Une creche

A creche is like a nativity scene combined with a Christmas village, except set in Provence. It's really just an excuse to make tons of rustic little miniatures. I've seen some with little mechanical devices, for example a well drawing water, or people moving.

Photodiary: December 27

Cats don't like to be photographed.

Cabbages do.

Blue is the new green

Sing it loud; the three-month mark

If you look to your right, you will see my favorite verse from my favorite Bob Dylan song. It's there because I imagined this year as an adventure, a joyful adventure in which my long-muffled Soul would announce itself jubilantly from the hilltops. If souls grew as predictably as zucchinis, maybe things would have progressed as planned. As is, I haven't exactly spent this fall being the devil-may-care rebel that Bob probably had in mind. If you've asked me how things are going at any point these past months, the "it's a good experience" part of the answer (qualified praise that that is) is always accompanied by some "but" and some variation of "not easy."

Well, it's not. The three skills that would have been most handy -- teaching, speaking French, and making friends quickly, language barriers be damned -- have turned out to be ones that don't come naturally to me. I could also throw "herding cats" and "crowd control" on the list, but "teaching" should cover that, right?

Don't get me wrong; this is not a pity party post. I've turned a corner (we won't call it "the" corner), and I'm finally feeling more optimistic about this year. The thing is, it's good for me to be doing something I'm not good at. I've known this abstractly for a while, every morning that I gathered my courage to face down the flighty teenagers; each afternoon that I asked myself what I could do better next time, rather than throw my hands up in despair and count the days until vacation. (I'm being melodramatic and self-martyring right now, but not unreasonably so.) But it didn't feel like I was getting anywhere, and I wasn't getting better at teaching, and I still can't speak French beautifully, and, and.

And now, the moment where what I've learned finally clicks into place. I was in Ireland this weekend, playing chamber music. We were rehearsing, and there was something I wasn't quite getting. I didn't quite get it on the first try. I didn't quite get it on the second try either. And to be honest, I really don't think I got it in the concert, either. But in the moment where my group was politely listening to me throw tempo to the wind, I watched myself not get frustrated. Usually a failure to be perfect on the first try sends me into torrents of existential despair of the "I'm bad at life" variety, maybe even a little panic. You know, the kind of frustration that lets you walk away from a problem in disgust because you don't believe you'll ever solve it. This time, I watched the exasperation pass like a cloud and noted that I would have to dig in harder.

Christmas chowder

Red peppers & green peas.

On my return from Ireland

The raindrops were beaded like Christmas lights on the clothesline as the dusk fell pearly-grey; the wind shook the palm trees in the damp haze of the streetlights; the waves were heard leaping the beach to scatter detritus on the sidewalk; and I was in the glow of my lamp.

My trip to Ireland, to play chamber music and see friends, was so good, that I'm even happy to be by myself here in rainy Provence in my moldy apartment. As the train rolled closer to "home," the red roofs, scruffy flora, and jagged horizon looked new and welcoming. Not really new, since the land here looks old and the buildings tired, but new as if I was seeing anew. The homecoming that greets a long-traveling daughter, the voyage to a place seen only in the mind's eye never by daylight, the first time opening your eyes fully. "I live here," I told myself, here where walking through the hills feels like walking through an arid movie set.

What drug of new vision did my few days in Ireland give me? Partly that travel-rapture that has eluded me here in France. When I was a student in Paris, visiting Marseille, visiting Chartres, wherever I was, the slightest discovery was thrilling; returning this fall, I felt blase. I even went, very deliberately, to the particular cathedral that I once felt a certain kinship to. But no; nothing.

Now, Ireland. My excitement to go to Ireland was untempered and uncomplicated, and when I got there, I was as delighted as I had been prepared to be. The first day, I took a walk through the countryside. I was in such a rapture that I stopped to stare at chickens.

You may suspect that it would take something more than rain-rich pastures, or even cozy fires and unparalleled hot drinks, to cause such joy. You'd be right.

Ireland!