Susan Palmer's Exquisite Now

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  • For heartbreak, I recommend awe

    For heartbreak, I recommend awe

    I ran away to France twice in 2016. Seen now, a decade out, it’s hard to fully recall the pain of that year. Current happiness overlays that time. But living through a marriage disintegration, that’s hard. In May that year, I understood my marriage was doomed, yet I couldn’t imagine life without my spouse. So I grabbed one of my beloved sisters, and we flew east, landing in Annecy, a ski town in the Alps near the Swiss border. Surrounded by stunning peaks, sitting on a pristine lake, it wears its charm with great pride.

    By November the divorce papers were signed, and I ran to France again, alone this time because deep pain needs privacy the way a broken limb must be kept from moving in order to heal. I chose a town to visit based on a random photo of massive headlines overlooking a pretty harbor. It was a genius bit of luck.

    Cassis sits in the heart of Calanques National Park, a little east of Marseille. Time and geologic construction have created massive limestone buttes that drop straight into the sea. You have to be there. You have to bring your small short-lived body to it, get in a boat and motor out to get a good look at this intersection of the forces that built this over millions of years. I don’t know why the realization that I am a mere blink in the universe is healing but there you are.

    Cassis France gave me back my heart, cracked of course, but functional. Things got better. Three years ago, I brought my dearest new love there. When heartbreak has disappeared, no longer even a speck in the rear view mirror, sharing must be done. You have to walk around, pointing and sighing, introducing your loved one to the place that brought you through the storm.

    It’s no surprise that I’ve set the novel that’s in final polish here. My creative self can’t let Cassis go. The book’s working title — Blue Coast in Winter, a literary thriller — keeps this place still ringing like a bell inside me.

    Photos by Susan Palmer

  • I paused on the threshhold, then went all in

    Courtesy Penguin Random House

    I came upon author Richard Roper’s novel quite by accident at the library, checked it out, but didn’t commit to it right away. It’s like hovering at the door of an event you don’t quite get, but feel curious about.

    How much of my reading time do I want to give to a book about a guy whose job is tidying up after the deaths of the forgotten, whose social life occurs almost entirely online in the realm of model train nerds?

    But story’s voice felt right, which is always the first hurdle for me. I stuck with Something to Live For and came away grateful. It’s a tale that exposes deep pain through a character’s extreme strategies at hiding it. And then there’s the dry British wit arriving just as it’s needed.

    The book rewarded me with the thing I crave: Scenes that linger well after I’ve closed the book. Among my favorites — and this is only a slight spoiler — occurs when the formerly online-only friends agree to meet in the actual world. In a bar. Expectations get upended, then adjusted to. It’s a sweet bit of truth about real life.

    If you come to the book, don’t strive for the story to make itself known quickly (this is my major flaw as a reader). I am glad the rushing-around me got talked down by the patient me. I’m glad Richard Roper’s novel and I found each other.

  • How these alleys beckon

    How these alleys beckon

    Alley in Cassis France. Photo by Susan Palmer

    The narrow alleys I’ve encountered in trips to France and Italy linger in memory, more perhaps than the cathedrals and art galleries and sweeping views. In the particular case of Cassis France, that’s saying something, given the massive capes that rise straight from the sea to surround the little harbor town — a place best visited in the off-est of seasons. The alleys don’t have a “wow” factor. It’s more of an “oh, my” thing, a “nestling in my heart” thing.

    Those European alleys may have some longevity going on, hundreds upon hundreds of years of inviting people in. But the alleys in my little neighborhood in Eugene, the most beautiful among them, just a few steps from my door, could teach a thing or two about the art of beckoning.

    I snapped the picture above on my way to our little neighborhood grocer last week. Something always blooms, and the senses engage: the sound of gravel crunching under my shoes, the aroma, just now, of lilacs. Once in January, a lone rose in a sunny spot had pushed its way through an old fence, coral-orange and almost fully open. Despite all.

    A footpath. The alley says, “Come walk this way.” It’s human-sized and human-paced. The traffic noise from other streets fades. You are here. You are now.