VAUCLUSE DIARY
Wednesday 29 April 2020
A nail-biting storm of hail and rain two nights ago—nail-biting because, is the roof going to leak again?—and an overnight solid downpour yesterday, clearing up in the afternoon in time for our usual walk: down to the cemetery, up the trail along the stream, cross the stream, follow the path that rises gradually to the valley called ‘L’aube’, which used to be full of vegetable plots, because there are numerous natural springs up there, but is now mostly going wild, with remnants of quince trees, cherries, a persimmon we haven’t found yet, but know it’s there—and lots of broom taking over, also some beehives up at the road, where we mostly turn back, since we’ve been out for half an hour, probably gone further than the allowed 1 km, and it will take us half an hour to retrace our footsteps, through field and wood again. Occasionally we cross the road, continue up another trail to the top of the mountain called Pied Porcher, but a little warily, because 1) the gendarmes, we are told, patrol the village and its surroundings 3 times a day; and 2) my sneakers’ treads are smooth, and if I twist something sliding downhill in scree and need to be rescued it would be very embarrassing. Clearly I need new shoes, but where would I find those right now?
However, our PM announced new measures, easing confinement after May 11th, including the possibility in regions without too many cases of the virus of going 100 km without a permission slip (one writes this ‘attestation’ oneself, and one is supposed to write a new one every time one leaves one’s house). This region doesn’t have a lot of cases, and so, if we are good, hopefully we will be among the fortunate. But it does eliminate the possibility of returning to Paris, should we want to (to return the car we rented for a month two months ago?), and as for returning to the Bay Area (our tickets are for mid-June) that is looking improbable. I see today on the Stanford University Covid update that the university is going to try to get researchers back to work, but still hasn’t made plans for Fall Quarter. How oh how will they get the students safely back on campus?
One day melts into the next and changes little. It’s time for lunch: homemade potato puree with cream and butter, some meat/spinach thingies the local butcher makes, a salad, cheese, fruit, wine…I know, I know, this doesn’t sound like a bad life, and it isn’t. I have a friend in Paris who would give anything to get out of the city and walk in the woods or fields for a few days, and yesterday I heard from a friend in Turkey, who went from a fellowship to work in the poetry archives in Dublin home to Turkey where he is confined in a house in a city with five other people, including a grandparent.