Sainte-Catherine
My forehead was firmly pressed against the passenger-side window of the Land Rover as we whizzed past the fervent, meticulously manicured vineyards, the same ones I’d not taken the time to notice so many times in my childhood.
I felt a strange tinge of deja-vu. French wine and childhood memories have an entourage effect, and I’d partaken in the former a bit too hard before our car ride.
As our bodies and brains imbibe either of the two, an indescribable warmth spreads throughout. It’s a calm that can’t be described, but feels just right. It’s almost as if the psyche can finally take a deep breath. These feelings are luxuries, a reprieve for our tired minds that slowly allows us to feel whole again.
I think that once you’ve experienced a place so beautiful, it’s hard to imagine it until you’re actually there again. The worst part about beautiful places is that we often associate them with specific moments, or more likely, specific people. The sad thing is that when we return to these places, sometimes those people aren’t here anymore. Most of the time, the only thing to greet us is the realization that those people and moments have come and gone
Still, these places can be exhilarating. All of the sudden, you’re there again, and flooded with emotion by its intricacies and convolutions.
The late summer sun cast a golden pall into the mini van and onto the winding roads in front of us. Next to us, rolling hills, teeming with grapevines, and dotted by 14th century chateaus.
Nostalgia feels like a longing for home—a longing that can never be fulfilled.
Most of the time, this is because we tend to romanticize the places we’ve been and the things we’ve done. We often forget the reality behind them.
Still, we subconsciously incentivize ourselves to become better and bigger so that, one day, we can return to what we’re nostalgic for and finally, maybe, decompress. And sometimes, as strong as the nostalgia is, we return to that place and we're disappointed. We then long for the place we wanted to leave. It can be a nasty cycle.
But Sainte-Catherine was special, I thought to myself. I don’t think I ever romanticized it. Maybe I’m doing that now.
But maybe Sainte-Catherine speaks for itself, and it never had to be romanticized. I began to doze off.
I was jolted awake when my brother suddenly swerved around a particularly upsetting roadkill mess in the middle of the narrow country road we were zooming down.
“What the hell!” I screamed.
“Good thing,” he said. “Wake up!”
I rubbed my eyes. They felt bleary and swollen. “Fuck off, please.” It was all I could usher out through my jet-lagged haze. I reached down into the door compartment where I’d stashed a bag of truly pungent Brie-flavored chips I’d picked up at the last road stop, a gas station in Dijon. At that point, with that jet-lag, I’d have eaten a jar of Grey Poupon with a spoon. “We’re two minutes away. You’re going to want to see this,” Justice said, elbowing me in the shoulder.
The paint- chipped yellow road sign in front of us read “MERCÉY”, and we took a right onto the road that lead us into the town named after our family. We drove through a thick of trees before they gave way to a cloudless sky and an almost symbolic sight, one I was seeing for the first time in years: Sainte-Catherine.
In front of the estate, a patch of green filled with families of milky white dairy cows and a disintegrating water well, unused since the 1700’s. Next to it, the chateau; a 14th century home, proudly flaunting its mossy, seemingly-crumbling limestone walls, adorned with pristine white shutters and Knights Templars iconography. Time had stripped the chateau of its once noble veneer, but not of its unassuming beauty and charm.
Our car slowly pulled into the narrow driveway. The sound of our tires rolling over the gravel took me back to my childhood--a faint recollection, a sound I’d last heard while exploring the property with my brother and sister the summer before I’d turned ten.
The air smelled fresh and pure, almost innocent, as if it hadn't been polluted by the rest of the world.
I couldn’t deny that, when I got to the chateau, I felt like I was a part of something bigger; something intangible. I was overcome with emotion. I imagined my grandmother and her sisters running around the garden to my right, interrupting a game of hide and seek to pick and eat a fresh strawberry. I saw the teeming currant shrubs, the same currants that my grand-aunt harvested to make the syrup that sweetened the drinks of the people she loved to entertain. More importantly, I imagined what this place could one day be—somewhere where anyone could experience this intense feeling of home.
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“Et qui es-tu?” my grand-aunt asked me as she stood on the driveway in front of Ste. Catherine, her back hunched, peering at me through vintage sunglasses. For 88 years, Tante Genevieve has led a simple farmer’s life at the château, maintaining the lush grounds with her tractor and meticulously harvesting her bountiful garden.
“Moi? Je suis Grayson,” I replied in French—rusty at best. “Te souviens-tu de moi?” I anxiously glanced at my brother, a French major, to make sure I’d correctly asked if she remembered me. He gave me a knowing nod and told her I was my father’s – her nephew’s youngest son.
I couldn’t fault her for not remembering me. At her age, her mind is foggy, and though I’d seen her only a few years before, I had grown a foot taller. I also couldn’t fault her because our arrival must’ve been overwhelming. Americans can be notoriously boisterous and Mercey is a tiny town.
The rest of the day went as planned. Tante Genevieve gave us a tour of the property, before making us a fresh salad from her garden topped with a dijon vinaigrette, which we ate on the sprawling lawn. She tearfully showed us family photo albums. And, as per usual, she asked us to finish some yard work that she hadn’t quite gotten to yet.
Our day at Ste. Catherine came to a close just as the cows began to herd into the grassy knoll in front of the house. Tante Genevieve had retired to her bedroom, exhausted. We were tending to a hedge, clipping its wayward branches. Busy work. But sometimes, busy work has a tendency to place you into an analytical state of mind. I looked at my brother, steadfastly clipping away, looked back at the house, and then at the chapel. I began to cry.
I cried because in that moment, I realized that none of us—not me, nor Justice, nor Olivia, not even my father or his siblings—knew what would happen to Ste. Catherine once Tante Genevieve passes away. It’s a dark thought, but something one can’t ignore. Dark thoughts are tough, sad, and provocative.
I cried because I thought about Tante Genevieve’s dedication – how, for decades, she kept Ste. Catherine a living, breathing relic of a time gone by. I cried because I knew how important this place was to my father, his brother, and his sisters. I cried because this was the childhood home of my grandmother, who I never met because she died young, before my birth. I cried for my brother and sister, who also never met their grandmother. I cried because I knew how badly my dad wanted us to have met his mother – to better understand his (and our) connection to Ste. Catherine.
I dropped my pruning shears and ripped off my work gloves as the sun set, casting a rosy sheen on the walls of the house and the chapel. I looked up at the stone arches jutting into the pink summer sky. The beauty conjured feelings of deep rapture, but also a simultaneous ache of longing. I couldn’t figure out why such beauty made me so sad.
I thought about the many familial memories attached to this place. I thought about the oil paintings scattered about my father’s home, landscapes painted by my grandmother depicting the exact scene that I was looking at. I thought about the late-summer dinners our family shared on the front lawn, in the shadow of the chapel, during the many times we visited Ste. Catherine during my childhood. So many memories without the one person we would have loved to have shared them with.
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I’d like to think that the voice was my grandmother’s—not her specifically, but her voice, through which my higher power can speak to me. I’ve often regarded her as my guardian angel. Maybe Ste. Catherine is a vessel for that voice. Maybe I need to return to my roots more often.
I realized that my sadness was not romantic, in essence, but rather, emblematic of the ephemeral nature of all beauty. It’s sad that we human beings can’t freeze beautiful moments. It’s sad how beautiful moments come and go. It’s sad how many beautiful moments I could have had with her. But within that sadness came truth. I realized that I could make my own beautiful moments with her as my inner guide. And I decided to make that my truth.
The following morning, we left for home. At the airport, I considered purchasing chocolate or a bag of “Herbes de Provence” as a souvenir of my stay. I suppose that I wanted to somehow bottle the moment. But for once, I decided not to try to symbolize my feelings in physical form. I chose instead to simply let them live inside me – to reappear when I needed them most. And at that moment, I promised myself to return again to Ste. Catherine as soon as I could, to re-ignite those feelings and embrace my inner self. After all – it’s who I am.
