The sky is heavy with the threat of 4″ of snow today. I know it is coming and I can feel it – enough years in the midwest have given me an internal sensor. My motivation to get some things done today is reading three years’ of blog entries of someone I’m insanely jealous of (Tongue in Cheek). Once I get done with my own scribblings, I will work awhile then read awhile…all day long. She has blogged everyday for the last three years. I want to be her when I grow up.
So, I’m sorry I can’t be with you today but I am in the South of France. All day. I might be back tomorrow, but I can’t make any promises.
Our first trip to the French Riviera was a long weekend winter road trip from Madrid to Monaco. Saint-Paul-de-Vence, the medieval village where Marc Chagall is buried was a must see. The sweetest little hand painted pitcher changed addresses that day and still peeks at me from inside my alacena (cupboard or hutch) now 4,000 miles away from its original home. Today it reminds me that travel enriches and heals my soul.
I’m starting to recognize the pattern. I need total escape days. If I can just wallow here for a day or two, I’ll re-calibrate and find the necessary resources to get up again.
Sometimes it comes in the form of a six back-to-back episodes of The Wire. Or nine hours in bed…if you know me at all, you see red flags. I’ve operated on very little sleep most of my life and insomniac episodes for months at a time. But in these last months, it is my favorite time of the day when I am getting ready to enter that space. Deep, dreamless, dropping off of the edge of the world. Knowing nothing between 11 p.m. and 8 a.m.
I can’t really do anything that requires conversations with anyone outside my tightest circle before noon when I’m here in the north. After two or three cafe con leches and quiet computer time, I might get something accomplished by early afternoon. It is now past noon, I’ll work a bit then treat myself to some more reading.
A perfect Sunday afternoon in the South of France…
1eyedmonkee 