I ask, in advance, for forgiveness of any holes in details, emotions, or exact descriptions as I’m remembering (a couple of months later) this trip with the aids of photographs and scattered notes hurriedly written in my journal, the first of which is, “No words.” Incredibly helpful for a shoddy memory like mine. But, as a direct result of the weekend that preceded this trip, I was so incredibly content to be present and not worry about documenting the minutiae of what I did. As you’ll see (and I apologize for this as well), the experience of Normandy surprisingly welded itself onto my brain and I go into great detail as I walked through the garden of my memory.
As with the first few trips I’ve already taken, I outlined this one with the desperate 3 a.m. Google Search engine and added far too many places to my itinerary. Normandy is a northern department of France, made up of miles of coastline and all I wanted to do was be on the beach (at the end of February in a country whose sky loves the color gray and is permanently frigid). The Norman tourist site suggested sleepy beachside towns that turned from pale to tan as the summer wore on: Deauville, Barfleur, Trouville, Saint Malo. I was incredibly tempted to spend all three days in Camembert, gorging myself on cheese. I did know that I needed a car. I’d be traveling through a region and not just one single city. In my head, and all over the Amex car booking site, the French just drive manuals. A few attempts by my mother to teach me in both her Ford Pony and Mustang and several cartoonish wails of, “I can’t do this!” have proven me (as of right now) unable to drive a stick. I figured I’ll wing it and end up like the three travelers in ‘Dogma’ with a smoking engine and a flashing red light on my dashboard. I reserve one, only to cancel the next day, deciding I could drive a manual, but not wanting to learn to do it in the streets of Paris. I try to book a car in Rouen, but it’s too close to pick-up time. Fine, I’ll just get one at the train station when I arrive. Which is later than I anticipated because, it turns out running form the metro to the SNCF trains while trying to hike up your falling jeans slows you down just enough that you see the train - the one you’re supposed to be on and bought a ticket for - just pull out of sight. No car, no train, no air in my lungs…I’m okay, right? Especially after my newly discovered freedom two days before? I can be spontaneous, go with this flow, unfazed by things not going the way I want…sure. So I dawdled around for 45 minutes, waiting for the next train from Gare du Nord. Once on, I’m convinced I’ll be kicked off at the next stop, but the young conductor smiled and told me it’s all good after I explained myself. I could sit back and watch the French countryside all sodden and bleary swing past me. There’s something decadently romantic about trains - you’re given a chance to see a fleeting world and before you can think about the beauty you’ve just seen, the scene changes.
From where I’m seated, I could see the spires of Saint-Ouen Abbey and Cathedrale Notre Dame de Rouen, the latter of which I head towards immediately after getting off the train. I didn’t need a car just yet and I was starving. I walked under Le Gros-Horloge, a giant black and gold clock mounted on a chateau-esque flat that spans two buildings like a bridge. It was sunny out, but still chilly, the sunlight shining on the cream colored buildings, both Alsation and Bourbon in structure. I wandered past the Gothic Norman Parliament, popped into a pastry shop to grab some sort of flaky chocolate treat and ordered a chicken sandwich from a kiosk near Notre Dame. I removed my backpack and sat myself on a bench that looked out on the square of the church. I could feel the cold in my bones and the spasms in my stomach made it difficult to enjoy my lunch. I needed to keep moving, despite wanting to watch the old ladies walk with purpose, the high school students shoving each other playfully, the way the dim afternoon light moved across the windows of an oddly modern building across from me. But once I finished, I walked along a narrow but busy street north of the church, stopping to look through a gate at the green and white of the church cloisters. A group of white dudes in chains and jeans sat near the entrance, blasting French rap music and I visibly laughed because it’s such a ridiculous mis-en-scene.
Since moving to France, I’ve become fascinated by one of her greatest heroes, Jeanne d’Arc. Her face is everywhere and now as familiar to me as the warrior goddess of knowledge, Athena. Joannie is magical to me: so convicted, a charismatic, pragmatic leader devoted to the libration of her people; burned alive because she wore pants. When I discovered Rouen was where her trial had been held and that there was a museum dedicated to this incredible woman, I added it to my itinerary - one of the must-sees. I don’t quite know how to describe the Historial Jeanne d’Arc - it sort of reminded me of an interactive traveling performance of ‘The Barber of Seville’ I saw on a birthday trip to Venice. It wasn’t a museum, exactly. I’d qualify it as a moving movie, one that you witnessed from the inside. Situated off the street I was walking down, it was housed in the archdiocese of the city, an imposing stone building from the 18th century. It used completely modern technology to bring you into Jeanne’s story. As you move from room to room with an audio guide, projections of the trial were shown on the walls, the voices of the peasants of her hometown explaining her piousness, the soldiers she fought with testifying to her leadership, the clerics interrogating her, all filled your ears. Maps shifted, giving you a sense of the space and scale Jeanne moved through. Paintings come alive with the sounds of battle, and at the end, in the attic of the palace where you hear the judges condemn her for heresy, you see the flames of her political pyre and hear the hot crackle and charred screams of a martyr. It was as close to being in a film about this astounding young woman as you could be if you didn’t have any lines to memorize. I felt like a sad participant and witness to human strength and human injustice.
After, I headed back to the train station to get myself places on a third type of transportation. The first car rental place didnt’ have anything automatic. The second one, at the same desk, did. Minutes later, I wandered around an upper deck of a parking garage, beeping the lock button on the key fob I was given when the lights of a mint Fiat 500 blinked at me. Stop it. This car is so freaking adorable, Amanda-sized. Tiny. Cute. So very European. Getting in, I noticed it’s much roomier than you’d think for such a pint-sized automobile. Sort of like me. I squeal with delight until I actually drove it - it drove like shit. The pick-up is terrible and the braking wonky. But this thing is my travel companion fo the next three days. It’s fine, though - I just needed to remember how to drive and to do it in an unfamiliar French city. Driving in France isn’t that different from driving in the States; the stoplights just happen to be at eye-level. I drove for about an hour north to the coast, blasting Tom Petty and looking at the patchwork farms that speed by and the cotton ball clouds in the bright blue sky when my eyes aren’t directly on the road in front of me.
Arriving in Etretat, the clouds have melted into one gray mass that filled the ceiling of my vision and rain whipped at my little car. This town was quaint in the way all beach towns are: the air felt lighter and freer, it tasted of fresh air and salt. There are small streets that are sparsely filled with beach-goers but no bathing suits in sight. I parked and made my way past storefronts and restaurants closed for the season, gift shops selling Calvados, the apple liqueur Normandy is known for, and signs warning caution of imminent death on slick rocks. On the boardwalk, I looked out and found I haven’t breathed in minutes.
There was so much astounding beauty, I couldn’t even fathom how to take it all in and process it, let alone put words down that could properly paint a picture of what this place was. “No words.” That’s how I described Etretat in my journal. I don’t remember the first thing I saw when I walked up onto the wooden platform that spanned the beach. Was it the giant limestone bluff, white and bright as an egg, that rose out of the water, blue and foamy? Was it the sand, which wasn’t even sand but billions of rocks, wet and polished post-marine tumble? Maybe it was the sky, shifting from slate to honey to goldenrod, just as changing and constant as the waves that rhythmically sounded a tattoo, coming in and going out. It could’ve been the magnificent arch and witch’s hat that strikes me as something I’ve seen before. Or perhaps I first noticed the grassy green cliff with a miniature chapel perched on top. Whatever I saw, I was completely enraptured - time didn’t exist and neither did anything else. It was just this place and I.
As I walked toward the end of the boardwalk, the rain cut at my uncovered hands and the wind whipped my hair, lashing at my cheeks. I had the brilliant idea to scale the cliff, taking the slimy stairs at an unnecessary sprint, and soon felt winded by the ancient StairMaster. So many stairs that smoothed and flattened out until I was walking on giant slabs of mud instead of stone. Feeling my heart in my throat ten minutes later, I came upon that miniature chapel: it was just one large room made of stacked rocks and stained glass, it’s steeple raised high above the cliff, the beach, and the town below. I found a weathered bench and sat gazing at the water.
And I started to cry. I was two days post-breakdown and post-liberation. I was in this majestically beautiful place that can only be seen either in person or through Monet’s capture of the light in the works he painted from this very same hill. The weekend before, my new friend Nick had described his emotional reaction to driving through Alaska for the first time; he had wept at its grandeur and beauty. As someone who cries at everything, I was surprised I had never shed a tear of the glories this earth has shown me. Even the Grand Canyon, which reminded me that while I was tiny and insignificant in the blot of the earthen landscape, I still took up space. I’ve been fortunate to experience so many wondrous and eye-pleasing sites that didn’t have much to do with humans and yet… Perhaps this time, it was so much more visceral and tangible that the physical manifestation of emotions showed up. The bluffs, the sea, the smell of salt, the sound of my hair being pulled in different directions, the sting of rain, cold and wet on my face. And the realization that I had gotten myself here. I made my life into something that finds me on top of a hill, freezing my ass off, and looking at the most splendidly beautiful place I have ever seen with my hazel eyes. No one and nothing else had gotten me here and I was finally an agent - the agent - of change and direction and decision in my own life. I, alone, was in this place and saw myself everywhere: the wind gusts my violence, the passing clouds my mercurial emotions, the white cliffs the eroding of my teaching and beliefs, the rocks my anchor to the sea, and the sand my place in the world. In that moment, I was neither happy nor sad, but incredibly grounded to this place, wholly and unabashedly being.
A few moments later, I walked along a muddy path, cutting through damp grass and very close to the edge of the cliff, standing just close enough to know that if I took another step, I’d slip and tumble away. Just like at the rim of the Grand Canyon and at the top of the Welch-Dickey Loop in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, I wanted to take a running leap and fling myself off, not in any desire to fall to my death, but to experience the sensation of flying.
I made my way precariously back down, taking the steps two feet planted at a time - my ankle was bothering me and I’m still convinced every step will end with me tripping and a broken foot. Now that I was on the beach, I was delighted by how much effort it took to walk - my sneakers sunk into the round, damp rocks and made me feel as if I were treading in hiking books. This must be how a toddler feels, staggering around for the first time. The sound - rumbly and chunky - is hardly drowned out by the white capped waves inhaling and exhaling. The Earth was doing her own ujai pranayama. I first meandered away from the setting sun that was trying its darnedest to peep out from the clouds, warming my back as I look up at the sheer wall of limestone I’ve just come down from. There’s a little red doorway that’s been chiseled from the rock, probably an outpost from the war. Close to it, you can see the individual layers of earth, stripped away and beaten by erosion, a million shades of white that change with the light. As I tripped closer to the water, I saw that the sea foam is tactile, frothy and bubbly, and made me think that if I were the Little Mermaid, being perched on seaweed in the Norman sun might be better than being with the man I loved.
As the evening grows darker, I truly began to understand why artists come here to paint - the changing light, moving over the hill opposite me with the iconic arch and pyramid in the foreground, the sky a different hue each time you blink. It’s a completely different scene every millisecond. And here, as in Italy, the rays of sunlight shone out from the clouds like they’ve been painted on the canvas of the sky, as if I could grab them in my hands. I stood, transfixed, as that fiery orb moved steadily into the sea and out of my sight.
I spent that night at the home of Patrick and Christine, a lovely older French couple who had a room posted on AirBnb. They had a daughter who lived in London, a son who lived in Houston, and a little figurine of the Queen Mother on their bookshelf. Their house was how I’d like mine to be if I ever have one: lived in, full of pictures of friends and family, different types and sizes of original artwork, knick-knacks collected from years of travel; a house full of the stories of their lives and full of things to rediscover and remember. They served me dinner - the first foie gras I’ve had since arriving in France, a Greek salad, various cold meats, cheese - that I ate off a tiny plate balanced on my knees as we talked in front of their fireplace that would spit every so often as Patrick discarded his pistachio shells in the bin. I learned their favorite place to visit is England and that they were huge Anglophiles (that explains the queen). Patrick disappeared into his cellar and brought up a large unlabelled bottle filled with liquid gold. He has thirty or so bottles of Sauterne (my favorite wine) that he decanted on his own from a full barrel from a winery down south that he split with a friend. Several glasses later, I excused myself to go to bed, sad something like sleep is dragging me away from the friendly and easy conversation. I showered upstairs in a bathroom that clearly belongs to their grandchildren: there’s a laminated map of the world pinned up in the bathtub and Russia isn’t Russia, it’s the USSR. There was a cheeky blue and white sign on the door that read, “Save Water, Shower With a Friend,’ and a view of the harbor, barely visible through the hazy night. Too tired to climb into the loft, I burrowed under two thick blankets on the futon and listened to the soft pitter-patter of rain on the deck.
Breakfast was just Patrick, myself, and the radio; Marine Le Pen was being interviewed and every so often, he would roll his eyes at something she said, exclaiming in French then explaining her ridiculous views to me in English. Between bites of my croissant (not from his traditional baker, he said, as she was on vacation), I told him that we had the problems in the Staes France would’ve likely have had if Le Pen had been elected instead of Macron. He ripped off a leaf from a plant potted near the window and handed it to me to smell - it was spicy and minty. It’s now taped in my journal. Upon my departure a few minutes later, he wished me safe driving and clear weather, reminding me to check out the library in town. I waved my hand as I walked through the entrance of their property.
Down in Le Havre, I walked around for a couple of hours, through a park full of statues, down to the beach and to that library, contemporary and circular. I was locked out of entering the parking garage elevator and after too many frustrated scans of my ticket, I finally walked down the car ramp and got lost underground for twenty minutes. Finally, the mint Julep and I were on our way to Honfleur, a little port town across the water from Le Havre.
Driving through Honfleur felt like I was an anachronism, slowly moving through time to the 17th century. I ended up parking somewhat outside the town proper, but first came across a stone tower that would take five steps to circle on a grassy lawn in front of a stone building. I gathered three daisies and pressed them between the pages of my journal, like the leaf Patrick gave me. Immediately stepping into the NaturoSpace, my hair grew three times its normal size and incredibly curly - this place was half butterfly habitat, half apiary, all jungle with the heat and humidity to match. Butterflies of kaleidoscoped wings dipped and curliqued in and out of my vision, my eyes catching iridescent turquoise, earth brown, poppy red, blood orange as the balletic creatures moved about their home. The bright colors were echoed by the exotic birds that flew from branch to branch or waddled around along the ground. I felt I was in the jungle - the cawing of birds sounded a staccato in the midst of whatever was the rainforest equivalent of a cricket’s chirp or cicada’s hum. I watch as a brilliant blue Morpho Menelaus butterfly mischievously flitted around a jeweled Rollulus rouloul, it’s red plum standing on end as if shocked by the audacity as it chased the fairy insect around it’s own feeding trough. I teetered into a stand-off with a sky-colored sheepmaker’s crowned pigeon that was bigger than my head, it moving to and fro with one wing up and one eye on me as I tried to skirt out of it’s way. Gorgeous orchids, spotted white and deeply maroon, climbed the wall and fat pods of vanilla hung too far out of reach. If I tried hard enough and blocked out the noise of the other visitors, I could step into this cocoon of a wilderness, act like Tarzan or Mowgli, and stay peacefully in this nature.
I walked around the tiny town, paved in stone, and around its small harbor that looks like it did when it was first made, boats moving on the ebb and flow of the tide. Masts stood tall, reaching up nakedly to the blue sky, missing their sails. Ancient storefronts made way to ancient homes. The facades all differed in height, width, paint colors, and gables. I meandered down another narrow street, munching on marzipan, and the houses were striped blue and pink and brown, contrasted with dull white plaster, and the lintels of the doors were so low, I felt I’d knock my head on them if I stepped through. It was almost a stereotype of what you’d think a medieval town would be. As I found out later that night, it was just one of the ways such a place could exist.
Leaving Honfleur, I drove through flat green space and blink-and-you’ll-miss-them towns to Colleville-sur-Mer, one of my must-visits on this entire trip. I knew I was back on American soil when the signs were suddenly all in English. I was at the American Cemetery, situated on a hill overlooking Omaha Beach to the left and Gold Beach to the right. I walked past a group of American tourists, all my age, all men, and likely service members, judging by their haircuts. I was the only one in the subterranean visitors center who was alone. June 6, 1944 has such a mythic and legendary hold on American history and the American psyche that I couldn’t help but think that I was standing on blood-soaked ground. I’ve watched the first ten minutes of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ immediately after waking up in a particularly blood-thirsty mood and am a citizen of a country where mass shootings are a monthly occurrence and as such, have become numb to the toll of not only war, but loss and death. Being here, I was reminded of humanity’s need to keep going, even when there was so much death and chaos and violence. I lost it when I saw a plaque honoring First Lieutenant Winna-Jean Tierney and Lieutenant Marian Elcano, the former a pilot, the latter a nurse. They were the only two women I saw named in the main section of the museum. I wiped away tears coming across a singed and ashy teddy bear next to a child’s toy first aid kit. Outside in the brisk sunshine, I walked through a maze of topiaries, called the Garden of the Missing; walls of white stone were carved with names where so few had asterisks next to them, signs their bodies had been recovered and identified. A long reflecting pool stretched out before walkways and rows of iconic marble headstones. I marveled at the default to Christian symbolism - save a few emblematic Jewish Stars of David, the land was all crosses. Nothing to mark a Muslim, a Buddhist, an atheist. Being there felt like further justification of my need to walk away from my former religion. Why wouldn’t God intervene in this redundant history? What was the point of all this death, all this suffering, both by those that gave their lives and those that loved them? I whispered the words, “All glory and honor to him who takes your life and limb” bitterly and was reminded of other words I saw at another monument to another American tragedy. On a large wall in the September 11th memorial museum in New York City, the words, “No day shall erase you from the memory of time,” written by Virgil, are inscribed. Looking out at the stark reminder, the names of soldiers engraved on marble I’d like to run my fingers over, I wondered about freedom. Is it a Christian concept, as I had been taught? Here in the cemetery, I knew it’s not, despite all the pure white crosses. It’s not even political. Or American. It’s fundamentally human. It also has a fundamentally human cost.
I drove down to the beach where three metallic monuments that looked like Polynesian sails rose up out of the sand. My short legs stretched over small rivers of sea water and in my head, I’m stretching over Czech hedgehogs and rivers of blood. Macabre, I know, but that’s all I could see in this place. I didn’t want to leave; instead, I wanted to sit on the wall overlooking the water and think about what happened, try to make sense of it, it’s place in history and in humanity. It was approaching dusk as I somberly departed.
Mont Saint Michel rose in the distance, beyond wet grassland, and honestly, the monastic island looked like a nipple. But after parking and then walking towards it, my immaturity gave way to awe. As it got darker, the island is lit from its roots, illuminating its fortress. You could take a bus from the mainland, but I choose to hike half an hour along the road raised over the marsh. The sight was incredible - all the pictures I’ve seen in travel magazines and on traveling accounts don’t really capture the sheer wonder of this place. How does something so man-made seem to be so made of the Earth? It was such an old and primitive fortress that it’s almost like the planet is defending it from outside forces - the water lapped below my feet and I could feel the cold spray on my face. Like a snail on its side, the little village spiraled from the shore up to the spire of the abbey, and you could see the houses go round and round the hill. When I got off the road to enter the island, I could have headed straight into the water but I entered through a hole in the wall and my hotel was the first building I came to. It had the smallest lobby I’ve seen, with just enough space for a kindly-looking receptionist to sit behind a small dark wooden desk. There was red velvet everywhere and a narrow staircase. I wasn’t staying in the main building and got so terribly lost wandering the slippery parapets in the dark. I eventually found my room and then headed back down to the main floor for dinner. La Mere Poulard, a restaurant known for its puffy wood fired omelet, made me think of Italian ristorantes in Boston’s North End - the walls were covered in black and white pictures of celebrities from the fifties and sixties, there were plastic flowers in tiny vases, and there were tea lights on the white tablecloths. The waiters all wore black jackets with long white aprons over black slacks. ‘La Foule’ was playing as I was seated; all life ever really needs is Edith Piaf playing. I’d try coming up with a narrative from my notes, but I love the stream of consciousness, so I thought I’d just share that:
- Crepe that reminds me of an egg roll: super crispy, cheesy, like a fried blintz
- Simple salad of greens dressed with a mustard vinaigrette, fresh, very French
- Salmon on toast (it’s rye bread): this is heaven, the lightest crème fraîche spread, thankful for Juliana taking me to Russ and Daughters
- Super vinegary pickles: feel like it was poured straight into my mouth
- Paté: some of the best I’ve had; tastes of beef and herbs, a good ratio of fat
- Salmon salad: smells of fish which puts me off a little, still kind of tasty but bring me more of that salmon toast
- Omelette w/foie gras: the world’s fluffiest omelette - it’s foamy, eggy, so light and airy; the foie gras is served separately with amazingly crispy potatoes and soft apples, it’s buttery and almost reminds me of bone marrow with the mouthfeel and texture, but it’s incredibly melty
-Tarte tartine: super caramelly with the cut of salt, barely any apple but a good, strong crust
- Red fruit compote and whipped cream: wicked tart, it’s like I poured frozen raspberries down my throat, could use a bit more sugar in the cream to cut the compote
- Chocolate millefuille: the sound of the layers is everything - it’s like ice cracking in the Antarctic, it’s not too sweet but it’s all chocolate and pastry
I was also so deliriously happy - both with what I’ve eaten and who I am in that moment. I am completely in awe of my life. Despite losing my religion and walking away from a relationship I’d been in for 32 years, I have put myself in a position to travel and discover a brave new world that gets more and more beautiful and I get closer and closer to being my best self. A new Amanda has arrived and she’s trying to find her sea legs. I told my friend Andriana about this feeling of new freedom. “I’m in the midst of being liberated,” I texted her, “and it’s given me the freedom to be as uncharacteristic as I want to be.” I suggested to another friend that New Amanda could be a huge slut (but probably won’t be because she’s got Old Amanda’s hips), just because sleeping around would be a new experience for me and something I never would’ve thought was a possibility even just the week before. Not that I would, but I could. Leaving behind the cave I had been chained in and told the shadows I saw projected in front of me were truth was walking into an entire world - the actual world - that was full of light and I was now free to discover and be curious about it and my place in it. As I write that and the utter decadent joy I’m experiencing in this awakening resounds in my body, I’ve got the voice of Black Phillip from Robert Egger’s ‘The Witch’ in my head, whispering, “Woulds’t thou like to live deliciously?” This is what life is about and what I had stopped myself from experiencing before because I wanted to be a good girl: beauty, pleasure, choice, liberation, attribution, awareness and, as I’ve said before, learning to expect nothing from the universe except its constant and silent invitation to delight in and be aware of its very existence.
The next morning, I woke before sunrise to stroll out from the island to photograph it in the rising light, but, like most of February, it was overcast. It was still exquisite to see the outlines of the monastery become more visible in the gray mist. And as it’s still so early in the morning, no one was out so I took the opportunity to explore unhindered, starting with two steps across a wooden drawbridge over an ineffective moat and through an arched gateway. I took all sorts of different turns, up and down narrow stairs, running my hands over the damp lichen on the hewn rocks. Every so often on my ascent, I turned around to look at the roofs and out over the marshy waters of mainland France. I saw slots in the walls, where archers would safely loose their arrows on trespassers, and walked the ramparts. Trees grew out randomly and seemed almost foreign amongst the closely built stone cottages. I grabbed breakfast back at the hotel - a croissant, pain au chocolat, prunes, figs, salami, a container of yogurt, a mug of tea, and apple juice. And before long, I’ve checked out, wearing my new red rain slicker. I took an hour to drop my backpack off at the car and walk back to the island and up to the abbey.
I happened to arrive at the same time as a large group of younger tourists and I’m instantly annoyed by how loud they are. And they seemed to be moving at the same speed I am so they were inescapable. This abbey, though, was an oasis. The cloisters were my favorite - arched double columns enclosed a wide, open, verdantly green lawn - this walk would be perfect for meditation. I wandered through the dining hall, feeling like I could hear the scraping of plates and forks and goblets on long wooden tables and the sound of absent conversations as the monks that lived here ate in silence. It was frigid in here and I crawled inside a kitchen fireplace that was so big, Tom Brady could do jumping jacks in it and not hurt himself. There was a statue of the archangel Michael, the protector of this island and I wondered how fitting it was him floating there, his face broken off through some act of harm, a destruction of the beautiful.
My trip ended with me back in Rouen, having said good-bye to the mint dream. I met the delightfully awkward owner of an English bookshop who excitedly recommended the “The Quiet American” by Graham Greene and did all of his accounting out of a gridded notebook (like the one I’ve drafted this piece in). He’s my age and this could have been the perfect meet-cute, especially after he gave me a drink of water, but I think I’m oddly attached to the idea of coming out of this trip still single. (I’m also still incredibly inept at socializing.) I also popped into a curiosities shop where the proprietor immediately came over to help remove my bulky backpack and set it aside - I could have easily swung around and toppled an expensive taxidermied bird or a bust of some pre-Revolution noble. This place was so whimsical and I wanted to procure everything: the skull decorated with flowers, the floor-length tassels, the shadow boxes displaying pinned insects, the steampunk elephant paperweight. I saw a darling glass hot air balloon necklace and asked Messieur if he could reach it for me. He said the local jewelry maker who fashioned it was actually trying to make earrings, but made a mistake and turned that mistake into another piece of art. It now hangs next to to the wooden good luck charm from Marrakech.
On each of my trips, I’ve sent myself a postcard from each place I’ve visited with five memories. At the bottom of the postcard from Normandy, showing the graceful arch at Etretat in broad daylight, I wrote, “This was a trip for the books.” When I get to read the story of my life, this trip will be one of my favorite chapters.
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