Every now and then, when you travel, you find a place that feels just like ‘coming home’. It doesn’t necessarily make logical sense – it may be a sensation of having visited before or, perhaps, an ease at being in those surroundings. It may be an indefinable gut sensation of familiarity – a sigh of contentment on arrival or an affinity for the landscape.
For me, there is a distinct type of landscape that always swells my chest with emotion and inspiration.
As soon as I get into a landscape of rolling hills, where roads begin to twist and turn, I feel it. To be blunt – flat places leave me …well? – they leave me flat! But give me a curving river valley and I am a happy girl. It doesn’t have to be overly dramatic or high in altitude, but it has to roll and fold! There have to be unexpected moments as vistas burst into view along winding roads. Better still, there needs to be woodland or forest. Then, when I come to a village, my heart will truly sing if it is made up of stone cottages and walls. Bright flowers against golden warmth. A dry stone wall just floats my boat!! The more that I have ventured out in the world and explored different climes, I have started to notice this pattern in my sense of belonging.
Then there is my love of one particular culture and place – France. I call it a soul connection.
It was a bit like love at first sight except it always felt like I’d been there before; it felt like it wasn’t really ‘first sight’ at all. As a child of 6 or 7 years old, I was always fascinated by my big sister’s French textbooks. I have a distant memory of poring over them, soaking up the words and the sense of the French world that came off the pages. At the age of 8, we moved to live in the UK for a year. From there, we often ventured across the Channel to wander in our campervan through endless campsites and villages, sampling simple fare and local atmosphere. It always felt comfortable. I went on to study the language at High school and then for a year at university before suspending those studies and taking a different route. But, when I returned to France some years later, the words came flooding back. (There is a story – possibly apocryphal – that I spoke fluent French in my sleep when we lived in the UK, despite never having studied it by that age.)


Travel affords us the ability to look at the patterns in our connections.
Much contemplation has gone into why I have this affinity for a place so far from my own upbringing. I know that it resonates with many of the values that were instilled in me by my parents. It reminds me a lot of the way that my mother approached entertaining, for one thing. I know that my heritage is tied to Northern hemisphere and a countryside more in tune with there. My love of good food cooked with passion and heart has an influence. But beyond all that, I simply conclude that I really have ‘come home’… that somewhere in a distant past – perhaps another life – I was a French girl.

A la prochaine visite….
Becks
