It’s a peculiar thing to live in an old chateau. The walls that envelop us are far older than the generations we can still picture in our memories. Everything – paintings, sculptures, furniture, clocks, tapestries… are impregnated with the dust and fingerprints, tastes and whims of people whose names we have lost. Some of their portraits dress the halls – the lady coiffed in a high oblong gossamer bonnet with the face of a fish wife, whose eyes followed the children so she was banished to the bibliotheque, (we recently discovered she had been guillotined) the gregarious fellow in diaphanous […]
Spirit of the Place
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Spirit of the Place – Part 2 The man first came to this place when he was thirteen. The chateau and vineyards had been muddling through a period of benign neglect since the death of his great uncle a decade prior, and now the buildings, lawns, flower beds, gardens, woods, even the river’s cliff – all slept around him like characters under a hundred years’ spell. He planted himself on the terrace over the Dordogne, braced by the allée of centurion linden trees and looked down at the water. The neglect was oddly comforting. Like camouflage. Like a tarnished brooch, […]
Spirit of the Place With the wine settled into beauty rest, my thoughts turn to the great old house and surrounding land. They also seem to have nodded off for a long sleep. But “Vive le vent d’hiver,” the French children sing. When it’s all gone quiet, winter winds stir up other elements around here. They are shy things. Noise and bustle sends them into attic corners. Yes, I miss the warmth of summer, but I shiver gladly as we bring in the firewood. Winter is best for chance encounters with those who only venture forth under a “vent d’hiver.” […]
Over the years we’ve lived so many stories on this land my journal entries could fill an 18th century armoire. In truth, La Tourbeille is such an out of world/out of time place, she should really be the subject of sonnets. Even the postman goes poet when he steps on the land. He brings extra junk mail as an excuse when he can’t fill the box with bills; he lingers and chats and reminds me every day that we live in a “magical” place. For sure, this is a place that makes people dream. Maybe that’s why I’m trying to write […]