…and the first guest post on my blog!
Emilia is one of my dearest friends – we’ve known each other for about 15 years (oh my God, we’re old!!) and it’s insane through how many things we’ve been through. She decided to make a change and recently moved to France, so this is an honest post about the joy and loneliness of starting over. It’s always a bittersweet feeling and you can’t be 100% ready for it until you’re there. You never anticipate how tired you can become of your own thoughts because you spend so much time with yourself, but at the same time how much some places or experiences can make you feel at home just by offering you something ordinary.
Having gone through it, it’s tough – but nothing compares to the feeling of self-accomplishment and confidence once you’ve crossed all the barriers. It’s all down to you and you’ve made it. And once you have that bug, it’s very hard to take it out of your system – you want to know more, to explore more, to be challenged more.
Emilia, the floor is all yours!
***
My story starts with a blank. A big, white dot that’s been on my mind as if I were in a coma for the past weeks and I’ve been flying from one place to another. No, not walking. Literally toes-above-the-ground flying. Because that’s how it feels when you suddenly find yourself in a new place and you realise that this is it. This is the thing that you’ve been waiting for, for such a long time and the dream is starting to finally happen.
But this is not about the psychological process that I’m going through right now, this is about the new places that leave a footprint, colouring my never resting soul. The places that colour me! ^.^ (see what I did there?) It’s about these special, cosy spaces where you forget that you’re a foreigner trying to blend in. Because, even if only for an instant, it gives you the feeling of home.
And what better place would fit this description if not … *drums please* … a bookshop? But not just any tedious, ordinary shop, what I’m talking about is the real deal – an international café bookshop where books aren’t arranged by title, author, year and whatnot. Yep, no OCD-freaks in this place. Here, books are arranged only by genre and language.
Lately, one of my struggles has been about loneliness. Of course, you may think this sounds silly, cliché or childish. But it’s as real and as unexpected as I could ever think. I could never imagine I’d be as irritated from spending SO MUCH time on my own, because most of the time I love my intimacy and my “alone-time”. But as anything that’s exaggerated, I’ve had enough. And I reached the point where the only option I have left is accepting it. So, in this self-discovery, embracing-the-solitude process, I ran into this lovely shop.
Located in the coeur of the bourgeois & chic city (so many hints already) in southern France called Aix en Provence, Book in Bar is probably the best place where you could be alone and enjoy the most of it. You might even forget you don’t have company, and if you are with someone, you might avoid talking just to enjoy the silence. After almost two hours here, inspired by the smell, music and ambiance, I find myself sitting at a high table, facing the window, and writing. On actual piece of paper. It’s amazing how a Jack Jones song can unblock one’s ability to put thoughts and feelings together (coincidental or not, the name of the song fits as a glove).
It’s a place where you’ll find 80% of the books written in a different language than French, be it English (most of them), Russian, German, Chinese or Spanish. They actually have very few French books. Once a month, they have a book club meeting, open to anyone and free of charge. All you have to do is read the book in advance and join the meeting, by sharing your feedback on it. The next one is on September 24th and has a Spanish theme.
My favorite corner in this unconventional bookshop is called the “Blind date” shelf. A shelf where you get to go on a blind date with a book.Metaphorically speaking of course. Awesome idea, right? All the books are covered in newspaper cover, so that you can’t see the author or title, and they have attached to it a small note on which there are written some hints about content of each book. All you have to do is accept the challenge!
It’s the kind of place where you’d go if you wanted to learn a foreign language, where middle aged English men come to sit at a table discussing all sorts of subjects, and it’s a pleasure to just sit and listen to their stories, only imagining what they’d look like, because you’re facing the window. Now they went all philosophical talking about the connection between democracy and the truth, with a perfect English accent that makes you imagine Sir Oscar Wilde sitting there behind you, enjoying his pipe. “…because the truth hurts like a knife”. On the other side of the room, there are two French youths (I can tell from the way their voices sound) drinking a coffee and chatting too fast for my ear to apprehend, but with the same ear-loving accent which combines perfectly with the English one on the other side of the room, along with the sound of clinking teaspoons on the background. It almost feels as if I’m a spectator to this theatre play that I’m directing vividly in my imagination. And all I can do is listen. This is the art of silence.
And this is how to win the fight against loneliness – by embracing it. Laughing in its face and accepting the prize. So, for all the lone travellers passing by Aix-en-Provence and wanting to take a break and enjoy the silence, don’t miss Book in Bar. Grab a café avec dessert and you won’t regret it!
Fin
colourmeplaces 