A Trip to France II

There would be many things to tell about my trip to France. However, two or three things left a remarkable impression in my life. Nothing to do with the troubled return because of the volcano in Iceland. I certainly had an incredible luck that made me ponder: I won’t complain about “bad luck” within the next months. I don’t have the right to do it… to catch the last flight that left Paris before the airport was closed, wasabsurdly good.

The first remarkable experience happened in a small Provence village: Forcalquier. At night, strolling around and looking for a place to eat, I see a small church. The front door was opened, I suggest we go in and visit it. Soon we heard an incredible beautiful music. Few steps ahead, there it was, a large chorus with people of different ages, a small orchestra in front of them and a young conductor. The music was Mozart’s Requiem, touching, dramatic and melancholic. I was dazzled by the beauty and the uniqueness of it all. It was a rehearsal for what was going to happen right there, the next day. To join it, to follow the interruptions and corrections of the conductor, to smile with the chorus laughs when they exchanged funny comments (I could notice by the gestures and the facial expressions), and then the entrance of four singing soloists…I wasbreathing fast, my heart pounding. We smiled, mesmerized. We are here?

The rehearsal finished and we couldn’t resist congratulating the conductor. Talking about how far we had come from, how thankful we were for listening to them. With a soft smile he also thanked us and invited us for the next day concert. But we’d be way far…

Another moment of great emotion – paramount to make it unforgettable– was a visit at Saint-Paul psychiatric hospital, in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. It is a kind of old and beat up building, anteceded by rows of olive trees. There were also other trees, just beginning to bloom. Spring was in its way. We entered the building (the allowed area for visitors), went up to a curve staircase and there it was: the bedroom where Van Gogh stayed during one year. Almost exactly as it was then, between 1888 and 1889. So casual, so humble.The narrow bed, the famous chair, a small trunk, some paintings on the wall. Only. And the window. The same window that framed landscapes and people he painted. Once again I was breathless, I felt like crying. The internal garden of the hospital remains the same way as Van Gogh painted back then. The same colourful flowers and the bushes, beautifully composing a geometric design.

I guess that those experiences reveal what I mean by “traveling”. It doesn’t matter the place where you go. The encounter with the past, to live the unexpected, to be astonished by the beauty of some human beings who get over the great amount of sadness and disappointment that follow us in the social and political routine of our times –  all of it makes it worth the necessary effort to take a plane, a train, a bus, and meet that which is not familiar to us and challenges our capacity to look at the world with the same awe that Plato taught us to cherish in order to live a better life.