Made for Another Place

Musings from France

When you go to sleep in one place and wake up in another, when you feel most at home in a country that is not your own, you might be forced to conclude that there is such a thing as a soul and it may not rest until it finds its proper place and rhythm in the world.

And that rhythm may include slow mornings followed by deliberate walks through cities as old as history. It might mean eating new things at odd times in front of ancient cathedrals and, of course, holding hands with the one you love.

But first? First you must leave.

First, you must fly from Nashville to Atlanta, and then Atlanta to Paris, and try to sleep on a plane, eventually resorting to watching an extra-long movie while the woman behind you vomits into a small bag.

You must eat more meals than a person should on an eight-hour jaunt across the Atlantic, a journey that would have taken your great-grandparents a month. And you must land in a place that is at once disorienting and comforting, while you wait an hour for a man to stamp your passport and hear the annoyed Americans wearing Mickey Mouse ears complain about waiting.

Then, your wife will remind you that your entry into this nation was during the two-hour period when the French take their lunch and, of course, it is taking a long time. “That’s on us.”

Then you hike a mile down Charles de Gaulle in search of a car rental kiosk, wondering if it really is this far, and continuing to hike, as the New World within starts to fade and you slowly encounter signs of a much older, deeper, richer world.

Then there is the kiosk, and a kind woman tells you to wait, and you do, longer than you expect, but it is fine. Because you know you are home, at least for now, and there is no finer place to wait than in a car rental kiosk in France.

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We left Paris in the middle of the afternoon, driving until the city became countryside and the road signs started to make sense to me. My wife slept beside me in the passenger’s seat while I watched the speed limit increase and decrease like the weather, and we wound our way through more roundabouts than I have ever seen in my life.

Not long before dusk, we pulled into a city that time must have forgotten, checking into a small medieval inn that teased us with its half-timbered construction and outdoor courtyard.

We took our dinner in the room and listened to the birds outside sing as we washed down pieces of foie gras with champagne from Champagne, trying to identify the soft cheeses on our plates. We took our turns asking if the other person was “okay” and both reassured each other, and ourselves, that this was just the jet lag.

Then we went for a walk, as is our custom no matter how tired we are and no matter where we are. Then my wife went to bed while I finished up some work I’d hoped to do before leaving, but what with the kids’ birthdays and end-of-school festivities and all of it, I could not.

Sometimes, the place you leave lingers a little. And so it did for me.

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The next day, we took our breakfast in the courtyard at a table that had already been set and were served by an eager but patient young woman who let us eat our petit déjeuner in private, checking on us once or twice, never rushing, always moving quietly in the background.

We thanked her, then packed our bags, and drove deeper into the country, farther away from the familiar, stopping in another town for a glass of crémant, which is best enjoyed on a patio with tiny bites of salami coated in truffles and parmesan.

And we watched the people walk by, dodging the heat in the middle of the day when almost everything shuts down. Then we paid our bill and picked up a couple bottles of wine to enjoy with friends, then continued the journey.

Then there was Lyon, a city both old and new, claiming the “origins of Christianity,” and I was once again made aware that almost everywhere in the world are people boasting of the place they are from, proud to originate from somewhere deep and storied.

We stayed two nights, eating decadent dinners smothered in cream sauces, and lost our way down ancient alleyways.

And we slept. We slept till morning and far past noon until we dared sleep back into night. We let the jet lag take us from every care or concern, forgetting what time it was back home and what time it should be here. We made our own time.

When we awoke, it was neither day nor night, but that time between, and we laughed and took our time getting ready. Then we went to an English bookstore just before it closed and noted how different cities, even in the same country, all have their own style, their own look, their own approach to the art of living.

We walked and we ate in that slightly gritty city and sat beside fountains as we watched one world go and another open up.

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The final leg of the trip took us south, down through wine country and castle country, into places of myth and lore where Roman ruins still abound and the past and present are conjoined twins.

We ate a sandwich named Picasso in front of a lesser-known Arc de Triomphe in the city of Orange. Then through mountains we went, in and out of more than one river valley, along a long narrow highway with an abundance of tolls, past the Pope’s old castle and the wine they still make nearby, past it all in a way.

And now, we find ourselves here on the Riviera, surrounded by the warmth of a sun that lasts all day and doesn’t descend until long past dinnertime, and the smell of flowers that never seems to leave.

And we sleep till noon and hear pigeons on the roof and smell sea in the air. And slowly, very slowly, we start to settle in.