Finding hope in a French village
and learning that anxiety has no respect for holiday boundaries.
I’m writing this from a coffee shop, and I’ve discovered that I’m really bad at it.
So far, not so productive but, to be fair, there’s a lot to be distracted by. I’m in Edinburgh, and from the first floor of the café I’ve got a panoramic view of landmark buildings including the Scottish National Gallery and Edinburgh Castle, Princes Street and the treelined Princes Street Gardens running parallel to it. This always reminds me of Central Park, somehow—maybe because the roads are extra wide here, too. As dusk falls, the castle is illuminated and glows down from the top of the hill, overlooking the city in the most magical way.
I’ve been here during what turned out to be, obviously, an extraordinary, historic week. I posted some stories on Instagram on the day of the procession from Holyrood Palace to St Giles Cathedral, for a service of prayers and thanksgiving for The Queen.
Roads were closed off, even to those on foot, as numbers grew on the route. Residents watched from their windows above the cashmere, whisky and souvenir shops on the Royal Mile. In a moment of levity, one wonderful, elderly Scotsman, in kilt and full local attire, called out to one group who had clambered onto a bin and were obscuring his view: ‘Get down, you’re not the only buggers here! We can’t see a thing back here—IT’S LIKE AN ECLIPSE!’. 🫢
Despite the odd downpour, the sun has shone, the air has been crisp and the skies, mostly, clear blue, making for a beautiful backdrop to the last few days in this beautiful city.
Autumn does seem to have arrived overnight in the UK. If you’re an autumn/winter person, like my daughter and mother-in-law, you will LOVE this, have already consigned 80% of your wardrobe to storage and have started stroking jumpers and eyeing deep, dark nail polishes. The rest of us are hanging on for dear life, stubbornly freezing in our summer stuff and relying heavily on self-tan.
How’s the weather where you are right now? It’s amazing to me that, just last week, I posted a pic to Instagram from a sunny southern Brittany, France, where we were lucky enough to get away for a few days before schools and uni’s started back (the first time since before the first UK lockdown).
Will took this pic last week on the same street, leading up to the beautiful Quimper Cathedral, where my father snapped my mother, brother and I, in the seventies (and I shared earlier this spring).
It was, absolutely, lovely, special and wonderful. But, also, I caught myself crying more then once behind my (helpfully big) sunglasses - for my parents and all we’ve been navigating with their care - because it turns out that anxiety and lament have no respect for holiday boundaries.
Maybe you’ve had a summer that’s been a little “both/and”, as well?
I’ve been hugely touched to hear, online and off, that many friends have felt the same.
The ‘both/and’-ness of the break really took me surprise. I mean, it’s not as if I expected to leave the just-under-the-surface stress and what feels like a sort of slow-burning grief on the shores when our ferry pulled out of Poole Harbour for France.
Or maybe I slightly did.
But the time away together was so precious and wonderful and special—all the things you hope for when you get away—in many, often unexpected ways.
Travel for me is a labor of love. It’s the conscious assumption of a certain kind of tension, uncertainty, and discomfort for the purpose of bringing my body and spirit to a different place than home in order in a sense to bless it. And be blessed back.
—Heather King
Writing about holidaying in Ireland, writer and author Heather King shares how she “sat by the river with my lunch, looked over the hydrangeas and silver birches and giant oaks and wept at the shortness of life”. Then something happens which turns things around (I’ll let you read the rest).
I mentioned a few newsletters back about coming across Our Lady Of Hope, a name given to Mary, the mother of Jesus, after she appeared to a group of of local children resulted in Pontmain, a small village in Normandy. I was really hoping we could, somehow, manage to visit when we were in France and we did!
For about 45, frantically peaceful minutes.
Driving back to catch the evening ferry home, we tapped Pontmain into Google Maps and realised we could make a detour and get there with about half an hour (literally) to see the Notre-Dame de Pontmain basilica, also called the Notre-Dame de l'Espérance (Our Lady of Hope). Will really wanted to get me there, because he knew how much it would mean to me.
It was worth every tense, “was that the right turning? Is it saying the other way is quicker?” second (and every one counted).
After driving out into the rural outskirts of the city of Rennes, along winding country roads, passing cornfields on each side, we spotted the basilica’s spires first, as we approached the quiet, sleepy village of Pontmain.
With, literally, minutes to spare, we stepped inside.
I’d never seen stained glass windows like these.
As the sunlight streamed into the nave, it felt like being wrapped in a blue, starry cloak.
Being neither a Feast day, nor a Mass time, the church was empty other than a lone flower arranging lady, tending to fresh blooms in the sanctuary.
I’m finishing this up on the train back to London now, with some words by Erin Loechner from this hope-filled new essay which turns the tables on “self-care” and proposes, instead, a shift in focus to “others-care”.
But it also sort of is, specifically now, specifically in the face of a culture who worships self care, who preaches self-saving, who shouts at women, “Be your own hero!”
Better yet: be someone else’s.
—Erin Loechner
How’s that for a vision of hope?
Jenni, you look so gorgeous in that lovely orange dress. You're taller than I first thought! I'm so glad you had a little break in Edinburgh and France. Yes, our weather changed in a single day. On Wednesday 9/21, we played golf in 94 degree heat, not by choice, but because it was a charity event. The very next day our high temp was 70. I survived by drinking Gatorade the whole time. The air is crisp with fall. This was a beautiful letter, full of the you-ness I so admire! Love the pictures!
Jen your writing makes it seem like it’s so easy - your stories so real and funny and poignant. That cathedral though! 😍 Have a great trip back - hopefully not too many tissues required 😉😞