An ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and moving to France. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.
AFTER FOUR DAYS in the house, and I literally didn’t walk outside for three, we decided it was time to start exploring this part of Brittany. One evening we drove into Auray to the port of St-Goustan. The St-Goustan Quartier is very old and charming, with the River Auray and 15th-century houses still standing, including one where Benjamin Franklin stayed when he came to France to negotiate a treaty with the French in 1776. Now Le Relais Franklin is a crêperie. Other restaurants and cafés line the quay. It was very dark and quiet on this night, but I understand it can be quite lively in season.
Plaque, image via Wikipedia
The next Saturday we drove to Brittany’s capital of Rennes and its market. We’d been there once, years before, and wanted to visit again. Rennes is a city of 350,000 people and has an international air, with many cafés and brasseries. It was a beautiful day, and people were out in droves enjoying the sunshine. The weekly market is huge and filled with so many choices that it takes a few minutes to get the lay of it and to decide what you really want or need. It was just as we remembered—long lines of vendors with vegetables and fruits, one building with butchers and meat and another with cheese and birds, not to mention the huge fish bazaar and the mobile vendors of roasting birds and hot crêpes and galettes stuffed with cheese, ham, sausage, or something sweet coming off the smoking griddles. Jim and I were starving, and the first thing we did was line up to buy a galette.
I feel grounded in an open-air market with the crops from the land, the farmers who grew them, and the other shoppers who appreciate this as well. People are friendly in markets. There’s a sense of community. The earth is connecting us all. We filled bags and bags with leeks, celery, beets, carrots, green beans, pumpkin (or some gourd), mushrooms, apples, duck, thyme, cheese, and a huge chicken. The chicken I selected still had its head and feet. I sliced my hand across my neck and ankles to indicate to the jolly French woman that they had to go. I don’t want to see a head attached to anything I eat. She also cleaned something out of it (I didn’t want to know what) and prepared the gizzard and liver for us to take home.
We’ve seen some spectacular sunsets here, but the one on our way back from Rennes was in a different league altogether. The sun looked like a giant burning pomegranate that was setting fire to the sea of clouds around it. Each second that it smoldered, the clouds went up in orange and pink smoke. The glow of the panorama changed constantly as this glorious brulée went on and on. There is nothing more inspiring than nature. It connects us primally to creation. Primitive cultures recognized and honored this, but with civilization we have mostly detached ourselves from this powerful force.
Giant Pomegranate Sunset (illustration by Beth Arnold)
Speaking of primitive cultures, our borrowed house is just a few kilometers from the megaliths of Carnac, a display much larger than Stonehenge. One afternoon we went to see these thousands of stones standing in French fields. The signs guided us into the old seaside village of Carnac, which is charming and pristine. Deciding to get a little education before we viewed the stones, we went to the Musée de Préhistoire Miln-LeRouzic for some background. The museum’s collection starts in the Lower Paleolithic and continues through the Early Middle Ages. There’s a wealth of objects to check out (and handouts in English for the French-impaired).
Baie de Quiberon Carnac, image via Wikipedia
The rocks themselves are mysterious. There are acres and acres of them, and the amount of work to create these alignments, dolmens, and tumuli of massive stones is striking. From serious to weird, myths abound of what the stones mean, how and why they’re there—including that St. Cornely turned Roman soldiers into stone for persecuting Christians. (That doesn’t sound very Christian to me, but everyone wants payback for something.)
Frida had to see as well, and so Jim and Frida and I walked through these fields and along these paths, wondering what our predecessors here had thought and felt. What does seem clear is that early man wanted meaning in life just as we do. It doesn’t matter when or where you live, what your specific beliefs comprise, or how sophisticated you may be. There is a symbolic life and world and an effort to understand it. There is also a need to be part of something—a larger whole.
When I get in touch with who I am, and what we’re trying to do, I feel grounded. I feel satisfied and happy. It’s been hard to find this place within or outside of myself in the last few weeks. This is a more internal time—which is both good and bad. In Paris, even if I worked all day, there was the pleasure at night of getting into the city’s rhythm right outside our door. But now the simpler quiet of the country is necessary. And it’s fulfilling to move around with ease and to rest amid the trees and soothing green. But the humming, frenetic energy is missing. I know that I need it. I suppose there are some who like one rhythm or the other (and perhaps may fear to stray), but I require both.
That night Jim painted, then built a fire. He roasted fennel, baby turnips, and their greens with Poirée, olive oil, salt pepper, and a fish we bought at a market. We talked about his paintings—authenticity, light, movement, color, space, design—and why we were here. This made me remember again and feel excited by it. I’ve always loved art and artists but have never thought a lot about it critically beyond the fact that I do.
Back when we were in Honfleur, Madame Mickels, Matisse’s former model, said that Matisse’s goal was to capture an emotion in his paintings. In thinking of these elements of art—emotion and the expression of it—I wondered again about Carnac and the mystery of the megaliths. Isn’t this what the megaliths are as well, some way of connecting to the whole that we long to touch?
Beth Arnold
Carnac, France
March 4, 2003
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Unless otherwise indicated, photos by Beth Arnold. Not subject to use without permission.
Beth Arnold lives and writes in Paris, where she produces her "Letter From Paris" new media project.
You can find the Chasing Matisse book by James Morgan here at Amazon--or you can find it in or order it from your favorite book store.
Jours of Our Lives illlustration by artist (and couturier) Elizabeth Cannon. To find out more about her, click here.
