This was written in late August of this year during my visit to France.
Land
Instagram and yesteryear’s travel bloggers repeatedly proved that a well-timed and curated snap can make a dragon out of a lizard. It’s not cynicism when approaching online bookings with a healthy dose of skepticism; it’s reality.
The Mill in Saint-Georges-de-Luzençon was the only stay I planned for France, and the most substantial one. I wasn’t sure what I would pull up to upon arrival or how true it would be to its online representations. When I was greeted by chickens clucking outside its doors and saw the waterfalls behind a lace-covered pergola, I knew this was home for the week, living between mountains housing historic villages at the convergence of the Tarn and Dourbie rivers.
The inside of the Mill was matryoshka-like, with endless doors successively leading to new rooms and experiences. I suspected floors were hiding between the four floors. The owner, Nathalie, is an interior designer, and her expert hand moulded this sizeable 400-year building into a place intended to inspire its inhabitants to think, write, read, or stretch in each communal space. Every room housed various forms of art, with desks to write on, finely upholstered couches lined with cushions to allow for comfortable reading (or, in one case, to build a pillow fort), and ample areas to meditate, breathe, think or overthink atop woven rugs and squashy mats.
I intended to make full use of these spaces and spend the week reading, sketching, and maybe even tackling an essay I’d been pecking at for months. However, a few hours into my stay there, I understood that the Mill had its own agenda, so I left it to direct my days how it saw fit. In retrospect, I did not experience what I wanted; instead, I received what I needed.
Fire
Southern France did not appear to have the infrastructure for or perhaps sufficient interest in air conditioning. The scorching August daytimes were insufferable and hellish. The ground outside was giving “the floor is lava”, and all metal surfaces designed for pleasure, such as outdoor daybeds and chairs, were better suited for purgatory.
I found relief by escaping to the waterfall and standing on the slick rocks under the rapids, where the gushing force washed away the sticky sweat concealing the pain and fatigue that followed me to France. The freezing water gave me permission to audibly and enthusiastically curse each morning before asking the torrents to absolve me of anger, grief, worries, and anxieties buried deep within me. In the cooling evenings, I sent my wishes and gratitude down the stream, asking it to tell anyone and everyone about my desires. Then, I would slosh through the grass back to the Mill to pick up a Cornetto and join its merrymakers.
Air
The Mill’s aquatic surroundings gave its spaces a chatty sort of stillness. The constant flow of the river echoed in the sitting room while the floorboards of the (former) flour store room ran a soft current beneath the sitting mats. The vibrant indigo walls of the study and its sturdy antique beams burbled when I sat there reading in the wee hours of the night. The kitchen oscillated between whispers and roars suiting the opening of the sluice gate right outside. In my bedroom, the Mill gifted me with the deepest sleep induced by the tempestuous crashing of the river against the rocks. My personal Spotify playlist of sea and ocean scapes was right outside the window.
Water
One night, on Nathalie’s suggestion, I headed to the outdoor tub to bathe in the open air of the French countryside. With my clothes draped over one side, I sat in the tub and listened to the distant sounds of a dog barking, laughter from the Mill’s kitchen, and the deadly smack of a moth against the porcelain. I leaned back as the tepid water flowed in, closing my eyes and hearing my breath come in and out like a tide, drowning out the world and my chattering mind, allowing the half-moon to baptise me in its light.
The ground beneath vanished, and I floated in space, weightless. On this night, there was nothing between the cosmos and me. My fingertips could reach the stars should I wish them to and rearrange the constellations to disorient the world momentarily and then set it on a new course.
I felt clean. Cleansed. As though a hand from above stretched out to trickle onto me holy water sourced from the rivers, the mountains, and the stream up the road. This most tender of waters washed away the shame, hurt, dirt, anger, and sweat I have amassed over the years. I felt lighter, freer, and at ease with myself and everything around me.
Some while later, I reluctantly towelled off my pruning body. I tottered down in the pitch black, wondering how long it would be before I felt this raw under the open sequinned sky.
Matryoshkas are Russian nesting dolls, erroneously referred to by some as babushkas (Russian for “grandmothers”).