Soar-Dream-France

Immortal Magic!

One of the reasons I even thought about buying a property in France, was because I was afraid I had forever lost the magical peace that I discovered at Wendy's that summer of '98!  I returned every year, but never for long enough and now that I had friends it was impossible to have the alone time I craved to ponder and photograph through my days. 

When Stuart first told me about his house, he said that it was magic and that the years he and his son had spent here were some of the happiest in his life. So when he told me that he and Madeleine would come to see me in New Orleans when he sold his house in Cadrieu, it got my wheels turning and voila...Chatette Cadrieu was born in my life! I began spending a month or two a year here as  work was being done and decisions were being made.  I often found myself singing: "Fairy Tales can come true it can happen to you...if you're young at heart!"-A Doris Day Tune! I don't know exactly how it happened, but the Doris Day theme continued when on a telephone call back to the states, I told my Dad: "It really is magic Daddy!"  Being the movie buff that my Dad is and the music maniac that my Mom is-I soon learned that the first hit for Doris Day  was a tune called "It's Magic" that was written for her when she starred in Romance on the High Seas.  Believe it or not, they actually had the sheet music in the Reader's Digest Family Songbook, and pretty soon I was playing and singing "It's Magic" on the piano.  I struggled during the early years here, feeling that I was split between Cadrieu and New Orleans and soon found myself singing yet another Doris Day tune: "Que Sera, Sera!"  In 2004, I rediscovered the peace I thought I lost.  On another telephone call home from here, my Dad asked: "Is it still magic?"  And of course, it was.  A hurricane named Katrina and broken levees in New Orleans, pushed me here much quicker than it otherwise would have happened.  But in 2006, I was able to tell my Mom and Dad that being here all the time was even more magic.  We're living in the magic every day...and how wonderful is that?

We'll Always Have Paris-I Love You Mom!

From the Archives-7/30/2009 which was Mom's 78th Birthday. I'm sharing this and another post from the archives with you today on this Mother's Day of 2019. A lot has happened since I wrote this post, but it so wonderfully expresses me and Mom. We did have our challenges. I will always love her and have held her close in my heart ever since her passing in 2016. To you Mom, on this Mother's Day. Love, Laury

July 30, 2009-You already know quite a bit about my Mom, Helen Bourgeois.  You know she loves her garden, just about every kind of flower imaginable, collectibles, the moon, dolls and me (but maybe not my overalls!).

 

 

Today I celebrate my Mom on her 78th birthday!  I've already sent my card from France and a little special package.  When we talked on the phone the other day she said: "You shouldn't have sent a present, you know birthdays just aren't that important anymore, they're just like any other day."  I disagreed then, and realized today as I sat down to write this piece that birthdays are MORE important as our parents get older. 

 

Each birthday marks another year that we've been lucky enough to still have them both with us, and I'm hoping to be celebrating many more!

Being the oldest child, and a daughter, I am a lot like my Mom.  We're both very outgoing, people persons, and we care deeply about what happens to others. If you call their house when I'm home answering the phone, most people think I'm her or she's me.

I remember my Mom always being busy...cooking, cleaning, sewing, making incredible, cookies, deserts and pastries.  Dinner was always on the table at exactly 5:30pm when we were growing up so that we could all eat together shortly after Dad came home from work.  Mom had also sewn full wardrobes of clothes for each of my dolls.  As you can see from the photo on the right, there were quite a few.  It was those teenie tiny waisted Barbie Doll clothes that were the most shocking to see-Barbie had a perfect trousseau made by Mom...wedding dress, sun dress, suits, coats, fur capes, you name it!  My dolls had the best!  I used to tease that they were better dressed than I was, but that wasn't true!  Mom taught me how to sew, and I made all my own clothes pretty much up until I moved to New Orleans to go to graduate school.  She tried to teach me how to cook, but gave up the day that the spatula got stuck in the beaters and went gaily round and round crunching away before she turned the mixer off!  

One of our most memorable times, was in 1996 when we went to Paris together.  Mom and Dad had been able to travel together quite a bit previously, but never made it to Paris.  Dad kept saying: "Take your mother to Paris, Laury!" When we finally went, I discovered that Mom and I travel very well together. We both like to walk, shop, and see the sights. Eating is okay, but who needs to eat when you're gazing at the Moulin Rouge, wandering through St. Eustache, winding your way through the Louvre or taking so many photos when you ride the Bateaux Mouches that the Eiffel Tower is screaming STOP! 

We had a week together, before I watched her get on the bus to the airport as I was heading to the Gare d'Austerlitz to catch my train to Barcelona. I don't think there was a dry eye between us!

My most poignant moment with my Mom happened early one morning at their kitchen table in July of 2007.  My planned two week trip to the states that May, crumbled when I arrived in New Orleans. 

 

Suffice it to say, my two week trip turned in to a two month trip from hell and back again.  Mom found me crying in the kitchen.  She came over and hugged me and just let me cry, while she told me how proud she and Dad were of me and how I had handled everything all by myself.  I wasn't feeling very strong or competent, so her love and support (Dad's too) meant more to me than she could have known at the time!

So today I celebrate my Mom.  I love her graduation picture and the picture of the two of us digging in the rocks at Nannie and Papa's out in the country.  I look at that picture and cherish that one on one time with her, that you can see was shortly before my brother Jim was born.  You had to see the dolls, because each and every one of them came back from New Orleans with me after the storm.  Mom turned the house into a doll hospital and beauty parlor and got everybody back to their beautiful pre-storm selves.  I've been trying my new photo treatment out on other shots, so flowers for my Mom on her birthday...my very perfect French sunflower is a nice match to Mom's St. Louis iris from her garden.  I love you and miss you Mom-Happy Happy Birthday!-Love, Laury, Dali and Sam

 

Pitching Plums to Mardi Gras Memories

Surprises abound for me in Cadrieu on a regular basis.  We are in what I call "Club Cadrieu" mode around here these days...dinners, apero parties, fêtes, and on and on with something every night. I 'm working very hard on being the "more continental" person my friends are pushing for.  At least my head's not in my plate at 10pm and I can now make it to midnight on a second wind.  These late nights every night mean that my morning routine has been severely disrupted.  It isn't like I'm on a schedule or anything, but Dali and I are walking much later these days.  I can no longer boast that she and I are up at the crack of dawn with the farmers and fisherman!   

Yesterday morning we took the road along Msr. and Madam Pages's property.  You might remember them as the proud owners of Pom-Pom and Pom-Pommette Pages, the donkeys that I've fallen in love with and even pretend are mine from time to time!  Dal was off her leash and I was wandering along ahead of her on another planet.  All of a sudden Msr. Pages appeared above me with his bucket by the plum tree at the top of the slight incline.  He brought me back to earth! "Oh...Bonjour Msr. Pages!" He was picking what I believe are (were) these beautiful goldeny green gage plums.  He asked me if I wanted one and pitched one to me when I said yes-fumble for sure-but I scooped it up and teased: "C'est petit dejeuner pour moi!" And then he asked if I wanted more...such a site, Msr. Pages up above me shaking the plum tree with plums raining all over my head.  I'm running around, scooping them up, putting them in every pocket of my overalls and I thought...this is Mardi Gras with plums instead of beads!  It's fun to imagine Msr. Pages, in costume, up above me on a Mardi Gras float in New Orleans, reaching into his bucket, pitching plums to the adoring masses below who raise there hands to the sky begging for more...or run around after the float passes and pick up all the goodies that lay on the ground like I did yesterday!  I will always love New Orleans.  I will always love Mardi Gras.  But if I had to choose between bags of plastic beads or overall pockets full of plums, I would have plums in every pocket!

The first two shots are of the plums that were, and this last shot that I like to call "Donkey Daisy" was taken from their road looking up, not the same spot, but very similar to my perspective on Msr. Pages yesterday!  Merci Msr. Pages!

An Evening of Fun, Food, French Music and Friends

With my reservation made for Sunday evening's dinner at the Mairie, I was ready and waiting for Jean to pick me up. I would usually walk up, but for these events we need to bring our plates, silverware, glasses, napkins and anything else we might like to add to enhance our evening with the village.  I added a bottle with a candle and a back up for a little more atmosphere.  The bottle I brought was the bottle from a 2004 Cahors-Croze de Pys that Jean and I shared over lunch in November of 2007, to celebrate the house and apartment in New Orleans renting for the very first time.  I was hoping it might stir up a little "renting magic" since the house in New Orleans is still not rented!

I realized as I looked at the photo on the left, that this spot has become "our" table.  Every fête you can find me and the gang here...eating, joking, drinking, running back and forth to dance, and me, of course...running around taking pictures.  I can't seem to help myself, I will just always enjoy watching men cook, even if it's grilling and BBQ!  The mouton is particularly photogenic when you see it spread-eagle and turning on a spit over an open fire!  The hidden benefit to running down to take these "meat" photos, was a sample from André while he worked.  In addition to the mouton, we had saucissons for the people who wanted something a little different! The rest of the menu included the famous regional onion soup, salad with the lightest, tastiest, vinaigrette dressing that I don't think I'll be able to create as long as I live here, lots of meat, apple tart, and a wrap with coffee, and then pruneau that will knock your socks off! I don't want to forget the red and rosé wines that flow like the Lot River all night long! Every year there is line dance that everyone does together.  It starts out slow and gets faster and faster and faster.  My line dancing career began with the Jackson Five singing "I Want You Back" and "Stop the Love You Save" in our basement in St. Louis.  I thought I was pretty good back then, but this French one daunted me until Sunday night.  I didn't do it perfectly, but I was apparently sober enough that evening to at least have the pattern of the steps etched in my mind for the very first time!  We have a "Duck Dinner" scheduled in the village for August...maybe I'll be able to practice and perfect my line dancing technique that evening!

Favorite Fête Fun in France!

Every summer at the end of July, our village "Fête-s"! It is a whole weekend of music, snacks, boules, drinks, dinners, dancing and one of my favorite things that happens on Sunday afternoon.  You don't have to go anywhere.You don't have to anything. You could even do it in your overalls, like me! All you have to do is just be home when the young people of the village bring the party to you!  I'm not sure where the tradition orginated, but every Fête Sunday the truck horns start blowing and in a matter of moments a pack of young people show up at your door or driveway with their accordian and silk flowers and play a tune while they sway and dance to traditional French music!  I've been watching Yannick Gardaix do this for about 5 years now, and he appears to have graduated to fearless leader of this pack along with now being a new member of our town council!  Yesterday they told me: "Yannick's coming, wait for Yannick!" So we did and I got him in the group photo!  When the swaying and dancing was done, I got to choose my flower, make my donation, and let them know that I would be attending the dinner later that evening!  Although my years in Cadrieu come no where close to my 30 years in New Orleans, I've enjoyed watching young neighbors grow up over the years and become fine young men and women in both places. There was a time in my life when I would have probably said: "God, this makes me feel old!" These days, I'm just very proud that I have had the honor to watch from a distance and sometimes up close; the wonder and joy of young people growing up who aren't afraid to keep some traditions alive!

Finger-painting With Fruit...Collage-ing for the Vernissage

I've written before about the collages I make with fresh fruit and other items from my garden, so as I prepare my pieces for the  September 12, 2009 galerie opening, I thought I'd share the story of the development of the process and the actual technique with you.

That fateful summer of 2005, my friend Jane Jolly was working at a gallery in Calvignac. The show that summer was called "Reflections of Moist Triangles", with various artists and their different takes on the theme in different locations around the valley.  In the gallery that Jane staffed, the artist used cherries and strawberries (fruit of the region of course) and paints to create a variety of works that were mostly abstract. (It appeared to Joan, Sue and I that most of his focus was on parts of a woman's anatomy!) I was inspired!  Working in my garden, everything began to look like a triangle to me!  Plums were falling from my plum tree and I decided to try my hand at this fresh fruit art thing.  I had some poster board in the house and got to squeezing plums all over it.  Instead of paint, I tried adding leaves, flowers, herbs, and other things from the garden to my plum pulp...fun, but messy.  The next question was how in the world could I preserve it?  Enter, kitchen plastic wrap (cling film for you Brits).  I put a layer over the top of my fruit and other treasures and voila-a beautiful collage, with lots of texture, color, and a stain-glassed effect when held up to the light!  If you think you'd like to try your hand at this-the following instructions should get you started:

Materials:  Card stock (notebook paper size or smaller recommended); smooth, hard surface to work on that you don't mind getting dirty; roll of paper towels; scissors; plastic wrap; container to hold your pulpy fruit; assorted flora from the garden; and the pulpy fruit of your choice. 

Your choice of fruit can make or break your collage experience.  I recommend plums, peaches, figs, blackberries, strawberries, and cherries.  Pumpkin, apricots and melon can work when juicy, but things like apples, pears, oranges and tomatoes are difficult.  Apples and pears don't have enough juice and the citric acid in oranges and tomatoes seems to make them less pulpy and more watery.

Squeeze your fruit of choice all over your card stock.  (Skin from the fruit can add a nice touch and balance out your collage with your other items, but big seeds are a problem.) 

Artistically place your other items in the juicy fruit pulp and make sure that there is pulp on top of each item.  This facilitates the stickiness needed for the next step.

Once you have your design laid out in your fruit.  Take a piece of kitchen plastic wrap that is the size of your collage, and smooth it over the top, pressing down into the pulp of the fruit as you go. 

Once your plastic wrap is in place, you can use your fingers to give texture to the collage by moving the pulp around in different directions! 

I have begun to hang my finished collages on the clothes line to dry!  It works well in nice dry weather.  Last night the collages I did in the afternoon were totally dry...I was shocked!

Once your collages are dry-or even wet-I put them under something heavy to keep the air out and flatten the plastic wrap to the collage. 

I recommend framing them as soon as possible, to keep the air from getting to them once you're finished.  It helps to maintain the color of your fruit and various garden items, as well as prevents you from ending up with some fruit cobbler looking thing.  (I've found that if the pieces get damp again, they are very unhappy!) So have some fun with fruit!  Be a kid again!  Let go! Get lost in your fruit and flora fantasies!  I don't know about you, but I sure loved finger-painting as a kid...think of it as Finger-painting with Fruit!

The photos are of my materials, an arch I love in Calvignac, my works in progress on the clothesline, and pressing down with phonebooks and dictionaries!

Collage Your Heart Out and Remember Those You Love!

I can be a collaging poor fool from time to time, as evidenced by my piano room that has a collage on just about every wall.  It's "in the genes" as they say.  All you have to do is look at the three 4x8 foot pieces of plywood collaged by my Dad and I to celebrate the USA's bi-centennial in 1976, or the many many movie star books he has collaged over the years to see where my collage-iness originates.  I'm posting photos of some of them here today, because my most observant friend, Evelyn, noticed the dangling envelopes in a previous post about my beautiful new quilt.  She was curious-so I thought I'd share the story with the rest of you here.  

Having lost many people that I've loved over the years, I try to find a way to hold them close and remind myself that they are with me on another plane.  I believe that they live on in the way that the energy of their spirits has touched my heart and sometimes in their possessions or things they have written.  Sometimes it's silly things: I have Madam Vera's very heavy marble ashtray that she used when I visited; I have my Nannie's apron that she used to wear every holiday when she was cooking; and then there's Nannie's diamond studded, engraved, wedding band from Papa that I wear on my right hand every day...which isn't a silly thing at all!  As I was closing down Columbus Street after the levees broke, I found many of my cards and letters, both sent and received, from over the years.  I found my many letters from Madam Vera in Paris, my letters and  poems from Bennie, and letters and cards from Nannie.  I decided that Vera's letters could come to France and hang under her collage and that Bennie's letters and poems should come too and hang from the bottom of his poem about bells that I've framed with a photo of the church and the cross in Saujac.  I've chosen the beautiful and colorful Cajarc envelopes to hold my treasures and have attached them to the back of the frame with a variety of cloth and decorative ribbons. When I got back to St. Louis there were other letters and cards that Mom had kept over the years.  I chose some of the poignant ones between her and my Dad, and between Mom and Dad and Nannie and Papa from when we were living in England after I was first born.  I've put many of them in an envelope under a family collage and the Nannie and Papa collage I blogged about a while back!  I chose to come to France.  My choice meant that I had to choose what things meant most to bring with me to France.  I guess you can see where my priorities lie!

When Problems Become Presents!

Our "Samedi" is very photogenic, so I ran for my camera last night when I saw her gazing out of the upstairs bedroom window scoping an evening bird or two.  I knew the shots were good but the lighting was questionable.  I put them on the computer this morning and was majorly bummed!  They were very dark, so I thought my HP Photo Program might be able to lighten them up.  I tried everything in their repertoire and nothing helped improve the contrast until I stumbled on this treatment.  Voila...not only was my lighting problem solved, but I had this soft, almost furry, black and white photo of our Sam that was more beautiful than anything I could have captured from our upstairs bedroom window at dusk! So, today is Christmas in July.  I love these photos for their beauty and ability to capture someone I love.  But even more, as I fear I may soon have to face difficult times and difficult decisions; I realize that what looks like a problem today can be a present tomorrow!  I'm counting on the presents!

When Never Became Always!

 

One of the things I said I'd "never do" when I  bought the Chatette, was to hang clothes on the line to dry on the covered terrace.  I'd never done it in New Orleans, and certainly didn't expect to do it here since I bought both a washer and a dryer for the Chatette. I quickly discovered that my dryer didn't have the power of my New Orleans variety and then there was the lavender.  Once the scent of lavender snuck into the bedding and clothes I had put out to dry on the line, my never became an always!

The other discovery I made is the wonder of hanging my overalls out on the line to dry.  In the states I'd usually hang them on a hanger on the rod in the bathroom or drape them over the bannister to upstairs to dry.  But as you can see, here they hang perfectly nicely from the clothes line on their very own...no hangers, no clothespins, no draping...just button them over the clothes line like you were getting ready to wear them in the garden or for some excavation project.  This is only one, of the very many things that are practical about overalls.  I'm looking forward to sharing my practical experiences and tips on overalls with you from time to time.

Talking with my friend Joan on the phone the other day, she teased me about having an "overall fetish"!  I don't think of it like that, but the next day I received an e-mail saying that she was joining in on my "overall fetish" and sent the shot in the corner of her two beautiful daughters in their overalls!  It was fun to see Jessica and Jameson who I've only known as teenagers, in their overalls in their two's.  I hope the rest of my friends will join me in my now "overall fetish" and forward any pictures you may have of yourself or friends and family that you might want me to include in the International Overalls Day Photo Album.  Happy Overall-ing!

Chocolate Stamps-Timbre au Chocolat

We've been having a lot of fun around here with these chocolate stamps that were released by the French Post Office about a month ago! My sister Kathleen, found them on David Lebovitz's site www.davidlebovitz.com and sent the link to me.  Once we oohed and aahed together about their beauty and artistic quality, she asked if I could get her a sheet or two.  I was heading into Figeac the next day and decided to stop in at the Poste.  I was in luck, and ended up buying three sheets: one for Kat, one for me and a third for good measure!  I sent Kat hers, began using mine (after I scanned it) and kept the third for a friend of my friend Evelyn.  Jan fell in love with them while she was here, so we also stopped in at the Poste in Figeac, but no luck.  Jan was able to purchase some on-line from the French Poste when she got back to the states.

This past Monday when I went in to get my colis of coffee in Cajarc, my favorite post-mistress had a sheet of these stamps sitting on her desk.  Of course, I had to get another.  Chatting with my neighbor and the post-mistress, I made sure my neighbor got a whiff because they actually smell like chocolate!  We had the whole post office laughing, because as good as they smell you just can't eat them!  When I brought my first batch home from the Post Office in Figeac, I looked forward to using them because I thought that the adhesive might have a chocolate flavor as well.  The aroma was there, but I couldn't detect any hint of chocolate when I licked.  I used one of the stamps from my Cajarc sheet yesterday, and voila...aroma and a huge taste of chocolate!  Maybe the stamps were "fresh" or maybe it was all those giggles with my French friends and postal neighbors that carried a magic chocolate memory home with me!