#roquefavour

Roquefavour Aqueduct in the Provence region of France

Today marked the last day that I would go on a bike ride as a resident of Aix en Provence.

So I put some nutella on a baguette and threw a naked juice in my saddle bag and rolled my bike out of the little apartment I've come to love so much, leaving a note for my host mom on my way out: "Je vais faire du vélo à Roquefavour, à bientôt!"

The sky was blue and clear, which meant that I battled le Mistral on my way out of town.  I stopped in Eguilles to look at the view one last time, only to find that they had put up a fence around the wall I usually sit on, so I just stood and looked out at the valley for a while.  I did a quick watercolor and thought about how much my drawing had changed over the course of a semester.

When I finally did turn the corner down in the valley, there was the aquaduc, standing untouched as it had for hundreds of years, towering above me.  I wheeled my bike past the columns I had tried and failed to climb up the first time I explored under this thing, not really understanding what it was.  Through the tall grass that had grown so much since February, I walked down to the river and sat on the pebbles on the bank.  I knew lots of people came down there from the bottle caps I always found, but it was my place.

And so I sat and watched that white sun reflect off the moving river, and tried to decide whether if someone had just plopped me down there, if I would have thought it was like my little pebbly spot on the Little River in Tennessee. I decided I would know.  It smells and sounds different there. And this sunshine feels Provençal.

I put a pebble in my pocket.

This marks the spot of my first bike ride in the south of France.  I couldn't leave without saying goodbye.  It was my freedom.  And my self- confidence.  It was my independence, this place.

I did not want to leave, but I knew it was about time to say goodbye, or au revoir, perhaps.  Maybe I would come back again someday and turn the corner to see the aquaduc of roquefavour, standing tall, unchanged, reminding me that I could do it.  I could do it.