Dockside

"Howd-do, Ma'am," I said in my best West Texas Rancher accent.

"Pardon?" (Love it, I just love it!)

"Ah. Hello."

"Really? Howd-do means hello?"

"In some parts of the world, yes."

"Oh. Texas, right?"

"That's a fact."

"Have you had lunch yet?"

"Lunch? I haven't had breakfast yet?" She shook her head, frowned.

"You must take better care of yourself."

"I'm an American. I don't know how."

"Then I will make us lunch. You will see how we eat lunch in France."

"I will?"

"Shut up and give me a hand."

I helped her up and she bounded down into the gall, uh, dee keetchin, and there she proceeded to do things with whisks and knives that in other circumstances I would have found truly scary.

"Do you have any beer?" she asked at one point, when it was apparent to me that the performance was drawing to a close.

I opened up the fridge and pulled out a Bud longneck and held it up proudly.

She of course rolled her eyes and made a sweet little noise that sounded a little like someone coughing in a tuberculosis ward. Very endearing, actually. I assumed, too, that it would be best if I kept my secret stash of Tabasco flavored Doritos well hidden, at least until the knives were safely back in their drawers. There's no telling what a French chef might do when confronted with a bag of Doritos.

And it really was the most amazing sandwich I'd ever eaten. Hell, every thing about this woman was memorable.

She'd come, she told me that afternoon, to London with Ted from the South of France. He had been looking for a chef of the new French style when he found her, and after a brief, exciting affair she'd left Avignon and Ted had been delighted to get a somewhat celebrated wife for himself and a chef for his new bistro. That had been about a year ago.

Within a month Ted fell madly in love with one of the waitresses at the bistro, and a few weeks later he was caught with the wife of a close friend in a very compromising position. His relationships tended to last about two weeks, most just an evening, and she'd come to understand that that was just the way he was wired. She didn't complain, she said, and neither did she berate him. He couldn't help it, she knew; he was just addicted to the feeling of falling in love. The high, the rush, the endorphins -- whatever. She had instead worked her tail off and made the bistro one of the most popular spots in London. So, a happy ending all 'round, she said.

Except I could see that she was miserable, homesick, and yearning to return to her native France.

I cleared the dishes while she talked, then while I washed them and put them away I told her a little about Claire and her infidelities, but really, what was the point. Water under the bridge. Not worth the breath to dwell on the morally inept.

She was, she said, thinking about going back home. There were a couple of upscale places in and around Avignon that wanted her back, she said, and she had had about enough of London.

Have you, I asked her, taken any day trips out into the country? No, she said, not a one. You want to? I asked her. Sure, she said. Next Monday? I offered. Sounds good, she countered. Fine, I said. Good, she said. Then: can I have another one of these Budweiser's? They're really quite nice. Refreshing. Yes, I know, I said. You ought to try a Lone Star sometime. And some three alarm chili.

The sun was gong down and it was getting cool out, and pretty soon she left, but not before planting a little kiss on my cheek.

I could hardly sleep that night.

_______________________________

We arranged to meet early Monday morning at Paddington and we hopped an express out to Bath, then a bus to Wells. Amazing village, best cathedral around, and she was as impressed as someone who'd grown up around some of the most beautiful sacred architecture in the world could be, but that's not why I'd hauled her out to Somerset.

No, we were going on to Cheddar, just down a little lane from Wells. They invented the cheese there, once upon a time, like a thousand years ago or something silly like that, and you can still buy some of the best in the world in the village, an unpasteurised variety made by the Gorge Cheese Company, and it was to this little hole in the wall we journied that afternoon. I thought that -- being a cook of some repute --she might enjoy seeing the place. It had not slipped my mind that one or two people in France still make cheese; rather, I hated the idea she might take off one day soon and return to Avignon. Surely, I hoped, the simple fact that they still made cheese in England would convince her to stay. That seemed a logical assumption at the time, anyway.

Well, we bought some cheese and walked along the pretty little stream that runs through the village and flat out missed the last bus back to anywhere, so we ate dinner in a little place overlooking the stream then took a cab to Weston-super-something and managed to catch a late nighter to Bristol and thence on to Paddington. It was later than late when we finally rolled into London.

We took a cab to her house; the lights were off and she didn't want to go inside. I told the cabbie to head for the marina.

"There's a decent hotel there," I said.

"I don't want to sleep in a hotel," she said.

"Well, I'm open to any and all suggestions." That was a clever bit, eh?

"Any room on the boat?" she just managed to say. Her voice had, it seems, suddenly grown sort of full and constricted.

"I reckon so," I said enthusiastically, for my trousers had suddenly grown rather full and constricted.

(The cabbie, poor man, rolled his eyes.)

She decided that night to stay in London a bit longer.

It had been, all in all, a good day.

_______________________________

I don't know if Ted knew about that night, and didn't really care.

The weather remained unseasonably warm into November and I, in a flash of inspiration, decided to move the boat across the Channel, to Honfleur. I took a place along the wall in the old port and a few days later Michelle joined me, and so began what was without a doubt one of the happiest times of my life.

We walked around the village and she taught me a thing or two about cooking that left me feeling clean and healthy. Odd, I know, but their was something in her love of cooking that reminded me of what it had felt like to love designing buildings -- once upon a time. So it evolved that we embarked on a slow journey across France in a quiet quest for culinary perfection. We found one of those daffy looking Smart Cars on a used car lot and I bought the thing, then I broke down and bought a camera, because I had become interested in beautiful buildings again, and I wanted to take pictures of them. Then I started taking pictures of Michelle, and I found I much preferred doing that.

We cruised across Normandy, stopped in little villages that had little known but impeccably authentic bistros and hideaways and we ate and ate until we felt obnoxious and silly, then we checked into little inns and made love all afternoon, until the light turned just so, then we dashed out and shot cathedrals and cows and doors, and always, Michelle's face in the evening light. I assume we would have gained a hundred pounds that first week if not for all the exercise we got.

This time with Michelle was not simply fun; indeed, I felt it became a slice of life as it could be. I assume most people would say this sounds a bit trite; be that as it may, I came to understand this time was a gift, a time worth cherishing. As the days passed, I came to realize this was a life I had never known, and that my soul had suffered in this wanting.

We came one foggy evening to a tiny village by the sea. There was an inn outside the town, an old castle, really, and it looked quite fine. We took a room that overlooked the sea, opened the windows and listened to the surf as it washed against the shore while we made love again and again, then we made our way down to the dining room as the light of day began slowly to fade into night.

The room was small, just a few tables, really, and there was only one other couple there, and they seemed ancient. We ordered wine, a small meal, and talked of fog and sea and the wonder of life in it's most elemental forms, and this line of thought seemed to intrigue the old couple across the room, for once -- when I had just made comment about the impossibility of life in general and the chaos of our own lives the past few years -- the old fellow turned to me and asked me a question I shall never forget.

"It's your life, young man," he began. "Are you happy with the way it's turned out so far?"

I think the directness of this stranger's question stunned me more than anything else, but I looked at him and it was as if I'd known him all my life. Perhaps that's the way it is with two ships passing in the night. Simple honestly borne of fleeting acquaintance, and nothing more, rendered meaningless all barriers to our understanding one another.

"There have been times, yes," I said to the man, "but they seem few and far between."

"Are you happy now?" he asked.

"Yes. Very."

"Then why would you change the way you are now?"

"If I could, I would."

And here, you see, was the crux of the matter. Here was the question:

"What could possibly keep a man from finding happiness in life?"

I looked at him for some time.

"Well?" he finally said.

"Life is complicated," I began, but he cut me off.

"No, no it isn't," he said, "and that's the point I'm trying to make. Life is only as complicated as you make it. Once you accept that, you'll understand that the only thing keeping you from happiness is yourself. It's all in the choices you make. Once you compromise your dreams, well, you've already lost sight of the truth. You just won't understand that simple fact of life until the last breath leaves your body."

"I see."

"I doubt that you do."

I didn't know what to say, but Michelle spoke up now.

"I don't know how you can say life can be so easy..." she said.

"Oh, but it is." The old woman spoke now. "It is most simple, really. The only difficulty is in understanding what most provides you with happiness, and that is difficult only because so few people listen to what their heart has to say."

"Precisely," the old man said. "People think too much. They try to objectify the subjective, rationalize the irrational, manipulate the truth within their own soul until there is no way they can recognize happiness anymore, and then they wonder why they are unhappy. You compromise your principles every day of your life until one day you wonder why you have no more principles, and then you are surprised when you find you have acted in an unprincipled manner? And this is a good life? This is a philosophy of happiness? How, exactly?"

"You must excuse us for this interruption," the old woman said, "but the room is small." She shrugged and laughed a little, then returned to her food.

The old man returned to his dinner at that point, and I looked at Michelle, but the old fellow apparently had one more thing to say...

"One thing to keep in mind," he said now, his fork waving away in the air like an orchestra conductors baton, "and this is important, so listen, if you please."

He looked at me, his eyes ancient and wise, compellingly so.

"You will never find happiness through another person. Not ever. You can not place such a burden on another. Your happiness must come from within, it must be of yourself, and not be conditional on some other person. What is important here is that you are with a person with whom you may share this happiness, and who can embrace their own happiness in such a way, as well."

He looked at Michelle for a moment, then at me.

"Do not burden one another with the upkeep of your own soul. There is no time for such foolishness. Cherish your happiness, and share that joy with each other." His eyes seemed to grow distant, and tired -- as if he had been surveying a vast, impenetrable landscape for too long, but he had one more thing to say. "That is, of course, but one measure of love, but it makes a good place to start. But please remember this, time is not to be wasted. Not ever. That is the greatest sin. And turn away from anything that would keep you from attaining happiness. To fail in that is to embrace delusion. You will find only madness and bitterness down that road."

They finished their meal and left a few minutes later, and it was odd to me that they both seemed oddly content with their lot in life. I'd hate to say they seemed happy or unhappy, because that had not been, as far as I could tell, the point of this exchange. The old man seemed to be saying that by looking for validation in others was to negate the very essence of self, and it was this thought that held me as I watched them walk from the room. My observation of their state of happiness was simply a delusion I might force onto my construct of the world, would have nothing to do with reality, and was, simply, a waste of time.

"Interesting," I managed to say.

Michelle was looking down at her hands, lost in thought. She didn't look very happy, and I hate to say it, but that bothered me. I felt unhappy too.

_______________________________

It was cold out, and a stiff breeze was cutting through the night when we stepped outside after dinner. We wanted to take a walk and found a path in the scattered moonlight; we walked along the edge of a cliff that rose up before us and disappeared into the darkness; lightning danced along the far horizon. When we reached the summit of this small peak we found a monument, the inscription on its side impossible to make out in the darkness, but in the night a blackened statue rose over us. It looked like an angel to me, its wings spread protectively around a boat on a storm-tossed sea. Perhaps this was a monument to lost mariners? That seemed likely, and hardly surprising, given our location on the Bay of Biscay. In fact, even from the top of this little peak we could still hear the sea, now far below, crashing onto the rocks in spent, hissing fury. Beaches have always fascinated me, and now I walked closer to the edge, wanted to feel this fury again and again.

I had been so close to the edge for so long, I thought, that the thought of falling hundreds of feet onto the rocks below no longer bothered me. It was only in the past few weeks that I had even remotely begun to feel happy again, and at root I had no idea why, really. In this darkness, Michelle felt like a resolution to me, the resolution to another problem, an old problem, and not a new beginning. Just as suddenly I knew in my heart this wasn't so.

I wasn't happy now because of Michelle; rather, she had unlocked whatever door that was keeping me from reconnecting with what happiness I still held inside myself. Whatever the old man had said or thought at dinner, however, I knew I could not see my way to this happiness in the remainder of my life without her by my side. Standing with her in the fading light these past few days had convinced me of that.

So, what was the resolution? Could there be?

I felt her rejoin me in this darkness, felt her cool arm slipping inside my coat as she worked her way into what warmth I yet harbored. Her hair streamed by my face, caught in the breeze, and my world felt as if it longed to come undone.

There would be no life for me, no love, no happiness, without this woman by my side.

It was, I knew, time to return to London.

There was a storm coming, and it was time to prepare.