encore provence

"Memory is a notoriously biased and sentimental editor, selecting what it wants to keep
and invariably making a few cosmetic changes to past events. With rose-coloured hindsight,
the good times become magical; the bad times fade and eventually disappear,
leaving only a seductive blur of sunlit days and the laughter of friends."
- Encore Provence, Peter Mayle

Was it real?

Sometimes I have to ask myself that, when I think of the time I spent in Provence.

I look at photographs I have, and I am hit by a staggering realization of how beautiful it was. I cannot believe that I lived there -- walked those weathered streets, laughed, loved, cried there.

Provence feeds the soul. It's like one of those melodies that haunt you -- even when you think you have forgotten about it, it creeps up on you and surprises you with a memory so vivid, so potent, that it feels like an oddly enchanting dream.

And the memory keeps playing again and again, forward, in reverse, in mometary pauses, until it overwhelms everything else and only the music remains.