Apprivoise moi
A sojourn, a summertime escape, in the South of France.
I was in the South of France for a month, in the summer of 2013. After traversing through the Netherlands, to small Spanish villages, I went to Barcelona before taking a bus to Perpignan, France. Continuing through the natural landscapes of the French Catalan country, staying for two to three days in each of the towns and villages, I reached Marseille, six days later.
A month after this journey, in the week that I was to resume my life as an office worker, I read the French classic, Le Petit Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The author had gone missing on a flight at the age of 44, and was presumed dead or killed in action, as he had been assigned to a reconnaissance mission at the time of World War II. The plane wreckage was only recently discovered in the Mediterranean sea, not far from the coastline between Marseille and Cassis. Between being jetlagged for days on end and preparing for the demands of a career, I was enchanted by the story that every French adult knew and remembered well.
Sitting at a cafe along the Singapore River, I asked my French companion to leave me with a French word I could learn from him. He had been interviewing me for a role; he was a Managing Director of a firm in my area of expertise. It was a custom of mine to ask this of the people I met: some were clients, others friends. My companion of the evening left me with the word apprivoiser, after learning of my interest in Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. The story goes like this…
One day, observing that the Little Prince was near, the Fox approached him. This Fox was a wild creature, super wild, and he had no idea how it felt like, to belong to someone, to be beloved by a human being the way an animal de compagnie, a little pet, truly belonged to its owner. The Fox wanted to experience how it was like to be tamed, and so he asked the Little Prince, “Apprivoise moi?”
This tale echoes the feeling that I had when I reached the Lake Bouillouses in the Pyrénées. My first time in such a savage yet serene nature-scape, flanked by the pleasurable silence of the mountains, and in many places outnumbered by animals and trees, I felt enchanted, breathless, wishing to belong, if only for a mere few moments before it was time to leave.
I remember the long trudge to those Calanques, feet balanced on white rocks, the sun on my shoulders. I remember inhaling the cold, dry air of the mountains, tinged with the aroma of the spectacular pine forests. There is always a place in the world that can capture your soul. Perhaps that place is somewhere nearby. Perhaps it is somewhere you have been, a long time ago. Perhaps it is a place you have not yet explored, but whose shape you know in your soul — a place where mountains meet seas, where horses run wild, where the cold, dry wind in your nostrils signals that you can cease to know yourself and be consumed, headlong, into the journey of discovery.
Not too long ago, I was asked by someone I loved, if I would feel the same way as Julie Deply’s character, Celine, did, in the movie Before Sunrise. She said this:
‘You talked earlier about how a couple would begin to hate each other after a few years, when they start to anticipate each other’s reactions or tire of their mannerisms, but I think it might be the opposite for me.
It’s when I know everything about someone — the way they part their hair, which shirt they’re going to wear, the exact story they’d tell in a given situation — that I really fall in love.
I’m sure that’s when I know I’m really in love.’
And I knew immediately what my answer would be.
“Apprivoise moi?”
First published in print (2014) under the title Summertime 2013: South of France in Afterglobe Magazine Issue No 1: Pilot
The writer is a native of Singapore who loves the savage beauty of mountains and seas. A film photography enthusiast, she aims to capture known and unknown places, arousing a sense of nostalgia for the fragile moments of everyday life. This is just her second year of travel film photography.
In 2013, she has been to Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Sri Lanka, Spain, The Netherlands and the South of France. In 2014, she has visited Rome & Cinque Terre in Italy, and her next trip will be back to Phnom Penh, Cambodia; and Bali, Indonesia, on her first humanitarian effort.
Please back her crowdfunding effort for her debut photo book launch ‘My Everyday Marseille’ here.
