A VERY GOOD FRIDAY - 22 April 2011
Wednesday, 27th April, 2011
Two days before we left Provence we received word that the buyers of our Cape Cod house had pulled out of the purchase. It knocked the wind out of us. In that first moment of shock and disappointment it felt like the life we had embarked on was snatched from us. How could we live the life we wanted if we remained in debt? What will happen if the economy bottoms out again and the house doesn’t sell? Gloom and doom, those patient partners forever waiting outside the door to one’s inner house, had entered without knocking.
So, we decided to do all our packing and cleaning of the house that day, instead of leaving it to the next, which would be our last before flying back to New York. The beauty of this was that it freed up that last day to do what we’d been doing all along – going out into the world and seeing what we could find to connect with.
During our ramblings in Nice a few days earlier, we had returned to a small shop in the old quarter owned by a young man who made his own forays out into the world to bring back simple treasures at inexpensive prices. (We both feel bad that we took neither his name nor the name of his shop, but promise to do so on our next sojourn.)
A native of Nice, he was interested in our work and shared with us his obvious love and pride of Nice and the surrounding countryside. He recommended we visit a town some miles north of Vence, up in the mountains, St. Jeannet. And so it was that on our last morning, the morning of Good Friday, we wended our way through Vence, out past Matisse’s Chapel and on and up and up into the mountains to one of the most beautiful villages of the whole trip.
A democratic sign at the entrance to this village points to a parking lot and tells us that Parking is Free and Obligatory. Duly parked we walk the slow incline into St.Jeannet. The Mistral is on the move again, its cool wind separating itself from the warmth of the day; within a 100 yards we put on, take off and put on again, light jackets and scarves. And then we are in the village. Oh, lovely, lovely village.
On the left, an outdoor café filled with locals and their inevitable coffees and cigarettes looks down from its mountain perch and out across the valley to the Mediterranean. It’s probably 8 miles as the proverbial crow flies and yet you can see waves racing to the shore. In the foreground, terraced gardens and olive groves pattern the landscape, the mountain rising up above us like the great stone beast it is. How do trees grow out of that? And why? What a life, clinging to the rock-face, battered by the winds. It’s so heroic, nature.
We leave the view and choose the first of several streets we will meander this morning. On the right, a grocery shop has crates of produce proudly displayed outside its window: zucchini with the blossoms attached, luscious tomatoes, the first artichokes of the season, to be eaten raw and dipped in oil and salt, string beans, onions with the earth still clinging to their roots, strawberries, apples. Everything is so fresh and new it’s like looking at a row of newborns in their bassinets. And there, inside the window is the proud Mama. She’s seen us looking in admiration and is beaming back at us. And we want to buy it all and cook for days, and not for the first time since we’ve here do I think, really, all we need is a kitchen with a bed. We choose another street to explore and find ourselves in a small, exquisite piazza from whose long flank rises up an impressive stone wall of the town’s church. We sit across from it for a while just gazing at the ancient perfection of this space. In front of us, a fountain spouts its music.
All else is quiet.
We enter the church and almost swoon from the incense still burning fresh. Who was here? Where did they go?
And there is the crucifix, just there to the right, in front of the altar.
It doesn’t matter what you believe in, or how many Christ’s hanging from the cross one has seen in a paltry lifetime, there is still something totally mesmerizing about this figure nailed to the fear and doubt of others. And today, on this Good Friday, two thousand and eleven years after the event, one is both horrified at what man continues to do to man and amazed at the pain each of us is able to bear.
We wander down a few more streets until the houses peter out and we have reached the far side of the village. We are about to turn around, but something impels us to follow a path, which, probably, eventually leads up into the wilderness of the mountain. The air is perfumed here and there, right in front of us, stands a tiny stone chapel, it’s door open.
I don’t know if I will ever be able to articulate the experience of being inside that space. I want to say it was the holiest of places, having not to do with religion, but sanctuary. It was my Gesthemane on this Good Friday. Perhaps Joel’s photographs will welcome you in, in just such a way.
I sit on one of the humble chairs. I touch everything. I read this prayer and am touched that it is addressed not to God, but to a Universal Mother.
Joel steps outside and when I turn to follow him I see a rope draped over the open door. Of course I pull it, and at the end of the pull comes the gentlest of bells, its sweet small note already carried up the mountains to the heavens.
And as if we have not been gifted enough today, when we walk past the chapel we find a small, simple garden dedicated to Padre Pio. A cross. Two Linden trees. A bench. I lay down with my head in Joel’s lap and we listen to the wind, which though roaring down from the mountain, leaves us unscathed, the linden trees sheltering us beneath their shivering leaves.
Time dissolves. Thoughts leave. There is only being.
And I’ll never know why we left.