Look for the Simple Noise

Often when the world feels out of control I dip into my old-fashioned French “handbook” - L’art de vivre au fils des jours - The Art of Living from Day to Day by Victoire de Montesquiou. I am comforted by Victoire’s reflections on life. She looks at life head on. She makes no bones about the fact that life is complicated and has bumps in the road. She feels strongly about the rules of etiquette and that following those rules helps to keep things running smoothly. She believes that it is often the simple things that bring out the best of life.

Here is Victoire’s entry for La vie avec les autres (living with others) from the January chapter-

Listen to the silence of winter. During the month of January we can learn to listen to the respiration of sleeping nature. Listening is a type of meditation, emptying ourselves, letting ourselves be filled with the serenity and the energy indispensable for living with enthusiasm and hope.

I detest noise, the racket of radios and televisions in the building; the often empty babble of the news, loud music in stores and restaurants, even the most “chic”. I do not like that blanketing fog of noise. 

In order to respect others and your neighbors, make the effort to make the least amount of noise possible. Lower the sound of your radio, record player and television. If you love to listen to music like you are at a concert, wear head phones. Do the same for late night television shows. Take your bath at “normal “ hours, remember that the insulation in certain old buildings leaves something to be desired.

On the other hand, pay attention to commonplace noises - to the breath of the household, the lively expressions of your family’s daily life. Savor the murmurs of the city as it wakes up and the sunset in the countryside when the evening bells sound and the cows come home; the swoosh of starlings swirling into the tops of trees to roost; the explosion of energy as school children escape to recess;  the joyful laughter of children at any moment and the crazy laughter of adults at the theatre. I love the cacophony emanating from the orchestra pit as musicians tune up and then burst into a few practice measures; the whisperings of a mountain village: muffled footsteps in the snow, the gurgling of a fountain, the swish of a sled or skies; the first cry of a newborn baby; the clatter of awaited footsteps on the staircase, the familiar creaking of an old door worn out by time; the long and silky murmurs of bicycles passing by…

I especially like silence when I find myself alone. In looking for silence one finds the beauty of life.

These are Victoire’s sounds, but I can envision all of them. They remind me to stop and listen to the small quiet noises, or the big raucous noises, in my life. I know full well that we do not all have the luxury of slowing down to listen to what is surrounding us and that even if we did the noise might be too terrifying to allow in. But I do know that the underlying theme of slowing down, listening to what is there, listing to who is there, will help me find peace within myself and hopefully the strength and courage to work for the peace of others.

At the moment I am living a life of great privilege to choose what I listen to. This is my small prayer for all of the displaced frightened people of the world that are finding it impossible to listen to the terrible things around them. I pray they may find small things to hold onto so as to hold onto their humanity.

A friend recently lent me this timely read:

A Gentleman in Moscow - by Amor Towles  

beautiful, sweet and provides some insights to Russian history

Another read that I'm mentioning just because I read everything to do with expats exploring France:

Chasing Matisse A Year in France Living My Dream - by James Morgan

a book project to explore where Matisse practiced his art and the author trying to discover himself...

Putting a Shawl on a Bell Tower

 Last year two local women schemed up an extraordinary idea.. Their quirky and very original idea was to envelope one of the oldest, grayest bell towers in France in a glorious rainbow of colors. They were determined to create a big buzz for 2020’s annual fundraiser, a national event called The Telethon. Brantome’s event was going to be a charity walk.

The premise was pretty basic, knit hundreds of scarves, stitch them together to make one big shawl, and then hang the shawl from the 11th century bell tower of Brantome. Well, basic in a kind of heroic sense. This was to be a visual display of sharing, hope, and determination. They had no idea how much determination it was going to take. They also had no idea how far flung throughout all of France the desire to participate would spread. But, this was March of 2021 and as the lead organizer said, “Above all we have to believe. We have need of this type of challenge, especially at this moment, to get ourselves out of this covid morass.”

The Telethon was not until the first weekend in December so there was plenty of time to get things done. Or was there? With no exact plan they rolled out the threads for the project one determined step at a time. 

One of the organizers, the director of the local retirement home, knew just where to find a lot of willing knitters. These were folks confined to home. Even if they wanted to they wouldn’t be able to participate in the fundraising walk. But they were more than ready to help out by contributing with their hands.

Now those hands needed supplies. This rainbow of joy was going to require a lot of yarn. Six specific colors to match the colors of the Telethon. Yarn and other supplies were going to require money. The organizers doggedly knocked on doors asking for money - it wasn’t until around the first of June that a sponsor was found to pay for the 2880 skeins of colorful wool. Several months lost, but in their determined minds the project was still do-able.

And they were off! The clacking of knitting needles could be heard throughout the region. Word got out to other retirement homes and this crazy idea caught on like wildfire. By early September 90 retirement homes from almost every region of France had contributed scarves. Five hundred seventy-, eighty-, and ninety-year-olds and even one lady of 100 participated. Each product of their labors of joy, sharing and solidarity measured 25 cm wide and 1.5 meters long.

With a tiny office space stacked to it’s limit it was time to find room to spread out so the individual scarves could be stitched together - all 1200 of them! This time the organizers went knocking on doors looking for a work space. Word got around and someone offered the long and empty village hall in St Crepin. It was late October and the knitting changed to stitching.  Day after day they met, sewing all those individual scarves into the one long, long, long shawl.  By early December they had before them one great big colorful mass of scarf.

While that group stitched another one was meeting with the region’s Climbing Rescue Team to coordinate how to get the 150 kilos (about 300 lbs. !) of shawl onto the shoulders of the bell tower. The plan was to roll the knitting onto a spool, attach ropes to the corners, and with the aid of a motorized wench, climbers in the bell tower would pull the shawl up. Voila! What could be more straightforward?

Meticulously rolling up the slithery knitting, three meters wide and sixty meters long, took hours of patience. They were determined there be no snags or hitches for the climbers.

The big day was the Wednesday just before the Saturday Telethon. The operation was set for 8h30.

In an ideal world, that Wednesday morning would be bright and sunny, but as I set off it was drizzling, dark and chilly. I arrived at the appointed hour, but all I saw was a mysterious plastic-wrapped log sitting quietly in the church courtyard and three emergency trucks parked nearby. There was not a person to be seen. I went over to the cafe across the bridge and sat where I could keep an eye on things. At 9:15 there was still no sign of anyone. I was contemplating going home, but I was determined to see how this all spooled out. Finally two women came marching along followed by a gang of men clad in clanking, heavy, red jackets. I overheard a brief “here we go” and the men sprang into action.  The sides of the trucks opened to reveal spools of organized rope and climbing gear. It was now 10:00. The drizzle was turning into steady rain.

Ropes were unspooled, climbers climbed the 120 steps of the bell tower, shouts went back and forth from the ground crew to the tower crew and with the climbers secured in the position ropes began to fly from the high arches of the tower. … it was now 11:00.

The go ahead was given for the ladies to cut the protective plastic off their treasure. What they revealed was amazing. Bright colors glowed in the grayness. Oohs and ahhs escaped from the small crowd that was gathering. The moment had come to dress the bell tower in bright warm colors. A demonstration of how determination and good will can create something bigger than the individual parts. 

Heavy carabiners were attached to one corner of the knitting.  There was yelling and walkie-talkies chirping and the groan of a powerful wench. The shawl and the ropes started ascending. The little crowd let out a happy cheer. But, then there was a catch, a hesitation and everything dropped. The crowd groaned. The long wool shawl puddled at the foot of the bell tower. There was some fiddling with the hooks and ropes, some more yelling back and forth. The wench started up and again the long colorful serpent was slithering it’s way up the side of the bell tower. Everyone was holding their breath. Again without warning the colors melted down and pooled at the foot of the tower. The knitting could not pull up its own weight. To make matters worse the shawl was getting heavier from the steady rain soaking into the wool.

At 12:00 the bells were going to start ringing and anyone up there was going to have to scurry down before that happened. There had to be a way to get this done. It might mean coming up with a compromise, but if that is what it takes that’s what we’ll do. Let’s just get to it. It was 11:45 when the ladies started pulling out scissors.

To decease the weight they had decided to cut the shawl in half, but there was still the problem that the stitching was not strong enough. Word had spread to the nearby shops that things were not going according to plan. The butcher contributed extra strong “thread” used for sausages and someone else offered fine metal wire. Busy hands restitched while the mid-day bells tolled. By now the sun had come out and quite a crowd had gathered to cheer on the workers. This time when the men in the tower lifted the two halves of the shawl they rose up smoothly and fell into place without a hitch.

There were tears and cheers of joy when all of the corners were secured and the gray bell tower was snuggled into an elegant, glorious rainbow of colors and joy. 

The fundraiser was a grand success. Hundreds of people from throughout the region came to Brantome to participate in the walk. They raised 11,000 euros. For a week the shawl gleamed in the bright winter sun. When it was taken down the lovingly made scarves were sent to charitable organizations throughout France. 

What had started as a somewhat hare-brained idea had been pulled off with a few hitches and a lot of determination and love.

Update in a Small Village

2022 has arrived and along with it an important change is coming to our small, kind of backwards, village. This important event is not yet official because of course there are still some boxes to check, but within the year every home in Bourdeilles will have a proper street name and numbered address. 

 

Yes, you read that correctly— it’s the twenty first century and we still do not have individual addresses. Quaint, but not very efficient or safe.

Until the last couple of years rural France has remained free of street names or house numbers. If you are lucky your house has a long established name otherwise houses are grouped together by sections of the village. Mail and other deliveries are addressed to a neighborhood with descriptive name like The Rocks, The Three Frogs, The School Yard, The Place of the Gravel Pit, the Village, the False Village.  There might be three houses in your address group or twenty.  Currently our address is La Croix St Marc (the Cross of Saint Marc). There are five houses in this grouping, but we don’t know if we are house number one or two or three because there are no house numbers. 

This charming system worked smoothly when mail was delivered by the same person every day for twenty-plus years. It also was easier when folks with the same last name stayed in the same house for generation after generation. Back then if you moved into the village it was big news and word got out whether you wanted it to or not. 

Here’s a tale from 2003, when we first bought a house in the village. We came for visits of a few weeks several times a year. Didier, the mailman, had been carrying an envelope around in his sack for a few days trying to figure out who this envelope with an American postmark belonged to. He finally decided the best thing to do was to drop this American letter off at the home of the only Americans he knew - our friends on the outskirts of town. They then kindly delivered the mail to us. From then on our “address” was “The Other Americans”.

We learned that it is important to stop into town hall, introduce yourself, and describe where you live. Actually, it is even more important to introduce oneself at the bakery where the mail carrier hears about all the important village changes.

About ten years ago Didier had the nerve to retire with a full pension at the mandatory age of 55. Ever since, the mail has been delivered by a revolving door of postal workers. Mail delivery has become a little random. Figuring out where is where and who is who all depends on the perseverance of the latest carrier.

Even though DHL, FedEx, and UPS have been hopelessly hoping street names will become a reality, making their job more efficient, in the end the change will come because it is an issue of safety and security.

There is a terrible story of the day our wonderful baker died. His tractor fell on him. His wife called the rescue squad and gave the location of the house— “the road to Mareuil.” The sirens were heard going up and down, up and down the road. Finally a neighbor that had been helping out up at the scene of the accident went down to the main road to wave the emergency vehicle in the right direction. Because of the lack of a simple street number the emergency crew arrived too late to save him. I’ve been slightly panicked ever since.

Now, police, ambulances and firefighters will be able to use GPS to get to where the emergency is. Welcome to the 21st century!

There have been some bumps in the road to getting street names in place. First the mayor had to get the town through the ridiculous suggestions: Pink School Street, Top Hat Lane, Sister Sue’s Corner. Then there were proposals of people’s names.  One or two were even famous beyond the neighborhood they lived in.

Finally in mid-December a letter arrived in our mailbox stating we were soon to have a new address. 2110 Riverside Drive  (in French: 2110 Routes des Bords de Dronne) Yippee! In big bold letters it said- don’t use it yet as there is still one more vote to be taken…

Not everyone will be happy with their appointed address. There will be howling and reluctance. Folks will ask where does 2930 come from when there are only 4 houses in my lane? (It’s a 911 thing) Who the heck was Pierre de Rockford?  There’s going to be some catch up explaining to do.

Tom can’t wait for the official change day because it means he wont have to wait by the phone all day waiting to give directions for delivery of art materials. I’ll sleep better knowing that if I hear a siren in the night the driver knows just where to go. There are still plenty of other quaint things to life here in our small, kind of backward, village, that we hope don’t change.  But having a calculated address is one time where catching up with the twenty first century is a good thing.

Bound for Glory - Notre Dame de Paris

A big truck rumbled by as I stepped out of a neighbor’s gate , As usual I shook my fist at the hulking lumbering giant.  Eighteen wheelers regularly terrorize our small village as they thread the narrows of our main street. If we are foolish enough to be walking on the street we feel the wind brush our cheeks as they swoosh by. We all wish those monsters would find another way to get where they are going. This truck was loaded with logs, heading to the local sawmill. 

I glanced up and saw that this load of lumber was different. Two enormous trunks were sticking out way longer than usual and there was only room for a few trunks tucked around them. I noticed that the butt ends of the overhanging trunks were splashed with red spray paint. Perhaps this was a warning not to tailgate. Watching the big rig navigate the left turn out of the village I realized that the red paint spelled out something. It said, “Notre Dame de Paris.”  These were no ordinary great trunks. These ancient behemoths were bound for glory. Alone on our poorly paved road, I was witness to part of the spectacular effort to restore Notre Dame Cathedral!  In this backwater region Paris always seems so far way. That day day it was here. My angry fist shaking turned into my waving and blowing kisses in hopes that the driver might notice me. Instead he shifted up a gear and headed on down the road to the Delord sawmill, the largest sawmill in the region. I ran home to grab Tom and to follow that truck!

Tom wasn’t home. 

I realized he was back when I heard a curious whooshing sound coming from the driveway. It was the sound of gravel being dumped out of a truck. There between the car and the street was a hill of gravel. Frustrated I almost didn’t tell Tom my story, but I did. As excited as I was to see those big babies he flew into action. Before I could believe it Tom had cleared the gravel and said “Let’s go”.

My insides were all a twitter as we drove a couple of villages over to the sawmill. We’d been here before and knew it is a huge operation, that they are safety conscience and that we couldn’t just wander around. I hopped out of the car and was scanning the lumber yard when a young truck driver asked what I was up to. I explained that we were chasing a truck carrying Notre Dame de Paris tree trunks. He said yep that was his load. But where was it? He said go check in at the office.

The office was warm and beautifully decorated. Not at all what I expected of a lumber operation. An elegant woman appeared and asked how she could help me. In french garbled by adrenaline, I stammered out that I had just seen a truck load of tree trunks and that two of them had said Notre Dame de Paris and that I had to see them. She patiently listened, thought for a moment and said no. The owner was out and no one had the time for this sort of interruption. Tongue tied, I tried my best disappointed pout, but even this didn't get me anywhere.

I thanked the elegant woman for at least hearing me out and sadly headed back up the football field sized parking lot. It’s a working lumber yard, there are a lot of machines running, whining, screeching and yet above all of that I was stopped in my tracks as I heard a wolf call. A piercing two fingers in the mouth whistle. Out of a tiny back office window was the elegant woman waving me back. Let me just tell you the entire adventure was worth it just to know that a tiny, beautiful french woman knew how to wolf whistle. Turns out she is the owner's daughter and has found this whistle a useful skill in a world of men and noise. Honestly it’s about as un-French as, as, well as I don’t know what.

She had taken pity on me and recruited a manager to come out and escort us around the yard. We stood outside the office and he explained some background to the lumber. Where the trunks were coming from, where they would be used, why Delord had them. Finally we headed off across the parking lot to look at some trunks. We walked out to two freshly cut timbers. Their long straight length was like nothing you have ever seen or could imagine without standing right there next to them. Smooth as silk and emanating that wonderful smell of fresh cut wood. Oak wood. Here were two Goliath's destined to restore the greatest cathedral in France. We talked about the heritage of the lumber and what more had to be done. We kept walking and talking the entire length of those timbers. Finally we came to their far end. I turned to look back down the length of them and there on the butt end were those splashes of red. Notre Dame de Paris. The top of the N had been squared off and the bottom of the S had been milled away. Here were my two trees bound for glory.

I can’t imagine that they had unloaded, positioned the logs on the mill and milled the logs that I had only a bit ago seen winding through Bourdeilles. Even with the lost time lost for gravel removal. That no longer mattered. I was caressing, breathing in, sitting on Monsters. These once tiny seedlings are now destined to support the roof of one of the wonders of the world. Notre Dame de Paris.

A note on how these logs will be used in the reconstruction.

The raging fire destroyed the timbers that held up Notre Dame’s roof.  This support system is called The Forest.  To rebuild it, the largest members will require 200 trees like the two we saw at the Delord sawmill.They will measure a straight 15 meters (50 feet). These trees will be at least 150 years old.  Additionally, the rebuilding will require 80 trees that are 20 meters (66 feet!) long.  These trees will be at least 200 years old.  Throughout France the search is on.  So far all of the trees have been donated by the various landowners.   

Im the original plan, two years of drying time would be required before the lumber could be used. A historian stepped up and pointed out that the original construction used logs that were floated down the Seine.  The new strategy is to saturate the lumber with six months under a shower of water.

September in Bourdeilles