H and I did not intend to do a road trip initially; we were just going to Milan to get the clothes my mom asked my cousin to bring me, him being able to go back and forth from Manila to Milan every few months because his job is just full of perks like that. Anyway, last January my cousin was supposed to come to Paris but couldn't because of a passport snafu that did not turn out to be a snafu but in the end was fucked up badly by the Philippine Embassy there. But no one's pointing any fingers here. This opened up the possibility of us going to Italy... but H didn't want to go to Milan, he would rather go to Rome or some other Italian city, but if we went to Rome we would need a week to get the most out of it... which is impossible since we are both jobless and we can't just throw money away.
We were at an impasse for months. Until one day, while watching a TV investigation on camping, he brought up the idea of driving to Italy and staying at camping lodges which are half the price of cheap hotels, allowing us to see more of France and Italy, and leaves us free from the hassles of air travel in a post-9/11 world. I gamely said yes, not having camped in my life, but having always been attracted to the idea ever since I saw Ninja Kids.
Destiny had smiled on us when we thought up this little plan. It was the birthday of my father in law and he needed his sons to repair the roof tiles in their ancient home (it was the house of the town abbot in the 15th century or something) so we had a free ride to the south with my brother in law. It was unfortunate though, that we couldn't leave a little earlier because I had a friend who was getting married in Nimes the day of our early morning arrival.
The day before the big road trip, H's mom and I sat on the lounge chairs next to the pool. Watching her sons acting like buffoons in the water, she asked me to remind H every so often: "Ce n'est pas ta voiture, c'est la voiture de ta mere," or something to that effect. She knows how he can be a fool on the highway.
The following day, we made it to Cannes a half hour short of the normal travel time because my pleas for rational driving were left unheeded. The only thing that can make a speed freak slow down is a well-placed speed flash... which sadly we didn't see a lot of. What we did see was the colorful spread of summer blooms, fields of sunflowers and corn, apple orchards and orange groves, vineyards and castles.
Even with the GPS we got a bit lost because H was trying to look for a particular road that he had known when the mountainside was dry and black, the victim of a headline-grabbing forest fire in the mid-80's. Today, a younger forest has reclaimed the patches unmarred by human habitation. To him, this high point overlooking Cannes was the street of childhood summers and winters, where he and his pre-pubescent friends (still rocking the peach fuzz) would try to seduce young tourist girls who came to France possibly looking for romance. Sadly, they were too young and neurotic to wield the powers of seduction.
He showed me his family's former vacation home with allegedly the best view of the beach, but trashed so many times by German and English tenants that H's parents vowed never to rent out property ever again (the other reason why we can't keep the Paris flat). Then, like a tourist, he made me pose in front of the garage door... THE GARAGE DOOR! (H, to me: "It's for the parents!!!")
After taking enough photos, we went shopping for food supplies, rushed to find a camping spot and had a little swim before dinner. Dinner was fresh pesto tagliatelle and sausages, accompanied by a bottle of wine to toast to our decision to do this crazy thing, to fall in love, to drop the jobs that had consumed us (can you imagine, I hardly took vacations and worked even when I was sick? I was mad!), and say yes to a life that at the time was still undefined... to be quite honest, it is still in the process of being defined. We know we are together, we know we are staying together... but the rest is still unknown.
When we went to bed, H showed me the note he scribbled on his old sleeping bag in a feverish frenzy almost a lifetime ago. It was a promise to retire the old thing after that cold night he spent alone in the woods in Switzerland, when the insulation had failed to protect him and he realized it was time to let go. It was written in 2003, the 2nd of August -- Exactly eight years ago to the day.
I'm not going to make like it was a profound message from the universe, that would be too easy (or corny), but still it makes me think of the things that we think we don't need anymore, the tacky mementos of youth, the friends we've outgrown, the skins we inhabit at certain junctures in life and cast off when our philosophies change -- These things, they have a way of popping up. Their revelations could be embarrassing, regretful, funny, profound or ambrosial, but mainly they remind us that the things we thought were behind us are with us all along. Countries, cities, family, friends, the occasional sworn enemy - these things never leave us. They're just waiting for a chance to pop back into our lives. And in eight years, who knows what souvenir would remind me of oaths broken or kept?
About the car, that story's going to pop up later; and maybe tell you a bit about the trip too.
Sizzling Beach 2: Antibes and St. Paul
No comments:
Post a Comment