vaucluse and olive oil

A whole day of driving about in the hills with their outcroppings harsh against the clear sky. Entrechaux with its ruins high above the road, on a hill just rising up from the earth, Mollans with its moulin à huile and the history of the cultivation of olives and olive trees. We used to go there years ago, to see the great tall shiny vats: thick, fruity, thicker, and so on, taking our bidon to fill it from the one we preferred. I like very green and very fruity oil, and loved the way it dripped, like so much syrup, from the spigot into the vessel. A recent law ruled against any product not tightly covered, sealed away against any germs – alas for the tall vats.

But, explained the owner of the St. Hubert, where we went for lunch, whereas the olive groves used to be torn out to make room for more vines – wine, wine, more wine – about ten years ago, they were replanted – progress looking backwards.

Back home in the cabanon, we listen to the incessant chirrup of the crickets on one side and some faint birdcalls.

cabanon in the vaucluse

I guess it is something like paradise: short-termed and full of sun and wind. I am sitting at my table outside (really a door of course, on some stretchers), covered with an ancient blue and yellow cloth, and just the size to seat about 10 or 12 people, for whatever you might feel like bringing up the steep stone steps. Except that right now it is just me, looking out over the field from which the vines were ripped out many many years ago, now a length of green and brownish stubble and some trees: muriers de chine, from which the mulberries can be picked. Almost tasteless but nice to feel you have some fruit. and an oak or two (do they have truffles? someone said so, but we haven't hired a truffle dog and no one would tell you.) And a spindly fig tree, which rarely has figs, but then has them in such quantity that you have to dash out to snatch them before the birds do. And the tiny olive tree I loved so when it was right in front of the table, but when it had to be moved, because the "view" was blocked -- that would be the view up to the chapel on the hill, where our neighbor's daughter was married last year, her greenish Renaissance dress blowing in the wind, and Shakespeare and French and Italian poetry recited in front of the tall wooden cross. The olive tree -- MY olive tree -- almost gave up the olive ghost at the shock of moving, but was saved by a radical cutting of branches and some water, and now is a small recovering thing.

The cigales are making their comforting little screech, and the semi-mistral is shaking the leaves. and soon I will go down the stone steps to put lunch on the other door-table downstairs by the ivied wall. Yes, one could write or something, but since the Tour de France is about to pass by down at the bottom of the long hill, the excuse is to do nothing. I like nothing, it turns out.

Part of the paradise feelin is you don't have to do anything to feel you deserve being here: you are just here. Expanding your senses over a lingering coffee in the early morning or some salad with olive oil (unbelievable, from Malemort up the hill) and white peaches and local wine. I never imagined this when I was little and less little, and if I ever have to give it up, I won't be forgetting it.

paying attention

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pools and people

So how amazing is it to have a group of, well, not young, and fiercely companionable women friends all meeting in a neighborhood pool every Thursday morning? the others meet also on Tuesday, but on Tuesday I meet with another group of fiercely devoted women in a Pilates session -- we, led by a super trainer called Pio, are right next door to the pool group, led by a super other trainer, Torrelo, whom we can see through the glass partition. Now I look longingly over at the pool during the Pilates session -- why DO they have to meet at the same ungodly and inhuman hour of 8, anyway? -- but I am faithful to each group, as is fitting. Am I fit, which would be more than fitting? not especially, but I love the idea of community. And from my point of view, that is really exactly what it is all about.  

swag

Nothing in particular today, December 24, although it feels a bit on the edge of something..

This is just to say that yesterday, with great friends, a superb cellist, Susan Salm, and her painter husband, Friedrich Danielis, in the Greek and Roman part of the Met museum, while we were wandering through the Pompeii reminders of grandeur, and then staring at the back of statues, with their folds, I fell in love with a word.

Years and years ago, I went into the field of surrealism, having fallen in love with Andre Breton's face -- and now it is this word: swag.

I love the word swag -- not the word swagger, certainly. But how great to fall in love with, as I believe it is --  part of a curtain.  And only a part: nice.

doing things backwards

I loved today, which made itself a perfect example of doing things backwards: very. The 6 train didn't feel like making local stops, so 645 people and me left the 96th street station (local) with a choice to WALK to 86th street (express) or take the bus. It was 13 degrees, so the walking option seemed sort of unappealing to me. I climbed, with about 643 of us into the bus and had a fine time reading Unica Zurn, for whom I have to write a catalogue text for the Drawing Center. Never mind that I  have it in French and will have to quote it in English -- from the German, ooof -- I was riveted. 

Arrived VERY late for an exam we were giving, brilliant Haitian student, then made my way to the Ginger Man for a winter ale with a delightful student now living in France, then (brrrr) over to the bus to get to the oh so terribly cute Alice's Tea Cup on 73rd, West Side, to meet two historian friends. Loved it, ginger tea and ginger molasses cookie, so dry that I had to drench it in milk to consume it sensibly. Did that. 

Freezing bus home, we warmed up a stew I made last week, doused it with Thai sauce, tried making blackberry cabernet sauvignon sherbet (well, the truth will out: Boyce made it, I just licked the dashers), and now I get to read the newspapers from yesterday and today. 

Children here this morning, and yesterday morning -- joy be -- and friends last night. 

Tomorrow morning, after my Pilates class, we meet Susan Salm, my favorite friend cellist, and Frieder her painter husband in the Greek and Roman galleries of the Met Museum.

Life in New York.