Prelude

"In a surprisingly short time [...] Anne and Mary felt that they were there in Aix instead of perching, which is the usual state of wanderers in any country at all, even their own."

When I came across these words by M.F.K. Fisher, I'd already decided to start this blog, and I had even chosen the title.  There was of course an instant ironic connect with the word 'perch,' but even more so with the sentiment of being there, and in the coincidence of it happening too to me in Aix. I'd gone there on my second trip to Provence, and by the fourth day of that visit the French words learned over two years in university began to emerge from beneath the strata of my more lived-in Japanese.  Within another day or two, those French words linked hands as sentences.  

But the realization of being there is more intuitive than intellectual, and goes far beyond language.  It is when one can scan a landscape and know what lies within it, what trees, what hills, what villages.  It is when one sees a mere photo of a place, and can feel the temperature of the air, can smell what hangs upon it. The closest parallel is the intimacy one has with the body of a long-time lover.   

This happened before to me with New Mexico, albeit only at the end of my two years there.  But here in Provence, it happened much more quickly. In celebration of that, I decided to start this blog, to follow the journeys of body and mind in a country that is quickly becoming like a second home.   

I will pre-date this introductory post to where this journey began, to the day when I first sat myself on the edge of the veranda and heard for the first time the dry raspy voice of the mistral, and began to learn her secrets.


On the turntable:   Brand X, "Unorthodox Behaviour"