Just shy of a year ago, we rented a little apartment on a real farm behind our barn renovation in Vezenobres, France. We left our apartment in Lyon to be closer to our construction site – optimistically thinking that we were only months away from the completion of the project (it’s still in the works 10 months later). Mas de Gardies, a family owned farm property at the end of our road – we are La Cabanne, Route de Mas des Gardies (no street number) – is owned by a friendly couple in their 70s whose family has run the property for generations. Last winter on our final day there we visited the main house to thank the couple for the rental (after having a final visit with Mistral, my new best friend, the large strapping white horse in the barn who we call Copain, which means ‘friend’).
As usual in France, for what was meant to be a brief hello-thank you-goodbye visit, we stayed for over an hour. Madame served strong coffee in the kitchen after insisting that we come upstairs. Monsieur wore a wool vest over his shirt sleeves, and a beret with just one tuft of hair curling out of the top above his forehead – unreal in the way it was a French stereotype. During our conversation, of which I understood about a third because of the strong Gardois accent, Pierre described to the couple exactly which building we’re renovating and Monsieur delighted that he knows our place well. It was an old mutton barn that he passed every day about 60 years ago when he walked to school in the village on the hill.
He left the kitchen briefly, while Pierre and I traded coffee cups so that I could skip the caffeine dosage on the sly, and he returned with a binder full of antique post cards of the region – including an aerial shot of our barn from the early 1900s (according to the carving on our entry way it was built in 1782!!!). Since then, we’ve met an artisan who remembers renting the barn to store his tools in the 70s who is in line to build our pool house while we’re away in San Francisco. Monsieur remembers walking along the Route de Mas des Gardies every day as young boy and passing our barn when it was part of a massive farm parcel owned by the Fernandez family (from whom we bought our small piece of land). Since then he’s become quite a stamp collector! He only mentioned it briefly during our first visit last winter. But I remembered that my grandfather had given me a pretty cool envelope of stamps that he collected during his mission in Europe in the 1930s. With my limited French abilities I discussed this with the Monsieur at the time, and Pierre and I suggested that when I come back to France I’d bring the collection and share it with him.
Well, today we did just that. The minute I landed in the US several months ago, my mental note went into effect to grab the envelope my grandpa had given me a few years ago. It’s been in my “France pile” ever since. Pierre and I knew it would be a commitment to stop by and share our stamps – so we carved out about an hour for the adventure (knowing all-too-well that we’d want to spend a few minutes with Mistral, the white horse at their farm, after the visit).
We showed up at the farm, parked the car adjacent to the chicken coop, I peeked my head around to see if Mistral was stretching out of the window of his stone stall, and we headed for the front door. We heard voices from the open windows of the living room and thought we might be disturbing a late afternoon visit. Their dusty, sweet-looking cat was resting under a small shady patch of vine near the front door but she didn’t want too explore the scent of my hands. We rang the door bell and a few seconds later the Monsieur appeared from the upstairs window – unfortunately without his beret.
Pierre, my adorable translator/tour guide/husband, reminded him who we were and that we had mentioned during our stay last year my grandfather and his stamps that we’d hope to share with him. The gentleman smiled with that generic lost look of not knowing who the heck we were, Pierre continued with his explanation and I waved my yellow envelope of stamps in the air, and then the light went off! Monsieur seemed to remember and ushered us into the house. As he left the window sill I heard “ooh la la!” Pierre and I wonder if this was an ooh la la of disgust or delight. I crossed my fingers for the latter.
Monsieur guided us into the living room – his wife and cousin stayed in the kitchen to carry on their conversation. The living room was like so many others I’ve seen in France – shutters closed on a beautiful mild sunny day accentuating the of the room – with dated furniture and a dining room table that’s become more of a landing for paperwork than a dining table. But, our timing was impeccable because just the day before he’d been at a flea market where he’d picked up an envelope of hundreds of stamps from the US for only 5 Euros. Stamps, his tweezers, and several binders were sprawled over the table – as if he’d been waiting for us. 
I had anticipated this visit for months, hoping that we’d betroth him with stamps from my grandfather’s visit many decades ago. But I’ve never met a stamp collector before and I had no idea how serious his passion was. I opened first the “Frence” envelope my grandfather had catalogued and there wasn’t a single one that the Monsieur didn’t already have – even in doubles and triples. We moved on to Belgium and the rest of Europe and things started to look better. He pulled out catalogue after catalogue of his collection – he must have over 500,000 stamps dating from the first original stamps in 1849 from almost every country in Europe. Europe is his passion, particularly France. He started collecting US stamps – almost as a nuisance just because he found them at the flea market – just this year.
Happily I was able to give him a few stamps from Belgium and Great Brittan that he didn’t have. For each stamp that I offered to him he insisted, with his thick accent where every other word ends in “nnggg,” that I take one of his doubles to compensate. Pierre tried to counter that I don’t collect stamps but that it was a pleasure just to share our stamps with him – but that didn’t work. So now I’m supposed to start a stamp collection when I get back to California so that I and Monsieur can start trading in the months and years ahead.
By the time we made our way through Europe – not just the countries, but the special series by theme, topic, historian, painter, celebrity and then the series of occasion stamps that each of the European Union countries has done since the ratification – Pierre and I started to get a little antsy. Pierre had a date with some friends in about an hour and I was getting hungry. At this point Madame, slightly hunched over and ever-so-friendly came into the salon to insist that we have a little liqueur during our visit. She opened up their buffet cabinet behind me and I could see Pierre subtly search the cavern for what she’d serve us (it was barely 3pm). She brought out three short glasses and a dusty cherry bottle – I hadn’t eaten since my small bowl of cereal several hours earlier. Meanwhile Monsieur was digging even deeper into his collection. Now we were distinguishing between those stamps he’d catalogued and those he hadn’t – he brought out “la bible” which he uses to cross reference his collection by date and by value. 
He also described that recently he participated in an exhibit in the village earlier this year where several painters showed their work. He pulled stamps from his collection that were representations of the great painters from the past several centuries – he researched each of the painters, made a large exposition of the stamps and included editorial on each of the original artists to accompany the painting show. We saw this collection of stamps, it was my favorite grouping. His stamps included miniatures of works by the great French painters like Chagall, Matisse, Monet, the Dutch masters, and even an Andy Warhol Marilyn. If I do anything with my stamps, it will probably be some kind of collage or framed collection of all of them at once – in this fashion.
Pierre thoughtfully gave me the eye when he finished his cherry shot, to suggest that I pass mine over to him on the sly – I’m sure he saw me cringe each time I brought the shot glass to my lips. When Monsieur got up for the 10th time to grab another binder from his collection we made the switch. I’m still wondering, 24 hours later, if when he returned and looked at my empty glass if he caught on to our game. A good hour into our visit – after several catalogues and explanations – it seemed appropriate to rise from the table and insist, gently, that we had to go.
I’ve wanted to do this visit for almost a year – I don’t exactly know why. I don’t collect stamps, and I don’t think I will begin to now – despite the new additions from Monsieur. If anything, I love the idea of justifying the piles my grandpa made many years ago, sharing them with someone, passing them along with him in mind. I will share this note with him when I see him next month. I also realized that I’m keen on preserving special bits of the past – I cherish my grandma’s jewelry and her collection of antique Valentine cards, and I guard with great care the large collection of priceless photographs my grandfather took in Hitler’s pre-war Germany during his mission in the 1930s. Pierre and I are even fashioning our house in France with 100 year old tiles, cabinets and doors, cast iron grills, a Napoleon chandelier, all recuperated from his family or local markets.
My daily life moves so fast, I’m so plugged into future – who will be the next great client at work, where am I going for my next business trip, how do I schedule in time for visits with my friends and family? This fascination with the past must be one way for me to unplug from the future and rest in the present for a moment – with enough time to admire a stamp collection or visit a friendly horse.
