Forever After and Gate Crashing

From our bus ride through Dijon, I got the idea that there weren’t a whole lot of interesting things to see here. I was wrong!

A clever ad agency or municipal booster several years ago came up with the brilliant idea of making a tiny owl the symbol of the city. Perhaps taking a clue from Aix en Provence, where brass plates in the sidewalks guide the tourist to various Cezanne historical sites, the owlet guides you around Dijon. It's called the "Chouette," and was originally a tiny owl carved in stone on the side of one of the churches. Everyone wants to touch it for good luck, so it's worn down to bumps. We followed the little plaques all over town, especially enjoying the museums that showed reconstructions of kitchens and living quarters from the 1600s onward.

The special, unexpected treat came at the Cathedral of St. Benigne. As we were wandering around the outside, admiring the architecture, the bells began to peal vigorously. The guide book said that St. B’s has the highest bell tower in town. That may be, but more impressive the most beautiful sounding bells I’ve heard. Coming in late to the song was a gorgeous, deep, resonant baritone bell that made it all extraordinarily joyous. What could be the occasion? It wasn’t Sunday.

We tried the side door, which was opened by a young boy who looked surprised to see us. Peeking past him, I saw a number of other young boys similarly dressed in white shirts and red ties. Were they altar boys? No. They were part of a wedding party, and we weren’t invited. We apologized for the interruption and continued walking around the building until we came to the front.

A crowd of cheerful, nicely-dressed people were filing in, coming from all directions, having found parking on the narrow streets or walked from their homes. We joined other onlookers in the little plaza across the way to watch. Soon we heard a car horn playing a raucous song and then down the street whizzed a red open convertible sports car festooned with flowers, carrying the lovely white-gowned bride. She got out and three boys dressed in white rushed to help keep the long train from getting stuck or dirty. I thought that was très gallant, but the boys were called away by the lady in charge to go and join the flower girls.

The scene was full of joy as tourists and friend photographed the bride who was soon joined by her father.

After the bride was inside the church, and many people had followed her inside, the large doors began go close. I was half afraid Mary would dash through them to watch the ceremony, leaving me behind. It happened 50 years ago, not at a wedding, but at one of the most famous theater complexes in the world, the Festspielhaus in Salzburg.

Here it is, just as I wrote it in August,1961 when all of Salzburg was given over to the music festival:

What an amazing city! Each evening two or more major events are performed. There are five, maybe six, different theaters – the Domplatz, which is outside in front of the cathedral and used for medieval mystery plays; the “Mozarteum” for Mozart; the New Festspielhaus which is the modern addition to the Old Festspielhaus [both together are now called the Grand Festival Theater]; the churches for Mozart's Masses, or anyone's; the something-or-other-Schule which is outside like the Greek Theater in L.A., and undoubtedly some others I've forgotten.

Even though we couldn't get tickets to anything (I would have stood on top of the trombones to see the “Rite of Spring” which included the ballet and was performed by the Vienna Philharmonic) we still got a thrill, at least I did, thanks to Mary.

Monday we ended up at the new Festspielhaus. It's a splendid feeling for me to see these places that I know so well from reading and studying about them. I kind of feel that I have a right to see inside them. But there were guards everywhere not letting anyone in, and signs that stated very clearly that no-one except performers and workers would be allowed into the theaters until after the festival closed on August 31. We wouldn’t be here then and I ached to see the backstage. Really, I could have cried, seeing the privileged ones going through and me being left outside.

Mary and I decided we would have to latch onto someone who could get us in. “We have to talk to someone,” she said, and the next second was gone. No sign of her. I waited for twenty minutes, maybe more, then gave up and went sightseeing to two churches, nothing great, then returned. She was waiting for me out front and, oh jealousy of jealousies! She had gotten inside and backstage! She just walked in with no idea of the significance of what she was seeing, except for what I had told her.

Not wanting to spend the next month dealing with me sulking, she told me to follow, so I did. We went up to the guard, told him – in English -- she had to see someone inside and I was with her. He was confused and sent us to the other guard, who was busy. While waiting for him, and while neither was looking, we dashed down the nearest corridor and around a few corners, not meeting a soul. We were in!

Through the walls we could hear the orchestra and chorus rehearsing, and on we went to the stage door. How I panic at opening a stage door during a performance! I know something awful will happen like I'll throw light onto the wrong place or the door will squeak or I'll knock down a stagehand. But god-bless-Mary walked up, opened it, nothing happened and in we went! The only visible person was a young stagehand listening to the music. We got talking to him.

He gave us a tour of the bottom, middle and top levels of the stage. There is an elevator that goes to each level and a permanent walkway going completely around the stage at each one, five above and the one below. Millions of feet of wiring lined the walls and formed roofs over these walkways. It was simply amazing! The lighting setup is outstanding and as nearly perfect for this theater as you could ever get.

The auditorium is nice but not pleasantly decorated and the seats are hard and straight-backed. It reminds me a little of Schoenberg Hall at UCLA, but much bigger and not as comfortable. There is a funny pattern of different shaded woods on the wall, rather loud and in poor taste, sort of like the ghastly designs you find in all the French and German dime stores. Really, I'm not being snooty, it's true.

Even though I couldn't hear anything except the snatch of a rehearsal, it was a terrific experience! I have been backstage at the New Festspielhaus! I should have a Master's Degree just for that. Mary gets a Ph.D. in gate-crashing.

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If I traveled alone, my intermittent shyness would make it impossible to have such unique encounters. Thank goodness people are not all alike. My weaknesses are countered by another’s strengths, and my strengths can help someone else’s weaknesses. It’s part of the great balance of nature and creation.

Moody Blues in Dijon

Foreword: I have no pictures of the Dijon neighborhood woods, so have chosen others to cheer you as you read this one-time entry on being “down.”

As I’ve mentioned several times, Mary sleeps more than I do and takes longer on things like makeup which don’t matter to me. That gives me time to wander and ponder.

Being melancholy in Dijon one evening, I walked away from the road which led to Ikea, and instead took a wooded path behind our hostel, branching out onto paths leading through grassy fields and past widely spaced gymnasiums. I was the only person around. I adore it when I can be the only one in a place that could hold hundreds or even thousands without a blink. I can talk to myself, pray, and work things out so the sadness or fear goes away. My down mood can fill the whole space until finally it pops like a soap bubble and leaves me free again.

In that mood, I strolled around at least 100 acres of woods and grass, like Christopher Robin’s 100 acre wood. Invisible birds warbled in the trees making it seem as if the trees themselves were singing. I tried bird watching two years ago, but quit in frustration. The little guys move around so quickly and blend in with the leaves so you can’t catch them with binoculars. If you can’t see them, you can’t identify them unless, like Teddy Roosevelt, you know them by their sounds. Instead, I took up desert wildflowers. They stay in one place.

I didn’t only walk that evening. I jogged a bit and even stretched, but that made me feel sad again because I’ve gotten so stiff. Does getting older have to mean being less flexible? I don’t like that. I’ll work on being more flexible in body, mind, and spirit. All require different work, and all can be painful.

Here is another reason my “down” mood might have happened, right from the notes I made in the dining room one evening.

“Gosh, I am surrounded by lovely athletes, male, enjoying their dinners. To my right, nine of them have no uniforms on [they were dressed, though]. To my left, eight are un-uniformed. Two, no three girls and one young boy have joined them. Six green-uniformed bicyclists just left, as did the pink and black ones. Each group seems to have at least one female attached. I try to eavesdrop on their conversations, but at every turn I am reminded of how little French I speak and understand.

‘-- -- -- -- -- mais -- -- -- -- ça -- -- -- jolie -- -- -- -- parce que -- -- -- quelque chose --- -- -- -- plus du monde. ‘

« I need the missing words, but how am I going to find them in the Mojave desert?”

All right. I am tired of recalling my melancholy mood, especially since it’s not my usual frame of mind. It does no good to wallow. “Non-productive,” is how it feels, and I don’t like that. I prefer to ignore or forget unpleasant things.

In fact, I don’t know how to bring this next part up, but I feel you should know so you don’t think it was all rosebuds.

There were times of stress on the trip. Times when Mary and I sniped at each other. Times when the only thing keeping us civil was a late-night game of double solitaire which, more often than not, Mary won. It’s her game.

Mary wanted to know why I did things the way I did, especially when I did something contrary to how she thought I should have.

I answered rudely, “I’m inconsistent. Deal with it.”

That hurt her, but honestly, I had no better answer.

There. That’s about as much soul-searching as I can handle. So you see, I could never write an autobiographical novel, which is an oxymoron if I ever saw one. If I wrote about something immoral or humiliating that happened in my past, it would bring it to the present and would have way too much power over how I was perceived by the readers. Once you’ve put the words down in print, you can’t retract them. They don’t let you grow up, or apologize, or become a better person. You are stuck in the past like politicians who cannot aspire to higher office because once in their youth they messed up.

Next time, I promise we will go into the town of Dijon and you will see how delightful it is!

Dijon – A New-Age Hostel

I once had a dream where I was called in at the last minute to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert at the Hollywood Bowl.

“But I have nothing to wear!” Someone handed me a tux jacket.

“But I don’t know the music!” Someone handed me the baton and said “Just wave it. The musicians know the music.”

And they shoved me out onto the stage.

Substitute teaching is like that. I’m blaming the long time between blog entries on the stress of facing mostly nice high school students and trying to keep them enthusiastic about subjects I know little about and they care even less about.

Why were we going to Dijon? In planning the trip, I had thought we would go to Colmar and then hop over the border into Germany to visit my sister, Lydia, in Emmendingen, a small town north of Freiburg. Lydia’s schedule didn’t fit with that, so I opted for a couple of days in Dijon, knowing nothing about the place except that Frommer’s guide gave it three stars, meaning it was definitely worth a visit. After Friday and Saturday in Dijon, we would train to Colmar on Sunday where Lydia would meet us and drive us to Emmendingen.

We had quite a lot of time before catching the train in Lyon, which was great because the Royal Wedding was on TV in the hotel lobby! We got to see William and Kate in the church and the parade afterwards. Lovely! Romantic! Beautiful! Our concierges even gave us some snacks while we were watching. Royal treatment. We saw the rest in Dijon, the balcony kiss and all that.

On the train, we sat in a 4-seat area with a table in the center. Opposite us was an elderly gentleman, hunched over, short beard, small stature, scruffy looking. We exchanged a few pleasantries, but that was all. When he got up to leave, however, I saw for the first time that he was crippled. He was having a hard time hoisting his backpack because both hands and his legs were misshapen by cerebral palsy or something like it. Mary immediately jumped up to help him and I, not as quickly empathic, followed. He appreciated it and used his English to thank us. Sweet man. I was sad that I hadn’t tried to talk more to him when I had the chance, but sometimes when I’m so tired, it’s too hard to make the effort to think of the right words.

The tourist office was conveniently located in the Gare in Dijon. After watching us pore over a city map without finding our hotel, the girl at the counter called us over, looked at the address and immediately knew where we needed to go.

“The hostel.”

I couldn’t remember if it was an actual hostel or a hotel, but as long as the address was right it could be whatever she said it was. It must be a popular destination because she did not hesitate as she pointed to a spot very very far from the center of town.

She then directed us down the road past the purple construction fences to the plaza where a bus driver told us, “En bas, plus bas,” which I thought I understood along with his gestures, as “down there, way down there,” but when we got “plus bas”, it wasn’t right. Mary pushed onward to the right spot, having a better understanding of gestures than I.

It was a very long ride. Through the city we went, past stores, past residential districts, past more houses and shops, forests, freeways, until we seemed far out in the countryside. The bus driver motioned for us to get off. We did, figuring from the map that we had a couple of miles to walk to the hotel – or hostel or whatever, and it was getting dark.

A large modern building on the corner looked open. I hoped they could give us directions.

We dragged ourselves up a flight of steps to the double-wide glass doorway, arriving there as a team of soccer players exited, boisterous, laughing, full of energy. Looking down at the floor mat, I saw enscribed thereon, “Ethic Etapes.” That was the name of the hotel, or rather, hostel. This spacious, busy place was a lot different than the hostels we remembered.

An apologia: When searching for hostels on the internet, I went to Hostels.com. That’s where I found most of our small, inexpensive hotels. Hostels, the youth kind, still exist because I saw one in Saint Malo and another in Lyon. Some of them have age limits, and some have dorm spaces which I didn’t want. I can hear some of you teasing me! But at the end of a long day, it’s nice to have a private room.

This place was extraordinary! It is a government operation catering to traveling sports teams or individuals of all ages. It even has a cafeteria with good, not too expensive food, a blessing when you’re so far from town. Our room was large with two beds and a teensy bathroom (see photo). There was even an elevator! In the morning at breakfast, we had the company of a couple of youth soccer teams and two groups of bicyclists.

After breakfast Saturday morning, I wandered over to the bus stop to check the schedule and make sure we could get to our train on Sunday, May 1. Panic time! No buses ran on May 1. Not a single one! None! It was another major holiday! How could we get to town, being so far out?

Mary asked the man in the cafeteria who said, “Taxi.” When I asked at the reception desk, they knew exactly what to do, so I realized that having a taxi come was a common occurrence. Even though it was so easy, I felt like kicking myself for not thinking about holidays when planning the trip. Stupid me. It was only week since we’d been in Nimes the day after Easter trying to get to Aix en Provence, and finding out it was a holiday!

This was one of my low points, thinking I’d messed up twice and more times, on little things. Nothing was permanently horrible, really, and Mary was forgiving of the glitches, but I don’t like to feel stupid, and I did. There was a good cure for my melancholy nearby, however. You’ll find out in the next blog entry.