I'm sad to learn this morning that Anthony Bourdain has died. I've read at least one of his books, I've watched his TV shows, and I've always admired his energy, his curiosity, his love of good food, his cooking, his humor, and his willingness to share private details of his complex life. I've identified with his love of France and French foodways. I can see myself immersed his his videos and books this summer and fall.
It's Saturday. The "excision" of my small basal-cell carcinoma went well. I felt no pain at all. It took Madame Chaubert-Rollinot, dermatologist in Saint-Georges-sur-Cher near Montrichard, just 20 minutes to remove the damaged tissue from my chest. We had a nice chat in French during the procedure. I'll be nervous, of course, until I get the biopsy results. Who knows how long the carcinoma had been there? It was just a tiny pimple-looking thing. Even so, Dr. Chaubert told me that closing the wound took four points de suture (stitches).
My mother. Her sister. My father's older sister.
One of my best long-time friends (since 1973). Two of my mother's good friends in N.C. A woman I worked with and enjoyed working with in California for 25 years. A close friend of our friend Sue, who is visiting us in Saint-Aignan right now, and who was a friend to me and Walt too.
Two of my older cousins on my mother's side of the family. Two of our neighbors here in our little hamlet.
One of France's most talented singers, France Gall, whose songs appealed to generations of French people and taught me so much French. Johnny Hallyday, the French rock and pop star. Writer and Académie Française member Jean d'Ormesson. I'm sure I've forgotten many. May they all rest in peace and live on in our memories.
At least six of these people died of cancer, and two committed suicide. One or more had cardio-vascular disease. And I almost forgot to mention our dog Callie who we dearly loved for 10 years and who died very suddenly a year ago. We found her lying on the floor paralyzed one afternoon and she never recovered.
I can't tell you how happy I am glad to be living in France. I came here to live out the rest of my days on Earth being where I wanted to be for so long when I was working in the U.S. between 1982 and 2002. I'm doing my best to enjoy this summer and these warm, muggy days we're having. The low temperature this morning is as warm as a normal summer day usually gets in this climate. It's going to be hot, and maybe stormy, this afternoon. Yesterday was a beautiful day. Weather permitting, I have an idea for another walk around the village this afternoon (but maybe not seven miles!), and Walt has given me the idea to take Sue to the famous rose-growing village of Chédigny.
Until yesterday on JMG, I’d never heard of Anthony Bourdain. He seemed to have a very interesting personality. Suicide doesn’t happen by accident. I wonder what led him to such an extreme decision.
ReplyDeleteYour département, Loir-et-Cher, is under vigilance orange for rain and thunderstorms. What else is new? Hope you didn't have any outing planed for today!
DeletePlus ça change....
DeleteI wonder too. He committed suicide, reports say, in a hotel room in Paris. Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential book made quite a splash in the year 2000. I read it back then.
ReplyDeleteWhat I read, is he commited suicide in his hotel room im a small town near Strasbourg in Alsace.
DeleteEarlier CNN was reporting that Bourdain was in Paris, but I see on CBS that he was actually in Kaysersberg, in Alsace. He hanged himself.
DeleteYes, he commited suicide by hanging at Hôtel Le Chambard in Kaysersberg, a small town closer to Colmar than it is to Strasbourg.
DeleteWithout commenting on anything specific in your post, it was very sweet, and and kind, and nice to read. As is said, getting old is not for the faint hearted.
ReplyDeleteOld age is not for sissies, that's what my mother and her neighbors in their retirement village would say.
DeleteIt stuns me every time I hear of another death of someone I've known of for most of my life -- all of the celebrities who have been aging all along, though I always think of them as the young people they were when I first heard of them. Add on to that, the loved ones and friends and acquaintances, as you mention... it's a part of life we don't ever get used to.
ReplyDeleteI have been thinking of Callie, too, of course, remembering that day I finally got to meet her, and new little Tasha, last year.
Your pictures of chickens here make me smile, because we just got a note on our online neighborhood forum, "Someone's chickens near Woodlawn Ave are running loose all over the road!" Ha! Even here in the 'burbs, one of the houses has a chicken coop, and I've seen the chickens walking around the yard, and spoken with the woman who owns the house, about them. They're all kinds of interesting-looking breeds of chickens. Somehow, I guess, the door to the hen house must have come open. I hope she saved them all!
I'm surprised that people in your neighborhood (even though I have no idea what it is like) keep chickens. I don't remember any one keeping chickens in Champaign-Urbana when I lived there, or in Morehead City NC where I grew up, with the exception of my grandfather who kept them back in the 1960s (he passed in 1969). Sometimes I think I'd like to keep chickens and ducks but they would just be another thing to tie me down and prevent me from doing more traveling. About celebrities, I was really shocked when France Gall died, even though she was older than I am. She always seemed so young. We were lucky to go to two concerts she did in Paris back in 1994-96. There were people of all generations there enjoying the music. People sang along, including me.
DeleteFingers crossed for good results from your procedure, Ken. Yes, sunning, or sunburning in my case, ourselves in our youth was so common, and now we feel the delayed effects of it, many years later. But the medical community is making great strides to deal with what ails us as we age, thank goodness.
ReplyDeleteIn the community in which we live, we have seen so many pass on...we see the the closing of the circle of life. Bourdain. Such a shock. So many are fighting so hard to remain, it is always a shock when someone chooses not to. But our demons are sometimes only visible to ourselves....
In my young years I often got very bad sunburns on the N.C. coast. Sorry you had the same experience. As for suicides, rates are up, apparently. I believe in the right to end one's own life, but it's a very complicated issue and can be so painful for friends of the deceased.
DeleteI agree also. When my sister was near the end, and my father also years ago, I know the place they were in was not their wish. But even with the right to end one's life here in CA, there are still many many hoops to jump through. In the end, too many for my sister, since her mind left before her body finally let go.
DeleteWith suicides, the devastation left behind is so difficult, unless there is some explanation.
"I can't tell you how happy I am glad to be living in France." Ken, some time ago you and Walt were working on taking out French citizenship - but the blog entries on the subject stopped. Did you decide not to proceed? Just curious. Roderick
ReplyDeleteInertia. I have all the paperwork and translations. I just need to turn everything in to the authorities, have ID photos taken, and pay the 55 euro fee. My resident's card is good for 15 more months, so I still have time. I plan to take the papers in this summer.
DeleteI had this conversation the other day with an American woman who's lived in France for more than ten years., urging her to complete the process. Do keep us posted on how it goes.
DeleteI know the mayor of our village will say a good word to the authorities when I finally turn the papers in. With the new puppy last year, two emergency trips to N.C. when my mother moved from one apartment to another and then fell ill and left us, having a horrible cold and cough for 6 or 7 weeks, and then getting the yard under control and the garden planted... well, I just haven't found or made the time to finish the naturalization process. When our friend leaves to return to California, next week, I plan to get moving again.
DeleteJ'ai été aussi très affecté par le suicide d'Anthony Bourdain. C'est étrange parce que je ne le connaissais qu'à peine via ses vidéos et ses livres qui m'avaient passionnés. Il me semblait être un de ces types dont on voudrait être l'ami.
ReplyDeleteJe vous souhaite de vivre longtemps à Saint Aignan.
Yes, a sad week. Bourdain's suicide was shocking - from the outside he seemed to have everything. Then there was Kate Spade earlier in the week, another very successful New Yorker.
ReplyDeleteGlad your skin procedure went well.
It would be an honour to have a compatriot like you
ReplyDeleteWhat Andrew said.
ReplyDeleteFrance has been good to you both (and vice versa).
Hugs.