Dividing Times
Friday, 14 June
The disadvantage of a life split between two places is that you are not in sync with the alterations that inevitably occur over time. The advantage, beyond the good fortune of having two chez soi, is that you notice the differences. We had only been gone a week when we drove from Paris to the Perche last Saturday, but in the meantime the trees had turned a mature green. The wheat had tanned, and the air had taken on a sun-soaked smell. Thanks to eight days of good weather, the season had slipped from spring to summer during our short absence.
Sunday afternoon when I looked from my office window (you can't hear anything outside, even tractors, through the thick walls of our house), I saw Patrice and his son Vincent, our friends and farmers, baling the hay that they’d cut while we were away. Rain was expected the next day, and the mown fodder would rot if not rolled into tight balls beforehand.
Even participating vicariously in the harvest kindles excitement. A growth cycle is coming to fruition. Food for the winter will be gathered and stored, in this case only indirectly for us: the hay will feed the cows who will produce the milk that will make the organic cheese that I buy every Thursday at the Bellême market. There's the bustle of activity itself. One tractor pulls a beautiful machine that lines up the grass – I could watch its spiky whorls bounce along the field all day...
...and another follows to scoop up the lines and poop them out in round bales...
The farmers work fast and in harmony. Vincent’s 18-month old son sits on his lap in the tractor, as he would have sat on Patrice’s.
Before long the fields were strewn with the round bales, so much more elegant and spiritual than their rectangular cousins.
While the harvest continued, we watched the results of the European Parliament elections on the 8 o'clock news. The extreme-right wing Rassemblement National (RN, formerly the Front National) had left rivals in the dust with 33% of the vote, just as the polls had been consistently predicting. Oddly, the talking heads seemed astonished by the outcome. Perhaps they had trouble shifting from the abstract to the concrete. It's only when concept becomes reality that a truth really hits home. Maybe they hadn't fully believed in a breach between those who live in Paris and those who don't, the 'elites' versus the 'people'.
As if that weren’t enough emotion for one evening, President Macron then came on TV and announced snap elections at the end of this month, only three weeks away.
At first glance, the decision could appear courageous and some called it so: a responsible act in the face of a clear change in the political winds.
Very quickly, however, the move looked like pure folly. Since the narcissistic Mr Macron has done everything he can not to build up his centrist party, it's a field day for the extremes - both left and right - but particularly the RN, which is the only relatively cohesive political bloc in the country right now. Furthermore, France, or Paris anyway, is having enough trouble preparing for the Olympic games that will start a mere 19 days after the second round. With the political chaos that is likely to follow the vote, how will the host country look to its 15 million visitors? As for the French themselves, minds will be drifting to the upcoming month at the beach. Couldn't the impulsive President have consulted a few more people? At least have waited until September before creating havoc?
As if the skies were listening, the weather turned completely fickle and most un-summery. Whilst the stock market tanked and politicians made a spectacle of themselves with infighting and insults, it was rainy one minute, sunny the next. A couple of evenings, we almost made a fire. As I finish this essay, bundled up on Saturday morning, I can see the trees flailing about in the strong, cold wind outside my window.
It's enough to make me feel, at moments, physically ill. I might not have such a sensitive stomach if it weren't just France but the whole world that is angry and radicalising.
So I look to those tightly bound circles of hay - symbols of bounty and balance - and feel a crumb of comfort in these dividing times.
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