Niches and Nests

 

This photo was taken at the moment I bought my Nest, my studio in southern France. I had co-owned a house in the same village with two anthropologists, but then they ended up divorcing.

My goal was to pack fish in Iceland half of each year to earn money and go to France to write for the rest of the year.

I wrote a French friend. "Can you help me find a place to buy?Anything between Carcassonne and the Spanish border will do." 

He did. Remember the movie, If it's Tuesday It Must Be Belgium? He had arranged to see so many places it was "If it's 11:00 it must be Collioure and if it's 11:30 it must be Port Vendre. We had five days.

On the third day, the minute I walked up the stairs into the 3rd floor European (4th floor American) studio, I knew this was it. A Coupe de Foudre, Love at First Sight. 

It had stone walls, wooden beams, a fireplace, sky light and cathedral ceiling. The building was 400+ years old, and at one point in its history my future Nest would have been filled with hay. There were three other apartments, one of each of the other stories.

"How much?"

"180,000 French Francs." That was $18,000 at that current exchange rate.

"I'll take it."

Not only was my dream to write there, but to live as simply as possible. I wanted everything I owned to be

• Beautiful
• Useful
• A memory

Even my dustpan would fulfill this. On a visit to my stepmother's in Florida, I met an artist who painted a special design on a dust pan that now has swept up dust for decades.

Of course, things didn't go as expected. I didn't go to Iceland or pack fish anywhere, but ended up in another corporate job, this one in Switzerland, where I became proudly Swiss. 

I succeeded in writing several of my books in the Nest in free time and retirement. I had exactly what I needed and not one thing extra. Studios don't have room for extras.

When I married my love, it was too small for two especially when one of us found my love of austerity hard to follow.

The Nest became that for many others. A Czech family reunited under one roof for the first time since the cold war, several artists painted there when they needed to get away, five women, each from a different generation enjoyed an Easter weekend of bonding and good food, people just needing peace from a turbulent life found not just peace but claimed healing in my Nest. 

I never charged, although it would make a great B&B. 

Some things aren't about money. They are about beauty, love and making dreams or parts of dreams come true.