Travel with Conscience

Old Stones in Provence
Lydia Dean

With a mason’s pick I chip off plaster along a wall some 400 or so years old in our village house in Provence. My arms feel like lead but I forge on. Some of the ancient plaster crumbles off easily, making neat little mountains around my feet on the cracked terra cotta tile. Other areas of the wall take several minutes to chip through a mere square inch. Beneath the plaster lie stones we wish to expose, pierres apparants--beautiful, rugged, everyday Provencal stones that are as common here as baguettes and wine. Ancient villages that stand strong to this day were built using them, along with farmhouses, walls, bridges, streets, and cabanons sourrounded by endless fields of olives trees and lavender.

Once the plaster has been removed, I carefully scrape out all of the hard earth and old grout in between the stones. At times it’s difficult to decipher what is stone and what is old mud or concrete. I chip more, scrape more, feel with my hands where it crumbles, where it doesn’t. Then slowly as if out of darkness, the shape of the stone emerges, and continues to protrude proudly, firmly, a shining star in a galaxy. With a tiny hand brush and archeologist’s conscience I brush away the remaining dust and dirt all around the stones. Its deep pores now free of mud it glows a mixture of soft yellows with traces of rich ochre. I stand back and admire my treasured pierres wondering what they have lived and withstood over their lifetime.

My husband pulls on his grubby clothes and works day by day alongside Denis our mason, learning the ropes, an apprentissage in everything from plastering to plumbing and electrics. Atypical for a mason in Provence, Denis works non-stop 7 days a week only stopping for cigarettes, the odd pastis, or chocolate which he eats by the pound. Rail thin from days of physical work with little food, his body appears worn yet his eyes reveal a man with an unwavering zest for life. Through the wet overcast months with the treacherous mistral winds blowing, John and Denis have spent almost every waking hour together in the damp chantier, or worksite, surrounded by dust and crumbling house. I often think of what an odd combination they make. John, a born and bred American with a fire in his belly, a man who loves to get ahead, a man who salivates at the thought of business opportunity working alongside a patient and calm mason who delights in the slow cut and build. But they are both bons vivants, each reveling in living life to the fullest, and stretching oneself beyond normal limits. They thrive on hard work and precision. Their companionship grows the further they progress.

I have mud and dust in my nose, ears and hair. It is tedious work, yet the deeper I advance in my travail, the more comforted I am by its monotony, its relative menial importance. At this very moment in time there could be nothing more important than the wall, how it feels to my fingers, the freshness it exudes, its faint cool odor of Earth. The clock ticks as I chip, scrape, brush and breathe, but I am not aware of its movements. Time is irrelevant within these walls.

During our first years in Provence we enjoyed living at a new pace, one that put time before accomplishment, and family before success. Simplicity was a novelty and came in so many forms, in the freshness of food, the outdoors, the local markets brimming with the season’s finest produce. But as we labor away restoring this village house 4 years later on the Rue de La Republique in Alleins, across from La Poste and a trickling fountain, deeper meanings of time and simplicity unveil themselves. Our inner clocks have begun to transform yet encore, they have slowed and intensified further in synch with our rhythmic chipping and scraping. As the days go by and the plaster crumbles, the house draws us in, tempts us to lose ourselves further in the process of doing instead of getting something done. Provence is like a wise and mature woman bent on enlightening those who are willing to learn. But we find her knowledge and gifts not free. She demands perseverance and patience.

My work on the stone wall pales in comparison to the efforts my John has made, the changes he has made. So often the work through these cold months has been thankless, backbreaking work with no beginning or end. Day after day he single handedly lugs tons of sand and cement up and down the four flights of stairs, and equally as many tons of old rubble out. He spends unfathomable hours on his back on rickety scaffolding sanding the traditional wooden plank ceilings and beams. He trudges home with several inches of muck on his clothes and skin, sometimes with only the whites of his eyes showing.

In a matter of weeks we manage to enrage neighbors on every side of us. To the left we have the Alimentation / Tabac, a small food and cigarette store. The dust from our project lines their shelves and the poor lady who runs the shop suffers with terrible allergies only exacerbated by our dust-making work. The two old ladies to our other side send a letter to the Mairie, town hall, requesting all work to be stopped due to windows we had placed that overlook her rooftop. And it is no small detail that the dust from our project nearly killed all of the plants that they so carefully tend to outside their front door. As we chisel and bang away inside our house, walls crack and crumble on the other sides, in the homes of all our adjacent neighbors. Luckily the Provencaux are forgiving, for when John makes the rounds with armfuls of wine and chocolate, promising to clean up dust and redo walls in their homes, all is forgiven over an aperitif.

Occasionally we notice the Alleins townsfolk slowing down as they walk by the house to get a peak at the transformation. The house that has stood uninhabited for the past 40 years, with it’s cracked and faded brown shutters hanging precariously shut from old hinges now begins a new phase of its life. Windows strewn open despite the cold, through clouds of billowing construction dust and the sound of screeching power tools, the villagers peer up from the street and see our pierres standing proudly with new grout. Golden-colored wood in the traditional Provencal ceilings emit the cozy warmth that only ancient things exude. “Qu’il travail comme un foux (crazy man) cet American.” Word has it that villagers are shocked by the intensity at which John and Denis work. The foreigner here doesn’t normally get himself so dirty. But there is something hidden in the muck of mixing concrete oneself in an old house in the South of France. Something that had not been found in our lives back home.

Down the cobblestone street John and Denis walk side by side to the Café du Commerce for sandwichs poulet mayo and a cold pression, covered head to toe in dust that puffs out from various places as they move. They chat away like two old women, chuckling about this and that, discussing politics, how they are progressing on the chantier. I think about John’s first year in France, spent virtually in silence due to the language barrier. And now, only 4 years after leaving a busy professional life in America he is completely immersed in Provence life, full of friendships, projects in the vineyard, in the house, in the community. Completely at ease with the language, the culture and a career switch from business to masonry, he is a walking example of the goodness one can gain by chipping away at old stones, by stepping out of your life and opening oneself up to another.