See Peter Play In Provence

After college let out for the last time — and before life lapped up the last few allowable drops of adolescent indulgence — I spent a summer wasting.  Living on Mac ‘n Cheese swashed down with MGDs.  Walking my sand-scratched crack back from a dive called Shagg’s.  Trying to beat the moon to bed and dodge the sun while quoting Donne.  Ah yes, it was time well spent.

The summer was needed.  There was a girl to purge from my mind, some pale pasty parts to drop from my body.  But most of all there was an “I can do it!” ego that needed to fail miserably night after lonesome night as friends returned to more responsible endeavors and the long sweat of an endless summer turned chilly and sad.

There’s a novel in that summer.  Life began one way and turned out another.  There was conflict, there was resolution, there was dénouement as the players drifted on to next things.  Nothing of the sort happened during A Year In Provence.  To be fair, Peter’s publication claims to be filed under “Travel,” and as a bit of long-form journalism it amuses nicely.  However, I’ve seen more contemplation in magazines, more emotion in the newspaper, more reflection on facebook and blogs than I found here.

Inspire me Peter!  Life seemed lovely: Libidinous lunches drenched with young rosé, days spent weaving through vineyards and truffled woods, recovery meted out by the pool and the omnipresent pastis.  Why couldn’t you fall in love with it all?  Why couldn’t you get sick of it all?  Why couldn’t you treat your caring neighbors as more than cartoons with outrageous accents?  Why?

Perhaps he’s fried his heart on too many lovers, frozen his soul from fear of an un-assured salvation.  Perhaps he’s a sort of idiot-savant:  Gifted ear, sharp wit, unassailable palette, but complete confusion when confronted by emotion.   Perhaps we’ll never know.  I won’t be sticking around for Toujours Provence, though I’m tempted to visit.  I have nothing against “Travel” you know.

__________

Someday I’ll write a slim volume about what I found during my lost summer.  It’s a place I revisit with each listen to Belle & Sebastian’s “A Summer Wasting” — a two minute tune that moves more than Peter Mayle’s two hundred pages:

I spent the summer wasting
The time was passed so easily
But if the summers wasted
How come that I could feel so free
I spent the summer wasting
The sky was blue beyond compare
A photograph of myself
Is all I have to show for

Seven weeks of reading papers
Seven weeks of river walkways
Seven weeks of feeling guilty
Seven weeks of staying up all night