Carpe Diem: Local woman leaves winter behind for greener pastures

By Jo Anne Wilson
Sun contributor
“I’m moving to Provence,” I announced.
“Provence?” My neighbor stared at me. “As in Southern France?” I could see her mind going. Me, the retired teacher of French had finally gone over the edge.
“Not forever,” I hastened to add, “Just for a year or two.”
“But you just retired. You have a house and two cats! What are you going to do in Provence?” She was still staring.

“I’m going to be the official on-site manager of five rental cottages on an old restored lavender farm. In France this is called being a guardien. In return for doing this, the owners are going to give me my own stone cottage rent free.” I explained. “They’re off to Australia for a few years.”
“But what will you have to do?” she asked. I could see she was still a bit baffled.
“I’ll have to meet and greet the guests and be sure that the pool man, gardener and housecleaners all do their jobs. How bad can it be? Fields of lavender, the Luberon Mountains in the distance and besides, the sun shines 320 days a year!”
I could see she was still not 100 percent convinced, but I had her attention. She’s known me for a long time and by now has learned never to be entirely surprised when my life takes a hard left at the crossroads.
I’m what is often referred to as a late bloomer. I do things out of order and I keep getting life’s lessons out of their normal sequence. Lessons learned by most toddlers and teenagers, I waited to grasp until middle age … like the lesson that when you’re upset, eating lots of cookies and ice cream may make you feel better, but it also makes you fat, and you may throw up first. I quit doing that.
Maybe I’m in perpetual reverse. When I was in my late teens, people always guessed me to be older than I was. And now, as une femme d’un certain âge (the French have such a nice way of labeling older women), I’m continually told I look much younger than my all too many hard-earned years. I also still keep getting these opportunities for change in my life at a time when I should be rubbing my Social Security check like a magic lamp, waiting for the genie to pop out.
“Sit back. Stay put. Enjoy,” the voices urge. And here I am, sitting on the doorstep of Opportunity and Big Changes. My very own Year In Provence. Yep, just me ‘n Peter Mayle. (He’s the wildly popular British author who immortalized his years in the villages of Provence, much to the horror of the townsfolk when hordes of tourists appeared on the scene.)
“But you’re retired.”whispers the voice of Doubt. “You finally have no demands on your time. No consulting or writing contracts, no job to go to, no business to run. What the hell are you thinking? You can read, paint, write, walk, bike, dance, dream, garden, or NOT, just as you wish. Have you lost your mind?”
And then, for just a moment, I’m terrified. Perhaps I have, indeed, gone completely mad. Off hormone therapy for six months now, who knows what weird short circuit has happened in my body. What? Do I think I’m 20 years old again? In your twenties, that’s when normal people seize chances for change and do things like move to France for a year.
I try to remember what I was doing when I was 20. Then, I remember. I try to forget. Being 20 (or in my case, even 30 or 40), was not a little like an extended bad episode on “Days of Our Lives”. I was mildly miserable, slightly overweight, insatiably insecure and about to leap into the first of my many attempts to control my world and fix it.
That was many years ago. In those years I’ve had opportunities to move on and do things differently than most women my age; chances to re-create myself. I also kept getting lessons, mostly about giving up control and trying to fix it.
I could go on with details of the reverse nature of my life’s opportunities and the lessons: two marriages, and another relationship, maybe too late, but maybe too soon. Major career changes when most of my counterparts were settling in to ride it out to retirement. A major relocation from one part of the state to another. I’m a bit like a kid on a merry-go-round. Someone keeps handing me the brass ring. And, thank God, I keep grabbing it. (That is when I haven’t been trying to control the speed of the merry-go-round and fix the ponies on the platform.)
So what’s my point? It is never to late to listen to your heart, and you are never too old to try something new. That’s heady philosophy, don’t you agree? Hey, I figure when the opportunity comes to move into the new space-station nursing home, I’m gonna’ sign up. Listen to your heart. Make a change. I’ve also become increasingly aware that I cannot control most things, nor can I fix many of them. Someone else is in charge.
And that’s exactly why I’m going to Provence. I’ve learned many lessons. . . some late, some early, some yet to come. It makes me sad to see anyone turn a blind eye as well as their backs on the chance to recreate themselves because our society says, “You are too old.”
There are lessons in all of our experiences. Many of my lessons have had to do with opportunity and age. Age, smage. My theory is that when Opportunity knocks, tell the Voice of Doubt to shut up, grab Opportunity by the nape of the neck and shout, “COME ONNNNN IN!” I can change. I can adjust.
Maybe I am the victim of hormones run amuck, just like some pimply faced adolescent who dreams of being a movie star. I’ve already said I seem to be living my life in some distorted version of reverse. Except I don’t dream of being a movie star. . . (well, not today anyhow, but if the talent agent calls…hey, who am I not to answer the phone.) In the meantime, I have a more modest “call”. Carpe diem. Seize the moment. Move over Peter Mayle. I’m moving to Provence.