Fact vs Fiction

And then, as the crowning event of this feast, I would devour the tranquility of Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny. Nah, too impatient and too gluttonous to leave the crowning event for last. No, we’ll go to Giverny right at the start of our stay in France. Three years’ worth of waiting is enough towhet my appetite; I don’t need another three days of starvation.

But as the long-awaited piece of iced cake looms on the horizon, I start feeling nervous. What if I’ll be disappointed? Why on earth had I wanted to see this house and garden so desperately? After all, what could be so special about yet another house and garden? Yes, I will be disappointed, no doubt about it.

The houses bordering on Claude Monet’s property are clad in the most adorable ivy. Pah, disappointed, indeed!

Color, light, beauty. Yup. Couldn’t sum up the place more accurately. Flowers on all sides, with an overwhelming multitude of hues, and yet softened, ordered, with slightly blurred edges. Whoa, I didn’t even remember I wrote these words, and yet... yes, that’s the way it was! Blurred edges? Everything was blurred, middle, top right-hand corner, edges and all; the multitude of flowers was such that you could never get more than an impression of anything, as if someone had placed a wet, translucent tissue over your eyes (it was slightly humid as well, blurriness of sight coupled with blurriness of atmosphere).

From the moment I set foot in Monet’s garden, I ceaselessly grin like an idiot and Mom has to remind me to close my gaping mouth a few times. But she does it with a smile rivaling my own and a mock-insulting comment of “Tut, tut, tut, this is what happens when a painter starts a garden...” And what happens is that everywhere you look, there’s something worth looking at – a thrilling juxtaposition of colors, sizes and textures.

In the splash of white roses I find again the stateliness of the Alps. Yeah right. Well obviously that was just a typical use of retrospective to make my text more interesting. (How many times do we lie just to make things more interesting or nice...) No one in their right mind would expect me to retrospect on other places I had seen when faced with something as magnificent as Giverny. Besides, there weren’t even any roses here, but there was a plethora of exquisite splashes of things, white and otherwise.

And finally... I see, after all these years of dreaming, a small Japanese bridge over a pond studded with water lilies. Ekhm... The matter’s not as simple as all that. There’s actually quite a few Japanese bridges in Giverny, and at least two of them look as though they could be the bridge. No matter, the water garden itself is more than anyone could have dreamt of. A forest of bamboo trees, gently glowing a silverish green, a stream endlessly rushing by, everything green, green, green and watery – how it soothes after the myriad sparkling colors of the flower garden. And the water lily pond... It goes on and on, into a pure abstraction of beauty.

When after a few hours I shall leave this place.... My family would’ve died of boredom if I had stayed here for a whole few hours; no, about an hour and a half sufficed. ...I will – I am sure of it – see a small haystack in the distance. I admit it, the “I am sure of it” part was Mom’s suggestion – there’s not that many things I am sure of, and seeing haystacks in the distance is definitely not one of them. Unsurprisingly, the nearest thing to a haystack we had the pleasure to see was a pile of compost a few miles from Giverny...

Dreams of French Cake

I wrote this text around the time I created the previous one - it was an entry into a competition run by Auchan, a supermarket chain. The topic was "My Ideal Trip to France", and the prize was, not surprisingly, a trip to France - to Lille, to be precise. Lille is a beautiful place, and maybe in the near future I'll try to write an account of my mom's and my enjoyment of the prize; for the moment, the difficulty of translating this text to English puts me off writing.

One doesn’t eat a cake in a minute. You savor it slowly, treating your loved ones to it. This is the way I picture France, that tastiest of desserts. First I would eat half a teaspoon of Alpine whipped cream, lick some Provencal icing, taste the flavor of historic cathedrals, charming medieval towns, majestic castles. With a touch of gluttony I would feast my eyes on the delicacies of the Louvre. And then, as the crowning event of this feast, I would devour the tranquillity of Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny.

Color, light, beauty. Those would probably be my first impressions of this place. Flowers on all sides, with an overwhelming multitude of hues, and yet softened, ordered, with slightly blurred edges. In the splash of white roses I find again the stateliness of the Alps, crowned with glistening snow. For a fraction of a second I feel a pain in my legs that reminds me of day-long mountain hikes; a pleasurable pain, necessary for the appreciation of beauty.

And finally... I see, after all these years of dreaming, a small Japanese bridge over a pond studded with water lilies. I have before my eyes the picture that hangs over my bed in my room. An enchanted place.

When after a few hours I shall leave this place, I will – I am sure of it – see a small haystack in the distance. Miniature, hardly visible, and yet similar to those Monet painted so many times, every time gilding them differently with rays of sunlight. Sunlight that each day alters the flavor of the French cake. Ever more deliciously.