Rousillon. The word rolls off my tongue like the splash of tea I was awakened to yesterday morning. My British mother would be proud of me. Thousands of miles and many years from the habits of a childhood breakfast nook and still I am an Englishwoman’s youngest child, all dainty teaspoons and Prufrock posturing. Margo was right; some things taste better in the French air: day old baguettes, unfiltered red wine, and my raw heart’s latest suffering.
These ochre hills hint at old footpaths taken by Romans and Gauls. I can almost smell their leather straps and hear the crackling of campfires. When I reach down, the soil stains my fingers like the cheap nail polish I used as a girl. What sprigs of summer flowers this land will yield I cannot tell, but I am sorry to leave before the ground is abloom with our efforts.
Tonight, under a rough weave of stars, I will try the Pastis at the café down the road. Maybe a Claude or Henri will offer me a light for the cigarettes I won’t smoke. In the guttering light of a dim candle, if I am lucky, he can see me for what I now am: amiss from home, forgetting to be sad, shovel tired and stinking of rich earth, and all the better for it.
