December 15, 2008

• Once and Future Aix

  Today I found myself thinking about my time as a student in Aix-en-Provence, France, in the late eighties. I spent my third year of university there, sitting alongside French students and sharing their day-to-day struggle. It was one of the most amazing experiences in my eventful life.

  

  There were a few problems in paradise, of course. My roommate and I had little or no money and were constantly scrambling to avoid starvation or eviction. We had no phone, and our feeling of isolation from everything familiar rendered the buzzing approach of the three-wheeled mail van a highlight of each day. We spoke too much English to each other in our times alone, lessening the effectiveness of this immersive experience. Neither of us was committed enough to our studies to get everything out of them that we could.

  Despite all these drawbacks and challenges, I will never forget the sense of history alive all around me wherever I cared to explore; the beauty of the ancient cathedral; the odd tired feeling in one’s mouth, at the end of the day, after speaking a second language for hours on end; flocks of chattering magpies in the plane trees; the sweater weather at Christmas and the blustery Mistral of February; the elation of Provencal children over a few wet snowflakes; and especially the warm honey colours of the walls, sunny red-tiled roofs, and winding cobblestone lanes that made the whole place seem like something out of an otherworldly fantasy. The very air smelled wonderful to me. All of this happened twenty years ago, and yet it might have been last year, it might have been last week. I can draw it so close in my heart.

  One day I know I will go back there. So much about the year felt unfinished when I had to leave. I want to retrace my steps through the old medieval town to the university. I want to visit the restaurants and sample the year’s Beaujolais with everyone else. I want to go into the chocolatier and buy some specialités Grand Marnier and some of those pastel homemade marshmallows, oh and some calissons d’Aix, the special almond candies native to that city. I want to do all the tourism that I had no time or money for before, and also to lounge for hours in a sidewalk café on the Cours Mirabeau and watch the world thread its way past those mossy thermal fountains in the road.

  One day, back to the land of Cézanne I shall wend my way, up to the top of Mount Sainte Victoire to look back over my very own wandering youth.

  

  • 1:23 pm
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