We got a flyer announcing some kind of celebration in Bourrou, a nearby village for which we'd passed the turn-off many times but never been to. So we went, taking Nellie's friend Pauline with us. It was gloriously, finally sunny, and the first thing we saw after getting our tickets was a homemade beach, complete with many pails and shovels and umbrellas. Nellie and Pauline pulled off their shoes and went to work. In a grassy area there were frisbees and tetherball. Everyone was walking around smiling and looking a bit dazed by the sun after so many months of rain.
As usual we only partly understood what was going on, but like sheep we managed to follow the crowd over to the lovely churchyard, and settled in to hear a story, a kind of funny fairy tale. After that the whole group walked to another spot, in front of an old stone house down a lane, and we heard another story, this time with a woman -- who must be a professional opera singer -- dramatizing parts of it and singing like an angel. That story was about a beautiful princess who farted in public, and wished the ground to swallow her up, which it did.
By this time we got the picture -- it was a sort of Walk With Stories. Each place was stunningly beautiful in a medieval, pastoral kind of way. The old mossy stone walls had ferns with tiny round leaves cascading down, and bright blue flowers on top. As we passed a small meadow in the middle of the village, a donkey brayed at us, clearly not used to seeing several hundred people walking in his territory (even though generally the French are so quiet that all those people hardly made any noise at all). Roses scrambled up the sides of stone buildings, their branches weighed down with flowers the size of dessert plates. I wish I could describe the smell in a way that would make it real -- it was the smell of growth, of sprouting, flowering plant life, of light breezes and things being warmed up for the first time in many months. With a little tang of donkey manure underneath.
For the final story, about a branch that comes to life and starts eating people, we had followed a trail into the woods and stood under some chestnuts and oaks. Rain started to fall but no one moved since the canopy was as good as an umbrella. An old lady propped herself against a stump, and a mother sat in the leaves while her young son wrapped his arms and legs around her like a bear cub. We made our way out of the forest on a muddy path, sometimes walking with our arms stretched out, balancing on boards laid down over the really wet spots.
More playing on the beach, more frisbee, some homemade popcorn with sweet stuff on it and some Orangina (made with sugar and not corn syrup), and over the sound system came old French songs with accordions, Ella Fitzgerald, and The Doors. Nellie and Pauline fished plastic floating things from the fountain with makeshift hooks while I sat on a curb listening to "Riders on the Storm".
The finale was Cinderella in the churchyard, with the opera singer as the lead. The girls sat up front on a blanket, Julian had found a friend for tetherball, and Chris and I leaned against a stone wall to watch. I kept looking at the gothic church spire stretching up, with a mossy Virgin tucked into a niche, and feeling practically religious, I was so moved by her age and mossiness. The pollarded trees had leafed out in a dazzling green, and there was a palm tree leaning to one side the way palm trees do. As for the singer, it was like the churchyard had been built for singing. She seemed to be spending almost no effort but her voice sailed out so strong and clear and playful; it was intimate, sitting there with my back against the stone, listening to her sing. Her voice was like water, like a river, and everyone in the audience was swept, astonished, downstream along with her.
But oh no! Suddenly the clouds got black, lightning started flashing, and the wind got up, all while the singer was singing an aria while doing a tricky yoga pose. The girls appeared at my side and we ran for the car, the wind nearly pushing us backwards, the rain slamming down and turning to hail, the girls screaming that scream of joy and fear mixed up together.
There's nothing in Bourrou but a convent; there are no shops, not even a bakery, so we have no excuse to return. But how can we not?
