Bridge to nowhere

In from Marrakech at 12:30 a.m., up six hours later.

My mother forgot to leave the key under the mat and I have to wake her up. Our respective Moroccan memories are eating into my limited sleep.

7:30 a.m., Paris Gare de Lyon.
I line up to get my 07:54 Lyon reservation changed to a direct train to Avignon. Late last year I received an e-mail from a former high school classmate who contacted me through Copains d’Avant, an internet site where “friends from before” can reunite.

Isabelle calls the second largest French city home. We’ve talked on the phone. She remembers much. I not a thing.

Maybe a face-to-face will remedy my inadequate memory. But I picked the wrong date. Isabelle won’t be at Part Dieu to see me again

The TGV whizzes through Bourgogne faster than Americans will ever witness. Too early for a swipe of Puligny-Montrachet. If I could stick my head out, I’d snatch a grape and make my own.

È pericoloso sporgersi.

The conductor says I ought to continue to Lyon Perrache, a neighborhood livelier than PD. I have a half hour before the next train to Avignon where I have a lunch date with Philippe.

Sir, I don’t have a ticket to get back to Part Dieu.

“Get on the train, no big deal.”

Sunday morning and the Place Carnot hosts a farmers market. I pick up a bugne, a quick recognition of the city’s culinary kingdom before I hop back on the train. Without a ticket.

I met Philippe when Christian phoned and asked if they both could come over. This goes back to the Hacienda Escondida days. A few months earlier, after half of the rental car I was driving caught on fire just past the park’s entrance booth, Elisabeth and I composed ourselves at a Grand Canyon restaurant. Christian was our waiter. Philippe was employed somewhere else in the park.

They stayed at the house and I went on with them to the Bay Area. They continued north along the coast into Oregon.

I saw Philippe again. In the (dim) Pacific Northwest. I saw Christian in the (luminous) Southwest.

Too many detours delayed me, but I stayed at Philippe’s house outside Paris several years ago. Most significantly, we ate profiteroles at Le Procope, and established a sweet tradition.

Philippe’s mellifluous wit winks at Marcel Pagnol, its seductive rhythm quick to deploy humor to disarm the vagaries of our embattled minds.

We walked on the Saint-Bénezet Bridge, a designation that even he, with ancestral link to the Provençal terroir, did not recognize. Everyone knows this bridge to nowhere, though.

When the Pont d’Avignon was completed in 1185, it spanned the river in 22 graceful arches. Frequent floods battered the bridge. After an especially destructive torrent in the 17th century, it was never rebuilt.

We walked, we peeked over, but we did not dance. We also took pictures but one of us deleted them accidentally. Which explains why there are none of Philippe on this page because he didn’t take any of himself.
The medieval bridge leads to (but not away) the Palais des Papes, the palace built by popes Benoit XII and Clement VI, two of the seven popes who settled in Avignon home between 1305 and 1376 before Christendom relocated to Rome. Note the name of the first pontiff, why don’t you? The current occupant of the Holy See goes by number XVI. But we call him Benedict.

Shame.

Philippe brought lunch goodies for an impromptu picnic on banks of Rhône River, last seen in Lyon and also in Geneva. I raised a confident red wine toast to passing motorists, in defiance of peculiar overseas customs.

One hundred and twenty minutes tease more than they appease. I need to see you again, mec.

A gust of wind blows by ticket on the steps of the train station. Philippe-be-nimble catches it before I am whisked away.
I leave the Midi behind. Once before I partook of a similar whirlwind trip when I flew from my San Francisco home to dinner in Los Angeles.

Back in Paris after 2 hours and 40 minutes and 700 kilometers. Coincidence: this is how long it takes the fastest train to travel from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles. 150 kilometers.

Shame.

And back in Los Angeles after 12 hours and 35 minutes and 9,102 kilometers. In line for immigration at LAX, I share political musings with the parents of ski racer Ted Ligety who has just wrapped up the world cup season with a first place finish on the giant slalom courses at Kransjka Gora and Bormio. They are carrying a load of trophies home to Park City, including the overal GS cup.

Way to go!

This ain't the Grand Canyon ...Christian and Philippe in the former's olive grove.