Departure Lounge

     Another year without Bill: 32 years of my life sliced off and now I find myself in the peculiar (to me) situation of wondering "What now?" The world is too much with me, to paraphrase Wordsworth; tired of New York, I am ready to leave.  Walking sticks from last year's Camino pilgrimage, battered grey knapsack groaning at the seams, carry-on suitcase, two money belts (jammed with last year's French phone, currencies, a tiny camera, code books), I also have a gigantic hard-case suitcase (the "Green Monster"), into which I have packed my dismantled Xootr folding bicycle: with dropped handlebars for extra speed, it will be my lifeline in the Aude, a departement of France about an hour from the Spanish border and about the same distance from the Mediterranean.  And another bag contains tonight's dinner: a container of rice pudding, the better to sleep tonight, per the "Jet Lag diet", water bottles to be drained before I reach airport security, and my Macbook, as I will be stationary for most of the almost four months away.

      I fly to Frankfurt at 5:55 p.m., then have a two-hour layover, enough time to make my connection to Paris.  It was the only way I could make the trip at a minimum expense, using the last of my frequent flyer miles.  I will arrive in Paris by 10:45 a.m., with any luck, the weather about 63 degrees, the skies cloudy.  Two nights in the Hotel d'Orsay at 93 rue de Lille near the museum of the same name.  Thursday I hop on a TGV to Toulouse early Thursday.  My friends and hosts, Judith and Louis, will be waiting for me there, taking me to their home in the tiny village of Caunes-Minervois.  They will bring me up to speed with how their house works, and in a week I will repeat the journey to Toulouse in reverse.  They will be dropping off their Renault Clio, a leased car, as they are returning to the U.S.; I will be picking one up and driving it back to Caunes-Minervois after seeing them off.  It is thanks to their generosity that I can take a season off from the press of life in Manhattan.

     My biggest concern is the check-in: I put the Xootr into the "Green Monster" to avoid the $400 round trip charge for the bicycle shipped in a bicycle box supplied by the airline.  The much smaller silver hardcase is my carry-on luggage, but my grey knapsack is not small: and I have not yet stuffed my Macbook inside.  I am praying the airline personnel are merciful, and leaving for the airport at 1:30 p.m., to make sure I make it to the airport with plenty of time to check-in as soon as baggage check opens up, when airline workers are just starting their shifts, and in a better mood than when the gate closes and everyone is keyed up to board.

     This morning I cycled down the ribbon park by the Hudson on the West Side.  It rained, but not badly until, at Chambers Street, I turned around and made my way back home.  By the time I reached the Columbia area, it was raining in torrents.  I was exhilirated by the adventure, though; I began to feel that rising excitement I always do when anticipating a trip eagerly.  France!  But not Paris, with its mobs, not not the touristed South of high-priced hotels and luxury villas: not Provence, with its postcard views of fields of lavender, not the Cote d'Azur, with its luxury hotels, and topless beaches, twin magnets for tourists who want service and English-speaking hotel personnel.  But the real France, La France Profonde, the countryside in this most arable of nations, home to stubborn farmers and artisans intent on maintaining the perfection of their systems of wine production, the artisanat, the craftman's way of making his products, whether they be cheese or confectionery, bread or faience.

     That romantic notion animates me as I depart:

      The world is too much with us; late and soon
       Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
      Little we see in Nature that is ours;
       We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.
      The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon.
       The winds that will be howling at all hours,
      And we up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,
       For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
      It moves us not: --Great God! I'd rather be
     A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
      So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
     Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
     Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
     Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

          WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
     The World Is Too Much With Us; Late & Soon