I have never taken trips where I go to multiple places. For me, sinking into one place a week or two weeks alleviates the tension of having to pack and move. I like to cocoon into the location, unpack and be a vacation slob. At home I am fastidiously tidy, so in a hotel I gleefully leave the bed unmade, floor strewn with clothes, and shoes unmatched and willy nilly on the floor. The bathroom looks like the make up department of Macys combusted.
This trip, I have been on the move. Flight to Barcelona for two nights and then a bus and a train to Collioure, where I had a five night sojourn, to get on two trains to Le Marais in Paris. I am now in the final resting point, a lovely apartment on a cobblestone square overlooking famous falafel joints and a few very pricey “thrift” stores. The journey to get here has been one I wouldn’t have replaced with one consistent place so I am rethinking my stand on the one location holiday. Of course, one doesn’t need to go nuts with always moving around, but I am seeing a fluidity in my thinking.
Which is what pertains to writing (since I am not writing a travel blog last time I checked) and a discovery on this trip to re-emerging in a new way with a focus on the day to day writing versus the final product. Yes, setting dates, and being accountable with weekly goals in writing is very important, but discovery in writing is the ultimate vantage point. How can one get even more curious about a passage you wrote in your book that can connect to the reader in Little Rock, Arkansas who may not understand the location you find familiar? Do not make assumptions that only you will read your book! Imagine a wide and curious audience who has never been to your city, block, favorite sushi place or had a mother who drunkenly yelled in their childhood. Paint the picture. What does it sound like? Smell like? Where is your character in their emotional arc in this point in time? Are they ending an arc or beginning one? Have they been co dependent on an outcome, or in denial?
I wrote a story on my writing retreat that I will share here. The reason I am sharing is because I want you to see how I created a full narrative on menopause and boobs through simply checking out a market in Collioure on a Sunday. Go to a local place and just walk around, and observe and you can either document your experience and write from that place, or take a sound or smell and make that your launching point. See where it goes.
The Market
The market’s billowing dresses beckoned options in the dampening sky. Pastels and ruffles, and prices of less than $20 euros fitting Laura’s modest budget. The paella stand operator was organizing his wares, an acoustic guitar waiting patiently against the back door for a pause in his morning work. The air smelled of shrimp and coffee.
Menopause struck on Thursday five months ago. Flushing first her face and then her whole body in a wave like a hot fan in dead of a New England summer. She panted, her eyes wide, in denial this was that reckoning of mid life versus just an allergic reaction to some kind of green smoothie’s zealous ginger. She had not been able to shake it since, a conundrum she was told by her GYN happens when you are in fact officially out of perimenopause.
The biggest change was her body. Once able to retain some form of abdominal muscles, she watched as her stomach softened and expanded. She had chin sag that didn’t allow her to wear high necked blouses anymore, looking at a version of her mother in the mirror.
She needed dresses. Two. How hard could that be? Hard. The dresses she saw on the rack that offered elastic around the bust were sure to present the one boob sagging lower than the other, a nipple pointing a little too south. She needed a dress that could tuck and tighten and correct her wayfaring body.
“This is my favorite dress,” the shop owner confessed, with his French lilt. “I buy them from Indonesia.”
No one could help her, not even him but she decided to try one on, pleased there was a dressing room. Her days of a handful of clothes options from the thrift without trying them on landing as a win ended around five years ago.
“I have a dressing room,” he said, showing her the way through layers of light tapestries sporting exotic dragons. She contemplated as a man welcomed his friend with two kisses on the cheek and a tweek of his belly.
She pulled on the first dress in the back of the van and stepped down. He offered her a mirror like a bride putting on her first wedding dress option. It was a big no. The boobs sagged.
“No,” she said, “I can’t with the boobs.” She clutched them as the universal language of boob sag which he appeared to understand and perhaps empathize with a bit. She was sure she wasn’t the first woman to show her insecurities before his moveable mirror.
She was alone in a sea of possibilities. She would be plagued to wear the same four options she brought with her that required bras.
“What about this dress?” he said, holding up one with a wooden buckle in the chest cavity and two pulled fabric leaves. The configuration promised they would mask and also present her boobs in a way that could look designed, orchestrated.
A frog made a croaking noise as the adjacent shopkeeper stroked its rigged back with a wooded stick. The potential customers broke out in a cacophony of French pleasure.
She tried on this next dress and when she stood before the mirror, she felt like a champion. With this dress, she could walk down the aisle of tomorrow, and perhaps the next day. All the body parts, hips, boobs, stomach and ass all felt into place.
“Yes?” he said. “So nice.”
This man may be her saviour. She wanted to pull him into a deep kiss. He had hennaed feet and stylish order. He was her personal tailor and the world was hers for the taking. She imagined showing her boyfriend the new dress when she got home and he would say simply, “Wow,” while taking a step back.
She left with two dresses, and on her way out she went to the stand with the frog still croaking.
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