Easy Elegance

After that last whine-fest, I've been feeling a little guilty.

I don't want to spend my last months in France picking to pieces a country I've come to genuinely love. I don't want to spend my energy on negativity; I want to delight in the great quirks that make this culture and its people so awesome. But I want to be honest. Always.

Having said that, I've been having a hell of a time sleeping normally since I got back from my holiday trip home. I've been sleeping, yes, but not at the right times. I find myself falling asleep fully clothed randomly, waking up at 2 or 3 in the morning with my reading light on, panicking about whether I've slept through something important, looking at my iPod, and then falling back into rather weird and uncharacteristic dreams for another hour or two. On Saturday I woke up for good at 4.30 am. Not preferable, but an unusual opportunity. I'm not a morning person - AT ALL - but I do love witnessing the early morning. How does this make sense? I like being awake for sunrise, but not awakening FOR it. Yes? No? So anyway. After spending a few hours catching up with friends at home and working on my new nautical themed (!) wood block, I decided I needed to leave my apartment and go on a frigid adventure.

At 9.00 am I stepped out onto the absolutely vacant street in the fierce and breezy 25ºF air and waited for a bus to take me into town. It didn't. I don't know if for some reason this particular bus at this particular time takes an alternate route, or the driver was feeling frisky and rebellious, but I found myself dumped, along with about twelve other phhhhhtt-ing français, a good eight or nine blocks from our destination. Great. A brisk walk is precisely what I needed. (I'm not sure if that should be read with sarcasm. Jury's out.)

I started with the Marché à Saint-Michel, a weekly obsession. I lived two blocks away from its cheap and hectic embraces last year, and though Lady L and I went just about every single week, I doubt we made it there before 11.00 am. Word on the marché street is that the earlier you go, a) the better the produce, and b) the higher the prices. Early birds get best pick, but they also pay for those picks. As the market reaches its end, vendors lower the prices so they can ditch the excess. I can tell you now, folks, this word is TRUE. I hobbled down the glorious, silent streets of my past and found a totally different market. People still setting up; vendors waiting on their customers, rather than the reverse; stillness. Beautiful clementines at €1.90/kg. Cher. I bought a chocolatine (what is called a "pain au chocolat" in the North of France) from my mean bread lady who was evidently taking the day off, and the woman who took my €0.90 grumbled about having to take off her glove to finish the transaction. I left ten minutes after my arrival, broccoli, clementines, and bell peppers in a hand so frozen it stung.

France is a Catholic country (sort of? theoretically? vaguely?) and also a partly Mediterranean one, so the idea of anything being open and/or functioning before 10.00 am is laughable. Most of my regular coffee haunts don't open until 11.00, so with a bag full of frozen citrus, and my watch reading 9.45 am, I had to be open. I ended up at a place I've only been once: L'Oiseau Cabosse. The owner had to open the door for me because I'm apparently lacking in hand eye coordination, and welcomed me in with unusual enthusiasm. She asked me immediately if I'd decided on what I would like (the menu is outside) and I told her "breakfast," which here comes with many options. I ordered a large café crème (latté with less milk), toast (which comes with butter and jam,) and when we got to the juice, I said "orange?" Orange is too simple from Madame Oiseau, however. Her eyes perked up, and she said "I have many other juices. I could mix it with perhaps some mango, or clementine, or pineapple juice..."

These are the words of an artist, folks. I said "I will let you decide!" I took out my book, and the two of us spent fifteen minutes in amiable silence while she worked and I read. I can't express how amazing that was.

She returned to my table with a scene so lovely I had to admire it for a good three minutes before disturbing it.



Here it comes: the point of this post. What struck me most about this small moment in my life was just how perfect it was. Madame Oiseau had taken a few ingredients, simple but fine, and given me something beautiful. My coffee mug, which had these red striations, matched my red plate. The jam (strawberry and apricot so good I ate them by themselves by the spoonful) and the caramel salé not only had their own little dishes, but had their own basket. The two slabs of butter (sweet - no salt, sadly) had their own pretty little plate, and the fattest little butter knife I've ever seen. Ok. So I realize it sounds like she just used a lot of dishes to present a small quantity of food (only three slices of whole wheat sour-ish bread. Glorious.), and that's true, but what I'm struggling to infer is that she made something very quotidian into something very special. She made my breakfast a quiet, peaceful event.

The French excel at this.
Whether it's an extraordinary window display:



or the façade of an apartment building:



the French know how to arrange, compliment, and construct beauty. They know how to make something very normal feel special. They know how to luxuriate in the mundane, and they insist upon this luxury.

I feel this whenever I stay with my friend Judith; it's in the finery of her clothes, the eloquence of her words, the distinction of her vision, and the colors of her teapot. I envy that easy elegance. And I'm grateful for it.