Eloquent Provence Reflections

One of our recent guests in Provence wrote to his family about his reflections on the bike tour and was kind enough to share them. A couple of personal lines have been omitted from this essay entitled “Do One Thing” by Michael Landrum.

“If you are looking for new light and energy then I suggest you do one thing… just one.

Go to Provence. For me, on most vacations, it takes about three days to 'be there,' regardless of where there is. Three days to move my mind and emotions far enough from where they were to where they could and should be for rest and regeneration. Not so in Provence. It is such a deep and powerful place that you are pulled out of your world and into its world immediately… a world so ancient -- Greeks, Moors, Celts, Germanic Tribes, Romans, the Avignon Papacy, the KnightsTemplar, -- and a world so beautiful -- every town built into a dominant green and sand and granite and taupe hillside -- (did you know the colour taupe is named after the French mole?) So beautiful it feels like God's perfect landscaping project. So beautiful that not Disney nor Steve Wynn would ever dare to try… So beautiful that the light and the dark and the in between are different. Think VanGogh -- Sunflowers, Wheat Fields, Starry Night, Olive Trees (1000 years old) -- and imagine yourself not just seeing but feeling that light, taking in that air, smelling that lavender and clearly understanding what he saw.

It is also a stubbornly unique, contrarian place -- named the Provinces by Caesar, and used both to banish Roman Citizens and to reward them -- and isn't that one of life's great questions? Am I being banished or rewarded? … imagine too, a place in France, the penultimate Nationalistic socialistic culture and society -- a place with a dialect (Provencal) so distinctly different from Parisian French that a 19th century law was required to force its demise -- a law not completely successful.

One Provencal word remains well understood today -- Le Mistral. We were bicycling in Provence, adding to the sensory experiences and to the feeling of 'being a part of.' And with the riding came Le Mistrals, a word meaning "masterly" -- katabatic (cooling) winds that funnel down the Rhone Valley (we walked our bikes across the Rhone Bridge -- with the single lunatic exception of one reader here) … These winds kicked our l'arrière termine, but even they, le mistrals, found their way into our story and our love of the place and the experience… because riding down those long tree-lined Roman roads built 1000s of years ago, and knowing that previous travelers were cursing that same damned wind in Greek or Latin or Provencal put us right where we needed to be to recharge…which is deeply with humanity.

I wasn't really looking for quotations today, but one demanded inclusion: [Bicycling] has done more to emancipate women than any one thing in the world. It gives her a feeling of self-reliance and independence the moment she takes her seat; and away she goes, the picture of untrammeled womanhood. -- Susan B. Anthony

It's a gorgeous day here today… It's good to be back… and if you've not found your Provence yet… the real one is still there and always will be… “
Copyright © 2007 Michael Landrum

Click here to read about the Provence tour referred to in the essay- Provence Bike Tour
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