This month for the first time in over twelve years, I thought I wouldn’t make it. I was afraid this article would not get off my desk. It wasn’t covid or any other illness. I can be thankful for good health. It wasn’t computer or internet problems, nor had I simply run out of ideas.
No, none of the above. Here’s the scoop. Dear Readers, once again I have moved. I no longer live 7 (and a half) floors above street level in a building with no elevator, located on one of the steepest slopes in Paris, like Rome or Pottsville, a city of seven hills. How many times, heading uphill towards the metro, I’d suddenly realize I’d forgot a face mask (we’re still masking in France), or my metro card, or some other essential requiring I turn around, head downhill and then climb back up six flights of stairs.
I’ve moved. I’ve “come back down to earth.”
It all started last July. France being a country of bureaucracy that moves as slow as molasses in January, that’s when things were almost wrapped up, with a trickle spilling over into February, when the sale of my Paris apartment was finalized. It’s been a long haul, literally, getting down all those steps.
Today I am sitting on my sofa. We were separated for a year. The sofa, bought specially for my country home that I left a year ago, was the very first of my long adult life. Rolling stones do not gather much moss. Nor can they lug around heavy furniture. When I bought my country home, I thought I’d be settling down. It didn’t work out. The rolling stone got rolling again. The sofa, in storage in the city of Chartres, waited for me and it is good to be together again.
Before moving to the country in 2016, before being figuratively tarred and feathered by the locals, I considered myself a connoisseur of France. Since then, I’ve been humbled. Though I know some things about this country where I’ve lived for over 30 years, I still have a lot to learn.
In one area, however, I’ve become an expert. I could even set myself up as a consultant. I know about real estate and I know a good contractor or craftsman when I see one. If you want to buy a home in France and you’re not sure how to do it, I’m the person to ask! If it needs repairs, I can also help. My address book of plumbers, electricians, masons, carpenters, roofers and home-heating specialists is as thick as an encyclopedia.
Last July, my friend Camille sent me a message. There was an apartment for sale in her town. I loved visiting Camille in her beautiful home in a small “country” town a mere half-hour from the center of Paris. To go there, I’d take a train through the northern suburbs, including the town of Saint-Denis, where I used to teach, looking out at shopping centers and apartment blocks till finally, after a short expanse of open fields, the train plunged into a forest and we entered another world, the world where Camille lives.
In her town, surrounded by a regional forest, with a small Gothic church at its center, most people live in houses surrounded by gardens. Camille’s home is called a “meulière” because of the “millstone” or flint used to build it. Many homes of flint and brick were built in the Parisian suburbs at the beginning of the 20th century.
In her garden, there are lilacs, peonies, iris, and flowering fruit trees. She has artfully arranged her flowerbeds, paying attention to the harmony of colors and the texture and dimensions of plants, creating compositions reminiscent of an Impressionist painting.
On a hot summer evening, after sipping a cool drink in the shade of Camille’s garden, I had a hard time returning to the heat of the city and my stuffy little apartment. My friend told me she’d keep an eye out for places for sale. She did. I got her text message, followed the link, made an appointment, did not like the place (I’m quicker on picking up on real estate lemons than I used to be). But I did hit it off with the realtor, an Armenian whose family has done its share of rolling, escaping the Armenian genocide in Turkey in 1915, fleeing to Lebanon, and then, when my realtor was a child, coming to France.
And he had more than one home for sale up his sleeve. We spent the day together, going from place to place, visiting house after house, none pleasing me until I had a coup de foudre (love at first sight) for the one where I sit today.
As I write, I look out two high windows beneath a ceiling nearly 15 feet high. Outside is the village green lined with two rows of linden trees, still bare at this time of year. Inside, to my left there is a maroon and gray-flecked marble fireplace, its hearth without a fire, unfortunately. For the moment, I’m basically living without heat. I haven’t yet had time to meet with the heating specialists!
In this big central room, to the right, behind a counter, is the kitchen. Atop the shelves I’ve placed my houseplants, very happy in their new home. They’ve adapted more quickly than I, upset by the flooding of kitchen the first time I turned on the washing machine, shivering from the lack of heat, wondering why hot water comes out of cold, and vice versa—but all these glitches are being worked out.
I am cautiously hopeful. The rolling stone may have finally settled down, this time in an apartment in a converted manor in the small town of Nointel, in a part of the Paris region called Val d’Oise, near the banks of the river of that name. In the coming months, I hope to explore surrounding towns with you. We’ve already been to one. Way back in July 2013, I wrote about Auvers-sur-Oise, where Van Gogh lived and painted. You can find it at https://pottsville-paris-express.blogspot.com/2013/ .
I have to leave you now to get back to unpacking and putting my new life in order. I’m on the ground floor. No more carrying groceries up six flights of stairs, which means, I hope, more energy for new adventures to share with you.
 |
| Next door, a chapel dedicated to Saint-Denis. It reminds me of the chapel in Charles Baber Cemetery in Pottsville. |
