In my dreams I awake in a foreign city. It’s early but the city is alive. People are pulsing through the streets like blood in its veins. They flow towards the heart of the town, where the markets are.
Here, tents house flowers bursting with color- fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, spreads and breads. Turn oneway and you are enveloped by the succulent, sweet floral scent of lilies. Turn the other and your mouth is watering- the breeze carries a wiff of a freshly made baguette sliced open and drizzled with provincial olive oil, layered with mozzarella, basil and tomatoes plucked from the vine earlier that morning.
My senses are tingling, as if waking up for the first time and are somewhat overwhelmed. I am Dorothy, stepping out of her house for the first time and utterly dazzled by the luminous new colors and the magic of the land of Oz.
Each moment, the wonder seems to build. I wander through this new land with the eyes of a child, awed by each twist and turn of the road. Buildings tower over me, sand colored with bright wooden shutters, potted plants on the windowsills. An older woman leans out of one, shaking out her sunflower dotted tablecloth- crumbs from her petit dejeuner falling like fairy dust onto the crowds below.
Boutiques, soap shops, cafes, boulangeries et patisseries greet me on both sides of the cobble stoned road, beckoning me to enter. I choose to enter a particularly bright colored door with a sign that I do not understand and find myself in Willy Wonka’s candy wonderland. Surrounded by sweets, chocolates, pastries, cookies and breads. The shopkeeper hands me bird’s egg sized, canary yellow circle and I place it on my tongue. Sugar, creamy chocolate and a pleasant yet unrecognizable taste fill my mouth. None other than a chocolate covered olive.
I spend the day this way, drawn by my senses into different doors and down winding alleys. I see baskets with bushels of fresh lavender, waiters buzzing around like bees, serving miniscule black coffees to smoking, scowling French men. I see medieval churches guarded by ivory statues with expressions so precise and lifelike that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them blinked. I see fountains, spewing crystalline water that dances and sparkles with the golden sunlight that shines from a cloudless blue sky above.
Later, I am fed with food fit for the royals. The freshest fish, covered in les herbes de provence, olive oil and lemon laid out next to a colorful salad, vegetables of the ripest variety, followed by bread, chevre and luscious, golden melon.
Night falls and I find myself sitting on a terrace, in the center of town, a glass filled with rose-colored liquid in my hand. It’s late but the streets continue to pulse. My head swims, as this is not the first glass that I’ve consumed tonight. The handsome waiter catches my eye and nods toward my glass, “Voulez-vous encore de Rosé, mademoiselle?” I nod, lean back and smile. I am surrounded by my future friends, the beauty of this enchanting city, and looking forward to weeks of wonder ahead of me. The night is warm and the stars are smiling at me… I am utterly content.
Here, tents house flowers bursting with color- fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, spreads and breads. Turn oneway and you are enveloped by the succulent, sweet floral scent of lilies. Turn the other and your mouth is watering- the breeze carries a wiff of a freshly made baguette sliced open and drizzled with provincial olive oil, layered with mozzarella, basil and tomatoes plucked from the vine earlier that morning.
My senses are tingling, as if waking up for the first time and are somewhat overwhelmed. I am Dorothy, stepping out of her house for the first time and utterly dazzled by the luminous new colors and the magic of the land of Oz.
Each moment, the wonder seems to build. I wander through this new land with the eyes of a child, awed by each twist and turn of the road. Buildings tower over me, sand colored with bright wooden shutters, potted plants on the windowsills. An older woman leans out of one, shaking out her sunflower dotted tablecloth- crumbs from her petit dejeuner falling like fairy dust onto the crowds below.
Boutiques, soap shops, cafes, boulangeries et patisseries greet me on both sides of the cobble stoned road, beckoning me to enter. I choose to enter a particularly bright colored door with a sign that I do not understand and find myself in Willy Wonka’s candy wonderland. Surrounded by sweets, chocolates, pastries, cookies and breads. The shopkeeper hands me bird’s egg sized, canary yellow circle and I place it on my tongue. Sugar, creamy chocolate and a pleasant yet unrecognizable taste fill my mouth. None other than a chocolate covered olive.
I spend the day this way, drawn by my senses into different doors and down winding alleys. I see baskets with bushels of fresh lavender, waiters buzzing around like bees, serving miniscule black coffees to smoking, scowling French men. I see medieval churches guarded by ivory statues with expressions so precise and lifelike that I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them blinked. I see fountains, spewing crystalline water that dances and sparkles with the golden sunlight that shines from a cloudless blue sky above.
Later, I am fed with food fit for the royals. The freshest fish, covered in les herbes de provence, olive oil and lemon laid out next to a colorful salad, vegetables of the ripest variety, followed by bread, chevre and luscious, golden melon.
Night falls and I find myself sitting on a terrace, in the center of town, a glass filled with rose-colored liquid in my hand. It’s late but the streets continue to pulse. My head swims, as this is not the first glass that I’ve consumed tonight. The handsome waiter catches my eye and nods toward my glass, “Voulez-vous encore de Rosé, mademoiselle?” I nod, lean back and smile. I am surrounded by my future friends, the beauty of this enchanting city, and looking forward to weeks of wonder ahead of me. The night is warm and the stars are smiling at me… I am utterly content.
The next morning I open my eyes, expecting the dreamy magic of the night before to flit away like a twirl of smoke in the wind. Except it doesn’t. It remains. I am twenty-one years young, living and studying in the South of France (arguably the most beautiful place in the world) and it is not a dream. I’ve been here for one week already and each day is filled with sequences more wonderful than the last. Each day I witness a new beauty, taste something incroyable, meet and connect with someone different and feel more and more alive.
Yesterday when visiting La Luberon- a valley, colored with the reddest poppies, yellow and purple wildflowers, rolling green hills with vineyards for miles, stretches ancient beige villages perched upon hilltops and stretches upon stretches of azure sky- I was hit with a feeling.
At first I was unsure as to what the feeling was. A familiar feeling- one of happiness, comfort, contentment and joy. A feeling that was later made clear to me by a the phrase, “Je suis revenu.” I have returned. And though I have never lived here, never called this place home, I feel that somehow I have returned. Returned to where I belong.
Yesterday when visiting La Luberon- a valley, colored with the reddest poppies, yellow and purple wildflowers, rolling green hills with vineyards for miles, stretches ancient beige villages perched upon hilltops and stretches upon stretches of azure sky- I was hit with a feeling.
At first I was unsure as to what the feeling was. A familiar feeling- one of happiness, comfort, contentment and joy. A feeling that was later made clear to me by a the phrase, “Je suis revenu.” I have returned. And though I have never lived here, never called this place home, I feel that somehow I have returned. Returned to where I belong.