highjinks58

Thoughts from an epidemic

I’m writing today as I often write, sitting at home with a cup of tea. Outside, the birds are singing and a neighborhood cat whispers across my terrace. Flowers are blooming. It’s early spring in France, and everything appears to be normal.

But it’s not normal. I’m not allowed to leave my house without a piece of paper, called an “attestation de déplacement dérogatoire,” essentially a travel waiver, attesting on my honor that I am only traveling for one of the five allowed reasons: to go to the pharmacy, to go to the grocery store for essentials, to go to work, to exercise, or to help those in need. If you don’t have the paper when you’re stopped, the fine is 135 euros. It’s a government-mandated attempt to flatten the curve—a phrase that now has a heavier new meaning.

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For the women

Boudicca — Bouddica, Celtic queen of Britain.

For all of us
March is Women’s History Month, and March 8 is International Women’s Day. All things being equal, we women shouldn’t need a separate month or a separate day, but all things are far from being equal.

Here’s one paragraph from a Washington Post article:

“… When textbooks do describe women’s activism, it is generally in tepid terms. Temperance leaders are depicted as Christian do-gooders who detested drunkenness and ribaldry, not as women who could no longer abide being raped by their drunken husbands and who feared the scourge of syphilis. Suffragists, to the extent they are covered at all, tend to be described as women who wanted to clean up politics with their womanly goodness — not as individuals who fundamentally understood that bodily autonomy and political autonomy are two sides of the same coin.”

–Kimberly Hamlin, “The problem with women’s history month in 2020,” The Washington Post, 1 March 2020

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Carnaval 2020

After all the great celebrations of Christmas and New Year have exited stage left, all eyes in Bize turn to the next big spectacle: Carnaval !

Poster — This year’s Carnaval poster, listing four days of events.

The theater
For our group, Lou Recantou, we meet at a variety of places to work on the elements of our Carnaval parade entry. To plan for costumes and shoes and jewelry and hair, we usually meet at Eliette and Claude’s house. For making flowers, we meet at Recantou headquarters, or Eliette’s house, or Pierrette and Jean Marc’s house, which is where we also do all the work on our parade vehicle.

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Valentine’s Day and Brexit

All things pink and red
Cupid’s arrows are zinging around with extra vigor because Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. To help you get into the mood—just in case you’ve missed all the advertising in shops and in every possible variety of media—I bring you a selection of my photographs, paying special attention to pink this year.

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The beach in winter

Dune 1 — This miniature sand dune reminds me of a zebra. This is about three feet long, or just under one meter.

A day at the beach
Off we went on a gorgeous blue-sky Sunday, headed toward the coastal étangs southwest of Gruissan. An étang is a small lake or pond, quite often man-made for purposes such as agriculture, salt harvesting, or even medieval civic water projects. On this day, we parked just beyond the local saltworks (a salin), which has probably been in use since Roman times.

We walked along the narrow paths defining the rectangular ponds, eyeing pink flamingos in the distance. Eventually, we came to a wide expanse of wild beach. The day was cool, and we were happy to have the warm sun, also feeling lucky to not have the normal high winds.

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Sparkles for the Season

Archbishop Palace — The magic of the season in tiny sparkly lights adorning the medieval walls of the Archbishop’s Palace in Narbonne.

The holiday season is winding down, with all the busy-ness of shopping, wrapping, mailing, cooking, and partying. I’ve gathered some photographs from my celebrations of both Christmas and New Year’s Eve to give you an idea of how things looked in my corner of paradise.

Christmas — Noël

On Christmas Eve—Réveillon de Noël—I joined some of my French friends for a visit to Narbonne to stroll through the Christmas market, watch the parade, and hope for a glimpse of Père Noël (Santa Claus). A week later, on New Year’s Eve—Réveillon du Nouvel An, or Saint Sylvestre—I was with many of the same folks to share a meal and watch the festivities televised from Paris, where 400,000 cold revelers crowded the Champs-Élysées.

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