Libération

 

 

Photo by Agence Istra, quartier Libération

Libération

    In the queue at the tax office I bandy French with the others… joking and laughing… a hard won privilege, as for five years at least, I lost the power to “speak my person”… jumping enthusiastically into conversation only to feel silence and the chagrin of blank stares.

    Arranging one’s chosen words in another language, serving up a helping of a joke, is a freedom I earned slowly…arising from tenacity, the roving ear of a spy, and a streak of shameless audacity. 

   I think about the idea of“metamorphosis” now while sitting out front in the newly minted“French Coffee Shop”.  It’s among all the other cafes here in my preferred quarter: “ Liberation”, an apt name, with its towering trees, mix of old and young chatting and choosing from the market stalls that punctuate the pavement most mornings. We’re free of traffic here too.  Only the sleek trams pass through… gliding along without a fuss like helpful garden snakes.  

     I sit in the October sun content to contemplate an imposing facade before me. It is art “deco”with female“mascaron”and a giant limestone dragonfly, a crumbling white relic with soft green shutters, and a faded dignity.

    She speaks to me of another Nice…of opulence and verve and for no good reason my mind leaps back to Paris, 1937, before the worst fears…with Mistinguette singing “Je Cherche un Millionaire”.  Who knows, she might have stayed here across from me when this edifice was modern and arrogant with youth. 

     That was another time with other folks, not so different from us, really…stopping at sidewalk cafes to pass the time, jollying babies or dogs.  A few may be jotting notes, as I am now, my “Venoise” before me….reflecting, gazing..while this oddly chosen life unfolds perfectly around me. 

 

Medium Rare

 Image by Frenchentree.com

 Medium Rare

When I was still in high school I got invited by a boy to go on a real date.  These were few as my parents needed to meet the boy before they allowed me to go out and I refused, in some cases, to suffer this indignity. 

  My first boyfriend was from the church youth group so he was approved.  But I eventually got so tired of my routine with him that I hid under the house one day (with the black widow spiders) when I heard the sound of his motorcycle coming up the drive. 

“Well, that is strange . She was just here.  You can wait if you like” I heard my mother say.

The wait in the crawl space seemed interminable but finally my suitor left.  The next day I complained to my friend, Jane.  “Well, I wish I were going out with him.  You are lucky,” she said.  

An introduction was arranged and soon, Gene, was off my hands.  They made a fine couple for about a year, as I recall.  I stayed “single” throughout that year and sampled here and there. 

The second lad came later and he actually had money to take me to a restaurant.  My parents consented and off we went to a steak house.  I had never been to one.

  To raise five children and insure their college education was paid in full, my parents took us to only two kinds of eateries.  The first was for a lovely bean soup served at the counter at the A&P market.  We ate lots of saltines with that or “healthy” crackers that my mother brought with her.   …some sort of hard tack which were enticingly called “rye crisps”. 

The second was a child’s dream of a place called “Cliftons”.  It was a cafeteria but was dark inside and decorated  like an exotic island. There were favors for the kids and little parasols in our iced drinks,  …the kind of kitsch which kids adore.   That is where I had my first Salisbury steak and my first restaurant turkey slices with mashed potatoes and cream gravy.    

But never in my life were “ t-bone”, “prime rib” or any expensive cuts of meat on our family menu.  So really I knew nothing about what the French call “ saignant “ ( rare) , “a point”, ( medium rare),  “cuit” ( medium well) or “bien cuit”( well done) not to mention…”trop cuit” describing a tortured piece of beef …black and hard.  Actually, a steak cooked just over a minute on each side is called “steak rose”. 

So on this date, when we got to the restaurant and the waiter asked me how I liked my meat, I hesitated.  Was “cooked” the word he was looking for?  Finally, he asked “medium or well”?   I had no idea what he was after so I said I like it cooked all the way through.   

The conversation was labored as I tried to tackle the shriveled morsel of steak with the inadequate knife I had been given.  The date dragged on with this shy boy and my chagrin kept our conversation forced and embarrassing.   We were probably both relieved when it was over. 

It would be some years before I found myself ordering steak again.  By that time I had learned that I like meat grilled “medium rare” and it would be many more years until I would be saying “Je voudrais un steak rośe.” As I say now, “Sil vous Plâit.”

 Storm Alex, Oct 8, 2020, Nice France, Image by Sky News

                          
 Septuagenarian out along the sea,  5am, Nice France

She hadn’t wanted to go out today.     

rain they said…

A tussle with stalactite mind,

bristling at a dare, 

No rain yet, she pulls on layers, resigned.

 

Starting out’s a doddle.

Breezes almost warm,

palm trees in sway recall

a Hawaiian moment 

restoring rare resolve.

The body is a kingdom, ancient but revered, connections purring,

wizened workings stirring,

Spider knees holding, folding.

King’s laborers working as one. 

The waves are drama now,

even for a sea,

the prologue Shakespearean,

tempest primed though barely birthed,

an hour, perhaps, before cloudburst.

There is frenzy. There is fanfare 

A drumroll dervish follows the wheels.               

Clattering flagpoles tap, tap, tingle.

Beach stall flags in tatters now

whip the air like sea snakes.

Most days in muted dark

she recites poetry aloud

No answer but the crack of a gull.

But all that's aside now

As the gale grows full.

In record time she’s up the hill 

on descent, a cobra’s clench.

A new wind joins the first.

The clutch/ hold thrill

of a child’s tag game.

Nothing for it but to go inland.

She pumps furiously to be off the street.

She gropes the last slope.

Meters away from the gate,

she feels the first drops.

If the storm passes, tomorrow she’ll go.  

Four days, she’s promised herself,

four in a row.

On Friday she’ll revel...marveling again at what it takes to tame one small habit.

This storm turned out to be the start of Storm Alex which devastated many villages and the only rail line going through villages from Breil sur Roya to Tende, France. Oct. 8, 2020.

Can a Rose be...by Mary Payne

 

Can a Rose be… 

To gaze upon a life of dreams fulfilled

to count among the years, but common strife,

to be seen guileless but illusion filled,

One still can boast a full and wondrous life.

And yet the spur of youth was always there,

insuring years that held more promise still,

but now no hope of strength, nor skin so fair 

can make the roles we choose an ease to fill. 

The battle’s in the mind where thoughts are born. 

Creases don’t halt the mischief in the eye,

And we are free, if from the mirror torn,

we love ourselves the same as time goes by.

The challenged life starts as the body fails.  

Can a rose be yet treasured, as it pales?

 

Practice in writing a sonnet

alternate rhyme. ABAB, CDCD EFEF GG

Iambic pentameter

Small Exchanges

 

Small Exchanges by Mary Payne

 A small encounter at a school in Sri Lanka, photo by marympayne

 I look for excuses for small exchanges…”I like your bag, so colorful." “Not so humid today…. lucky for the rain last night.”

 I see the Muslim mother covered head to toe in 32 degree heat, her four children spread around her like a fan… bright beach floats and bags bounce around us. They’re all tired, ready for home.  We’re waiting for the number 12 bus,

sweltering in direct sun.  It is a wonder that she is so calm, composed.  

I say something to her 5 year old, the fussy one of the four.  He is so startled to hear me that he stops his whining to stare, clutching on to his mother’s long skirts. The mother and I exchange a smile and a sentence. She says in broken French, that it is not her country, not her language… to explain why she can’t talk further.  But our exchange really needs no language. What we needed has already been accomplished.

Don’t we love to go to the restaurant and have the young waiter stop to converse with us over lunch. He has served all the tables now.  He wants us to be pleased, love his food.  He is co-owner; the restaurant new, but he doesn’t have to stop and talk, to introduce himself.  It makes us happy. We feel the implied friendship, the promise of conversation when we return.  

I notice that many people are indeed, kind. Some thank the bus driver.  Some help the frail ones out with their wheeled carts.  Sometimes the young ones look up from their phones and give up their seats….multi-tasking.

When we thank a kindness here, they say back to us, "de rien".  "It was nothing." But it's not

nothing.  It's "huge" as my sister would say.

Monsieur always lets people go ahead. “You only have a few things, go ahead.”he says. There are smiles and acceptance, occasional astonishment… sometimes, a “Non, monsieur, vous étiez avant moi.”  

“Je ne suis pas pressé”. he says.  “Allez-y”… I am not in a hurry, go ahead. 

Why hurry to the grave he says to me later, nothing to be gained by hurrying….and I can tell how much he gets from these encounters.  He shares them like a child proudly pulling small smooth stones from a pocket. 

Yes, a need to reach out… maybe just with a sentence or a look of complicity.  It’s an inner smile, a private pleasure.

Small exchanges are not small, no, not small at all. 

Back in the Game

 Hello, my faithful readers,

Yesterday, with my up to date French covid pass, I went out to the Apple store at cap3000 to get an appt. to correct various problems.  The Apple store here on the Côte d’Azur, is no longer taking rendezvous over the internet.  It seems that many people have arrived to their appointments with their pcs, even though they were not Macintoshes, and asked for free help from the Apple Geniuses.  So now, the staff grill you in person on what you are seeking, before they grant an appointment. 

One of the questions that I thought they wouldn’t be able to help with , was why I could not access my Google story blog anymore but was put through to my art blog or vice-versa. As you can see i have mixed the content of the two blogs because I couldn’t get onto the one I wanted. But the Apple guy said , yes, they could probably help me with that next Thursday. 

Then today, Tuesday, by some miracle , I am able to get on my story and poetry blog without further ado. 

So let’s catch up a little since the 20 or so months of Covid here in France.  

Monsieur and I have been well and continuing our exercise and mostly eating healthy foods. ( I say mostly, as there are certain trousers that I don't fit into anymore.)    We have both been vaccinated and have been invited to have a booster after 6 months from our last shot.  So that is all good. 

However, I have quit the art school after many years of attendance.  The school had closed for “in person” teaching  and put its classes onto Skype.  With the myriad problems with using Skype and my mediocre French language skills, I felt it was not working for me.  I also was not feeling the need for further instruction and had been attending the last five years because of a good teacher and also,  mostly for social reasons.  I will miss speaking French and my colleagues in that inspiring situation. 

  But I have now transferred my creative side to writing which is a practice I have always loved.  I am writing poetry again, but also have started writing stories from my past…a kind of memoir approach.   I have only three or four readers who I am daring to send my output to, but they have given me incentive to continue.  And it isn’t really about the finished project, it is more about savoring memories, connecting with my family and friends who might remember it better, and trying to improve.  So watch out for some stories here and maybe some more poems. 

I hope you are all well and feeling more secure since the vaccination programs started and life for all of you is feeling stable again. 

 And I hope you will join in with some comments here or in a private mail.  I could  use the human connection these days and I certainly miss the feedback I enjoyed in the past.  In other words, I miss you guys, the messages, yes, but especially the hugging.