paizay-le-tort
The déconfinement process that started in mid-May 2020 was gradual, tentative, cautiously hopeful. We no longer had to fill out an attestation to go outside and could leave our homes for more than an hour at a time, but there was still a travel restriction of 100 kilometers from your home and a ban on gatherings over ten people.
Then, in early June, when the travel restrictions finally lifted, Kaspar and I bought train tickets to go visit Max and his mother, Tess, out in western France. They live in a tiny village called Paizay-le-Tort in between Poitiers and La Rochelle. Total population less than 500 people. We had been talking about making the trip for a while, even making vague plans to go over Easter before the pandemic hit. We figured Max would appreciate a visit, after having been cooped up in middle-of-nowhere France with no one but his mother for company for two months. It’s comical to think now that we thought we were the ones doing him a favor. Turns out it would be the other way around. When we pulled into their home after an hour-long drive from Poitiers and we finally saw the property, Kaspar and I were in complete shock. Turning into the gravel driveway, we saw a gorgeous 17th century manor house, all in stone with red roses climbing up the walls. A heated pool, a gurgling river running through the back, space hidden in the woods for hammocks and campfires. The house itself can sleep up to 14 people and usually they run it as an Airbnb during the summer, while they actually live in the smaller gîte on the property.
Max and Tess were the most incredible hosts. It was such a huge relief to be there and to be so taken care of. I didn't realize how much tension I was holding in my body after so many months of fending for myself and holding it together, through getting Covid, the confinement, and the end of the semester. I let myself sink into the luxury of having a mother temporarily again. Tess would come back from the store with extra bottles of rosé and baguettes because she noticed we were out. Max would drive us everywhere and map out our itineraries for the day. I just had forgotten what it was like to be taken care of and how nice it felt.
We stayed out there for a week, spending long hours floating in the pool, biking in the rural landscapes, exploring the nearby town of Melle, cooking up elaborate feasts for every meal. We took a long drive to the sea one day, to the seaside towns of Fouras and Châtelaillon-Plage. It did my soul a lot of good to see the ocean again. A far cry from my life in Paris.
The timing of the trip gave it a surreal quality. I grappled a lot with my immense privilege over the course of the week, as protests for racial justice erupted in cities across America. I would lay awake at night after Max and Kaspar went to bed watching endless videos on my phone of National Guard troops descending upon DC, George Floyd’s murder, rubber bullet bruises, crowds surging through city streets—more people than I could’ve imagined in one space after the past few months living in abject fear of a virus. I could feel the anxieties alleviated by Max and Tess rising back up in those moments, wishing I could be grieving and acting in louder ways with communities that I had belonged to once.
Poppies were blooming then and growing wild in the fields we would bike through, like pools of blood blossoming all around us.
