Solitude, Not Loneliness
On Being Alone...
Each of my first four mornings in Vallauris I walked down the street to order my coffee and pain au chocolat at the same restaurant. It’s quiet, as is the town most of the time. I was expecting the same on that next morning. Instead of walking into a cafe that was still waking itself up, I found it to be exponentially busier than I was ready for. I felt lucky to get the last remaining seat.
That little cafe, and the quiet square it looks out on were both getting fuller and the pace was picking up. Greetings began from across the square as people began to ready themselves for the All Saints Day service at the church across the plaza. The men from town were dressed in suits, medals hanging from their jackets. The women were even more put together in either an incredibly fashionable set or their own military dress uniform. As the greetings continued, young parents and their children began to roll in as the church bells rang without end. Two weeks from that vibrant day, I am still an outsider and I still sit in that cafe at a table for one.
While I may be spending a lot of time alone here, I do not feel nor have I been lonely. Even when I am not working in the studio alongside my fellow residents or gathered around our small dining table for a lovely evening conversation, I find myself engaged with the world around me in a way that I had hoped would happen.
The biggest thing that I’ve done to quiet the feeling of loneliness is that my phone is away for as much of the day as possible. I have stopped reaching for it when I walk home from the studio. I fight the urge to have it in my hand while I wait for the bus. This is by no means a surprise, but it turns out that there are plenty of things for one to engage with when you allow yourself to disengage.
Here are just a few of the moments that I have found myself in the middle of by being out in the world by myself.
On a Monday morning I was sitting on the steps at the edge of the beach parking lot in Golfe-Juan with my camera. While I was looking out at the harbor, I suddenly found myself surrounded by three very local, very bald, very kind men. They began tying their fishing lines to their rods and readied themselves for what I truly hope was their weekly hang…directly next to the sign that says no fishing.
A few days later, I was sitting for lunch at a restaurant in Golfe-Juan, the third time at the same place in ten days. Towards the end of this particular meal, I was surprised to find almost every single diner and each of the staff screaming, no…absolutely unloading at a man walking past us with his bicycle by his side. I have absolutely zero idea what they were mad about because I still don’t speak French.
I do know that their shouts were full of anger because more than a few sentences being sent his way contained “merde” or “putain” to let him know that they were finished with their thought. That was true whether it was the young man a few tables away or the older woman next to me who stood up to make sure her barbs were heard. My back was turned to the target of everyone’s vitriol. Instead of turning around I saw the confused and amazed face of the young girl, maybe ten, who was having lunch with her mother and grandmother. I then watched her mother’s eyes as she tracked her daughter’s movement, rising from her seat on the patio and out to the sidewalk to get a better view of the dramatic event. Mom tried to get her daughter to sit down. She did not return to her seat until the scene had cooled back down.
In our second week, my fellow artists-in-residence and I visited the Picasso Museum in Antibes. A town that has quickly become one of my favorites. Sara, one of my studio mates, found a lovely coffee shop in Antibes. One where I finally had a cortado worthy of writing about. It turns out that finding a good cup of coffee is not as easy as finding a delicious pain au chocolat in France.
I have returned to this coffee shop a few times every week since and each time I walk in I fall more in love with the place. Surf posters and photos from Basque Country cover the walls. 90s hip-hop pours out of the speakers while the steam of the most beautiful espresso machine sings backup. I find myself energized by so much more than the coffee here. After my cortado(s), I once again wander the narrow streets of Antibes to find the light and then head back to the Marché so I can return to the restaurant that I hope to be a regular at for much longer than solely this trip.
Last weekend, I walked back down the hill from Vallauris to Golfe-Juan. Not for lunch, but to watch the French Riviera Marathon runners cross by at mile twenty three on a crisp, fall day that was the perfect weather for the task those runners had set for themselves.
I finally made it to Nice to meet up with a friend who has been living in Marseille for the past month and Paris before that. She and her friend were visiting Nice for the night and we met up for a lovely lunch at a gorgeous restaurant perched high above the water.
As I walked back to the train station that evening, I decided, at the last minute, to get a hotel room close to the port instead of getting on the train and I spent the night in Nice. I wanted to wake up the next day, see the sunrise, and explore Nice a bit with my camera.
I woke up a little before 7am that next morning and immediately walked down to the water. I got there before the sun finally rose over the hills of Cap-Ferrat and the morning light began to shine on a French flag, at least four stories tall, hanging from a cliff that the Monument aux Morts de Rauba-Capeù is set within. Soldiers were gathering, greeting each other and began to practice their marches for the Armistice Day ceremony that was set to begin in just a few hours.
I am now officially more than halfway through my time here. This morning I unloaded a kiln and my work for my main project is now finished. Earlier this evening I finished the last few ceramic pieces that I plan on making here. They are now set aside to dry to be glazed and fired next week.
Tomorrow, I pack my bag and my camera gear to begin the next phase of my project. I leave for Aix-en-Provence in the morning and then I am heading north to Le Luberon. I always knew that spending some time wandering with my camera was going to be the second part of my residency here.
I will once again be alone in a new place, but I am fairly confident that I will not be by myself on this next part of my journey.