Every year the month of July writes a poem that can only be read from my upstairs bathroom window. My breath — that leaps from heart to smile — gives thanks to my brain for not memorizing, but allowing it to be a surprise each time.
Certainly there are other trees in the area, we live in the south of France after all. Paintings and poems are bursting into view as I walk my daily route. But this one feels just for us. Our little private firework popping in rhyme. I, we, don’t strain our necks to look past the blooming white tree beneath the pink. The hedge blocks the view from foot and car. Framed perfectly by the window sill, it knows we will come. And it waits. And when I hear it speak in rose, I don’t dismay the temporary, but give thanks for it. If it were ever, if I heard the words again and again throughout the year, would I be breathless? Maybe not. So I give thanks for the gift of July. The passing moment. The brief and beautiful poem outside my window.
I always get up first to make breakfast. Alone in the kitchen, I’ll often have a conversation with the bread. After all, we have been intimate. It was just yesterday my hands were in the dough. It was just last night I swaddled it in a freshly ironed cloth, whispering of the tomorrow’s surprise — lavender honey.
We made a trip to Valensole yesterday in search of the best. Nestled between fields of lavender, it wasn’t really a chance we were taking. There would be honey — Miel de lavande. A couple of small arrows at ankle height on a long stretch of gravel would lead us there on this Tuesday. After several second guesses, we would find the locked door of the farm house that said open Wednesdays and Saturdays. Still we jiggled the handle. We had come this far. We looked at each other and read the sign again. I cupped my hands around my face and pushed it up against the glass. I could see the jars of honey. We jiggled the handle again in disbelief. I don’t know how long we stood there. How can you measure time without honey that is just within reach? That’s when he walked through the shadows. Barefooted and bonjouring, he opened the door. Maybe the angels sang, or was the birds? We quickly stepped inside before he could change his mind. I didn’t need the spoonful he offered to know that I would love it, but I took it anyway. It lingered on my tongue and rolled my eyes into the part of my brain where pleasure lives. I could only say yes. Of course he didn’t take credit cards. What were we thinking? But Dominique saved the day with his checkbook, and I coddled the kilo of lavender honey back to the car.
How could I not share the story with the bread as it toasted this morning. Even the coffee pot seemed to be listening.
Needless to say, it didn’t disappoint. Lavender honey on homemade bread. Wow. I smile at the silver medal from 2024’s Paris competition, proudly displayed on the honey jar — and laugh — because for me, us, it’s nothing but gold.
She’ll be surprised when she sees her portrait. She’s doesn’t know it, but she’s wearing one of my mom’s blouses. I think she looks pretty in it — though she would back up a little, shrug her shoulders and shake her head at such a compliment. I remember the first time I told her she looked beautiful in her ensemble and she nearly backed herself into the garage door. It’s not really the culture here, to be so fast and loose with the compliments. And I don’t want to make people uncomfortable, but I do want them to know how good it feels, these words of admiration. My mother gave them to me, and they carry me still. How could I not pass them along? So I put her in my mom’s blouse on this canvas, hoping maybe she could feel it, maybe the words would gather in the slight ruffles around her face and heart. Surely the flow of such gentle fabric would cotton to her being, and she would know that it wasn’t just a compliment, it was the gift I have of greatest value — a welcome into my family, my heart. And if she felt that, my sister-in-law, within all of my ruffled and flawed attempts, she would have to feel good, and possibly even pretty, and the discomfort would fade the next time I saw her wearing a dress fresh from the line, and I told her “You look so lovely in that color.” And maybe we’ll all be smiling, just like my mother wanted.
There is a painting that walks ahead of me on the trail. Normally I would be eager to pass these aging men, but my anxious feet are overruled and I slow to take it all in. Maybe it’s the hats. Or the synchronized position of hands clasped behind their backs, heading them “heart-first.”
When I’m close enough for them to hear my graveled steps, I pick up the pace. We exchange smiling bonjours, and the day will continue down different roads. I won’t learn their names, these hatted men. Having been in their path is enough.
Maybe it was a different time, but my grandfather wore a hat. There was something trustworthy about it. Elegant, even in overalls. I trusted it — him. I suppose that’s why I trust it still. Because what’s taught is what’s known. And maybe that’s what empathy is, what humanity is, walking in the path of others, heart-first.
My grandfather was perhaps the first to teach me about color. Each year he planted in the black dirt. He worked under blue skies. Prayed under gray. And with the daily stroke of his hands turned the field from green to gold. It was the most beautiful canvas I had ever seen. Were it not for him, would I have seen it? I can’t be sure.
I often speak of the Sainte Victoire mountain. It rests in our daily view. Cezanne was perhaps the first to point it out to the world. Painting it again and again. Showing its beauty in every light. Dominique was the first to point it out to me as he drove me from the airport. Would I have seen it? Would I have felt it? Would I have painted it without either of them? Probably not.
Georgia O’Keeffe had her own mountain. Her own “Sainte Victoire.” She painted the big mountain (as she called it) again and again. Braving the heat and the cold. The solitude. The doubters of women. All to show us the beauty of what was around her. The beauty of what she saw.
I suppose all of it was unlikely. Seemingly almost impossible at times. But this is what gives me hope. This is what enables me to put my grandfather, Rueben Hvezda, alongside Paul Cezanne. Alongside Georgia O’keeffe. To write about him. To write about my grandmother making kolaches and quilts. My mother dressing in the crispiest of whites, even on her most crumbling days. OH, my beautiful mother! Were they artists? (…a rose by any other name…) They took what was in front of them, inside of them and made it beautiful. Not only showing me, but showing me how.
So I make the pictures with paint and words. Each daily stroke, with brushes of Rueben and Elsie and Ivy — my open fields, my sturdy mountains. What are we here for, if not to show each other the beauty? The beauty of living.
You have something. Right here. Right now. Live it. Something beautiful will come. The world is waiting to see.
I had to move to France to make these friends from California.
We were introduced online, connecting through the love of art and words. I was happy to see them posting pictures from their vacation in Aix en provence. I suppose everyone wants people to love the place they live. And then the true delight came when they asked if they could come to say hello.
It never occurred to me say no. The best things in my life have always started with yes.
“Don’t go to any trouble,” she emailed me. I smiled. My whole life, all I have ever wanted was “to go to the trouble.” Everything should mean something. It all deserves our effort. Our respect. Our attention.
And all this “trouble,” really takes so little. I only baked the croissants, and placed them on the table. Offered water. My heart. And my time. I received so much more than that in return. And it means something! To make new friends! What a thing!
I told them stories of my art, my books, my life, and our connection was real, not virtual. I have new friends. This is what keeps me racing toward all the “trouble” of my own life! It matters. Oh, how it matters! — not the location, but to love the “place” you live.
I never imagined you could barbecue sardines. In my head, they were only those tiny little fish in a tin box. So many things to discover. Yes, they do come in bigger sizes. Yes, you can barbecue them. And yes, you have to separate the head and the bones on your own plate. And yes, they are delicious!
There is a certain luxury to having a barbecue on a Wednesday afternoon. Drinking a cool white wine, in the shade of the provencal sun. No longer reserved for a Sunday, but an any day. So was our Wednesday. He was grilling sardines as I sipped the wine and I thought, what a picture of France! (but I never stopped to take a photo) After we got home I thought, I should have taken a picture — capture the moment. But sometimes, when you stop to capture the moment, it disappears. So I didn’t have a picture on my phone, but I had one in my head. It raced down to my hands and on to the paper. The beautiful sardines. So black they turned blue. Grays turning into greens. The moment, not captured, that sounds too harsh, but more embraced. Embraced in the permanence of heart and acrylic.
I don’t know what this day will bring. This Thursday. Perhaps it will turn into a Saturday, if I let it. Why not?! There are so many things to learn. To see. Nothing to be confined in tiny tin boxes, but spread across summer skies and welcoming canvas.
It’s getting harder and harder to know who we can like anymore. “Sure he was a good painter, but a bit of a misogynist.” “He could really write, but he killed so many animals.” “Oh, sure, she can sing, but who did she vote for?” “Oh, I loved that movie, but I can’t watch it anymore, that actor… is that even a religion?”
It’s so much to think about. Can we separate? Do we have to? Is it censorship? Oh, my poor head. Sometimes, I just want to enjoy something. For what it is. So this morning, I opened the jar of lavender honey – made by hard working bees, in a sea of lavender, in an unchanging part of Provence. I spread it generously over my homemade bread. Let it sink into the crevices. Took a deep breath of the lavender, closed my eyes, and slowly took a bite. I let it rest on my tongue and carry me to the waving purple fields. Delicious. Pure. Joy. If I could eat an almost perfect poem, written by an almost perfect author, it would be lavender honey. Good morning, assurance.
I guess, for me it’s more than enough. I wake up with the one I love… and lavender honey too.
