What the hell are you doing here?

This is a seriously odd question to ask a person while she’s buying a silky, refined cheese washed with champagne at a village market in the South of France. And when said cheese is about to be united under the kissing sun with a baguette, a bottle of chilled white wine, and freshly shucked oysters, the question becomes downright distressing. So, like all good hedonists, I choose ignorance and walk in bliss.

I swear I’ve heard this question at least a handful of times during our stint in the rolling hills – from the fresh pasta lady, the B&B owner, the waitress, the winery guy … and I just didn’t get it until it bit me in the ass. (Don’t feel bad, it’s not an unfamiliar feeling.)

For months, we lived “the life of Riley”, as my mother would say. We drank, we loved, we ate, and we basked in grapes and sunlight. And although we’re pretty slippery the two of us, managing to squeeze past many a great tragedy, there were some French gremlins with our name on them. The first little guy, lurking in the river, jumped out in December and slashed Polly at the ankles. All four tires, baby. We walked down the pedestrian stone path to our much beloved chariot and found her flat. “Where the f*&ck are we”, thought our mushy happy brains. Two hapless foreigners in a golden land with nary an enemy in sight, it just didn’t fit. The local police shrugged and gave us a mildly sympathetic, “Sorry, but this is Sommières after all.” Um, excuse me, there’s a snake in Eden? We pumped Polly up, ran our errands and came home. But the next morning, there she was, flat as my grade 8 photo again. The poor thing, she only had one more month of service, and we had to smack new tires on her. But we sprung for them with a gracious smile, and she was as good as, well, she was before. Ignorance. Bliss. Better.

When called back to Canada for a wedding reception, we left Polly in the trusty hands of our friends and slept well. But early one morning, we got a call saying the gremlins had come out again and taken her away. The damn baby snatchers stole our car. I felt exactly like the time a squirrel in Toronto beheaded the first sunflower I ever planted. A round, fat, sinking feeling. Polly was the first car ever to bear my name on the ownership, she taught me how to drive standard and she was a stellar sport when our friends tied bottles to the bumper and turned her into our wedding wheels. We saved her from a nasty man early in the summer, put some money and lovin’ into her, treated her well, and she got us everywhere we needed to go. The perfect symbiotic relationship busted up by some Southern France thugs. Who knew.

The police later found Polly abandoned, bruised and molested on a back road outside the village. She had her driver window smashed, the door hanging on hinges, the back seat ripped out, and the directional column gutted. They towed her to a garage and parked her in the yard. When we got back to France, we went to the police station to file a report and to see about getting her back. And instead of mild sympathy this time, we got a chuckle. “Ah, yes, Peugeot 205, the thief’s favourite toy. Name, occupation, insurance company?” Ha. Like he was going to get away with that… There was no way I was leaving there without an explanation. So, a few twists and turns and I got the story – this was January 2nd, people, and since “the beginning of the year”, there had already been 5 car thefts, 9 reported cases of vandalism and 15 break-and-enter jobs, in that area alone. Apparently, the judicial system is so soft on property crime that it’s a free-for-all. Kids and grown-ups with a lot of time and a cockeyed sense of humour run wild in the countryside and the courts sit on the merry-go-round slapping on wrists. And so, the police – this, from the horse’s mouth – have almost completely stopped pursuing and arresting. I’m sure the courts would say they’re slapping on wrists because the police aren’t doing their job… but hey, who cares if the only victims are hunks of metal, big bad insurance companies and poor foreigners without theft coverage.

We asked the merrymaker in the police station to call the garage and see about Polly. After a brief catch-up on this year’s hunting exploits and the requisite “how’s your wife”, he found out that, “Oh, dear, it’s going to cost you quite a penny to get her back, and really, she’s not in great shape so it’s going to cost you even more to fix her.” Right. Of course. So we took our little report and went to see about Polly ourselves. It was like walking into a hospital, with that humble-hush-hush posture, but you’re the only one who gives a shit. The garage owner said that not only did we have to pay to get her back, but we had to pay even if we left her there. And although we thought about bailing on him, we’re coming back to this place one day and we don’t need this slime on our tracks. So, we went home, thought hard about the next move… and decided that, yes, I needed to call in the reinforcements: my Friendly Mechanic Man.

Despite myself, and my father-in-law who’s going to make me pay for this, I must thank the Sweet Creator for making me a woman. ‘Mr. Come Swim in My Pool While I Work on Your Car for Free’ jumped at the chance to call in a favour and have the fee waived… and all it cost was an hour of my time, some eyelash fluttering, and the patience to withstand his creepy glare. Ah, the irony – swallowing one slime to escape another. Lionel was all too happy to loan me out, we got away without being screwed and said farewell to Polly.

She was the first of many sad goodbyes. Our very last day in France I walked around the entire village wishing all the merchants well… and it’s funny, while I was doing it, I couldn’t help feeling like Little Red Riding Hood again, swinging my basket saying ‘Bonjour!’ to all the local folks. But what do you know – while crossing the main square to see Guido, our charismatic wine supplier, I hear a hoarse scream. The cops have jumped this middle-aged man and are trying desperately to cuff him. The guy is throwing punches, there are 3 women in pyjamas shrieking and throwing themselves on the cop car and one of the young officers is being held back by the older, cooler cop heads. Finally, as I look on with Guido, the bookstore owner, the cafe waiter, and the hairdresser, they squeeze the guy into the car, barely resisting the temptation to smack his head off the door. Again, my Little Red Riding Hood cracks up and I have to ask myself, “Where the f*&ck are we…?” And to top things off, that day ends when we come out of the post office to see the same cop who had chuckled when the car was stolen standing by our rental car, writing us a parking ticket.

When we first got to this village last summer, our eyes sparkled. We thought we had moved into a filmset, and that feeling lasted for months. This area of the world is bathing in beauty with all the charms of a luxurious life. The natural surroundings inspire the soul to rise, and humankind has responded by creating some of its best work here. For most, it’s love at first sight. But if you were raised here, and you had a tired government, high unemployment, a high crime rate, mismanaged immigration, rigid bureaucracy and violent public protest to change… you might also ask why a couple of chirpy Canadians are bouncing around the countryside with sparkles in their eyes.

But what’s interesting is that as the sheen was wearing off and we could see the chinks in the tourist armor, we could better feel the pulse beneath. Our friends became real friends and our understanding of their lives and lifestyle deepened. Over the last seven months, we folded into a group of very cool people. Proud citizens of France who have moved to this part of their country because they believe in its rhythm and fruit. They took us in to breathe with them for a while, and made us feel like natural extensions.

The weekend before we left, they had a party for us and invited everyone who had crossed our path. They put out a huge spread, recited a hilarious poem, gave us a book of notes and photos, and sang songs for us – including one they had rehearsed for Lionel in English. We blasted the tunes all night and danced till it was nearly dawn.

The Southern French countryside might be a place where thugs pull and suck on the system, but it’s also a place where you do nothing alone. You never plan a party alone, you never cook alone, you never clean alone and you never experience life transitions alone. I will miss the interdependence. I will miss feeling all eyes are watching out for me and I will miss not walking out of my apartment without waving at someone.

There’s a great French expression, “Boucler la boucle”, it means coming full circle – tying the bow. The very last day when the cop was writing that parking ticket – and after I came down from my very pissed off horse – I started to feel the bow being tied. Here we were, parked in the exact same spot as when lightning struck and I fell in love with Sommières. We’d been driving around and I said to Lionel, “Hey, this village looks cute, give me a second to check it out…”, and as I passed under the medieval archway and walked a few steps down the main pedestrian alley, I set eyes on this magical little fromagerie and was sold. Then weeks later, upon settling in, I wrote on this website that when Olivier, the fromager, walked around his counter to greet me with the three kisses – that was the precise moment I felt I had “arrived”…

Well, Olivier is a friend now, but his fromagerie is no longer there. Along with a few other merchants in town, he had to close for lack of business. Sommières is not invaded by tourists in the summer the way some villages further east are, and the locals don’t have the means to support these stores all year round. So, sadly, what gives this place a large lot of its charm – the palpable feeling of a lived-in village – is what endangers its very existence.

On our last night in town, we ordered pizza from our favourite pizza truck, popped a bottle of champagne we’d been saving, and met our friends at a village party, essentially the largest potluck I’ve ever seen. Two thousand people descended on the community centre to listen to live traditional music and dance à l’Occitane – and they all brought a dish. We walked in to see tables and tables of food and all our friends gathered around one of them. As they waved us toward them, I felt the back of my eyes burn and I snapped into a flashback. It was one of our first nights in the area – we were staying in Seventh Heaven, the room so aptly named at our B&B, and there was a massive throng of people partying under the trees in the square outside. Long tables, lots of food and a dance recital put on by the local kids. We stayed up in our room, feeling far too out of place to go down there, and watched them from the window above with a bottle of wine… And now, here we were, getting whole-heartedly waved into the same scene with a big bowl of salad in our hands.

The party rocked, we danced like happy fools with kids weaving between our legs and a glass of wine always in hand. We said goodbye to everyone that night, tears flowing, and walked down the dark stone path to our little home for one more sleep.

As any kid who has learned to tie bows, she knows it’s a process. There are little triumphs along the way, but there’s always that big pay-off when you feel you really have it. Mine came very early that last night. We had walked in, put our salad on the table and I headed for a drink. Olivier was working behind the bar that hour and when he saw me approach, he jumped up with a bolt, grabbed my face and planted three strong kisses…

And that, I thought, is what the hell I’ve been doing here.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 9th, 2007 at 6:58 am and is filed under Feature. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.