Mary Ann
I love everything French! I love the food, the wine, the country, the antiques, the museums, and the language – though I butcher it. I am a Francophile!
I own about 100 books both fiction and nonfiction about living in France. I love the stories where someone leaves their lives and goes to a region of France and make a new life often restoring an old farmhouse and discovering villages full of quirky characters. I have always yearned to do just that. Peter Mayle’s adventures in Provence ignited that desire. I have read every word he ever wrote. Provence seems like heaven on earth.
So, when I did my patio garden over from an ugly, barren concrete slab, I had visions of French sugar plums dancing in my head. This new garden was going to be French. That meant tons of pea gravel. Pea gravel makes everything French. The contractor delivered, and if I closed my eyes, the crunch of the pea gravel underfoot took me to Provence.
Then it was flower, flowers, flowers! I found antique flower boxes that I hung from the garden walls and filled them full of calibrachoa that spilled over the boxes. There was ferns, hostas, hydrangea, coleus, agapanthus, Angelonia, salvia, and moonflowers. I scattered rusting, white wrought-iron furniture and planters around the garden. I recently added a little frog fountain for a water feature. I used wicker outdoor furniture with blue and white provincial fabric cushions for seating. Blue and white pots filled with colorful inpatients. nestled throughout the garden. It is a peaceful oasis in a frenzied world.
A friend of mind called the patio garden Little Provence. It is my outside happy place. From May to nearly November, I sit outside in the morning and enjoy my little piece of France. I read, meditate, pray, do brain games, listen to my Merlin app – I have leaned many bird songs, and hope to see a hummingbird or a butterfly while I sip my morning tea. I sometime hear bees buzzing as they harvested the nectar from the flowers. The cicadas and crickets begin singing their songs as summer ends. If you were in Provence, you would be hearing the cigales, the French word for cicadas.
Beyond the garden fence is a hedgerow of trees. They tower about, and you can see the birds and squirrels flitting around the branches. It has been found that trees give off terpenes that are like pheromones in animals. Each kind of tree gives off a different scent that addresses things like inflammation and mood enhancement for anxiety or depression. It is being studied to see how the trees may help people. The terpenes may be one reason that forest bathing is so popular today.
My Little Provence is my peaceful retreat from the world. All my senses (maybe the terpenes) are enhanced. I enjoy the serenity of the space, and my soul is enriched as I care for myself. It is truly Joie de Vivre which is French for an exuberant enjoyment of life! I wish that for you.
Silver Sage Sisters 