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All of my grandparents passed while I was a child so, as I got older, I sort of just “adopted” new family members. Two people in particular, Jack and Jane (yes, those are their real names!), became my grandparents ~ not by blood, but by love.
Grandma Jane was a fairly prominent artist ~ she was the Artist in Residence in Yosemite, she was featured on The Today Show, etc., and when she died, Grandpa Jack invited my mom and I over to go through her paintings and pick one out. (!!!)
It was… one of those experiences I will never forget. It was like opening a book to someone’s visions and dreams, sitting on the floor with complete awe and wonderment propelling me through painting after painting after painting. Though I’d known Jane since I was a small child, I knew her better that day. And I loved her all over again.
The painting I chose is actually unfinished. She died before finishing it… but to me, it’s perfect.
It hangs in my bedroom and every night before falling asleep and every morning when the sun starts to stream in through my windows, I peek at it. And dream in it.
(Please forgive the picture of a painting!)
It’s no small wonder that I would choose the French Riviera to visit for vacation ~ I was craving what the painting was providing. Color and contrast and texture and light and shadow and history and calm confidence.
And on my first full day in France, I made it my mission to get absorbed into the feelings and rhythms ~ to find the color and contrast and texture and light and shadow and history and calm confidence of the Mediterranean city.
And find it, I did.
Though I’m not really a “leave something unfinished” sort of person (generally speaking…that’s not to say I don’t have ten books started and discarded for another day), I find beauty every day in what Grandma Jane left unfinished ~ it’s a painterly sort of unfinished. And her gift could never have been more complete.
Over the next few posts, I’ve decided to share a sort of series of travelogue entries from my trip to the South of France. I make no promises to stay in chronological order, but I’ll try!
Also good to note here that, as I’ll speak more to soon, the over-arching goal of my trip was to reconnect with the light of my simple, humble, human center that can sometimes be overshadowed by the day-to-day deadline driven, career stress most of us encounter, so my travelogue entries will be mostly feeling in nature rather than a presentation of factual travel tips. Not to imply a void of facts… but rather that my trip did not contain any contrived factual focus and instead was more of a sweeping meander along the Mediterranean at a speed determined by mood, curiosity, and the distance between gelato/sorbet shops.
Cheers to bon cote des choses! (sunny side of things)
I traveled, I explored, I took pictures (coming soon!), I ate delicious food, I swam in the Mediterranean, I got lost in Monaco, I ate gelato and went on walks at dusk along the shore, I listened to little French children singing little French songs, I sipped wine from Provence, wandered through a medieval village, laid in the warm riviera sunshine, read books, drank delicious coffee, I let a bikini and sundresses be my official ensemble, I breathed in life.
But the best part? Returning Home to the Hometown.
Home to coffee in the morning on mom’s deck surrounded by grape-leaves, BBQ at dad’s, s’mores by a campfire with a friend.
As much as I love adventures, I love coming home from them even more.
