At Home in the World

by Tsh Oxenreider

  Back and forth, back and forth we traipse on this farm road, finding nothing. Veering onto a dirt road in hopes that it leads to our house, we find it’s dotted with only a few dilapidated farmhouses and machinery parked in fields, ready for tomorrow’s work. A porch light quivers on as we turn around in front of a house.

  “Go! I don’t wanna scare them,” I say to Kyle, delirious and tired.

  “I don’t want them to scare us,” he says.

  “Maybe it’s that old lady in Ratatouille with a shotgun,” Reed says from the backseat.

  We drive past a derelict shanty, lightless and brooding, and I’m nervous for a moment it’s our guesthouse.

  Kyle pulls back onto the farm road, driving at a snail’s pace. On the left, a row of tall hedges reveals a dirt path with worn tire ruts we’ve missed in our search. He shrugs, turns the car through the hedge, and lets the car amble in neutral down the path. Our house owners are in Cuba for the week and have left a key on the coffee table for us inside, front door left unlocked. We have no way to call them.

  Tucked behind the wall of formidable foliage sits a cottage with a gravel front porch. The porch light is on.

  “This is it!” I exclaim. I’m pretty sure I recognize the cottage from its online listing.

  We walk in the house, toss our bags on the living room floor, pilfer through them for pajamas and toothbrushes, then crash into beds. I’ll see where, exactly, we are tomorrow.

  Fingers crossed this is the right guesthouse.

  The next morning, I tiptoe through our compact cottage while everyone sleeps. It is simple, two bedrooms and one bath with a catch-all living room, kitchen, dining room. Small, still bigger than Beijing.

  I slide open the wall of curtains hiding windows, and I gasp.

  Our house is nestled next to a diminutive creek, with rolling vineyard hills outside one window and perfect orchard rows of olive trees behind the front porch. We are surrounded by cultivated land, lying dormant in winter’s end. Grapevines are bare and the trees are sparse, budding hints of what’s to come in two months’ time. Unopened bottles and jars wait for us on the kitchen counter, labels scribbled olives marinées, huile d’olive, tapenade, confiture d’abricot. There is a bottle of wine, and next to it, a card written with Moulin à Huile d’Olive Bastide du Laval, the same script on the jars and bottles. I walk outside and find a wooden sign with the same name, hanging from the hedge.

  We are staying on an olive oil mill.

  Our nomadic friends that we’re joining have already settled into Cadenet for a week. We’ve known them for a few years through my writing work, and when they visited us in Oregon the summer before we left, we witnessed how well our kids got along. On their own family European trip, they’re currently living in the heart of the village, in one of the row houses. Between us, one family is renting a house in town for easy access to shops; the other is renting a house just outside town for access to land. Our moulin à huile d’olive offers a yard for our lot of seven kids; their place provides a place to park in the middle of town. We will share.

  They’ve invited us to our first breakfast in France, since our kitchen is still empty. We knock on their front door, one among many standing like soldiers in sepia-colored plaster, and a collective shout of English resonates through the wall.

  “They’re here! It’s them!” I hear a young boy squeal.

  Our friends are Ryan and Stephanie, entrepreneurs with a million ideas and the zeal to accomplish them. They have four kids—Abigail and Caden are the same ages as Tate and Reed, and Johanna and Kepler sandwich Finn in the middle. Stephanie is pregnant with Oliver. I think about lugging my backpack on the Sri Lankan train, late-night interludes sitting at east African airport gates, and marvel at her willingness to backpack Europe thick in the second trimester of pregnancy. They are a boisterously loud and well-traveled clan.

  After breakfast, Stephanie shows me around Cadenet. It doesn’t take long.

  “Here’s the bakery; they have really good pain au chocolat. Here’s the coffee bar, but it’s hard to work there with all the cigarette smoke. Here’s where they have the farmers’ market on Tuesdays. Down there is the post office, but I haven’t tried it yet.”

  Stephanie reminds me of the French custom of greeting with Hello, how are you? every time you enter a place, and Good-bye, thank you before leaving. We turn a corner and walk into the market, a village grocery shop the size of an American roadside convenience store.

  “Bonjour, comment ça va?” Stephanie and I say in unison. An aproned woman smiles and nods at us.

  I add oranges, apples, butter, yogurt, rouge d’hiver lettuce, and a roll of paper towels to my basket, then ogle wheels of cheese on display through glass.

  “I haven’t had a bad one yet,” advises Stephanie.

  “Comment puis-je t’aider?” asks the woman behind the counter.

  “Umm . . .” I mull, then point to one. I shrug and smile, ask Is it any good? with body language.

  “Trés bon, madame.” She shaves off a sliver, hands it to me. I slide it in my mouth. It is a symphony. I close my eyes, give her a thumbs-up and instantly pray the hand gesture isn’t offensive. She laughs, butchers off a wedge, and wraps it in paper. We pay, say merci and au revoir, and leave.

  We walk ten steps and head into the boucherie. It smells like chicken soup on a cold day.

  “Bonjour, mesdames!” a middle-aged man greets us wearing a grease-smeared apron. Stephanie introduces me, and he shakes my hand and says, “Bienvenue!”

  I point to some bacon, smile, and nod. He pulls out a slab of pork belly and slices it into gossamer strips. Stephanie knows more French than me, and they rattle off a conversation while he slices. He is affable; his laugh reminds me of John in Kenya.

  He hands me the bacon and asks, “Rien d’autre?”

  I point at a row of chickens behind the glass, then slice my neck with my hand. The butcher finds this hilarious. He pulls out a chicken, lays it on the counter, and whacks off its head with a thud.

  Stephanie orders her meat checklist; then we pay, say, “Merci, au revoir!” and head out.

  He runs to the door, says, “Attendez une minute!” and points to a notice taped to the glass window. We look at him in confusion, and he explains its meaning in rapid-fire French.

  “Got that?” I ask Stephanie.

  “Nope,” she answers.

  I take a photo of the paper, nod, and smile, say merci. I am doing a lot of smiling and nodding. When we return to the Langfords’ house, I look up the words. The sign reads, We will be closed next week. We’ll be in Chamonix, skiing.

  Our regular small town is devoid of guidebook features, so we immerse ourselves into life in a working community. These days in southern France begin with school and work, then in the afternoon, daily trips to various stores and markets to replenish supplies. If we’re at our friends’ house, the kids walk to the park together and pop in the bakery for pain au chocolat. If they’re at our house, they explore the orchards and creek.

  After schoolwork, the kids are free to wander outside the olive mill, so long as they stay together and don’t bother the crops or farm equipment. Over several afternoons, the seven kids create a village along the creek bed, various trees landmarking each of their houses—leaves, grass, and sticks as walls, floors, and roofs. They dedicate a mayor, doctor, teacher, and mailman, and over long afternoon hours hold town meetings to discuss events and air grievances. The town is christened Terabithia.

  Terabithia is freedom, permission to play. Their afternoon agenda is sticks and mud, imagining the orchard is the Daintree; the creek is the Nile. Each evening, our friends’ kids go home and our kids take showers to wash off the French dirt. We eat roasted chicken and vegetables for dinner, then read in bed until sleep takes over. There is no Little League, no ballet lessons, no school playgrounds or trips to the arcade. There are books and blocks inside and nature outside. There are ingredients to sample at the farmers’ market. There’s French cui
sine, the local bakery, and day after day, there is always Terabithia.

  It becomes a third second home for them, a home away from home away from home.

  Even though we’re quite content to never leave Cadenet, it’d be a mistake to not explore her surroundings. When we make shopping trips into Aix-en-Provence, we pull over and investigate Roman ruins marked by official signs like scenic overlooks in America. We ride a Ferris wheel along the waterfront in Marseille and eat more Quick burgers. I leave for a weeklong work trip to Israel, and Kyle takes the kids to the Ochre Trail in Roussillon.

  When I return, we drive two hours east to Monaco for the day, the world’s second smallest country and the wealthiest per capita. It’s a playground for the über-rich and full of parked cars when they’re not hosting the Grand Prix; we debate the merits of bringing seven children, but decide to try anyway. Fiats and Peugeots mingle with Ferraris and Bentleys, and our younger kids gallop and zigzag around mailboxes, lampposts, and luxury vehicles. All afternoon, I say things like “Stay away from the Lamborghini!” and “Don’t touch the Aston Martin!” Car journalist Doug DeMuro says, “Exotic cars are everywhere in Monaco. And I mean everywhere. You can’t walk down a street without seeing a Ferrari 458 Spider. You can’t turn the corner without hearing the roar of a Lamborghini Aventador.”1

  We stroll to the legendary Casino de Monte-Carlo because Kyle and Ryan want a peek inside. It costs ten euro to enter the lobby before the casino, and they tuck in their shirts, smooth down their travel-ridden hair, and gallivant inside. Stephanie and I distract the kids outside on the sidewalk. A row of Lamborghinis are parked on the right and a crowd of Russian elite mingle on the left. There’s nothing for us to do but stand and wait. Stephanie rolls her stroller back and forth to lull Kepler to sleep, and I keep an eye on the squirming boys and say, “Please stop lying across the sidewalk.” Three women in gowns walk by.

  I look in desperation for a distraction to amuse the minors and ask Tate and Abbie to see if they can spot a park. They come back in ten minutes and say, “All we can find are stores named Donna Karan and Estée Lauder.”

  Late afternoon, we hike up the hill past docks parked with titanic yachts overlooking Prince Albert’s palace. The kids ooh and aah over boats, and I imagine the interior of the one named Nirvana.

  Reed says, “I wish we were traveling around the world in that.” Kyle and I haven’t revealed to the kids our harbored secret dream of circumnavigating the globe in a boat as empty nesters. We don’t even know how to sail.

  “You know what? I don’t,” I say. “I’m sure it’s cool in those, but think of everything we’ve done because we have to be tight with money. We’ve stayed with friends instead of fancy hotels. We visited Abubeker’s family instead of spending money on a longer safari. We’ve lived in neighborhoods instead of touristy parts of towns.”

  “We ate cheese and crackers in our campervan in New Zealand,” Tate adds.

  “We’re eating cheese and crackers in France too,” Reed says.

  “Remember the tarantula in Sri Lanka?” Finn tosses into the conversation.

  “Yeah,” Tate says, looking out at the yachts. “I like living like regular people.”

  This evening, after our drive back to Cadenet, we pull our dusty rented Toyota Yaris into the gravel driveway at the moulin à huile d’olive and feast on more roast chicken and salad for dinner.

  We tuck the kids into bed, and Reed sleepily asks, “Mom, do you think yachts are a lot of work?”

  Morocco was cold, but southern France is even colder. We buy knitted hats and gloves at Cadenet’s farmers’ market and find sweaters in Marseille and Aix. I buy Moroccan mint tea at a market and make several cups a day. Provençal mistrals are violent, freezing winds that rush through southern France during the crossover between winter and spring. They have become our uninvited guests. We leave the house under a cloudless bright sky, and while we’re sampling pistachios with the farmer at the Tuesday market, mistrals whip through Cadenet’s narrow alleyways like the angel of death. Just when it feels like we’ve settled in as long-term residents, I zip up my lightweight windbreaker and remember we’re here as pilgrims. Our plan for spring in Europe is to layer, layer, layer; soon, we will wear our paltry outerwear into the Balkans, and later, the Alps. I wonder how I’ll feel about my sartorial options come Paris and London.

  Aside from the pleasure of good company, a benefit to living near friends is trustworthy child care. Kyle and I have gone on two dates in the previous six months (one in Sydney, thanks to Adriel, and one in Kampala under the mango tree, thanks to Joy), and one evening, after Ryan and Stephanie go on a date and leave the hordes of offspring under our care, it is our turn.

  We drive four kilometers north through winding French country farm roads to Lourmarin, the next village over. It’s home to the gravestone of Albert Camus and the still-living British writer Peter Mayle, famous for his books on Provence. It’s a bigger town, a thousand years old and a magnet for tourists in search of a Renaissance castle and medieval farmhouses—and therefore offers more restaurants than humble Cadenet. We lace our fingers and walk through Lourmarin’s quiet, dark streets; puddles of rain shimmer on asphalt and fog hovers on top of streetlamps. The mistrals bite through my market hat and windbreaker, whip my hair like a scarf around my neck. My teeth chatter, and we lean into the violent wind. We sprint past art galleries and closed patisseries and duck into an open brasserie; it is seven-thirty in the evening, early for dinner in France, and the place is nearly empty.

  A teenage boy walks up with menus. “Bonsoir—table pour deux?”

  “Oui,” answers Kyle, and my heart flutters at the sound of the French word for two. It’s a rarity this year.

  We sit by a large fireplace with a roaring fire under way, and my numb cheeks begin to thaw. We split orders of roast duck and asparagus pizza, and we share a bottle of wine. The marinated meat slides off the bone. We spoon velvety creme brûlée for dessert and order a round of espresso. The food is earthy and clean, like a farm in early spring. It is a meal for the books.

  The brasserie fills with more patrons, but it’s still pin-drop quiet. We update each other on thoughts about the kids, news from our parents back home, our opinions on Provence, the novels we’re reading. Our time is spent side by side 24/7, but our thoughts catch up to us at night while we sleep, and it’s an effort to disclose them when the kids are never elsewhere. We laugh at bad inside jokes. We hide our laughter at the four old men who’ve come in wearing black turtlenecks and mustaches, as French men do. There is a reason people fall in love in France.

  A few weeks ago, we risked a double date with Ryan and Stephanie, leaving our kids in charge of themselves in our friends’ house. We were four blocks away at a local brasserie. The oldest two were put in charge, and they were armed with half our phones so they could text in an emergency. This practice is not uncommon in these parts. We fed them a simple dinner and set them up with a new movie, and the four of us ducked out.

  The waitress poured the wine; Ryan forked a hunk of bread into fondue, and asked with the bluntness of a hammer, “So—how’s your marriage holding up to the trip?”

  “Excuse me?” I asked.

  “I mean, how are you guys doing? Has it been rough?”

  I knew what he was asking. Stephanie and I had talked on the phone a few years ago when they were on a year-long global trip, and she had confessed that the family togetherness had taken a toll on her sanity. They ultimately powered through to the other side with a marriage stronger than before their travels, but it wasn’t without a lot of work. That evening I had hung up the phone and vowed that when we started our journey in a few years, we’d remember their struggle and what it took for them to make it out alive. We weren’t immune.

  Four months ago in Chiang Mai, Kyle and I spent hours walking up and down our neighborhood street while the kids watched a movie. We confessed grievances about each other’s personalities, our struggles working together, day in and day o
ut for years, and what would be our mutual dream scenario with the kids and our careers back in the real world. That night became the impetus for a collection of chats—marriage intimacy while navigating slippery New Zealand roads, a particular child’s speech delay while on a Ugandan porch swing, vocational unhappiness over wine in Kenya, theology in Singapore.

  Passport stamps became icons for gathered wisdom. Every time we crossed political borders, we collected more conversations, more honesty, more willingness to take risks. Each heft of our backpacks marked commitment for one more day married through congested markets and frenetic metro stations. Our affection has been dirt under fingernails, translating foreign maps for the one in the driver’s seat, late-night dripping clotheslines in guesthouse bathrooms.

  “Here’s the truth,” I told Ryan. “We’re actually doing well. No one’s more surprised than us. Your experience has stayed on our minds constantly. And it’s made a difference. So thanks for that.”

  “Glad to be of service,” Ryan laughed. He put his arm around Stephanie and kissed her forehead.

  The French are known for their sensuality, but tonight we pay for our roast duck and asparagus pizza, we walk to our car parked under Lourmarin’s fog through mistral winds, and I think of that conversation last week with Ryan and Stephanie. I think of people who think we’re crazy for traveling the world with a gaggle of kids. I think of our long talk in that Thai neighborhood. The French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said, “Love doesn’t mean gazing at each other, but looking, together, in the same direction.”