Fifteen years ago this summer:
It is hard for me to believe that just two days ago, on a lovely Friday in the south of France, I stood on one side of the Lot River and took this picture of this village.
Saint-Cirq-Lapopie is just a little town in the mountains, but the view is truly spectacular and a restaurant known as Le Gourmet Quercynois served us a truly wonderful lunch.
A little more than six hours later, I was on my way back to California and reality. It took me 32 hours to reach Los Angeles, while reality seems to be a little more elusive for me.
I spent the better part of two weeks in three European cities — London in England and Nice and Toulouse in France — and flew on an airline I had never flown before (Ireland’s Aer Lingus from London to Nice). My greatest disappointment was that I apparently brought unseasonably hot weather with me to all three cities.
I would never call myself well traveled, but this was my fourth trip to Europe in the last 15 years, my third to France. I also visited France for nine days in 1977, and I loved the country even before I had a French wife.
I’m actually something of an odd duck, as my French relatives have told me, because I love both England and France. Since those two countries have bad blood between them going back more than a thousand years, it’s difficult to like both of them.
I shared a good laugh with a cabdriver in Nice when he told me he liked Americans because Americans think they’re the best in the world and the French know they are.
“What about the English?” I asked him.
“I was speaking of human beings,” he said.
I actually kept up pretty well with what was happening in the U.S., thanks to my BlackBerry. I read the New York Times, USA Today and news from CNN, and even though way too much of it was about Michael Jackson, I found myself reasonably satisfied.
Through all of it, the person I truly felt sorry for was Farrah Fawcett. She suffered through her years of cancer with true dignity, only to find her death overshadowed by the greatest freak show the world has seen in many years.
I was actually surprised Jackson lived as long as he did, since his lifestyle seemed to be little more than a series of unhealthy, risky choices. His death at a relatively young age probably cemented his legacy in a way dying in his sleep at age 85 never could have.
I also noted the freak shows that were Mark Sanford and Sarah Palin, and I’m not sure what to say about them other than that there are probably more people like them in politics than we could even imagine.
Stories like this always remind me of the line from Psalm 146:3:
“Put not your trust in princes.”
Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative, I’m not sure any of them can really make that much difference to us in the way we live our daily lives. Too many of them are too concerned with their own power to really stand for anything, so I keep coming back to the question of reciprocity.
If I treat people the way I would want them to treat me, then I am living my life successfully. If I make the decision that my own success should not be built on someone else’s pain, then I can sleep at night.
When I walk through villages in France that have existed for hundreds or years, when I see people whose lives aren’t based on how big their house is or how fast their car can go, I realize how short I fall of my own aspirations.
But when I see my young son Virgile — 24 and in great shape — battle for more than 12 hours to compete an Ironman Triathlon, as he did last Sunday in Nice, I am filled with pride. All any of us can do is try and affect the lives of the people around us in a positive way, and my children are my greatest joy.
So France is once again a memory, and California is a reality.
Onward we go.
And of course, 15 years later, California is the memory.