It’s 7.30 p.m. Easter Sunday. Today felt like the very best of my trip, the golden day. Rain was predicted all weekend, and instead, we’ve had constant sun with a bit of cloud. Elissa, L and D’s youngest daughter, flew in for Easter from her job in Kinshasa, in the Congo. Today her boyfriend arrived from Marseille, where Elissa will probably be moving in the fall.
Lynn’s grandchildren are here, fraternal twins of 13 and their older sister, who’s 16 going on 22. Their father is Burundian, now divorced from their mother Sarah, L and D’s oldest daughter, and living back in Burundi. Sarah has worked for various NGO’s including Oxfam and Handicap International, and she and the boys have lived in Nepal and Kenya, among other places. Now they live in Lyon and able to spend vacations with their grandparents while their mother is busy or away; currently she’s working in Iraq. I’ve said before that the more cappuccino children in the world, the better, and these children are stunning. The boys remind me of my grandsons, punching, wrestling, playing with balls and on their devices. Maud their sister is an exotic creature, tall and slim with dreads to her waist. She spends almost all her time here talking on her phone, in her room, as any self-respecting 16-year-old girl should.
Denis went out before the kids were up to hide 66 small Easter eggs; he counted. We had to drag the kids out of bed, and the hunt was on, until all but 3 were found. Then L, D, and I went to Mass in the L’Arche community in Isle sur la Sorgue. The building I lived and worked in in Gordes in 1979 was sold, and the people there moved to a bigger place and blended with other local L’Arche communities; we had about 12 handicapped men, and now there are about fifty housed there, of both sexes. When we arrived today, Denis told the current director that I’m the only person to have written a book about this community: my memoir Loose Woman. My dear friend Magali, who worked with me then, and her husband Dan were there; big hugs.
Mass was held in a room with a makeshift altar and an electric piano. The priest was accompanied by little Jean-Luc, an important figure in my book, who stood beside the priest wearing a long white cassock, a plaid cap, and sunglasses. Two other men from my time were also there. They said they remembered me, although after 46 years I perhaps look a tiny bit different. I cried, of course, could not stop weeping. It was profoundly moving to see these people who once would have been the outcasts of society, at home in this safe, kind place. Jean Vanier turned out to be a hypocritical sociopath, but what he created in L’Arche is magnificent.
It meant a great deal that here I was, at mass in a community of people with mental disabilities, and I too had a place there. I was known. It did my heart good.
What else did my heart good was Easter lunch. It was hot enough outside to unpack and set up the table and chairs for the patio. Denis had made “seven hour lamb” – a gigot that cooks at low heat for 7 hours, which meant he had to get up at 5 a.m. to do something to it. First we had aperitif — champagne — then sat down to asparagus vinaigrette, then the gigot, salad, a platter of cheeses, and cake, accompanied by a fine Bourgogne. When the cheeses arrived, I told the table this was an orgasmic moment for me. Lynn replied, there aren’t many French people who’d say that.
After such a huge meal, I would have liked a nap, but this is the Blin family, so of course it meant a hike. Elissa had run 10 k. before breakfast, L had walked down to the village earlier to get bread, and she and D had cooked this massive meal, but no, a hike. They chose the Obama trail; the American first family came to do this hike at some point. It was straight uphill on a very rocky path lined with wild irises and the scent of wild thyme, with a great view when we finally arrived at the top. I should signal that Denis had a serious operation on an aneurism not even a month ago, yet was leaping ahead like a mountain goat. Maud and her dreads led us the whole way. And we drove there and back through Provence, endless vineyards and yellow stone houses. It is obligatoire, at least in Gordes, to build everything from that local stone.
Now we are home. The boys had stayed here; they have limits on their devices, so were outside playing soccer and punching each other, as boys should. We will soon cobble together another humble meal. Yesterday we had a big lunch of stuff the boys like, especially their grandmother’s chili and salad. Saturdays are movie nights, so we ate finger food in front of the very small TV while watching Nimona, a terrific film with plenty of cool entertainment for adults and kids alike. I miss my grandsons.
Today, I feel truly blessed to have this entry into real French life, and to feel that strangely, I belong here.
Sorry, pix out of order. Denis serving his lamb to Elissa and her friend Cantal. The cheeses, be still my beating heart. Jean-Luc and me and Denis; I look weepy because I’d been weeping. Hiking, and the phone stop at the top.
