La piscine.

There are people in St. Tropez who would never go swimming here (la Ponche - the least touristy, but most charming area of town) - too close to town, maybe a little gritty, seaweed deep down, etc. The people who do are pretty great: 13-year old boys who do backflips off the side of the concrete edge, me (cannonballs and dives), kids (cannonballs too), old ladies who breaststroke in the water and watch the tricks with a big grin on their face. To be fair, this is the closest swimming hole to the heart of St. Tropez and it is never crowded. The water is deep enough to dive into. I swim far out in this pool and then climb the ladder again to jump off again. I keep telling myself it will be the last time, but I just keep jumping back in.

Parisian Finale (to a day).

Sun of the Corsican variety.

I went swimming here.



And here.



Here too.



I went to Corsica alone. I invited Xavier; he was uninterested (or employed, I couldn't figure out which weighed more in his 'no'). He's pretty bossy (one of the things I really do like); so I am (I like that more). So, ça va, quoi. I not only went without Xavier, I also went for three days with hardly any words. The time drew out like a stretched out slinky - I had so much more of it than I ever thought I would. So it would seem that words stab time and force it into smaller clods and ergo you get more bits and less overall taffy (that which, for me in Corsica, was stretched). At least that is how I feel about it after being soused by words again today. There were all sorts and they all seemed to take on overimportant personalities: backer, commander (the squishing kind), incomer, monkey (the mimicking kind), grownup, encroacher, vamp (love those - especially in gay paris), enchanter - the words all around me today felt like beings who were taking form and closing in. Strange words to describe words. But these characters also made the day whiz by (tightly wound slinky). I also read Colette in Corsica, which might have something to do with it. Brilliant (I am in love).

Fromage de Chevre.

On the long road, I took a sharp left suddenly when I saw the sign:



It was guaranteed cheese from the gods: local chevre. Bespoke a smelly but very tasty ending. The road was like this:



That was the portion of the road that was paved, the unpaved portion had such large potholes, I was almost in tears at some point (it took quite a lot to get me to that point - several vehicles who came in the opposite direction - requiring long bouts of reversing, enormous ravines in the road, basically a trail that was not at all fashioned for my particular vehicle). At some point I decided that I had devoted a lot of energy to this cheese and I happened to be famished, so I plowed ahead and willed the car over the difficult passages. My little car and I, we made it.





Then I waited for my turn to get the cheese.





The cheese was almighty. This is hard chevre (very salty, almost like feta, but richer). I also purchased soft chevre, the kind that melts in your mouth and has the consistency of a gooey butter. I ate the entire wheel almost by the time I had forced my wheels to retrace their treacherous path. It was my way of keeping my mind off the road in front of me - psychologically necessary in order to carry on. Finally, little car and I bounced back on to the larger (not by much) road and headed on our way.

Corsica's Pallete.

Immediately, I was taken by the colors here. They are in my favorite ranges of pigmentation.





























And bright red. These coquelicots (poppies) were everywhere and, accordingly, they intensified all the greens, greys and blues.

But wait...

Before I go - or went - at this point I am mid-travel, there was this. This is the Conservatory Garden in Central Park (at 106th Street and Fifth Avenue). You must go now. The blossoming will not last. I was furiously riding my bike from work to get home in order to race to the airport and in passing, I couldn't not stop. These gates open onto the most delightful garden - transport you out of New York to European gardens. I could only stop fleetingly and now I'm pining to return, thinking of the path of pink petals and the rest of the gardens (it is pretty extensive) that I didn't get to witness.








(Ignore the lady on the bench's little sneer).

Lunar.

Walks in Provincetown sometimes feel like lunar rambles - colossal sand dunes, wide stretches of white, tides moving over a space devouring it, gripping it and then letting it go again. You feel like you are somewhere at the very end of something and there is just a vast sweep in front of you.







Until you arrive somewhere else. Like this lighthouse. Then you aren't on the moon anymore, but just at the very end of the projecting mass of land called Cape Cod.