An Artist in the Family, Cave Dwellings, and Knives

Saturday morning the 12th, we drove to Les Martes de Veyre, where Khadidja's ex-husband Scott Martin lives. Gabriel has always lived with her, including her years overseas teaching in Nova Scotia and North Dakota. This is the first time in 21 years that Gabriel is living with his father.



Scott is a Canadian who has been living in France for 20 years. His French is flawless. He is an IT guy, but also a photographer who manipulates his photos to enhance the colors and the depth. Quite beautiful. Scott generously gave Helene and me several of his photos.



Back in Monton, Gabriel took us on a tour of a convent that has been converted into a B&B and of the cave dwellings. During the religious wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, people started living in these caves. They were occupied until the 1950s, then by refugees from eastern Europe.





For lunch we had grated carrots and beets, bread, butter, tomatoes, sausage, cheese, yogurt, and strawberries.

In the afternoon, we drove to Thiers, what had once been a thriving knife-producing city. Though some of its factories are in ruins, many still remain open. We toured the knife museum and a workshop. The guide explained how, in the old days, men would lie on their stomachs over a grindstone for hours at a time. Dogs would lie on their legs to keep them warm. Also, as the dogs got up and repositioned themselves, the men would in effect get a mini-massage to keep the circulation in their legs going.



Thiers also had a few fine examples of medieval architecture.











Though no one else seemed excited about the factories by the river that were in ruins, I certainly was. I love photographing ruins.

Monton Magic

Monton was so darn cute. I just must show you more of its beauty. First, my favorite image. Even when I took it, I said aloud, "This is going to be my best shot."

Farmers, Churches, Black Madonnas

Saturday's breakfast, like all the meals Khadidja made for us, was simple, wholesome, and delicious. Homemade yogurt. Cherry, apricot, and quince jams made by Khadidja's mom. Hearty bread.



We bought a few things at the farmers' market in Clermont. Fresh milk and cream from a man who treats his cows with homeopathic remedies, not antibiotics. He also sold bread and butter, slicing off what was needed from a large tray and from a 4-5 kg loaf. I bought two organic honey-almond nougats to take home as gifts.



We visited Notre Dame du Port, a fine example of Romanesque architecture, and the cathedral. Both tauted black Madonnas, a common icon in the area. I especially was touched by the descent to the crypt, the oldest region of the church and cold as it is underground. Seemed more mystical and otherworldly than even the silent presence that infused the diffuse light of the churches themselves.



We also dropped into a wine store that had two cellars and glacieres in the bottom floor. These are holes deep into the earth that were once used to store ice from the mountains and make ice cream. Naturally occurring ones can be found in the mountains, the byproduct of volcanic activity.







We took a circuitous route back to Monton so that we could delight in the little villages around Puy de Dome. When Khadidja and her son, Gabriel, were training for their Nepal trek, they could climb the mountain in 15 minutes. Impressive!



On the outside wall of the Romanesque church in Orcival are shackles. A souvenir of the Inquisition? A reminder that we are in bondage to this earthly form until liberated by the grace of God? No explanatory placard made that clear.





Upon our return to Monton, Khadidja offered us a snack--organic strawberries with fresh cream. Yummy! For dinner, we had organic farm-raised trout with scallions and wild herbs, broccoli, carrots, bread, and for dessert, strawberries with curds and whey.

A Rude Parisian and We're Off to Monton

On Thursday, June 10, we left our apartment for the last time and departed Paris via train. In the station, a woman yelled at Helene for not giving her seat up quickly enough so that an elderly woman could sit down. She berated Helene so violently; this was really uncalled for.



The 3 1/2-hour train ride sped us through the French countryside, usually too quickly to take it all in. Lots of cute towns with gray, tan, and beige stucco houses with red tile roofs.



We arrived in Clermont-Ferrand, a city of approximately 150,000, about 5 p.m. Khadidja was there to meet us. We drove about 15 minutes to get to her home in the village of Monton. She lives in a three-story house that dates back hundreds of years. Her mother's house is next door, and it contains walls that were part of the castle of the 11th century. What a lovely home Khadidja has! From the kitchen table, we could look out her front door and see the white statue of the Virgin and Child that watches over the town, as well as the caves in the hillside that were used as dwellings up until the 1950s. The view from her third-story veranda is equally lovely and includes the nearby church tower and the roofs of the village.







After settling in, we went to the top of the hill to visit the Madonna and Child. The wind was quite intense. Already by this time, I knew that I was going to love it here. Wonderful as Paris is, the French countryside is downright magical.



For dinner that night, Khadidja served homemade vegetable soup with a dollop of fresh cream, roast beef with fennil and potatoes, thick wheat-rye bread, and local cheeses. Khadidja is really into locally grown, organic food. She is part of an AMAP (Association pour le maintien ole l'Agriculturre paysanne), basically an association for the preservation of local agriculture. There is a big movement in France to resist genetically modified food. The difference in taste is amazing. Vegetables taste like vegetables. They have a rich flavor, unlike most of the produce here in the U.S.

Bees on a Rainy Day

Wednesday the 9th was a rainy, cold day. Helene and I took the Metro to the Luxemburg Gardens, where we met Marie. She is a beekeeper for the French senate's bees. Marie is very adament about the importance of keeping bees, as our food supply depends on them, and their numbers are dwindling.



First we attended a lecture in the bee building about the swarm that Marie had almost single-handedly dealt with the week before. In the end, her efforts were in vain, as the bees flew away.



Unfortunately, it was too rainy to work with the bees. We had planned to suit up and receive a lesson in bee-keeping from Marie, but that was not to be.




That evening, we had dinner at a small French restaurant near Marie and Stefania's apartment building. I had steak with a bleu cheese gravy.

Rodin Museum

Helene wanted to take it easy on Tuesday, June 8, and perhaps find Ben's recipe book at a bookstore. I set off to see the Musee Rodin, which is housed in a mansion and surrounded by a large walled garden.

Rodin is mostly known for his rough-hewn figures with clumps of clay sticking onto the bodies, as if he hadn't quite had time to smooth out the rough edges. The museum, however, showed more of his earlier work in which he created idealized human bodies, much like those of the ancient Greeks.

The afternoon I visited, two groups of young schoolchildren were sitting before statues of young, beautiful lovers. I was struck by the children's maturity. They were perhaps 9 or 10 years old. Unlike American kids who would have been snickering at the woman's breasts or the man's penis, these kids were unfazed. I hearkened back to a visit to the Laguna Beach (Calif.) Museum of Art some months ago, when the docent informed Aaron and me that the schoolchildren were "protected" from the nude paintings, not allowed to view them. And here were these French kids taking in the splendor of larger-than-life sculptures, already understanding that the body is not shameful and that sex is a natural component of life. What a different approach to raising and educating children!

Perfume Museum and Celebrity Chef

The morning of June 7, we visited Musee de Parfum Fragonard, a fascinating collection of rare and antique perfume vials that leads the visitor to a showroom for the Fragonard line. A little too flowery for both Helene's and my tastes.

We then walked to Eglise Madeleine, a Roman Catholic church built in the classical style. We made our way to the Musee Rodin, only to find that it is closed on Mondays. Before getting on the Metro, we relaxed in a little park beside Invales named Place de la Concorde. There I spied a woman sitting on the grass, her form surrounded by flowers and greenery. She looked like a living Gaughin painting.



We took a very deep Metro to Buttes Chamonte, a large park with a stream, a waterfall, and a lake. The depth of the subway really affected Helene's inner ear, and I too could feel the pressure. We must have been at least four levels underground or about eight flights of stairs.



I was really struggling with all this walking. I suspected I was still anemic, plus this was far more exercise than I was accustomed to at home. Over the last several months, I have experienced a constellation of symptoms that wear on me. They include

* fatigue
* weakness
* lethargy
* chest discomfort and pain
* abdominal discomfort and pain
* nausea
* aching shoulders, neck, and back
* headache
* lightheadedness
* dizziness
* phlegm in my throat that I can't expel
* dry cough
* poor appetite
* chills
* heart palpitations
* heart tightness and constriction
* quivering of the heart (irregular heartbeat)
* labored breathing

It's not that I experience all of them at once, but I experience some of them all of the time.

Throughout the trip, Helene helped me so much. She often carried my baggage up stairs when there was no elevator in a train station or the airport. I was often at the limit of my physical ability just to continue walking, much less carry or pull luggage. Without Helene, I would not have been able to travel in France, as unlike the U.S., it is not set up to accommodate people who need extra assistance.

That night we ate at Marie's apartment. Her ex-boyfriend's nephew, Ben Darnaud, popped by. What a great guy! He is only 25 and already he has published a cooking book and has his own cooking show on French TV. He had just returned from a few days in Dublin, where he attended a food festival. Such a cutie!

Dogs, Orsay, and Vertigo

Dogs can go everywhere--on the Metro, on regional trains, inside cafes. This is really a dog-friendly place.

On Saturday evening, after our walk through Pere Lachaise, Helene and I cooked dinner for Helene's friends Marie, an English professor who sounds like a Brit when she speaks English, no French accent, and Stefania, an Italian immigrant and healer. What amazing women! Because we had a late dinner, I had to hook up before we ate, but no one seemed to mind that I was attached to a dialysis machine via a long cord.

The next day, Sunday, June 6, Helene was suffering from vertigo, so I went exploring on my own. I walked and walked and walked, again getting very turned around at Notre Dame and the Ile St. Louis. Finally, after many wrong turns, I ended up at the Orsay Museum. The first time I was there, I was also alone, in 2002, and I was moved to tears by Manet's "Olympia." The sheer power of this woman looking out at you, defiant of social conventions, daring the viewer to hold anything but awe for her. Once again this painting moved me.

Many others had the same effect, including Cezanne's "Card Players" and Renoir's "Moulin de la Galette." The woman looking away from the action, the one in the foreground, strangely touches me, as if I knew her, or was her.

After many bouts with Stendahl syndrome, a psychological and physiological reaction to too much beauty, an aesthetic overload, I headed for the Metro. It had taken me more than three hours to wind my way to the Orsay. I wanted to make better time coming home.

As i negotiated the Parisian streets and its subway system, I noted how much more confident I was this time in Paris than I had been in 2002. Then I had come to the French capital by invitation of Lionel, a Frenchman I had met for dinner when he was traveling in the U.S. Every so often, he would call me, and finally he asked me to visit him for a week. Like all my dealings with men, this arrangment with Lionel was strange and unsatisfying. We only had sex twice, and both times I had to initiate. His style was as far from romantic as one could get without it qualifying as rape. Then during the day, he treated me like I was his little sister, an annoyance that our mother had said he must allow to tag behind him. He refused to allow me to take a picture of him, as if he wanted no record of having been with me. Very odd. I wondered this time whether I was so put down by Lionel's treatment that I felt I couldn't make my way alone in Paris, that I was held hostage by Lionel, or was it that I am just generally more confident? Either way, I had no problem asking directions and smiling widely.

Pere Lachaise

On Saturday afternoon, June 5, Helene and I explored Pere Lachaise, the Paris cemetary where loads of famous people are buried. High on our lists were

* Jim Morrison



* Modigliani



* Oscar Wilde, whose grave stone is covered with kisses and messages





Poor, sensitive Oscar was pulled through the mud at the end of his life with a sodomy trial, ostracization from the socialites he had so grandly entertained, and sentenced to a two-year prison term. Now his grave is Mecca for gay men and for all those who value his wit and his courage.

Even if Pere Lachaise lacked celebrity graves, it would still be worth a visit. Very relaxing. A pleasant respite from the hustle of the Parisian streets.



We did, however, overlook the grave of Victor Noir, a journalist who died in a duel. We did not know anything about him until Marie, Helene's friend who is an English professor in Paris, told us about his well-visited grave. His stone is complete with an erection and has been rubbed by countless women over the years in the belief that doing so will make them fertile, improve their love lives, and/or get them a husband within the year. Oh, well, Victor, see you next time!

I've Returned!

I got back from my travels late Tuesday night, thankful that I had no emergency room visits or hospital stays.

Flying first class was a real treat. Because Helene is an Air Canada retiree, she gets several passes each year, but she decided to splurge and use her guaranteed first-class tickets with me. We flew Halifax to Monteal and then to Paris. Great food. Good service. And a private cubicle that made into a bed. That's the way to go.

Helene and I spent six days and six nights in Paris, renting an apartment near the Temple Metro station, a half hour's brisk walk from Notre Dame. The apartment had a full kitchen, private bath, garden view, washer-dryer, and plenty of quiet. Perfect.



Getting all the Baxter boxes from the concierge to the apartment was quite an ordeal. After we'd settled in, we walked to Notre Dame, taking our time, as I was tired. We got really turned around on the two islands, walking and walking and coming back to the same spot an hour and a half later. Too many bridges. I began calling this area the Bermuda Triangle.



The next morning we explored the flea market. I was surprised to see so many black figurines, something that would have been considered racist in the States.



I spotted a man whom I considered handsome and pointed him out to Helene. I also thought that he looked like an older version of the archangel I'd seen 10 years ago. I really wanted his photograph and asked Helene if she'd ask him if it's OK. She was embarrassed, so I approached him. "S'll vous plait?" I asked, gesturing with my camera. At first he thought I wanted to take a photo of his artwork, but when he understood it was him I was interested in, he became a bit shy and said in French that no one had ever asked to take a picture of him before. I was upfront and told him that I had told my friend that I felt he was handsome and wanted to remember him. Rugged good looks. Hard to come by these days.



Speaking of good looks, it was such an incredible treat to be in country where people are trim and stylish! In the almost two weeks that I was in France, I saw perhaps a dozen heavy people, most of them Americans. The overweight French were nothing like overweight Americans. I mean, they were still walking around and doing chores, not confined to a scooter. In the States it is very difficult to find a man over 50 who is in shape. There, they were everywhere.

People walk instead of drive or take the Metro with its long flights of stairs. I didn't see any junk food or candy bars. If you want some chocolate, you go to a choclatier. It's a special treat, not something you mindlessly shove down your throat. Food tastes so much better because so much of it is organic and locally grown. Good wholesome food and lots of walking make for trim, good-looking citizens.