2017
On my second day in Bourges, in the juicy Berry centre of France, I ate my breakfast on the terrace over looking the river and orderly trees with my host, Fatiha. She’d left her husband eight years before, taking her two youngest sons with her. We talked at length before she offered to take me on a walk through the Marisme. The Marais is the name of the area in Paris where Milady lived - it used to be a swamp - and the Marisme still is.
Farmers (smallholders) were reclaiming land in a way that would probably have been going on in Paris in the seventeeth century. Little vegetable gardens were raised up above canals dug out and fenced off by whatever pieces of wood, old doors or plastic parts of tables were available. Quiet walkways curved around streams and creeks tamed and ordered by these frames (until they flooded, I supposed). It was a lovely sunny day for a walk with ducks and moorhens gliding through the weed choked waterways. I saw a water rat glide into the water and cross to the opposite bank in total silence.
Fatiha was interested in Buddhist thinking, not ritual or ceremony, just the philosophy of self-development and awareness. She didn’t like religion because she didn’t like to be controlled by other’s thoughts. And she didn’t like the hard mentality. She liked to question why she should be expected to go in the same direction as everyone else? And she did not approve of consuming for the sake of it. Why should we continue to buy unnecessary stuff? She didn’t like the idea of property or feel the need to pass on capital to her sons. I tried to suggest that she was not alone, there were many folk in the world who feel much the same, but she didn’t want to join with others. An intentional community was still a community. She liked Airbnb because people didn’t stay long enough to argue with. They just shared ideas and she felt the people who were attracted to her Airbnb were simpatico. The universe sent her good people with whom she felt much in common. She smiled freely, couldn’t give up smoking and lived in a world of grey furniture, grey decorations and wore mostly grey in her clothes
I thought of my friend Nadine, who had drawn my attention to the inescapable fact we had joined a large, international tribe of women over fifty. Finding our independence when children have grown and husbands flown - perhaps mentally and perhaps physically - flown away. Sometimes voluntary, sometimes forced, sometimes denied or clung to in heinous circumstances: The Golden Years.
While I walked with Fatiha we encountered a number of cherry trees overhanging the path. Slightly tart but refreshing, the shining red fruit was delicious until I was surprised to swallow a stone. Not sure how far it went but it bothered my throat for a few hours. I did wonder if it had lodged somewhere behind my tonsils for a while before the fear faded. (Didn’t bother the rest of me!) The things we swallow. The things that are difficult to digest.
I found traces of the seventeenth century in Bourges, of course in the Cathedral and also the Berry Museum, and Hotel Lallemant.
I toured the castle of Palais Jaques Couer, an infamous gentleman of trade unfortunately disgraced and exiled. Luckily Charles VII saved the house for the children and it was utilised through the centuries.
And outside, as I wandered through the building, a musical production about Jaques played in a tent with an attentive young audience seated in the forecourt. Many players and a delightful musician led by a forthright and excellent performer who sang strongly and led the audience in dance or at least hand gestures. The show was long and continued after I’d left the leadlined windows of the once castle, then town hall, then court house, now National Monument, to stand at the back of the gathering.
The wonderful thing about the show was a member of the audience. I first saw her slumped, wrapped in a hoodie, leaning on her brother. I don’t know what made me notice her at first. A few kids in the audience were tentatively following the singer’s instructions but my little girl rose to her knees and started putting her back into the actions. She had short hair and wore glasses and soon shed her hoodie to reveal a light cotton shift dress tied at the waist (all the rage this French summer). It didn’t take very long before she was standing and concentrating hard on following the movements exactly.
In intermission a medieval puppeteer turned up. He began with a baby dinosaur which the kids dutifully patted. Then he disappeared and returned with a flapping bat which he handed to an audience member to keep animated. He turned up again with a crazy crow. Then he had a good gag with an ornate gilded frame where he encouraged people to make faces and get a medieval snapshot taken. Hard to get the kids into it but you never knew who might play and soon the show returned with a musical interlude.
My little girl was just dying to get involved. The performers invited everyone to dance on the ground in front of the stage and I couldn’t tell if her brother gave her a shove to encourage her or to ridicule her but her longing was visible. She turned inward - she was not bound to this earth - and the puppeteer noticed and invited her to dance.
What a rare and wonderful display of youthful endeavour, yearning and passion. If she could have taken flight she would have. She was completely free, without forethought or habit or choreography. She went for it. The senior performer gave her permission and invited her to play by going down on one knee and offering her his hand to grasp as she danced around him, holding his hand in the air. So lovely. And he invited the audience to applaud, which they did, and that was that, she was ignited. At the end the lead woman called her up on stage to take a bow and she was warmly applauded again.
I noticed her mama had captured most of it with her phone camera. I watched the family gather together. I could see an older sister and two brothers - all with glasses - and I wondered if they’d be able to afford the sort of classes that it would take to train that stream of energy. Whether a decent teacher would see something in her and help. Then I saw she sucked her thumb and that did me in. I so felt her longing to be on stage, to be part of the bright happy folk, to join in the moving and entertaining. I watched her go up to the the lead woman who at that time didn’t notice her - and her look of longing was so open and hopeful and smiling and happy - I feared she would crash after all that joy.
But good for the puppeteer and the player - very generous to recognise her and invite her to play with them. Who knows where it might lead her. Or not. I recognised my own youthful longings to perform, to join in, to take flight.
Looking for Milady, it seems I have only found me.
Beautiful, evocative