On Facebook, a memory popped up showing a set of pictures from 4 years ago. The temperature was 14 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 Celsius), we had snow and our house’s big front window shown with Christmas lights.
I had been scrolling through Facebook while I lay in bed in the dark with the shutters closed. I hadn't been walking or running lately after another knee injury. So I got out of bed in France and determined to take a walk and some pictures to contrast life then and now.
Today
Baa bass black sheep
I chose a flat path that I could walk and as I rounded a corner, I heard the tinkling bells of sheep and a baa. I knew where they lived and walked around to the backyard to see two of them standing on an old concrete well.
That’s something I never saw on my runs in Ohio.
Mountains and a river
I continued my walk and the faint pinks of sunrise still shone over the mountains.
A closer look at that river, the Aude.
The river continues to rush to its destination in spite of COVID-19 and confinement and curfews.
The path not taken
This path looks so welcoming but it leads up a mountain and the path is unsteady with lots of stones, not good for my knee, so I resisted.
Berries
The orange and yellow berries reminded me of a photo I took 4 years ago, but the berries in Ohio were covered with snow.
4 years ago
Here's my montage from four years ago.
The pictures from my Ohio life made me feel homesick.
My life in France is very much changed from that Ohio life.
But the sun still decorates the sky every morning. And even though the air feels a bit cold when I go out in the morning, the temperature is in the mid-40s Fahrenheit, about 8 Celcius, which is a far cry from 14 (-10). So I may long for those days, but I probably wouldn't get out of bed and go for a run like I did on that morning four years ago.
In every new life, you gain some things and lose some things. My goal is to be able to see the beauty of whatever life I'm in.
This past weekend, Grace and I drove to North Carolina and spent three nights in a hotel along the beach.
Grace is starting a new job this week and I had an extra day added to the three-day Labor Day weekend.
My goal was to try paddle boarding, and I did.
I made reservations for 9 a.m. Sunday. The paddle boarding was at a nearby state park on Cape Fear River rather than on the Atlantic Ocean. Judging from the waves on the ocean, that was a good thing.
I didn't ask, but I assumed the lesson was about an hour.
Throughout the night, lightning flashed outside our window and thunder rumbled. The weather app on my phone predicted thunderstorms throughout the day. I feared my paddle boarding lesson would be canceled.
Since Grace was awake, I asked her to come with me. She could take some pictures from the shore.
Three of us showed up for the lessons -- me and a couple from South Carolina who had tried paddle boarding before on a quarry.
We put on life jackets and attached the board to our ankles with a leash.
We started out kneeling on the boards as we pushed off from the shore. I had a wide yellow board with some black rubber padding in the center where I would stand.
I wobbled a bit on the board as everyone moved into the river. We waited until we were all together to try standing up.
I feared I wouldn't be able to stand up, but I followed instructions, laying my paddle perpendicular to the board, putting up one foot then the other and moving to stand from a crouching position. "And remember to look straight ahead, not down," the instructor said.
And it worked. I was standing and paddling, although unsteady. Plus I had a shoe problem.
We needed to wear shoes because the bottom of the river from where we set off had sharp oyster shells. I wore a pair of maryjane crocs, and when I brought my feet forward, they kind of slipped part way off my feet, so some of my toes were in the shoe and some were sticking out. It was quite uncomfortable.
Behind me, I heard a splash. The one man taking lessons fell in as he attempted to stand.
Throughout the lesson, he probably fell in half a dozen times.
As we paddled toward an alcove where the water and wind were calmer, the instructor, Bill, and I chatted. I told him I'd been afraid that I wouldn't be able to stand up.
"Was that your biggest fear?" he asked.
"No," I said. "I'm nervous about getting back on the board if I fall."
My son Spencer, who has an impressive set of muscles and upper-body strength, told me that it's hard to get back on the board. If he had a hard time, I'd be doomed.
Just as I voiced these fears, I wobbled and fell.
"Fall away from the board," Bill called as I slammed straight onto the board and then rolled off the side into the murky river.
"Just throw your body over the center of the board," Bill said. And I tried, but something kept me from moving farther.
The life jacket had a clip on it, like a clothespin, caught on the handle of the board. It took me a few maneuvers to get that free before I could pull myself onto the board, then pivot so I lay flat on the board. Next I moved to kneel on the board. I removed my shoes this time and pinned them under some bungee cords at the front of the board.
Finally, I stood again.
I had done it. I'd fallen in and been able to get back up.Proudly, I can tell you that is the only time I fell.
The lesson continued as Bill showed us how to do turns. we ended up paddling to a cove off the river where the water is about 45-feet deep because they dredge sand from there. We paddled into shore and took a break.
Might feet were tired from standing on them for 50 minutes straight without shifting. It felt good to walk around on the sand, to stand on my tiptoes, then my heels.
That's when Bill told me the lesson lasted two hours. I felt bad thinking of Grace back in the parking lot waiting for me. But she had a magazine and a book and a coffee, plus I couldn't do anything about it.
At 9:50 a.m., we began the trip back to the marina.
The trip down the river had been effortless. The river ran that direction and the wind was at our back. The return trip was brutal. The wind picked up and whistled sharply past my ears as I paddled endlessly for an hour and a half.
Everyone else seemed to be able to move much more quickly than I did. My board was different, so maybe I had the equivalent of a mountain bike while everyone else had road bikes. Or maybe my paddling was as efficient as everyone else's. I soon fell behind. Bill would hang back occasionally to wait for me.
I tried to watch the others and keep up stroke wise, but my paddling didn't move me forward as quickly. The other guy fell off his board a couple of times and got back on but I still didn't catch up with him.
Here's a video Grace took. At the end, you can tell as she pans over to the marina, that she didn't have high hopes I would get there either.
At 11:30, I finally reached land. My feet felt numb and my palms were bright red with blisters forming along my pointer finger and thumb where I'd paddled.
Somewhere, during that two and a half hour jaunt, I felt a familiar sensation of wanting to be finished. I recognized it from the long runs I'd done, or even the overzealous bike rides.
Hot, sweaty, ready to be finished.
To add to the misery, I'd been on a juice fast and had eaten no solid food for two weeks. My body had no reserves to pull from. I made sure to eat some protein that day, trying to stock up on what had been depleted in the two and half hour exercise.
I'll definitely try paddleboarding again.
I can see how it can be a beautiful, contemplative experience, especially if I was by myself and could determine how far I went and how long I paddled. Being with a group and feeling like I held the group back made the experience not as fun.
And the trip itself was too much for the first time.
Alone though, I might have more fully appreciated the elegant white egret stalking its prey in the shallow waters; the gray waters flowing below me; the occasional fisherman throwing out a net to pull in bait fish; and the search for frolicking gray/black fins of dolphins that venture up the river.
Please join
this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us
your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie?
Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a
pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We
can take it.
Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get
there again.
When Tucker went to France with his school class, he took some great pictures. This one was from the bateaux mouches, and he took it as a panoramic. Click on it to make it bigger and you can see how fabulous it looks.
I don't think I have to tell you where he took it.
To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online.
As the hectic holiday season is upon us, we all need something to steady us, help us remember the improtant things in life. So I've borrowed a picture from my husband's winter camping trip.
Doesn't this look peaceful? What are you strategies for staying sane in the holiday season?
To participate in the Saturday Snapshot meme post a photo that you (or a friend or family member) have taken then leave a direct link to your post on Alyce's blog At Home With Books. Photos can be old or new, and be of any subject as long as they are clean and appropriate for all eyes to see. How much detail you give in the caption is entirely up to you. Please don’t post random photos that you find online. Earl took a lot of good shots on his weeklong trip to France. I loved the sunshine on the water in this one as he took a boat tour along the Loire near Nantes.
