French Blues

As I lie in the warm afternoon sun I gaze lazily towards the sky. White clouds piled up like baked meringues at monsieur’s bakery shop in Saint Cyr (Sahn Cyr) float through a sky of the deepest blue. Now I understand why the color description “French blue”. The contrast of white clouds against the sky is startling and appears deeper on a hillside in Lyon, France than at home. I can only imagine it to be even more brilliant in Provence and further South.

Besides the words “French blue”, I now understand better the word “layering”. France seems a country of layers and if you tune up your senses, you can see, hear and catch it everywhere…sliced bright red, juicy strawberries layered evenly on a fresh tart; paper thin apple slices arranged in a circular pattern on pies just from the oven; baguettes piled up high in crisscross fashion, layers of hills in the distance with golden stoned homes scattered across the landscape, orang-ey terracotta tile roofs in perfect patterns, radiating the noon day heat; wispy wisteria with its fronds and foliage winding and reaching up over trellised balconies, cobblestones cut in neat herringbone patterns, the echoing layered soft sounds of cooing everywhere from downy gray doves calling to their mates and the soft breezy laces fluttering at French doors and windows. Could one ask for more?

~Au re voir~