Saturday, July 11, 2015
There are few areas in which I would yield to the stereotypes of women's abilities versus men. I think women can make excellent engineers, they just need to have exposure to the field and its possibilities. Similarly, I think women can make great pilots, great jockeys, great race car drivers. When it comes to me and my ability to park in a small space, however, I have to wonder whether there is any truth to canards about women's more limited spatial perception. At least where I am concerned.
Since the car was vandalized, I have been parking it in the garage that comes with the house. The garage is approached by a narrow path, an easement given by my neighbors across the way. Successful parking involves angling the car almost flush against one of the exterior walls of the garage, then straightening the car out and easing it in slowly, in reverse.
I have only been able to this once, yesterday. As a result, I have made a nice mess of the car, which is scratched in several places. Although the car is a rental, and my experience over the last three years has been that the leasing company has been indulgent, I wonder whether I have just been lucky. I have scratch remover paste which I will be sure to apply diligently before I return the car, but it's frustrating to try and try and try to get the maneuver right only to hear the grinding sound of the car chassis rubbing against the garage wall. What misery!
--At least I don't own the car.
*****
In the almost six weeks I've been here, I have put in heat pumps, and retained a contractor to put in a full bath on the top floor as well as turn the attic into an inhabitable space. I've paid my taxes, participated in the planning meeting for the church bazaar, had two pieces framed, entertained visitors and simultaneously kept up my Monday through Friday gym visits and added several cycling jaunts. I've been bitten by a dog, stung by a horse fly and struggled with the problem of having a dog that does not like being alone and neighbors that are quick to complain if he barks out of loneliness. The car has been vandalized and I've taken to parking it in the garage, an effort that always leads to tears.
You might ask "Why are you doing all this? Wouldn't it be easier to go back to New York, where you would have none of these concerns?"
Well, the truth is that every morning, swallows wake me. I hear them outside my window. I get up and look out towards the Pyrenees: I can't get that back in New York. On a clear night I can see hundreds of stars, the planets Venus and Neptune, too. And when I go for long walks (as Beau and I do every day), I pass some of the most beautiful rolling countryside in the world.
This morning I decided I would find the path that loops from the cemetery in Caunes around the vineyards to a donkey farm and back to its beginning near the ruin of a former chapel of the Carmelite order. Beau and I started out at eleven and were back by one. The path is behind the village foyer, a public space used for village events as well as private festivities. I had never fixed the cemetery on a map, so I wandered near the road to Carcassonne before doubling back and finding the path to the cemetery.
The cemetery is framed by cypresses, tall slender trees. The black-green leaves have a sombre tone, which is why they are ubiquitous in French cemeteries. Past the cemetery there are just fields, rows and rows of vines At one point there is a fork in the road and if you turn left you start your on you way back. Go on a bit further and you encounter two pastures for donkeys and a large house at the top of the hill on the property. It belongs to the owner who runs a business providing rides in the mountains on donkeys.
Where in New York City could I find something like that? So whatever the challenges of living here, they are more than made up for by the beauty around me.
No comments:
Post a Comment