Una took me to the beach in Marsielles. We got subway tickets and took the bus down to the water. The mediterranian c'est beau, blue and rippling with little waves and nobody on the white sand at all. We go behind the rocks and get in, cold. Come out salted and skin stretched, oceany and happy and the wind blows us dry. Kids in swim suits come, shrieking like we just did, diving in and splashing out, fast. D'leau froid. Hows my french spelling?
We are walking across a parking lot (here is a picture I am taking for you) walking, Una and me. I am in my boots that get stinky quick, Una has her curls tied back, we foot to foot across the parking lot, there by the beach water. A pink balloon is blowing towards us, in the wind, straight towards us. It is followed by a little girl with big curly hair, crying and holding her hands out. The wind is faster than that balloon. It blows right into my hands, and she takes it from me and runs back to her mother, without saying a word.
Beautiful nights in Aix en Provence. The city has a nice market place, where the apple cider man gives me a free apple and the boys play jazz by the fountain and the pretty girl at a colorful fabric booth smiles at me. Una speaks the good French, I sort of tail along and catch what words I can. She takes me to a park with a reading tree, two guys on a park bench drink and smoke and tell us about Corse. This is especially interesting because I am aimed at Corse and so I listen, Una translates. It is not a big island, but it is so beautiful. I will find out.
On the bus to Toulon, I sit to eat my baghette and fromage du chevre and olives, but I never get to, because this guy comes cursing down the aisle and talks to me until I dont talk to him for a minute. He has may be a scottish accent when he anglaishes (englishes) but he is French. He asks me where I have been and sometimes doesnt wait for an answer. I turn to the girl in front of me, a very pretty brown girl, and she is listening to us. Tu comprend? my friend asks her, because we were speaking in sort of broken english, and she says she understands a little bit, and so we get to talking.
And then, glory be, we get to singing. I sing her snatches of all of the african songs I know, and she sings 'killing me softly' in a soft soully voice and I get to laughing a little bit because it sounds so nice. I tell her I think that I am going to be late to my ferry and she offers to guide me through Toulon. We get out the bus and jog through the city.
Well, I made it to that ferry in time for sure, and bid that kind soul good bye. Alls well and I am on the ferry, bound for Corse (the island known as Corsica). The ferry is HUGE. Floors and floors and restaurants and sleeping cabins, and very few people are there, so you can sleep on any floor space anywhere, pretty much, between the seats, only I don't sleep. I go up stairs to finally eat my dinner on the top deck and watch the city lights dissappear. A girl and her dog stop to sit for a minute, and I try to talk to her in my broke french accent which she cannot understand much of. I eat and then, fatigued, go down to bed.
Only I never make it to bed. Fifteen men are having a party on my level. They sit me down and give me wine and tell me to sing. They pass a paper plate and fill it, threatening to take it away when I stop singing. They dance, and sing, and drink, and hump each other. They laugh. Clean shaven men, all of them in black, loud and jovial, good european souls. They all work for the Tour de France, some how aide for the bikers. They are going to Corsica for a race of sorts, thats what I gathered. They were fun and welcoming, and had a large spread of food before them. They broke out the desert and we dined. They filled my plate with more than 60 euros, and after that we chatted at the bar until the wee hours.
Yes, loves. I have been dreaming of you.
Awake and asleep, I have recalled your faces and your songs.
OH the joys of arriving at dawn, on a boat, to an island, to an old city where the steeples of the churches rise over the buildings and houses over the port. The fog flees into the mountains, the people flee into the town. I sit at the train station for a while and sing about sea gulls. Three high school girls join me for a few minutes, they thought I was lonely. No, I am not lonely, I tell them. How can I be, when everyone is so friendly to me? They are cute, and bored with the island, and due to be at school at Nine o clock, so they go and leave me to sings songs about sea gulls.
The train is a wild wild west thing, with windows. The island is mountains and canyons and rivers, and as beautiful as everybody said it. Celina Jaffe caught me at the end of the train, and thus began my Corte adventure.
There is a voice in the city of Corte, that is young and graffitti'd all over the walls in the center of town. And on the out skirts. And on rocks by the beach, hours away. A voice that cries for freedom. That cries for independance. That cries for arabs to get off the island. That cries for french people to get off the island. The hand that writes the voice is different (ive been told) but I cannot see that difference yet. Black words written all over the buildings and road signs. Slogans and phrases in a language that is a mix between Italian French Spanish and something else. Maybe this is how it is, on islands.
Can you tell I have been in the mountains? My speech is deep in my head, I am just trying to tell you where I am. I am here, on Corsica. Tonight, Loic and Octav made pizzas and Charlotte came over and we all ate and then went to a movie in a little room, which is octav's apartment. The day we spent climbing up and down mountains, steering around steers (cows on the road), and hiding from the rain under big river rocks. After all that, I went to Charlotte's for tea, and parley'd in franglish until the mid of the night, with a big day tomorrow. I am full of black tea, corsican beer, french cidre, algae farts, pine sap, new words, and an ancienter appreciation of life.
Ever heard of Esperanto?
No comments:
Post a Comment