Fontaine de Vaucluse: October 22, 2017
Day 033 of “Something You Protect”
In the morning, she went to the bakery and bought a baguette, and I made orange juice. We had eggs and coffee before leaving. She wanted to show me some of the region.
We first went to visit Fontaine de Vaucluse. The leaves were changing, and the French countryside was so much more vast and empty than I expected. We drove past the ruins of old farms and fields. There were birds above the trees, and Roxane shared her favorite songs with me. She showed me Stromae.
We approached a cliff, grey and massive. We mounted the hills lined with trees in change and their branches hung over the road. Roxane told me, “To understand this song by Stromae, you need to know this one first,” and we listened to Sodade by Cesaria Evora. It seemed we somehow stopped moving. Her voice transported me somewhere and the trees running passed mesmerized me. I looked at Roxane.
The song ended as we parked. My body was heavy, and I remembered I was lost or not at home. The village, legend has it, was once home to a dragon, the last dragon of France. Already, I had so much gratitude for Roxane to show me this place.
The river there washed over green moss, and the water was pure blue, keeping the colors somehow so separate. She told me there is a “source” here, which would mean a water spring in English, but I considered the word as a point of originality, a source. I believed the legend for a moment. Why not a nymph at the bottom of the water? There was a castle here once. Its ruins were at the top of the hill shadowing us below. Why not a dragon? We walked up the path and sat down by the water.
I felt her care as we went from place to place. We did not always speak. We were exploring music and the drive, and I needed a break from thinking in French, but there was never fret. She took me to see small towns I would never have found on my own.
I moved slowly. There was a breeze in the alley, and I gazed up through the narrow streets as she walked ahead and looked back.
More soon,
Trevor