Will I ever understand? Or will I always be searching for some illusive answer to a question I can’t quite formulate?

With my 50th birthday upon me, my reflections keep circling the skimmed stone ripples of this question current.

When I was younger, I thought age would bring wisdom. I thought experience would bring knowing. But the older I get, the less sure I become of anything. Except this.

France speaks my language.

Our relationship has been fluent for most of my adult life (even though my French language skills have remained horrendous).

The parts of France, and its culture, that I gravitate toward speak telepathically to my heart and mind. No translation required. And its wordless whispers have always offered answers to questions I didn’t even know to ask — about my culture, values, dreams, and future self.

In recent years, though, France’s hold on me had slackened. Without it, I was slipping into an insipid American oblivion. An aching sense of missing France had settled in. Like imperfectly mended bones warning of bad weather, my hollowed psychic spaces nagged me with an increasingly urgent need to go there and bask in its Je ne sais quoi.

And so, as an early half century birthday gift to myself, I rented an ancient Mas in Provence.

For eight glorious days, a group of us inhabited a rustic, majestic 400+ year old farmhouse in the Luberon region.

Bon Puis’s driveway (“the good next”), flanked by vines and stately cypress, extended its open arms enfolding us into the more intimate embrace of the terrace and house.

The massive presence of the dwelling, with scalable stone walls and cavernous window wells, overlooked a perfectly picturesque Provencal landscape. Its scenery — simultaneously cultivated and wild – blended the elegant and elaborate with the simple, comfortable, and earthy.

Delightful details — like a trough, a fountain, and other artifacts of both the modern and the antiquated around the terrace — inspired conversation as we lingered over our obligatory afternoon aperitifs.

Our days in France passed quickly in a haze of open air markets and wandering walks through the cobbled streets of ancient villages.

I felt deliriously in awe of their engineering — and swallowed whole by the immersive experience of being in places I mimicked in my impressionist paintings.

It made me acutely aware that I was the simulacrum in these enduring environs — a selfie displayed for a few moments until displaced by new content. And I reveled in that liberating notion of non-mattering.

Nights passed indulgently in le plaisir de la table and ended in a different kind of haze – one of wood smoke, wine, and fiery conversation. And all of this added up to my perfect French vacation.

Yet, it was in the hallowed hours of early morning, when delicate daylight embers began to warm away the cold blanket of night, that France conversed with me most directly.

As I woke and tiptoed down the semi-spiraled staircase, to a rickety table nestled in the one spot in the house that welcomed morning sun, the molded handrail and hand-sculpted tiles triggered my transmutation.

As I sank softly into an antique farm chair, and watched the gentle awakening of the nearby village through windowed doors, my inner American inner monologue slinked away in silence.

With my limited French vocabulary, I wrote down the events of the day before. Poor spelling, rough translations, repetitive adjectives — my words were as imperfect as the wobbly chair and table I crafted them from. Yet like these seemingly simple furnishings — made from trees that lived much longer than my current five decades, assembled with primitive carpentry skills that required a lifetime of dedication to master, imbued with an aura of authenticity through generations of use – my plain passages embodied so much more than broken French sentences.

In that silent communion — my mind an open bowl and the French countryside a perfect pestle — we pounded raw and simple thoughts into a creamy pistou: a savory spread for my hungry soul.

Réveil

In the weeks since our return home, that language mash of flavors, aromas, and experiences have transformed further into the golden distillates of afternoon pastis. And like Pastis, whenever I try to formulate American words to encapsulate my French experience, the rich liquor becomes watered down and cloudy. However, this much I can say with clarity.

Despite the remarkable amount of charm, beauty, and abundance of fairytale qualities — our trip struck a chord more real than romantic.

Like a lingering finger on the keys of a well-tuned piano or the emanations of a meditation bell — something substantial still reverberates within me.