Bye.
Jacqueline bounced out the door for her daily two-hour run at dawn, fitting right in with the Chamonix-ers in her supercute beanie and de rigueur down puffer. Camille and I then had time to decide the day. We already had walked the town to and fro for many fascinated hours, scooting in and out of shops to try on the latest ski boots, breakfast on bakeries’ pain au chocolats, choose which color puffer to take home, and snap up chic Chamonix-Mont Blanc tee-shirts, mugs, artwork, whatnots. We lit candles, said prayers, at the baroque Saint Michel church, built by the Benedictines with a bell tower dating from 1119. We prowled the serious sports shops, where Camille fondled rock-climbing ropes, pitons, ice axes, and other essentials for, say, escaping from under an avalanche, or hoisting oneself – and perhaps one’s friends – out of a crevasse. She was impossible to pull away from one store’s bird-like paraglider set up as a floor display.
“I hope you’re not getting any ideas,” I had said. The Chamonix skies were ridiculous. Everyone was up there, it seemed, loop-de-looping after their leap from some Alp crag in a flight that took them soaring to the valley floor like it all was no harder than…well, jumping off a cliff.
“Why?” she replied. “It can’t be that difficult. Look at how many people are up there!”
So, after discussion the plan for the day came down to: ride the gondola to the top of the Brévent-Flégère ski hill to check-out whatever action was happening up there, or drive around awhile to ride the gondola to the top of the Argentière ski hill, located farther afield. Since I was with Camille, I did worry that “whatever action” could make for a very, very unpleasant day, but I was game. I mean, she couldn’t make me strap into a paraglider if I absolutely refused. And if she said, oh, stop it. You will be with an instructor for a tandem flight, so what’s the big deal? I certainly still could stay safely behind the childproof locks in our rental Fiat’s backseat. Remember, Colette, you can always say no AND MEAN IT.
Once Jacqueline bounced back, we were off. After a short drive and quick hike, we arrived at the Brévent gondola to find only workmen in overalls milling around the entrance. Fermé said a sign: closed.
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said with secret glee. “Seeing the mountain is closed for maintenance, I guess there’s nothing else to do but go to lunch at a wonderful café in the village. We could get a nice sidewalk table? In the sun?”
“No,” said Camille. “Let’s head to the other place.” During our lovely drive winding along the Chamonix valley floor, where the snow-tipped Mont Blanc massif shared by France, Italy, and Switzerland surrounded us, the area’s renown as the birthplace of mountaineering was being enjoyed by all. Everyone, except those far-away faces in the sky too high to see, looked happy: they were getting sweaty on their bike or driving their kayak to the river or speed-walking their backpack to the trailhead. I felt like a sloth – a sloth dressed to sit around and already ready for lunch, who was anxious about being driven to whatever outdoor “adventure” my sister was plotting. So, not only was I the not-fun cat-mom, I was the weenie unwilling to risk living with gusto, bravado, or anything more than minor derring-do.
I suddenly recalled the weekly mountain-bike rides that once upon a time Camille would lead in the forest near our home. Mile after grueling mile we would climb and climb and finally descend a little too fast for my liking. Once, I hit a root wrong, crashed to the ground, and skidded off the trail. And there I was: barfing and bloody in the bushes. You go girl! After ensuring I was actually all right, my sister was so pleased and proud: I was her shining idea of nana korobi, yaoki, the Japanese proverb meaning fall down seven times, get up eight, and though I limped from the ditch still sick from the day’s heat and overexertion, I remounted my bike. “That’s it, old girl,” she laughed and laughed, loving the fun of it all – the fresh air, the forest, the sister she loved to push through self-imposed limits. “You did great today! Next week, we’ll do the climb twice.”
Where did that sister go? Since those rides I had sold my bike. Why? I had no idea, other than I simply wasn’t riding. I then thought of Violet, our next-door neighbor at the family beach house. You know you are getting old, she liked to say, when you no longer swim in the sea. In her sprightly nineties, every day without fail Violet would don a faded, saggy swimsuit no doubt dating from the Lusitania and painfully toddle on arthritic legs across the sand until she met the surf. Wading into the frigid water with not the slightest hesitation, she would swim beyond the breakers and become – to all who nervously watched her – a girl again of 20. Her stroke strong, her kick vigorous, she was at home in the sea: a nymph of beauty, grace and ease. After her swim when she rose from the ocean, I swear, like Venus from the froth, I, for one, was in awe. I want to be like Violet. But honestly, these days? When was the last time I toddled anywhere near even a heated pool, much less brave public display in a swimsuit?
Like Camino, who was secretly speaking to Camille about the state of his spirit, it was clear: I had better tend to mine, too. And not like it’s an emergency, but now.
“OK, I’ll try it,” I blurted from the backseat – quickly, before I could change my mind.
“Try what?” Camille maybe thought I meant a Werther’s; she and Jacqueline were pre-lunching on them up front, the cup holder overflowing with wrappers.
“Paragliding.”
“Oh, yeah, right. Are you nuts??” She tilted the rearview mirror to better see what losing my mind looked like. “You go ahead and I’ll watch.” She laughed like she’d oh-so-love the spectacle of her sister spiraling to her doom in the arms of a handsome French paragliding guide, their tandem fall so romantic. She finally found her One, at last. “No way am I doing that. Not in a million years!”
“But you’ve been obsessed with them ever since we left Lugano!”
“Well, maybe, but not for me,” Camille clarified. “You know how afraid I am of heights!”
I’ll admit. I was in a state of tremendous joy and relief when we pulled into le parking of the gondola at Argentière. Just like at Brévent, the Fermé sign in combo with the milling workmen in overalls meant we were too early in the year to join the “whatever was happening” at the mountain’s top. Chamonix was gearing up for the next high season post-summer, aka winter, so before the first snows fell, its November agenda was to prep the scene for those who would take full advantage of the place once it was dressed again in wonderland white.
“Oh, that’s disappointing,” I said with inner ecstasy that our afternoon options for derring-do were reduced tame entertainments in Chamonix village. “Let’s go get Camino and find a café table in the sun for a long, lingering lunch; we can be pretend Europeans!”
“We can do lots of that in Paris,” said Camille, crushed that her risky-adventure tank was so low on fuel as to be running on fumes. She would not be happy, I knew, unless she “did Chamonix” in a way that scared her – not a lot like running off a cliff dressed in a kite, but a little, like climbing Mt. Denali as the only girl on a team of guys – everyone connected by rope – who spent three solid weeks trudging above the treeline – no toilet, no shower, no bed but for a flimsy, freezing tent. To enjoy some yummy Savoyard fondue on a peaceful patio? Phooey. My sister was made for challenge. Danger with her name on it – now we’re talking.
“What if tomorrow we head to Mégève, with a visit to Val d’Isère?” I had read the roads to these high-Alps resorts were terrifying. Skinny, twisty mountain passes sometimes sans guardrails, where hairy hairpin turns and steep cliffside climbs begged for winter closure: they were that scary. “I hear the drive is spectacular.”
“OK, sounds great,” said Camille. And with that I at last got a fabulous fondue lunch, in the sun.
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