The Beginning
I go to write about Aix but it is in this moment that I have a desperate fear that there may not be enough material in this black notebook to paint the way it felt but regardless I will try and whether I succeed or fail, I will return to Aix one day to write more. I feel both as though Aix was momentarily my own but I still lived in the shadow of the poised and elegant Aixoise, watching their daily habituals performed in Place de Mairie. From behind a book and disguised by a large pair of sunglasses. I would smudge on my red lipstick and wear my lashes bare and speak only the essential words of request to the server in the naive hopes that I may pass for a local but acknowledging that these wholehearted tactics could not compensate for my ‘pauvre Francaise’. The feeling of being both a part and separate of this community is acquainted with that feeling as a young child, of sitting amongst adults enjoying a glass of wine. You may watch both curious and intrigued but it is a language and social event for which you have not yet mastered the language and customs of. Perhaps it is due to this state of in between that my love for the South of France adopts a childlike quality of glee and unconditional love.
Yet I did not fall in love with France all at the beginning but when I did it felt as though it was all at once. I made peace with my language insecurities (that is it say I made peace with the fact that I could only comprehend a third of the conversations that were vibrating around me at cafes). Although in retrospect I have trouble understanding what were once frustrations with France and to be honest I cannot say with absolute certainty that I know these to have been the things to bother me. Perhaps it was the way it existed in absolute opposition to the lifestyle I led at home. Most likely it was in relation to the bureaucracy to setting up phone lines and insurance and where to receive the mail (these parts I can still understand). It was in returning to the city after a time spent in Amsterdam that I felt the immediate relief of return that can only be felt in a place that you know as home. In January the city was new to me but the city is quiet at this time of year. There were no leaves on the trees of Cours Mirabeau for the strong wind to rustle and this strong wind meant that shutters were hastened for protection and shielding of the cold. The early hour of sunset meant that the streets were only host to very few and especially on Sundays. We would go to Centre Ville for quiche and bring home a baguette but those were the bare essentials. Those cold Sundays which seem to exist as a part of a different, albeit still lovely Aix, were quiet but never lonely. Although an eerie thought in some ways being alone in these streets now seems an intimate luxury, even more so when contrasted against the tourist filled lanes. These were the times in which my face became accustomed to flushing an unmistakable shade of pink in embarrassment in regards to broken French and the awkward way I ordered coffee and croissants. Many would say that shade never really quite went away and that I do remain awkward (although moderately improved) in my French. But this was the beginning.