An Orchid Grows in Beaune (Part 1)

Four or five of them, actually. The moth orchid has plentiful blossoms, the others have gone dormant. I look up from the breakfast table and notice them only after I’ve had my croissant et café noir. Prior to that there has been much else to observe here in the 200 year-old breakfast room of Mme. Rousseau.

I found Mme. Rousseau and her hotel bon marché in a couple of different guide books. Beaune is an expensive tourist town, and hers is the best bargain around. For 40E a night, you (and your traveling partner) get a lovely country room, spacious and furnished with family antiques (sans douche – if you’d like a shower, it’s 3E extra), which opens onto a courtyard jardin; along with le petit dejeuner – a homemade croissant, a large carafe du café, une tartine avec beurre et confiture – served cheerfully each morning by Mme herself, who I would guess has somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 years behind her. Mme is cheerful, yes, but taciturn. She’s got a definite twinkle in her eye; you can tell she’s got a story.

The house may be older than 200 years, but it’s been in la famille Rousseau for that long. Mme’s parents started up the hotel 50 years ago, and she’s continued it, along with a large garden, voluminous houseplants, at least two cats, and beaucoup des oiseaux – cooing and chirping upstairs. The paint and wallpaper are peeling here and there, but all the appliances are new and top-notch. And Mme seems quite adept with technology; I made my reservation by email and found directions on her Web site.

Of course I scope out all of her plants. In the courtyard she is growing mostly potted flowers, and I marvel at the mixture of sun-and-shade-lovers: hollyhock and begonias, dahlias and a number of foliage plants. She’s also growing a lemon tree – incroyable! – in the center, out of an old tin pale.

We are here in Burgundy – wine country – for two days, after three days in Paris. City and country, country and city. I was so happy to see the orchids; travel fatigue had begun to set in, I’d been away from my writing brain for too long. Seeing those plants made me perk up and reminded me of something… something basic about living things and their environments, their ability to adapt (or not), the work of nurture and health, seasons of bloom and dormancy. Modern life seems to crowd out these basic ideas, squeezes them out of one’s bloodstream in favor of always-on entertainment and ambition and consumption. It’s a daily endeavor to dwell in a different kind of space.

I don’t know why we’re here exactly. No good reason, really, unless you believe in travel for travel’s sake (which I do less and less). We made the plans a while back, not very well-considered, and beyond our means (i.e. borrowed credit). At this moment, seeing the world from a non-American perspective, I can think of a hundred better reasons for spending this money – Presidential underdogs, Burma, family needs. Somehow, though, it seemed worthwhile at the time.

Alors... we are here, we are pilgrims of the planet, we are drinking it in, so to speak. We are ingesting and processing the gifts of exploration, of stimuli etrangers; and we are eating quite well, of course...

(This post to be continued...)