Back at Peaceful Malérargues

2/9/07
Jay and Marie Paul picked me up at Arlés yesterday, and we dropped by the “Super U” (pronounced “oo”) grocery on the way back to Malérargues. I love the Super U. It’s like what a grocery store in a small American town used to be before Walmart. You can get groceries, fresh bread and cheese, and sundries, but you can also get pots and pans, socks, and small appliances. I bought a lot of stuff that was heavy or unwieldy (like six packs of toilet paper), because I can’t put that stuff in my backpack when I walk to Lasalle.

After we got back to Malérargues, I unpacked. Oh the beauty of taking out my small treasures bought while traveling and finding places for them in my room! A small print of Abraham and the angels having dinner from the Chagall museum in Nice. A post card of Fra Angelico’s (the English interpretation of Italian Fra Gelico) annunciation scene from the monastery at San Marco in Florence. A perfumed candle from a family-owned- since-1849-perfumery in Nice. And two of my three boxes had arrived while I was gone-- I had a joyful reunion with new sets of clothing, my books and DVD's.

Jay and Marie Paul invited me for dinner in their rooms, and we had a lovely meal of potato-vegetable soup, duck in a sweet reduction sauce, and whipped potatoes. Dessert was a cheese plate and a Toblerone bar I had brought with me from my travels. We had many fascinating conversations, sometimes at the same time. The wine was terrific—Jay and Marie Paul are gourmands.

Today I spent the day doing wash. Truly. Life works more slowly here. So I got up, made coffee, and hand washed some Provincial napkins I bought in Nice, because I didn’t know if their colors would run in the washing machine. I got dressed, and put my dark clothes in the washing machine. 90 MINUTES LATER the machine finished, and I hung my darks on the line to dry. I put my whites in the wash. I went back to my room and made chicken soup for lunch. Did the dishes. 90 minutes later, I hung my whites on the line, and put my bed linens in the wash. Back to my room to transfer the napkins from a drying rack in the bathtub (where they could drip) to a drying rack near my gas heater. I spend an hour outside in the sun reading. I pull the dry darks off the line and arrange the drying whites in the sun. Back to my room, where I begin preparing a dinner of Beof Bourguignon. In the middle, I put my bed linens on the line. After dinner (and doing the dishes), I wait until dusk (6-ish) and take my damp clothing off the line, but leave the linens. By now it’s 7PM. Now I know why our frontier forebears had “days” where certain chores were done—it took the whole day to do one chore!

My hour in the sun reading was glorious. It was warm, the sky was blue and cloudless, the goldfinches were chattering, and little blue flowers, violets and white flowers were blooming in the grass. The grass was longish and smelled like wild onion. And tomorrow, I can look forward to putting on freshly laundered clothes that smell like the mountains—pine, thyme, sage, and woodsmoke.