While driving around Provence, in southern France, I was so happy, because everything around me was smiling. Light permeated the landscape, white rocks, from which most houses were build, were soft in texture and fields upon fields of vineyards held a promise of a soothing drink for years to come. Markets ... well, they were also exquisite and village-like, as if they came from somebody's painting. The choice of inspiration was endless.
Provence, being painters paradise, was overflowing with images at each turn. On every plaza keen artists, dressed like post-impressionists, were perfecting their skills with brushes and with eager-to-be-squeezed little tubes, which contained small quantities of oily paste in colours as bright as houses around.
This was a bliss, so I carried on sniffing jasmine flowing gently from shops selling herbs and drunk black coffee.
Yet, the dark side was never far away. All this beauty was surrounded, protected, restricted as if there was a possibility of snatching, poisoning, ripping it out from its soil.
Almost every village had a city-wall, towers and tiny windows on a ground floor. The Papal palace in Avignon, with a facade looking like a mediaeval armour, dominated the square below in a rather oppressive manner.
On my way back to a village, where I was staying for a couple of days, I stopped for a few hours at Arles,
paid homage to the Blue Cafe, made famous by Vincent van Gogh and went to see a river Rohan because the day was sunny and seemingly friendly. And there I encountered a powerful, cold wind, which was skimming the surface of the river thus creating short, dangerous waves. It was blowing like a dark monster under a soft name, mistral. It chased me away from the bank of Rohan.
The next day I decided to become more urban and I went shopping in Nimes. I am fascinated by that town, with its streets zigzagging into each other, following their ancient reasons.
Nimes is like a book I bought from an archaic bookseller with a thin, grey, goaty beard, a type of a strange person you will never find again, however hard you search. I sat with my volume of incomprehensible wisdom at a cafe, opposite a theatre. With every turn of a page I saw mysterious symbols and words written backward, while illustrations were glowing like windows of gothic cathedrals. There, in that cafe, I ate lunch and drank wine, which a young waitress had chosen for me and I also listen to a man at the next table, who was playing on a guitar and sang Bob Dylan’s songs. Sometimes he changed English words into French and this was very charming.
It was all gentle, air was warm, palms shaded us and life was good.
I decided to try coffee in another place, by Roman temple, so I walked off and on my way I encounter a lady in white with a white dog, so (being a tourist) I took a photograph of her.
The icy look she gave me and a manner in which she entered a shop with golden jewelry wiped a smile from my face. Her dog ignored me.
I looked down the passage, towards the corrida for bullfighting and just then I understood that it was me who crossed a border line and not another way round. It was me, who was intruding into intimate lives of people for whom Provence was their home, peering over the fence and asking for attention, when they had other ideas how to spent their time.
It was clear that none of those defenses were insurmountable. My son could scale a city wall in two seconds, I could ignore imposing buildings by looking another way and laugh at disapproving faces. Or simply not to go to places, where one is not welcomed. This would be easy.
Surely, I also put up my defenses, when I feel threaten or imposed upon, but I don’t notice doing so, because ... because it is instinctive.
Yet, I know that I will trespass again and again. I will search for Unknown wherever I go. Human destiny is such that we are curious and wondrous. We will for ever touch what we suppose not to touch, embrace what is forbidden, because by doing so, upon learning that lesson, we become wiser.
Perhaps, what we often miss is to pay attention to the fact that people, who made it possible for us, by living in a distinctive manner to us, should be appreciated and not be trampled upon.
Camera: Nikon F75 with a standard lens (50mm)
Different exposures
Film: Agfa 200 ASA
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