Valbonne keeps calling me, and it’s the only place outside Antibes I’ve frequented so far. I don’t know what it is, but I just love taking photographs there. It is so interesting to me. Maybe because I used to call it home, or maybe because it just is a pretty little village. I remember when I lived there in my little apartment, soft light would enter the south facing window in the morning. It would not get very warm until the afternoon, when the harsher afternoon sun would start crawling against the walls.
In the mornings, I’d hear the village waking up. A person walking by, the sounds of cars in the distance, slowly entering the main square. When I’d open the window, I’d take a moment to look out. It was normally very fresh, the air felt so clean and I’d take in a lung full while looking down the street towards the other side of the village. Valbonne is unique for me in that it was created as a grid. There are no twisting and turning streets, going everywhere and nowhere. It’s clear and straight, influenced by Roman design.
The walls are painted in bright colours, or sometimes not even rendered at all but exposing the stones that have been there for centuries. I think I must have looked weird, walking around Valbonne while I lived there, because I’d often stop to touch the walls. It must be an Australian thing, being amazed at the history Europe has to offer. Sometimes I’d just sit and stare at the old buildings, wondering… what have these walls seen? I wish I could press my ear against the stones and hear what it had to say. Unfortunately, all I have is history books and my own imagination to fill in the gaps.
Maybe there were celebrations in the streets, like there are still today. Maybe there were more intimate interactions. Maybe there were lovers, a man looking up at a woman standing by her window. Maybe children shared secrets in quiet corners, whispering to each other so their parents wouldn’t hear. Maybe neighbours would say good morning from their windows across the street and share a morning coffee in each others company. Even now, when I’m walking down a small street, I like to look up and say hello to anyone who may be looking down. I feel that human interaction, no matter how small, is so precious these days.
These walls, they are not only the framework of homes… they are works of art. As time has gone by, pipes have been fixed onto them. Wires threaded through little holes, connecting this old village to everyone else in the world through modern technology. There are wooden doors… big enough to be the entrance of a house, but also of medium and small size… for other purposes which maybe I’ll never know. There are windows and steps, lined with plants. Some growing wild, some nicely pruned back. Posters and street art is also no stranger to these streets, with little drawings of cats, people and flowers in the most unsuspecting places.
These walls are a patchwork of all sorts of periods of time, new and old. I wonder, if I took time enough to study each wall… each crack, scratch, mark, print. What kind of stories would it tell me? Would I see within those walls someone who was like me? If I tried, I might discover that we humans have been facing the same problems, fighting the same battles, for a long time. Maybe these walls could tell me what to do next, or maybe they would just encourage me to add my own tiny contribution to history.
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