Today I spent my day caring about very little. I suppose that this is what it feels like when you relax fully. I have come to my friends place, but it feels like I have come to a home of my own. The pace of everything here is slow, and my body is following with it. I woke up to one of the most beautiful views, a little familiar to me. A jagged horizon, purple, pink and blue spreading gently upwards like watercolours. The sky, empty of any clouds. Nothing except the sound of birds and frogs outside my window. Completely still.
It took me a little longer this morning to get my coffee ready. Partly because I’m staying at a new place, but partly because I wanted to take my time. After the first coffee, a second. But this time with a simple breakfast of soft bread, butter and home-made pear jam. The bread, still warm from having been lightly grilled in the oven, felt like heaven between my teeth. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside. The syrup of the pear jam mixed with the salt of the butter, neither too strong but balancing each other in a perfect way. Two slices were enough.
I even got ready in a slower manner. Instead of rushing through my morning routine, I enjoyed massaging the moisturiser on my skin, feeling the pressure of my fingers against the bones of my face. It felt like, if I slowed down, then I did things with more love. For the first time in a long time, my breathing has become slower, and my heart doesn’t beat so fast. I feel as if I am falling back into a bed of feathers. My mind worries about this and that, but something tells me – just stop it. You can worry about all those things another day.
Lunch was simple, but delicious. I often wonder how people do it sometimes. I grew up with Indian food, which means I tend to prefer food with a lot of flavour – lots of spices, lots of salt, lots of oil. But here, it’s as if the water is magic. It grows and cooks things that taste so purely like the flavour it has been given. The tomatoes – red, and juicy and full of goodness, perfectly complemented by basil freshly picked. The fish, the potatoes… everything has a certain kind of sweetness that I think can only be conveyed if love is accompanied by patience.
My head is filled with new French words and phrases, distracted, and I don’t have capacity to do anything but sit, listen and experience. I drink in my surroundings… the things that people do, the way in which they do it. I observe and I know that this is all being stored away somewhere, for me to incorporate into my life later. I remember, for the first time in a long time, this is the France that the world imagines. I am living it right now, the dream that so many people have. I pass the afternoon drinking coffee and looking through old photos, and then something takes me by the hand and leads me to the bed. Think of nothing now, sleep, sleep, sleep.
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