May 11, 2020 Phase 1 of Déconfinement
Hallelujah !
FREE !
Goodbye permission slip, so long time limits, and free to roam 100 km from home! The outdoor marchés opened up, Les Halles too, the hair salons (I waited another month+ before going) and some stores, but really slim pickings. What a relief…with a mask
or so I thought
Day 1 of déconfinement I climbed the 189 steps to Le Rocher des Doms for the grand view and bought flowers. About a week later, I met a floral masked friend and we walked across the bridge to Île Barthelasse and saw hairy pigs, some cherries and Avignon at a distance.
Not much changed for me with déconfinement. I walked and worked. I went to the outdoor marché at Place des Carmes on Saturdays and Les Halles too. Sometimes I’d take a second walk, just for the hell of it. However, I found all this freedom nerve-racking. It was
“un panier de crabes”
a can of worms
All of a sudden it was hard to concentrate. What? Confinement was du gâteau compared to this! Even with so few choices, there were too many. Lockdown had it’s advantages, the only decisions to make were what to watch or read, what to eat, and what exercises to do, or not.
C’était le bordel
Using my weekly French lesson via Skype as motivation and deadline I concentrated on writing chapter 2 of my story in French. And when the images cemented themselves in my head I painted them.
I wrote about Claire and her special gâteau du chocolat. One bite and you can’t keep from spilling all your secrets, unprompted
and about Violette and her magical bouillabaisse
and Balthazar, his gang and his bar La Souricière
The stories kept coming, getting more and more elaborate
Unlike chapter one of the bande dessinée, chapter 2 is a fever dream of Templars, myths and legends of the Vaucluse, gypsies and bad guys, parties, the white horses of La Camargue, food, cooking, marchés and desserts, truffles, power and control, medieval gardens, Le Mistral, dogs, potions, scams and plotting
it all fit my mood and was the perfect, slightly seedy world to escape into
My characters; Bob, Claire, Violette, Balthazar, Legros, Harry, Shorty, Ganache, Vivienne and Zoltan, the villains, crooks and good guys got parts of their story told. I wrote the final piece for this chapter just in time for my last lesson on July 1 whew!
June 2, Phase 2 of déconfinement
Even more free
Travel restrictions gone within France, cafés and restos opened up for distanced eating and drinking. No more menus, just blackboards and apps. Hand sanitizer everywhere. Public transportation opened for everyone. And most monuments and museums!
Suddenly, people were everywhere
zero to sixty in a second
Unable to stop myself I religiously checked Worldometers COVID-19 numbers everyday
it wasn’t so reassuring
But determined to see stuff, I met a guide, Marlene, a friend of my French teacher, Fanny, who took me on two repérages (scouting trips). On June 3 we visited two tiny barely inhabited hill towns, Roque les Pernes, and Beaucet and then went to La Fontaine du Vaucluse. A few days later we went to the Camargue and Saintes Marie-de-la-Mer
so happy to be on the road again
La Camargue
FLAMINGOS, HORSES and BULLS
Ideal!
Speaking French all day, eating lunch in restaurants, seeing lots of cool and different places was super
I was definitely making up for lost time
Now on a roll my pal Connie and I walked to Villeneuve-lès-Avignon, across the river to see the gardens of Saint-André and that night my friends Catou and Caro from Marseille came for an overnight visit. The first people in my apartment since March 16th.
June 15 Phase 3 déconfinement
Some EU countries, including France open their borders to each other.
That day Marlene took four of us back to the Camargue, for a picnic on a deserted beach where the Rhône meets the Mediterranean Sea and a visit to a manade (bull ranch) to see the gardiens work with their white horses and the wild black bulls with their lyre-shaped horns. À la vache! my kind of place!
On the 25th I took my first public transportation since February, and went to Aix-en-Provence for the day with a friend. Even masked it was a breath of fresh air! Being in a larger town with wide boulevards, different museums, villas, fountains, architecture, history, food and markets was perfect. And the bus wasn’t so bad either + it had ac
On June 30th off again with Marlene for a day in the Luberon to see the market in Gordes, the ochre museum and cliffs of Roussillon, and the towns of Bonnieux and Lourmarin. I saw enough lavender to last a lifetime. It was a very colorful day. Hot but fun. And this was the day before the European borders opened, so it was still pretty empty
YIPPEE
Confinement had it’s perks
July 1 borders opened to foreigners, not on the excluded list. The US is on the excluded list. On Wednesday the 8th a few of us drove to Uzès for the day. The marché in La Place aux Herbes is big and beautiful. You want to buy everything. However it seemed like everyone in the world had the same idea. YIKES what a mob scene! I hadn’t seen that many people since the last time I was on a subway during rush hour.
just about everyone wore a mask
The heat is on and tourists are flocking to Provence now, everyday it seems there are more and more. Avignon is crowded, especially on the weekend. It’s good for business but, honestly, where the hell are their masks??
oh boy
So where am I? I cancelled my flight home for the summer. I have a few more paintings I want to do, and a few more places I want to see. Chapter three of my story is percolating in my head trying to get through the fog of all the new distractions around. I’m taking the train to Bordeaux mid August. The idea of getting on a plane makes me chamboulée (wiggy) and seeing what a nightmare the US is right now, have no plans on returning, just yet
I still check Worldometers daily
Yup
French leçon learned: Il faut battre le fer quand il est chaud
strike while the iron….