Four on a bench Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches
Harika in the Park LFP Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches

Dog on the Street Paris Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on Canvas 10.5 x 14 inches

Directing traffic Paris Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on wood 5 x 10.5 inches

Watering Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on panel 10.75 x 16 inches

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I made it back to Paris just as the volcanic cloud lifted. My direct flight from Washington, DC, flew straight across the Atlantic to the Azores and Portugal, rather than along the coasts of Nova Scotia and Scotland like it usually does. It took a bit longer, but it was glorious to see Paris and the Seine, a rare opportunity from the plane. The approach was more prolonged than usual and took a route directly over the city.

Blair and I go back a ways with volcanoes: our marriage was heralded in with the eruption of Mount Saint Helen the week before. I don’t remember such disruption of the world that time, but I probably had stars in my eyes.

On this trip I was hauling 100 pounds of baggage, for which I paid $50.00 extra: this was a bargain, based on the postal rates. There is no more international parcel post, the method used in our former relocations.

Blair had been decorating the house in my absence: an apple green bedroom with new yellow curtains and an oriental rug; a goose yellow living room. With so much light, the colors glow, and we look beautiful eating dinner at the table together.

We shared our dinner last night with a friend, S, impromptu. I’d purchased a coquelet (the unfortunate chicken that turned out to be a rooster), too small for three, but I cooked it up with a risotto and salad. Voila! Our first dinner with a guest in the new house.

The trees burst into bloom during my near one-month absence. The chestnuts are in full blossom and the canopy on the boulevard Raspail is thick and verdant. My balcony begs for decoration: I’ve been cruising the web for roses and olive trees, kitchen herbs and planter boxes. How could an olive tree cost so much?

The weather is super-good: cool mornings and nights, with warm, sunny days. I’ve been on the balcony a lot, and the windows are open nearly all the time. The world passed below my balcony yesterday, and I studied various moves and gestures.

I was sorry to leave my friends in North Carolina and Washington, DC. But I needed to come back to Paris to live. The joys and difficulties here enrich my life, making the simple seem marvelous and the horrible less so. On the way home from Harika’s walk this morning, I found a hula hoop and gave it a spin around my middle, just for the heck of it.

GOSPEL Soloist Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on wood 6 x 18 inches

GOSPEL Girls section Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on canvas 12 x 12 inches SOLD

GOSPEL Bass Laurie Fox PESSEMIER Acrylic on wood 6 x 18 inches

There is something quintessentially American about the High Point Furniture Market: cheerful people, dressed up, putting their best foot forward, hoping beyond hope they will sell more than they ever sold before. I am here, and I espouse all those principles.

This morning breakfast was served outside the showroom at 200 North Hamilton -- quiche, bagels, mimosas. The most wonderful thing was the Gospel singers. They played in the way jazz musicians all wound up sound, but at 9 in the morning: tone, rhythm and SOUL. Big black women with hair; heavy black men with hand gestures altogether channeling the genius of god, American style. Genius comes and takes over when one is present to perform*. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does it is thrilling.

The gospel singers’ performance wasn’t universally enjoyed, but I was there almost every minute. In the end, I was the single member of the audience, letting out a cry of “Ole” (god).

Last night we sat outside on the deck of my host’s house. Here in High Point, people open their homes at this time to visitors at Market. We drank wine and spotted fireflies in the trees. I recounted my favorite firefly story about a friend’s aunt who sewed nylon pockets into an otherwise drab party dress: when the sun went down the fireflies did their thing.

Conversation led to the subject of courage and cowardice. It takes courage to face reality, mundane or dramatic as that might be. I admire the courage of my father caring for my ailing mother; of a friend’s husband deciding to stick with her through a life fraught with problems. It take courage to do what one knows to be right, when running in the other direction would be ever so easy.

The gospel singers were courageous to be performing here, doing what they believe in. Putting one's self on the sidewalk to be judged by the public takes nerve. It takes courage to do what one knows is right in life, cowardice to cower in a vocation or behavior ordained by default. Even though I am in a situation where there may be too few buyers, I want to keep on painting. It is why god made me.