bourdonner

A big thank you to the ladies who welcomed me yesterday to their bookclub in Marseilles. Merci beaucoup Cari, Julie, Agnès, Andrea, Anne, Cris, Olivia, Lisa, and Christiane for reading Words in a French Life and for your very encouraging feedback--as well as for the cheers to keep on this writing path!

Today's picture: Last winter's frost killed many of the lauriers roses,  or oleanders, in our part of the Vaucluse. Here at home, we lost this flowering artichaut; the local bees used to buzz round and round it, attracted by its bright purple fleurs.

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bourdonner

    : to buzz, hum; to drone; to murmur

Audio File: listen to Jean-Marc's sentence in French: Download MP3 or Wav file

Pendant la période estivale, lorsque la nature, les fleurs et les vignes expriment toute leur beauté, les cigales, les abeilles et les taons bourdonnent autour de nous. During summertime, when nature, the flowers, and the vines express all their beauty, the cicadas, the bees, and the gadflys buzz all around us.

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A Day in a French Life... by Kristin Espinasse

The following story was written one year ago...

The Sound of Wheat

The morning Mom left I fought the urge to crawl right back into bed. I might have slept all day, behind closed shutters, in a room as dark as a smarting heart. I didn't dare "go there"; instead, there was work to do including stories to write and beds to make. Besides, who could sleep with all the racket outside the bedroom window?

I tuned into the sounds filtering in from the countryside, where the grapevines are so full of leaves you can no longer see the ground beneath their green canopy. Rising from those mysterious depths was a familiar buzz one hears only in summertime: les cigales. They were awake now—only, much too late for Mom to enjoy their song! What should have been an exciting event—the first cicadas of the season!!!—left me feeling even more saddened. What a dirty trick played by the trilling "tree crickets"! They might have had la courtoisie to appear one day earlier in time to tickle a dear mother's ears!

Following Mom's departure, it took a forced change of perspective to set a despondent daughter back on track and, finally, I had an inspiration: Wasn't that, after all, a clever way for Jules to exit: on the wings of cicada song!

In the spirit of changing perspective—and not letting a sunken heart color reality—I headed out to do some errands and discovered that the technicolor world outside my door was still intact.

There was that field of bright yellow tournesols, just outside the town of Orange—yet another first of the season.  I regretted not pulling over to the side of the road to snap a picture of so many sunny faces. Perhaps I would get back to it?

And there was that roadside fruit stand—a one-woman show featuring a grandmother, a rickety old bagnole, and a trunk filled with abricots à gogo! It was a little too late to stop for those and so I sped on by....

After finishing errands I found myself rushing home and wondering about that change-of-perspective that I had set out on. What was the point of good intentions when, in the end, you were not willing to stop and look and taste and listen! I'd missed the cicadas, I'd missed the sunflowers, I'd missed the rickety trunk of apricots!

In a whirl of regret, I almost missed the brightness entering my car from the side. I turned to its source and began to gaze at a striking champ de blé!

Pulling off the side of the road I lowered the car window and wondered: Have you ever listened to a field of wheat? Stick your ears out now! Écoute! The sound is gloriously sizzling! 

I sat silently, letting the melody of wheat, along with the lazy, late-spring breeze, envelop me. Earlier, I had rushed right on by the other splendors of the countryside, and here was my chance....

Cars sped by but it was the wheat that now captured my eyes. I could just see the braided wheat tips crowned by those bleached feathery locks. Each blade of wheat might have been a soulful singer and an endless field made for a mesmerizing chorus!

I shook my head in appreciation. And I asked once again, Have you ever stopped and truly listened to the sound of wheat?
 

Comments/Feedback
Not everyone has the chance to live near a field of grass. But many other mind-altering melodies surround us. Share some of your favorite sounds with us here the comments box or leave feedback on today's edition.

 

Book Update / Editing help needed!  Help proofread the storyVadrouille! Please click here to begin. 

French Vocabulary

la cigale = cicada

la courtoisie = courtesy

le tournesol = sunflower

la bagnole = car (jalopy)

un abricot = apricot

à gogo = galore

un champ = a field

de blé = of wheat

écoute! = listen! 

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The next wine-tastings here at the vineyard are on July 3rd (4pm), July 12th (5pm), and July 16th (4pm). Leave a message here in the comments box, or via email, to reserve your seat beneath the mulberry tree!

Photo above: Jean-Marc is gearing up for another honey harvest. We are saving jam and pickle and mayo jars... getting ready for the next mise-en-bouteilles! Read about the previous honey bottling in the story "The Control Freak and The Honey Harvest"

Meantime, Jean-Marc continues to make wine! Here's some good news: Domaine Rouge-Bleu is now available in Japan! Order our wines online here.

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Comments

[Larry]

Here's a beekeeper's riddle.....

A drone (male bee) has no father and has no son but does have a grandfather and does have a grandson....

How can this be(e)? figure it out...it's true.
Larry

[Fiona]

The sound of wheat sounds like a book title . . .

[Carol]

I've listened to timothy hay taller than I am and it smells good too! Thanks for your post. A perfect reminder to enjoy what natrure sends our way.

[diana]

Sorry - but I'm almost positive it's barley and not wheat! xxx Love your stories. Thank you

[GUS ELISON]

YOUR STORY OF RUSHING BY THE MOST GLORIOUS BITS OF NATURE AND THEN STOPPING TO LISTEN TO THE WHEAT, REMINDS ME OF MY TRIP TO FRANCE IN APRIL. DESPITE HAVING A GPS I MISSED MANY A TURN AND ENDED UP IN THE FRANCE I WANTED TO SEE AND SAVOR. IT DOES NOT TAKE LONG TO GET LOST IN THE FARM LAND ON ONE LANE ROADS THAT COVER THE COUNTRY. NO WAY TO TRUN AROUND, NO WAY FOR AN ONCOMING TRACTOR OR TRUCK TO PASS. THE MILES OF CULTIVATED FIELDS WITH CROPS JUST STARTING TO GROW WAS A SIGHT TO BEHOLD. HAD I PLANNED SUCH A VENTURE, I COULD NOT HAVE IMAGINED THE BEAUTY OF THE ROLLING FIELDS OF FRANCE. MY ADVICE TO THOSE PLANNING A TRIP, GET LOST IN THE FARM COUNTRY.

[Maureen from Germany]

Good advice, Gus Elison! I too get lost like that in the countryside by mistake and in cities on purpose - you might miss out on that definitely-must-see chapel, but oh, the back streets are far more authentique and juicy! LOVE the sound of wheat, Kristin! In Australia, growing up as a kid in the country, I used to hear it....along with the noisy sounds of silence on a lethargic hot summer afternoon.....

[Martine NYC]

I was 50 before I realized that my favorite bird song came from robins. It is so pretty.
Just never put 2 & 2 together.

[Herm in Phoenix, AZ]

From my youthful days on a farm in Illinois. . . . on a windless, hot and humid night, you could literally hear the corn grow!

[mary]

Thank you for re-posting this. I loved the lesson contained here in last year; it is just as inspiring this time around. Have a wonderful week-end filled with the sounds and sights of the moment. Mary

[Bill Bollenbach]

Thanks Kirstin for another colorful reflection. Growing up in Oklahoma and Kansas I am well acquainted with wheat. The way it moves like water on an ocean of air and the song it sings. I too am changing my perspective (long overdue) on a number things and thank you again for helping in this process.

bill

[Cassie Alexandrou in Dallas, TX]

Dear Kristin,

Beautifully written, as always. Your words come straight from your heart.

The sounds I love are gravel crunching under my feet as I walk and, of course, the sound of waves on the shore.

[Janet in Berkeley, CA]

Kristin, Beautiful artichoke picture at the top. Though I can't tell the difference between wheat and barley, I believe that a laurier is a laurel (or bay laurel). Oleander is something else entirely. Cheers.

[Kristin Espinasse]

Thanks, Janet. That should be laurier-rose for oleander. Now to figure out about the barley. The story just wouldnt be the same with the change! How about some poetic license?

Happy weekend to all!

[Linda Cane]

Hi Kristin,

Can Annie, Abigail (daughter with English Cocker Spaniel, Robin), and I switch to Thursday, July 12th instead of the 16th for the visit/wine-tasting? That way Abigail will definitely be here. She is trying to extend her trip, but was told that to change from here was tres, tres cher, but that when already in France, it might be less so.
Thanks, Linda Cane (Caldwell, NJ)

[Susan Carter (Westminster, CA)]

Kristin,
I certainly give you permission to use all the poetic license you want, and much prefer the sound of wheat to the sound of barley. This story is a good reminder of the need to slow down and appreciated the little things around us that we so often tend to miss as we rush by. Thank you.

[Sharon]

For over sixty years I have been listening to the sounds of nature. It started as a young child listening to night sounds, leaves rustling, cicadas humming, owls hooting, and the scurrying of small animals in the brush.

As a teenager and a young adult I got away from listening to those sounds to listening to the sounds of the city, and only came back to the sounds of nature when I married and moved to twenty acres. Then, I discovered more sounds than I was accustomed to hearing in my youth. I heard the truly scary sounds of deer crying, which sounds like a woman screaming, and the squawking of geese, and the low moos of cows as they settle for the evening. I didn't know that fish jump at night. They jump a lot! And turtles make love as the moon appears overhead.
Those are sounds of summer. Winter sounds come from the howling winds across the clearing and pine trees brushing their needles together.
I wonder how many sounds we can hear when we really stop to listen.

[joie/carmel-by-the-sea, ca.]

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. I hear the birds, frogs and ocean.
Now a question totally unrelated. When entering a shop in France one always says "Bonjour, monsieur,madame," But what if it were a young male say Max's age? How would you address him?

[Natalia]

THANK YOU,our dear Kristin,for today's wonderful post! Once again you have alerted us to all the glorious parts (and sounds) of nature;how we MUST make time every day to enjoy these gifts from God.
Eleanor Roosevelt was so right: every day IS a gift,that's why it's called the present.
Love, Natalia XO

[Sarah LaBelle near Chicago]

Poetic license is fine with me.
I do not know whaet from barley, growing in a field.

It was fun to hunt for some photos, see which best matched yours. They look a lot alike to me, all lovely. May have to ask that farmer!

a field of barley http://www.panoramio.com/photo/4051069

a field of wheat in Colorado
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/13193996

champs de blé ou champs d'orge ?
ça ne fait rien, tous les duex sont des grains.

Glad the honey harvest continues this year.

[Pat - Roanoke, VA]

Growing up in North Carolina, it was the sound of wind in the pine trees that captured my hearing heart. Hearing the cicadas on a summer evening are one of my favorites now. We did a lot of evening porch-sitting, and my sweetest memories are of those nights on my grandparents' porch. I cherish them. Many thanks for sharing this again. Best wishes for a FUN-FILLED honey harvest and bottling! And mercis, too, for the reminder to tune in to Maman Nature's most excellent symphony.

[Cynthia Lewis in Salisbury, Eastern Shore of Maryland]

Like Pat, it was the wind blowing through the tall pines in North Florida that I loved to hear as I walked to school just up the "hill" from my grandmother's home. The panhandle of Florida is as flat as a pancake so a hill is only a few feet higher than the rest of the land. But for an eight year old, it was always an adventure in wildlife to be enjoyed on walks to and from school. Thank you for another insightful post. Bon weekend!

[Bob in Monterey Park CA]

Sitting in our backyard late one evening a few years ago I heard a car alarm go off nearby. It was the kind that has a series of ten or so alternating sounds -- whistles, honks, sirens, bleats, etc. After a couple of minutes it stopped, then restarted from a slightly different direction, then a few minutes later moved again. I finally realized it was a mockingbird moving about in our big tree, and was he ever having fun! And what a great memory -- much better than mine ever was.

[Timotha Rainey]

Deat Kristin,

We were scheduled to come for the wine tasting chez vous on Tuesday, July 3rd. However, my husband broke his arm on the date of our arrival in France and he is no longer able to help me with the driving. Therefore, making a detour to come meet and visit with you and Jean-Marc at your lovely home seems to be no longer an option for us at this time. We deeply regret that and hope that you will forgive the late notice of our change in plans. We do hope you understand.

At any rate, we have already said that the next time we are in France, we will definitely plan to meet up with you again.

Sincerely yours,

Timotha, Tim, Liam and Michaela

[Mara in Wisconsin]

Maybe it's barley, but that doesn't mean it is less poetic. Listen and watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDuye_qB-2o&feature=related You can hear the Sting version on youtube too, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeKE2Z-9HVM but the photos here add so much.