You mustn't be frightened...
if an anxiety,
like light and cloud-shadows,
moves over your hands and over
everything you do.
This has been a strange week. I've been low. Rob's been low (while cooking up some pretty splendid meals - quiche, minestrone, apple tart, roast chicken with heaps of garlic and root vegetables.) We thought we'd feel free, light, even gleeful when we were unencumbered by debt but instead we feel heavy, plodding, indecisive.
Here we are picking figs off trees, and you'd think that we were doomed to 20 years of boredom. I've observed myself. I go from angry to whiny to anxious while inside my head a voice chides me - fool fool what's wrong with you? Lighten up. Enjoy your one wild and precious life.
Rob who loves his sleep has seldom been able to sleep through the night. He's facing his own demons.
Around 4 this morning, we lay in bed, wide awake, trying to sort out what's wrong. We're trying to do too much too quickly, he says. We don't have our own private space. This house is so light, so open now, I say. Have we blown it? It's too sparse, too immaculate, he says. I want to see things lying around. I want to see lives being lived, not a showplace. I know what you mean, I respond. I don't either but I like things clean and orderly. (I worry now that what we want is too different. Or I will give in and be secretly miserable.)
Writers' rooms are supposed to be messy and cluttered, he says. Not all of them, I say. Some of us like order. But I think back to my house in the garden and it was messy and cluttered and I didn't really give a damn as long as I was writing. Still I would have liked for it to have been more beautiful. I just wasn't willing to put the time in to achieve it.
I was so productive when I was here alone for 6 weeks, he says. I spent all my time in the attic room writing. I'm happy in the downstairs room, I say. But I don't want anyone walking through bugging me. We decide that we will create our own spaces and do whatever we like in them. We will not give them up when we have visitors. We will work any old time we feel like. Arriving at this decision makes us feel better.
We are not always so dreary
The other day because of this and that we found ourselves at half past one, just outside the village, ravenous. We made a mad dash for the nearest town of La Laroque in hopes of finding one restaurant willing to serve us. (Restaurants in France refuse to serve lunch after two, sometimes even slightly before two, which infuriates Rob.)
At ten to two, we walked into the brasserie and I asked the owner if it was too late for lunch. He rolled his eyes, let out a squawk, hastily cleared a table, and with an abrupt nod of his head indicated that he would serve us but not happily.
He plunked napkins, plates, glasses, and cutlery in front of us. Then a basket of bread. We decided we would have a salad. He didn't ask. Instead, he lay a platter of remnants of cold meats (charcuterie) on the table. We decided not to fight him. I picked up my knife and before I could help myself, a woman appeared and, with a sigh, whisked the plate away.
Moments later, she was back with a full platter. The night before we had watched an episode of Fawlty Towers and and a similar scene had played itself out with Fawlty being rude to the guests and Sybil correcting his mistakes.
After taking a helping of meat, the platter was replaced with a mixed green salad for two. We saw that if we wanted to eat, we would eat what we were served though they were willing to bring us a small pichet of vin rouge.
After the salad came a zucchini quiche and roast beef with a mushroom sauce (surprisingly delicious), followed by a cheese platter, and then a choice (finally) of desserts. We both chose a sorbet. Five courses with wine, then coffee on the patio. We wondered what the bill would come to. Another pleasant surprise - for the two of us - thirty euros.
Oh, I nearly forgot, during the meal, French Basil played the buffoon by picking up a watering can and yodeling into the spout. He loved to entertain (but not to serve.) No matter, the meal made our day.
