If The Accident Will

As I write this, I am sitting in my little window patio nook, looking down at one of the main squares of Collioure, France, the chilled southern Spanish winds rushing in, carrying with it the sounds of a meandering saxophone in the distance. There is an add colliding of cultures here, so close to the border. French and Spanish spoken almost equally, Catalan flags adorning the square, french style restaurants with Spanish names and Tapas restaurants with French names. People seem to wonder why I am here. They ask if I speak french to which I answer no, then they always ask if I speak Spanish, also no. Then, puzzled, the next question seems to be "how did you end up here?". I'm not quite sure. I looked at a map of southern France and zoomed in. North of here closer to Niece and Marseille was too expensive, there isn't much south before hitting Spain. There was a cheap Airbnb next to the beach that I noticed. So, here I am.

It's good there hasn't been much to do. Each day I have wandered the winding streets lined with rainbow houses. I have swam and slept on many different beaches almost every day. My trips usually revolve around eating but if I'm being honest and bursting the french illusory bubble, the food has been wildly mediocre. I'm not sure the french have ever heard of seasoning. Now I'm not looking for any backlash, I know we hear about "french cooking" but good lord, every meal I've had has been remarkably bland and wildly boring. And I've been traversing this town, leaving the main tourist drag and venturing into the hilly streets in search of a warm, intoxicating meal. Nothing. And if I could rant for one moment;

All I wanted in the way of food, honestly, was to be filling my belly with espresso and croissants. Croissants! French croissants! Flakey, buttery, the smell of french pastries to smack me across the face. And do you know what I have yet to find? A. Fucking. Croissant. I'm not shitting you. I haven't found one. I sniffed out one patisserie in town and managed to get a decadent almond paste stuffed pastry but I haven't even seen a croissant. I went to two, I repeat two places today looking for my espresso/croissant dream combo. I eagerly ordered. They brought me the espresso and then informed me they were out of croissants. Twice in a row, people. Two different establishments. I'm not convinced croissants are even french at this point. Is it some joke they decided to play on Americans so we come here with false hopes of living out our pastry fantasies and leave with blue balls? Do you know how bizarre it is to think I have this intense hankering now and I'm going to have no choice but to go to a coffee shop in New Jersey to fulfill it?

Luckily, I am resilient and the landscape has distracted me from this thread of frustration.

So we move on.

On a very different note, I have once again found myself serendipitously intertwined with some locals. A couple nights ago, I met someone who told me about a jazz show his friends were playing at a bar in town and at the promise of jazz, I could not resist. I walked into this bar and Rennes seemed to know everyone. I met Sophia from Greece, Nadia from Ukraine, Jean-Phillip from another french town. The night stretched on as my blood became french wine and my feet turned blacker and blacker from barefoot dancing. There was such a vibrancy, a life to all of these glimmering nomads. It made me feel the heavy contrast of Americans their age, disconnected and dulled in their expression of joy and euphoria. Although they did all have knee problems. That was weird ha.

The next night, I found myself again invited to a different free jazz concert up the hill on the lawn of the town's museum, this time loud, boisterous, and electronic. I visited Rennes's gallery in town where he sold his paintings and he taught me about Fauvism and the famous artists like Matisse that spent summers honing their style in Collioure's colorful streets. He explained the secrets of his paintings, the way he uses ancient carving tools to lightly etch vortexes and spirals into his paintings after they are done so they carry a deeper vibration, the frequency of our long ago "grandfathers". Back to serendipitous. I tend not to say I "meet" people when I travel. They seem to find me, our webs intersecting for brief moments. There's no force needed, no tragedy when we part, just trust that our webs will intertwine again, if the accident will.