Isn’t the winter light in Montpellier wonderful? Didn’t Bob do a great job of capturing the magic of this moment? You’ll be able to see some of Bob’s pictures again this June at his photo exposition "The South of France" on Bainbridge Island.
Photography is considered by some to be an art form, just like music and painting. For example, this month, we went to Montpellier’s Pavilion Populaire, devoted to photos as art forms, for their exhibit that features the disappearing city: Dresden, Cologne, Hiroshima, Beirut and Detroit. About 40 people enjoyed the free guided tour (which I understood!)
Public art is part of Montpellier. This church St Anne has been converted by the city to an art gallery with where we went to an excellent free monthly exhibition, a 15 minutes walk from our condo.
Because France is 90% Catholic, without a tradition of church choirs, there are many community chorales. French songbirds have converted another Montpellier church to that purpos. So we joined a French friend and three French choirs for a Decmber evening of song.
Montpellier is really quite a musical place, with a thriving opera, symphony, Conservatory, free organ music each Sunday night during the summer when the church is warm enough at St Pierre, 12 men who earn their living making violins and cellos, a woman who makes harpsichords and a man who crafts pianos. In addition, rock, jazz and rap fill the night air as Bob and I sleep soundly. The summer nights are filled with all of this music during a month long Radio France Music Festival that starts in July. In addition, our arenas with seating for 15,000 are often sold out well in advance for international performances like that of Bruce Springsteen who will be here June 19.
Our dear next door neighbor, Martine, continues to invite me to share her weekly walks at the Mediterranean, 10 minutes away by car. Always something different…fisherman gathering shellfish the size of the nail on your little finger and a couple riding horses.
And always a petite pause for water and bio biscuits.
It was Martine’s idea to ask Tomomi, our neighbor from Japan, to teach us to make sushi. Bob and I never did master the part about rolling or the French vocabulary for these exotic ingredients.
We got to celebrate Thanksgiving American style this year. We had a huge turkey, dressing, salad, and sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner with 16 others in Montpellier who belong to Americans for Peace and Justice and we didn't have to cook. Since then had two dinners with friends last weekend and two more dinners this weekend. In addition, another friend invited me to coffee at her home and yet another had us both over for champagne and cake to celebrate her 60th birthday. Most exciting for our interest in integrating into the French community, six of these seven events were in French with French friends! Since a French dinner lasts at least four hours, that is more than 16 hours of lively French around dinner tables in the last month. (Bob and I also speak French at dinner and sometimes during the day, adding another precious 7 hours of practice.) We probably average over 20 hours a week of reading, writing, speaking, and listening to French.
Talking about Thanksgiving reminds me of family and that reminds me of Kiki, my sister. We added a lemon tree to our terrace in her honor because she loved her lemon tree at San Clemente. What a pleasure to admire the rich orange/red of the 10 dwarf Myer lemons outside the window behind my desk. Samara, our daughter, who lived and died 32 years ago on November 18, 1980, had a hyacinth in her honor. After three days, don’t you think the plant looks like a typical teenager, ready to get out the door?
Our niece Elizabeth will spend Christmas with us, traveling here from the west coast of Spain where she is teaching English for a year in a town of 10,000 just north of the Portuguese border. We are really looking forward to spending Christmas with her.
We see so many challenges in our own lives and in the world. With the possible collapse of the euro, Greece, Italy, Spain, the hope of Occupy Wall street (there is an Occupy Montpellier here), the US’s Neanderthal position on climate change, the 600 page defense bill S. 1867 (passed by the Senate) that, unless vetoed by the President, will give the US the right for indefinite military detention, including US citizens, (why should that make a difference, anyway?) under the law of war without charge or trial, just like Bradley Manning.
Yet there is joy too, everywhere, the joy of a song well sung, a dance well danced, and our own lives filled with abundance. If you have any doubt, watch this video:
Happy holidays as we all go about creating the very best we can for our families and the world in which we live,
Sharon and Bob