Soar-Dream-France

Dare I...???

 

 

I guess I do dare! This week, I said I'd like to blog more. I had been blogging daily for ages, but all that changed. At first slowly, but then to almost non-existent. Once I didn't HAVE to open my laptop, I didn't. I could often do what I wanted to blog more easily on Facebook. I didn't want to "muck" up the ambiance of home with the laptop on the table.

 

 

It didn't feel fun anymore, but some of that was because it was taking forever. Many of my photos would not download. 

 

 

So this morning, I told myself that if the photo I chose came easily; I would continue. So here I am...random photo...random post...and some special Sunday wishes for all.

 

Yes, it is Sunday!

 

Tracking

 

Recently, a follower tracked me down by email. I realize that I haven't blogged since January of this year, prior to my fly by stateside return so I could get in and out before the Inauguration on January 21, 2025. 

I've been trying to reach Barbara C. since last week, but my emails are continually returned. So, here I am, hoping that she will find this and know that I am okay. 

I confess that it so much simpler for me to post on Facebook/META, but if I'm not blogging I do have people who are left behind. I want to apologize to Barbara, and let her know how nice it was to be missed AND tracked down.

As I was sorting through ways to find Barbara without a functioning email; it took me back to my blog and some of the old posts. I enjoyed reading them again AND feeling those feelings of writing regularly. I was left wondering: what I had missed?; what hadn't I captured?; and, felt like starting up again. We shall see.

So, Barbara-hope you see this. You may have given me a little jump start!

 

Happy Wednesday!

 

 

The Return of Tim

Mardi Gras romances are fleeting. The guy is usually from out of town, here for a little fun and then on his way once more. Sometimes they come back every Mardi Gras. Other times, they just ride off into the sunset never to be heard from again. 

via soardreamfrance.typepad.com

The Number 327

 

With the New Years tragedy that happened in New Orleans hardly hours into the New Year, I found myself doing what I tend to do from here in Cadrieu. News of the attack on Bourbon Street actually came through on one of my news feeds almost as it was happening in real-time. 3:15 am New Orleans time is 10:15 Cadrieu time. Details were sketchy. I paid attention on and off throughout the day. By the end of my day yesterday, I'd heard from my brother. Then today, I began to hear from friends elsewhere, here, and New Orleans friends were marking themselves "safe."

 

 

It's difficult for me to hear and absorb when these tragedies happen. It is especially difficult now. I would guess that distance, age, and just plain weariness play a huge part. Try as I may to just keep moving, the tears still fell when I saw the vans from the Coroner's Office lined up on the neutral ground on Canal Street. I'd watched the path of the terrorist. Originally I thought he'd gotten up on the sidewalk at Iberville St. but later saw he'd come down Canal Street from the river direction, and this was where he drove around the NOPD car onto the sidewalk...Canal and Bourbon.

 

And then, one reporter described him plowing through from Canal Street to Conti Street. I know those first three blocks of Bourbon Street well. I cried some more.

 

When I was in graduate school, my favorite bar in the French Quarter was Judah P's. You walked down a long alley beside 327 Bourbon to a patio that had country music. At the time, the band was Salt Creek. I got to be friends with the waitresses, bar tender, musicians, and even dated the drummer in the band at the time. Graduation in December of '77, brought me back to St. Louis kicking and screaming.

 

By July '78, I was back in New Orleans for good.

 

Judah P's was still my favorite music hang out. There was a new band. I started dating the manager and married him in '81 and officially divorced him in '82.

The wedding was in Armstrong Park, the reception was at "the Club" that had become Big Jim's by then. They'd taken over the space at 810 Conti and made an archway between the patio and the new space.

During those Urban Cowboy times, you had to have a mechanical bull and the new space was perfect for it.

I always said if the marriage was as nice as the wedding, I'd still be married; but, that just wasn't the case.

 

It's hard not to pay attention when there are so many memories. 327 has always been THE bar on Bourbon Street. As soon as I heard "Conti Street" and saw the Royal Sonesta and Le Booze across the street on the news; I was serving beers in the alleyway with my brother Tom one Mardi Gras and hanging from the balcony being really happy I was NOT down in those Mardi Gras crowds. 

 

Good thing I've got my memories.

And if you know me well, these aren't the only ones.

 

(All photos were taken the Friday before Mardi Gras 2020!)

 

The WHAT of "So what?"

 

Many of you may be wondering why in the world I began this blog post with this photo? Once again, it is my effort to try to push myself into hope that the results of our upcoming Presential Election in the states will save our democracy and that no violence will ensue. For those of you who are paying attention, and maybe even more for those who are NOT; a recently unsealed document by Special Counsel Jack Smith has served up even more information about what Trump was doing and saying on January 6, 2021. 

I know how bad it is and has been. I've known since 2015.  What about you?

Do you want to elect someone as President of the United States for a second time, who when told his then Vice-President Mike Pence was being rushed to a secure location for his safety from the rioting mob of insurrectionists, said: "So, what?"

Think about how many important, lethal, violent and dangerous things this man has said: "So what?" to. The list is endless. It brings tears to my eyes again and again.

This Former President has said "So what" to the whole country, to each and every one of us. He doesn't care about any of us and dismisses every single one of us. Is this the kind of man you want to be running our country and dismissing you and your life?

 

Think about it. Vote Blue!

 

Ode to Helene

 

 

Ever since I sold my house in New Orleans back in 2022; I have had strange reactions to hurricane season and hurricanes. I was here in Cadrieu when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in August of 2005. I had workshops set, so I planned to be here from mid-June to mid-October.

I still have trouble getting my head and heart to work together from time to time. I know that I'm suppose to be here, and am so grateful I am. However, that  doesn't stop me from feeling the pain. I do know that on the other side of that pain is gratefulness.

So today, I'm sharing a short story I wrote during the early years post-Katrina. It's a reminder that many losses go beyond brick and mortar. I hope you enjoy it.

It's called:

 

 

Just One Fine Day

    Today is one of those fry your eggs on the sidewalk, pretend you're a fish so you can breathe through your gills, Sunday afternoons in June in Mississippi. I'm swimming naked. I've never even skinny dipped before, so this is a big deal for me. I've driven over from New Orleans to spend the day with Travis at his Bay St. Lous home. Now Travis, he says: "neck-ed." He loves my body. I tell him that I feel like the absolutely most gorgeous, sexy, beautiful woman in the world when I'm with him. When he says: "That's because you are," I pinch myself. Travis and I have been friends at a distance for 30 years, friends up close for a fistful of months, and lovers for 30 days. After love-making, he comes up behind me when I'm at the mirror putting the combs back in my hair. I feel his arms tight around my waist when he hugs me and then leans down to nuzzle my neck. Our eyes lock and we smile. We fit. 

 

    There's skinny dipping and then there's swimming naked. Skinny dipping is something you do in the water under cover of darkness, after darting out from behind a huge shrub where all your clothes sit. It is mischief, danger and a desire to get in the water as fast as you can so nobody can see you. My clothes aren't in a pile behind a shrub. They're inside on the end of Travis's black iron bed, made with everything Ralph Lauren. My fluffy white towel is keeping his company at the foot of the white plastic chaise lounge. Non-stop Neil Young plays in the background and reminds me how Travis always says, "I play what I like."

 

    Stepping over the furry caterpillar on my path to the pool, I ease into the water and swim a few lengths on my stomach. At the furthest edge, I push off hard with both feet onto my back, stomach to the sky. My finger tips stretch to extend my arms far above my head, and return to touch palms to thighs as I float back and forth from one end of the pool to the other. Each rhythmic rush of sun-warmed pool water carries new sensations into every crevice. I feel free. My chrysalis has opened.

 

 

    My wings flutter from the tip of my antennae to my butterfly tail and back. Each movement reveals a bowl of blue sky, bordered by bold green brush strokes dripping softball sized scoops of vanilla colored magnolias. Their syrupy, soft-serve aroma mists my wings. I flutter from magnolia to magnolia, until I hear voices on the other side of the fence. I swoop down to follow the giggling children with tiny grasping fingers reaching for the tinkling, wordless, melodies of the neighborhood ice cream truck. On the edge of my wings, long, slender, age-worn guitar fingers pick and strum Neil Young's rifts. Must I glide back to the other side of the fence? Can my lover's touch transform my wings into shoulders once more? I open my eyes. I look above me and I see Travis.

 

    He pulls me out of the water and turns me to him. We stand trust to trust, eyes aglow and he asks: "How does it feel, baby?" I steal a long deep kiss from under his bushy black mustache. Finding his ear, my best Marlene Dietrich voice groans: "I...am...a...butterfly." His blue eyes dance as he pokes and teases, "A butterfly, huh? Have I got a caterpillar for you? Butterfly yourself around this." Travis has very little ass to smack and no fat to grab around his waist, so I settle for tickling. Pretty soon, we're chasing each other around the pool like a couple of silly teenagers who might have been skinny dipping to Neil Young in the 70's, but this is 2005.

 

 

    We crash bare-asses smacking on our plastic chaise lounges. Sitting together, knees to knees, holding hands, breathing heavy, we let Neil do the talking for us. "Hello my old friend. It's good to see you smiling. You've been around so long. You really must be strong." I lean over to give Travis a peck on the cheek, but he kisses me on the lips instead. He stares into my eyes and whispers, "We don't have enough time."

    "I don't know what you mean.

    "We...don't...have...enough...time."

 

 

  "I am coming back."

    He presses on, "But four months without you...without this." He puts one hand on a breast and runs the other the length of my body.

    I move his hand to my heart and the other to my forehead, while my silly teenager self giggles, "See, you have all of me."

    "But all of you will be on France."

    "I don't get it. What are you so worried about?"

 

 

    "Something is going to happen to take you away from me."

    "What could happen?"

    "I don't know. I just want as much of you as I can get."

    "Then come with me. You say it's your dream. Come with me."

    "You know I can't. Not yet."

    "Then, when?"

    "When things change. I'll be on the next plane to France."

    "Too may things have to change. By the time you wait for all these changes to happen, I'll have gone and returned a dozen times. Maybe then, we can go together."

 

 

    "Four months is a long time. I don't even have a photo." He glances away and mumbles, "That I can jack-off to."

    "Stop! You're torturing me! Do you want me to spend every moment I'm in France feeling guilty?"

    "I don't want you to feel guilty," he says. "I should be the one who feels guilty."

    "Isn't it enough to know that I'm going to miss you every moment?"

    "Maybe."

    "You are trying to make it impossible for me to get on that plane in the morning."

    "Don't."

    "I don't have a choice. I have work. And now, not only am I going to miss you, but I'm going to miss this sweet place too."

    He reminds me, "You still didn't say if you'd give me a photo."

    "I'll drop it off in your mail slot...in the Quarter, on my way to the airport."

    "Okay, okay. Come on, let's go inside. I want to be sure to send you off to France freshly fucked."

    "Such a romantic. How can I refuse an offer like that?"

    "Travis is thinking "fucking," I'm thinking, "Don't tell him you love him." And Neil Young sings into the sunset beyond the swimming pool, his voice tumbling into the night: "I'm getting blown away to somewhere safer where the feeling stays. I want to love you, but I'm getting blown away."

 

 

    I drove back to New Orleans that night in afterglow and silence. At each exit of I-10, I saw twinkling Travis eyes and Travis smiles. I slowed at each one, but didn't stop. By the time I reach I-610 and Broad Street, it was too late. I had gone too far. Before I left for France the next morning I stopped by the apartment Travis keeps in the French Quarter, and put my sexy photo in his mailbox. The brass lid clanged shut.

 

***

 

  I didn't return to Bay St. Louis with Travis until eight months after the storm. It was a sweet gulf-coast spring day that lures you home with gentle breezes and sparkling sunshine, but mostly humidity. I remembered two blocks of houses between Travis's house and the beach. When we arrived, we drove the coast past fallen trees and debris piles. Travis's house was still standing, even though it was twisted and had settled into the lot next door. The ice cream truck was lying on its side. At the pool, he stood silent behind me. He couldn't touch me. The swimming pool was empty and cracked. The tops of the magnolia trees were gnawed ragged. Their milk chocolate-colored magnolia petals and dark-chocolate colored leaves formed a broken lei around the pool's edge. The caterpillar had spun his chrysalis on a cracked branch of an old magnolia lying in the bottom of the pool. I turned to face Travis-trust to trust-with tears. Travis frowned and shrugged. His "change" was never possible.

The chrysalis still hangs on the old magnolia. Tomorrow I fly back to France.

 

 

If you are looking for me, you will find me in my garden.

 

 

I'll be the one sipping Cahors wine, soaking up the aroma of mint and Mozart, and of course, surrounded by butterflies.

 

Daddy's Girl Still

 

Being the immensely happy childless cat lady that I am, I often find myself being tremendously grateful that I don't have children (or a partner) when I listen to trials and tribulations of my friends everywhere.

I am a realist. I know that I would not have the life I've had, or have been able to do what I've done, if I'd had one or the other or both.

As fiercely independent as I am; I confess to still being a "Daddy's Girl" at 70. I am proud to be a Daddy's girl by choice. I've often said that my Dad set a very high bar for men in my life. When I watched him write "I love you, guess who?" in the snow to my Mom with his cane, or saw him leave little love notes in the kitchen cabinets for Mom to find; I think you can see that would be a hard act to follow.

 

Even so, Dad always encouraged me. He was the "yes" in my life. All I had to do was hear his voice and I knew I'd be okay.

 

Back in 2009, I had an opportunity to buy the barn, "our girl," behind the Chatette. I'd been loving her a long time. I'd divined her to come, et voila. Only thing was, I was dipping into what little was left of my retirement post Katrina to do it. I wanted to check it out with Mom and Dad. 

We sat around together on one of my stateside visits and talked about the barn. Of course, it wasn't the first time they'd heard about our girl. I didn't have to do a lot of persuading, especially for the great price of 8000 euros.

 

 

I knew the deal was sealed when Dad said: (semi-teasing-semi-serious) "And once you have the barn, everything will be perfect!"

 

 

And, you know the rest of the story.

 

The Barn joins us in wishing Dad the happiest of birthdays in heaven today. There's not a doubt in my mind, that he and Mom are proudly looking down on our girl and all the changes and improvements for us and the village we are a part of. 

 

Happy Birthday, Daddy

 

Then and Now: Our Lavoir Spot

Looking back and reacting to these old photos, big changes are the operative words.

Today: the train tracks are gone;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

the barn has a new roof; and,

 

 

the lavoir is on its way to huge makeover.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As many of you already know, the shelter covering the lavoir in this photo is now totally gone. 

 

 

There won't be any of this going on any more!

 

Happy Monday!

 

So Many Lavoir Memories

 

With just finishing up a big birthday at the end of August, I continue to find that I am experiencing time differently.

As I've been watching the unfolding of the new lavoir project here in the village; there is a looking back in the looking forward to what the future may hold here in just this spot.

By the time the work of the moment was finished, I had over 700 photos, videos, and animations.

 

I made a USB key for both Christiane and Xavier.

 

 

Christiane asked me if I had a photo of the lavoir before the archway stone was removed.

That light bulb went off.

I had many, but where?

Truth be told, I have more than 22 years of lavoir photos that portray the lavoir's rich life way before this recent work began.

 

 

 

I had to go back and look. I found photos sprinkled throughout the years, but most fell after the Barn became part of our "we" in 2010. 

 

 

Part of the reason for that was having the barn brought me over to that side of the tracks more often AND, the barn brought along some parcels of land when she came to be with us.

Some of that land was right beside the lavoir.

I was driven to take care of it all the best I could!

It always felt like we belonged together no matter who owned the land.

 

Going back through all those photos took me places I hadn't been in a long time and to feelings I haven't felt in what feels like forever.

 

 

It's time to take a look back with our eyes to the future.

I hope you'll join me.

 

 

Happy Saturday!

 

Sunflower Sojourn

 

Saturday's "turning Tournesols" had me out early this morning on a mission of return. Everyone enjoyed the photos I'd posted so much. I'd asked the question: "Does too many sunflowers in one place make them any less special?" The consensus was no, and that I should go back. Et, Voila!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Little did I know that going back would answer a question I'd had AND point me back down that sunflower memory lane again. Surprise-Surprise!

This morning, I found sunflower fields at all my old haunts!

 

 

 

I was on the road by 7:30 to my Saturday spot. When I got in "Mikey," I noticed there was now a field in Sajauc and there was another in Cadrieu a bit up from our bus stop. I decided to revise my plan a bit.

I confess, had I seen this sign on Saturday. I may not have stopped...NO cars, bikes, motorcycles except residents and services!

But, another confession...I still went again this morning.

 

 

 

We had: sunflowers; horses; stone houses; beautiful views; but, NO lovers kissing and hugging this morning.

Next up, a Saujac adventure was waiting for us. I'd seen the fields from a distance a couple years ago, but didn't go over.

 

 

I'm never sure what I'll see or catch since so much depends on the light, the timing, and amount of overgrowth along the roads and river.

Of course, too much greenery to see the Chatette!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No hay bales this year, but lots of corn and irrigators going!

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was asking myself how many times in one day could a person be irrigated?

 

With so much so pretty, it was difficult to make myself get back in Mikey.

 

 

 

I still had a cat food run to the Intermarche to make and hoped to catch a few shots from the road above the lavoir.

And, it wasn't quite 9am yet.

It was off to the races as soon as the doors opened at the Intermarche!

 

 

 

I scooped some lavoir shots and was thrilled to see I'd made it home before too hot and too peoply at 9:30!

 

Happy Tuesday!

 

As the Tournesol Turns!

 

It's Sunflower Sunday. Join me on a little journey back into how the tournesol turned in my life here in the Lot, since I bought the Chatette back in 2002.

These first shots are from 2008. The one on the right was one of my Mom's favorites. If you look close, there are even sunflowers on my dress. My pal, Joan took that shot. We had lots of fun that day, running through Monsieur Faret's sunflower fields in Saujac, directly across the river from me. 

 

For a while, I could count on sunflowers out my front windows every other year.

They were a rotation crop, mostly for oil I believe. And then, it stopped.

It meant you really had to go on the hunt.

 

 

It was kind of like the full moon out my window. It's just there. One day, the sunflowers would just be there. I miss them being easily in my life.

That's what made yesterday's sunflower field discovery between Tour de Faure and St. Martin Labouval so special. I'd been missing sunflowers. Then, I noticed these off the road on the left on the way to Jean-Luc's. I thought I might stop on the way home. I'm glad I did.

I ended up pulling over and stopping short enough that my grocery bag slid and fell. When I stopped at the corner of the field, the heads of the sunflowers were NOT looking at me. Maybe they were angry since it had been such a long time since I stopped for them. 

 

 

 

I scooped a few angry and ignoring shots and then thought I'd head to the other side and force them to look at me.

I got back in "Mikey," but we opted for an adventure instead.

 

 

 

It looked like the road would take us to the river and I could take that direction instead. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It began with sunflowers. We were joined by horses and lovers.

 

 

 

 

And, the valley provided a pastoral and gorgeous backdrop...

 

 

...to this amazing life in the Lot...

 

 

...in sunflowers.

Enjoy!