought books to add to our ever-growing collection.  Even the strike that had stopped the trains and closed down the Metro couldn't put a damper on the magic of Christmas in Paris.  (We rode a bus to get there and it took all day - but hey, Paris is worth it!)  From there, it was a

Tropical Waterfalls!

twelve hour plane ride to a tropical island to complete the adventure and visit some of his family.  Coming back to the south of France, it suddenly felt a bit chilly! At least the cat was happy to be back home from the kennel.

We returned to our "cafe life" and expected to spend the next two months skiing with our club. Then Gloria destroyed the mountain road so we sat in the cafes and worked out alternatives with a neighbor.  The doctor, whose office is across from one of our cafes would join us at our table.  I loved the idea that between patients he took a break to drink espresso with the people in the village.  I decided that the next time I needed to see a doctor, I would change mine who is farther away.  It would be more convenient I thought. 

But there was no rush,  I told myself, because like most people, I try to avoid going!  And besides, we were too busy planning new adventures and learning to cook together.

Of course we'd heard about the virus that was getting bad in China.  But surely they would get

A tropical garen

it under control.  And besides, wasn't it just another flu?  That's what people were saying.  Then, at the end of February, someone we trusted said he thought it might get a lot more serious than anyone was saying.  We went to the village doctor's office the next day and made sure we were on his list. It was the beginning of March.  I worried for days afterwards that we might have been exposed by going there.  Even at that point people were beginning to wrap scarves around their faces and look at one another warily.  So far, we seem to be fine.  

He's cooking, I'm playing
with my phone pictures.

We were doing renovations at my village house just before the virus swept the globe. (That's were the feature wall is...)  We thought we'd be spending half our time in his house and half in mine.  We aren't rich and so we had a plan.  We listed our homes on exchange sites and signed up for Air B&B.  Bookings had been confirmed.  Our plan was to travel, wind-surf, hang out at the beach we both love with a passion, and continue to love our cafe-life.  I was going to have to work hard to find time to write any of the five books I had outlined.  When the first discussions of  "social distancing" started, we thought we'd just go to my house every day and work on the improvements.  

Then came the quarantine.  There was no question as to which village we should stay in.  I knew I would rather be closer to the doctor's office and in a place with stores that deliver.  Suddenly, I finally have enough time to write.  The children's book set on Mars is more than half finished.  I've had time to write a blog again.  Y has read so many books, he's afraid he'll run out.  Getting more books from my house is not an option.  Besides, most of them are in English!  Life as we knew it has been put on hold and here we are 24-7 in each other's space.  And the plans we'd made to travel?  On the shelf until next year.  

I'm a California girl, born and raised.  I wanted my man to see my state and some of the others nearby.  We'd planned for him to meet my family, rent a van, camp down to the border, maybe see Baja, definitely the Grand Canyon, some of Route 66 and the painted desert.  But that won't be this year.  This year,we're staying in.  Speaking of California - I really miss Mexican food, so our plan for the day is to try our hand at homemade enchilada sauce and create one of my favorite dishes.  It won't be easy - I only have French ingredients and a packet of store bought corn & flour tortillas.  Not correct, I know but we will do our best!

And yes - the spring is quiet, but there is a sea gull outside on the neighbor's roof right now and

A neighbor's house in the village

he's making a racket.  It's quiet but it's not silent.  I went to the window as I made a cup of tea.  There below, an older couple were looking up at the flowering potato vine.  She gestured to it and cupped one of the flowers.  He came over and picked the floret and gave it to her.  They smiled.  It is still spring in all of our hearts.

 So here we are, like the rest of the planet, hoping and waiting on a vaccine, a treatment, an immunity to be developed.  We're staying in, just like you.  Please let the curve flatten out.  Please, may today not be as devastating to so many lives.  We're just as much in love now as we were last spring.  Maybe even more as we spend this time in contemplation, trying to keep busy.  I read the news when I got up.  There is something to give us hope.  The new cases in Italy are dropping.  Quarantine is working.  

One day, we'll be that couple at the cafe again.
Until then, we're staying home.

Until tomorrow, dear friends, I'll be thinking of you as I work on my next chapter - will those kids on Mars ever stop being a worry to their parents?  I don't think so!  And I'll be thinking of you as we make the enchiladas.  There is hope and we are all connected in this world-changing story.  Look up!  Spring is here.  We are here.  Be safe and we'll get through this together. 

A demain!  Link to Day 17