Beth Arnold

Jours of Our Lives: 19) THE HEALING LAND

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.

 

TODAY WE STOPPED to be healed. “I said healed, brothers and sisters,” as the inimitable rooster Foghorn Leghorn might say. Having left St-Jean-de-Luz, we zipped along the main highway, but a short 25 kilometers away was Lourdes. It had nothing to do with Matisse, though he might well have made the trip himself. Who wouldn’t want to be healed? And when would we have another opportunity like this—to wash ourselves in restorative waters that might take our troubles away?  We aren’t Roman Catholics, but who cares? I was happy to take a shot at my own miracle, and I’d been working on healing myself for years through various spiritual endeavors. I was ready, willing, and open to the experience. Jim veered to the exit like a man on a mission.

The countryside was fresh and green with sheep and horses grazing in the pastures. The snow-capped peaks of the Pyrénées loomed above this little burg of 15,000 people—a town with 40,000 hotel rooms! What? I had no idea. Lourdes’s fame is well known, of course, and  I had seen the Hollywood movie The Song of Bernadette, with Jennifer Jones. But who knew this place attracted some five million visitors a year—the most-visited Christian pilgrimage site in the world?

 

 Disney-ish atmosphere with life-sized cutouts of crippled people and others who need healing on Esplanade des Processions at Lourdes

Jours of Our Lives: 18) THE LIGHT OF THE SOUTH

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.

 

WE'D BEEN IN Auray working for seven weeks (the owners of the house had graciously allowed us to extend our stay), but now it was time to leave for the light-filled South. Our final day at our borrowed home was frightful, trying to get work finished and to face cleaning the house and packing up. It was sad yet exhilarating to be leaving. We didn’t get through until late afternoon, lighting out for Nantes at 4 P.M. We would stop there to see a Matisse exhibit in the Musée des Beaux Arts. After that, we would spend a few days in Bordeaux with French friends who once lived in Little Rock!

Ultimately, though, we were bound for La Côte Basque.  Not via the barbs of Truman Capote writing about New York’s elite separate society in one of their favorite lairs…but the Southern journey of Matisse and his hideaway on the independently-minded French and Spanish Basque coast.  We were ready.  From here on out, it would be sun and sea, and the promise of color and light excited both of us.  It was the promise of illuminating ourselves. 

Jacques Henri Lartigue au Pays Basque, a book of wonderful photography of this region

 

Jours of Our Lives: 17) THE ENCHANTED WEEKEND

 

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.

 

IT’S BEEN HARD to find that grounded place within myself in the last few weeks. First, I was working very hard. Then the house sold, and I felt rudderless and fearful. I had to feel the emotion, breathe it in and understand this chosen loss in a more visceral way than I had before.  I believe I’ve been able to do it with some success. I’m moving ahead.

I went shopping for Blair’s birthday and filled a box with goodies for her—meats and sweets,
crackers and cookies, books, bijoux, and clothes. I wrapped every gift with fuchsia, chartreuse, and purple crepe papers and tied them with red and green bows. We piled the cache of birthday booty in a carton I’d snagged from a store and mailed it through the French postal service, paying for priority delivery. This was my daughter’s first birthday in 22 years that I haven’t thrown some sort of party, and it was important that our good wishes and surprises arrive on time. It was a festive cadeau!

Jours of Our Lives: 16) LETTING GO

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.

WE GOT AN offer on our house. It wasn’t as much as we’d hoped for; not as much as we needed. But both our Realtor and our accountant advised us to accept it. So, with much anguish, we said yes. That night I cried in bed.

Now the movers were coming to our house in Little Rock to give us a bid. The whole idea threw me into a tailspin that left me scrubbing the oven in this borrowed house, while tears dripped from my nose into the toxic foam. Can you imagine how much I hate cleaning an oven? I was reduced to this horror, the most onerous domestic bore, to find some relief from worry over my furniture and other belongings.

 
Cover of magazine story about us

Frida was purring: But sweetie, we’re in France! Nothing else matters.

Jours of Our Lives: 15) A PART OF SOMETHING

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 15^th-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

Jours of Our Lives: 14) THE BORROWED HOME

 

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.

 

WE MET ALICE at a boulangerie in her village of Auray, where she lives when she’s not working at Gallerie Daniel Besseiche in Paris. We jumped out of the car and hugged like we hadn’t seen one another in years, instead of weeks; then we got back in and followed her to the lent house that she had so generously arranged for us to use for a month. Here Jim would actually begin writing his book.

The road wound through a housing development, around a curve, and out into pastureland. Finally Alice slowed down and made a left turn through a big blue gate. It was a country house, maybe once a farmhouse, with a patio and outbuildings. When Alice opened the front door, we  entered a house that was large and lovely, old but not ancient. The owners had redone it beautifully. A modern and good-looking kitchen with tile floors is open to the dining area, which has a long table and lots of chairs—ideal for a dinner party. The owner’s paintings—his own work—adorn the downstairs walls with grace and vitality, a range of solid technique and styles. I’m going to call the living room Primal Breton, with hints of Africa and 30’s chic. In the four upstairs bedrooms (including two for kids), modern furniture is mixed with antiques. In other words, we liked this English couple just from their stuff. What a place and space to work!

Jours of Our Lives: 13) THE ISLAND LURE

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.

SUNDAYS ARE FAMILY days in France, days to relax and enjoy. We haven’t done too much of that, but it seemed right today—our last on the island. We would relish it. For lunch, we went back to La Maison, where a white Boxer pooch with a brown eye patch met us at the door. A gigantic Golden Lab and a little black dog were with their owners at a table near ours, while the Boxer stood at the door and longingly gazed in. This would be a three-dog lunch, which pleased us very much.

After lunch, we stoked the fire and finished our wine in front of it. Frida joined us. It reminded her of the cantinas she frequented in her old Mexico days.

When we told Frida of the smartly placed fort at Pointe des Poulains—the one we wanted to own—she said, You ninitos (I think that’s ninnies in Spanish), that’s the Fort de Sarah Bernhardt which she bought and made her summer home. Sarah loved Belle Ile.

Of course, Jim and I chimed together. We had to go back—Frida was dying to pay the chanteuse a visit. Frida always knew they’d get along famously, and so they did. We wandered all around Sarah’s beloved fort (pictured above, you can’t go in) and imagined the parties with clever patter, ladies fitted in haute couture, singing and dancing, sparkling champagne—all with crashing waves in the background.

I’ve been interested in Ms. Bernhardt since reading Liane de Pougy’s (on right) Blue Diaries. The two women knew each other, ran in some of the same circles, and turned Paris on its ear in their own ways. Liane greatly admired Sarah’s golden voice and skills on stage, and Sarah had given Liane acting lessons. After a few sessions, she told Liane that she had no talent and better stick to her beauty and dancer’s turns on stage—and that that would be enough. Liane never said a bad word about Sarah that I recall, which is saying a lot, because Liane was scathingly honest in her diaries—about herself and everyone else. Frida pointed out that she was no wallflower either and fit right in. But Liane wasn’t here today. It was Sarah, Frida, and me—three tempestuous women on this turbulent sea. Jim knowingly stayed out of our way.

Jours of Our Lives: 12) THE SPIRITS OF BELLE ILE

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.  

 

THIS WAS THE day Jim had been waiting for. We were going to Belle-Ile-en-Mer, an island in the Atlantic off the Brittany Coast which was important for Matisse’s artistic development. Jim had been dying to get here, and to make it even better, we would land on Belle Ile on his birthday. He always hates his  birthday—but not this one.                                     

Everyone who knows the island has told us how beautiful it is, another French venue I’d never heard of until we were introduced by Monsieur Matisse. The day couldn’t be more perfect. The sky is clear and blue, and we drive onto the ferry at the seaside town of Quiberon. I don’t care how cold it is, I have to be on the top deck to look out at the sea and feel the ocean breeze. I love boats and ships and being on the water. I think it’s a great way to see any place where a body of water is the eau de vie. We bundled up. Some people moved down a deck, but not us.

As the ferry pulled into Le Palais, the capital of Belle Ile, the Citadelle Vauban loomed in front of us. Its massive walls have guarded Belle Ile for centuries.

Citadelle Vauban

 

Jours of Our Lives: 11) WHEN IT FEELS SO RIGHT

 

An ongoing series about uprooting our lives in America and m oving to F rance. For what's happened before, see previous Jours of Our Lives entries here.  

 

I’VE HAD A couple of breakdowns about the choices we’ve made, where we’ll end up. Second guessing and questioning how we’d gotten ourselves to the point where we are (and I don’t mean in France—I mean how stretched we are financially). Isn’t there some song lyric that says, “When it feels so right, how can it be wrong?” That sums it up.                

I arrived in picturesque Honfleur feeling like a wreck. We’d been here years before with Blair and Bret, savoring a lunch of fish under an awning by the harbor while it drizzled rain. The waiter flirted with Blair.  Today the sun was out, and the streets were semi-crowded with people. We looked for a hotel. We finally stopped at the L’Ecrin, which we’d been by several times. It called to me. When we walked in, a jovial French woman, Daniele, greeted us warmly. We explained what we’re doing—chasing Matisse—and she excitedly told us she had a friend who’d been one of Matisse’s models. She lived not far away. What luck! This was striking gold! Daniele immediately picked up the telephone and called Madame Mickels, handed the phone to Jim, and they made an appointment to meet the next day. The L’Ecrin is lovely, the kind of place I’m drawn to anyway, but of course, I now believe our finding it was meant to be.

Hotel L'Ecrin in Honfleur

 

Jours of Our Lives: 10) EACH STEP I TAKE

Illustration by Elizabeth Cannon

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.

 

IT’S HILARIOUS SEEING “The Simpsons” in France—Homer and Marge speaking French with Bart and Lisa, and better than Jim and I do. As irony would have it, we saw an episode in a hotel room in Rouen, in which the Simpsons somehow go back in time to 15^th-century France (since they were speaking Francais, I didn’t quite get how). But Lisa becomes Joan of Arc. And there we were in the city where Joan was burned at the stake.

The next morning we were off to Étretat, on the Normandy coast. We tried to listen to our French CD in the car, but it almost put us to sleep after our fine lunch. The most interesting village we passed through on the way was Fécamp, which has been a fishing port for centuries. It’s built on a hillside leading down to the harbor on the English Channel. Fishermen sailed first on schooners, and now trawlers, from here to Newfoundland to catch the cod in cold, fog, and bad seas. As is the case in such towns, where men have made their livings from the deep, many never returned—lost in icy waters. It’s one of those ways of life that is fascinating to me—the mysteries of oceans and the people who live by and from them.

At Étretat...the arch that many painters have painted