Day Twenty-One: Grin and Bear It
Well, it had to happen, didn't it -- I am homesick. It was coming on last night, and then the nerve-shattering experience of a French supermarket on a Saturday morning put the cap on it -- I practically burst into tears when the clerk berated me for not weighing and labeling my apples properly.
Je regrette de vous deranger au sujet du pommes granny.
(juh ray-gret duh voo day-ron-JAY oh soo-JAY doo PUM grah-NAY)
"I am heartily ashamed of my conduct regarding the 'Granny Smiths.'"
At a certain point, one gets tired of struggling with diabolical foreign gas pumps and foreign supermarket rules and foreign roadsigns and foreign people staring at you, and the sounds of a foreign language everywhere, and being reduced to going up and down the aisle smelling foreign laundry detergent boxes to try and find a brand without perfume... One doesn't want to see any more sights; one doesn't want to lurk around a hotel room. One wants to be HOME.
Having chucked my perishables into the fridge at Encausse, I headed for the hills -- literally. Be Careful For What You Wish For #343,566,545: "Well, it's picturesque and all, but it's hard to imagine what it was like in Magda's day, with the smooth wide roads and gas stations and billboards and telephone poles. I guess I'll go up this little road towards Aulus-les-Bains..."
...Where there are no smooth wide roads or gas stations or billboards or telephone poles. Where there are instead shabby sheep shambling into your way, roadside shrines with gaily colored Holy Families and plastic flowers, abandoned stone mas rotting away, walls propped up with timbers or just plain stove in, the smell of smoke, the sound of tiny cascades of run-off bouncing down into the narrow valley. Perhaps the road might have been considered paved in the time of de Gaulle, but not since -- one edged the loyal, brave Kid along at a foot pace through rut and gravel slide and prayed not to meet someone coming the other way and had one's prayer denied. Oh yeah, I can imagine the land in Magda's day now, thank you.
Trivia: I passed through the hamlet of Erce, once the Sorbonne of dancing bear training academies. Everywhere I'm most interested in, there are no postcards, here in the Couserans.
Observation on French Life and Culture #19: The phrase "jack-in-office" must have been invented to describe the French gendarmerie. Not that I've had any trouble (knock wood) -- one look can tell you that I'm the law-abidingest person that ever drew breath, and I'm driving slowly enough to be overtaken by minivans and 2-cylinder Citroen tincans available with six boxtops of your favorite cereal -- but it is pretty rankling to watch them standing around at rond-points, rocking back and forth on their heels, arbitrarily choosing vehicles/people they don't like the looks of to put through the mill. Perhaps it's those stupid flat-top hats and sweaters with the powder blue stripe -- I guess if you know you look like a prat, eventually you feel like you might as well act like a prat.