Two years ago I realized that I was always walking against the wind. My life had become a Marcel Marceau nightmare.

I was an editor on a newspaper in Tokyo. On sunny mornings as well as cloudy ones, I stood to work packed in a gloomy, silver-blue wagon of the Keihin-Tohoku Line, craving for a spot to perch on. Shoved out of the station, I rushed through the reek of tobacco to swipe my time card by 10 a.m. so that the company would not dock my pay for the few minutes I had dawdled over a breakfast coffee. Toward lunchtime my mind wavered between Chinese and takeout sushi, and later between Dotour's and Tully's for my afternoon coffee. After work, I went swimming when I could, in a vain attempt to firm up my sagging muscles.

And my longed-for weekends just disappeared meeting friends, fixing my 30 sq.-meter apartment or wandering the streets alone trying to draw in a lung full of my fleeting liberty.

All too quickly another week began, and another, and another. I wasn't unhappy with my routine, it felt comfortable to be a working single woman, buying clothes, eating out in restaurants, even taking trips to remote islands.

But one day, as I looked back, I saw a pile of faceless weeks and years sadly lying behind me. Doubt began to creep over me. A small, inner voice began whispering to me to break the chain, break the chain, and when it grew too strong I began listening to it. And I decided to run before the wind.

Thinking back, I don't know if I made an adequate tack then, much less if it left me on the right course. But my surroundings rolled around 180 degrees and the new landfall on my horizon was virgin territory.

Today, I happen to be in France. But don't be jealous, I'm not in romantic Paris or gourmand Lyon, or even the lavender-perfumed Provence of Peter Mayle -- I live in a plain village in France's southeast Haute Garonne Departement, named Auterive. In this country town adorned by a brick-red bridge, a couple of rustic churches and a view of the Pyrenees, I live with my French companion and run a small inn. My new task is to cook for and entertain the guests. I should add that, among the town's some 5,000 or so residents, I'm the only Japanese (although mostly I'm taken for Chinese).

Because I had spent three years in Bordeaux and in Paris, this is not my first experience of living in France -- but living in the countryside is. I don't read at sidewalk cafes, browse in stylish boutiques, dine at fancy restaurants anymore like I used to; I don't go to the movies or to libraries either -- because they don't exist. Instead, I bake tarts and make jams with fresh fruit from the garden. I see wild animals -- hares, squirrels, birds, ducks and deer -- in the yard, and in the house, I chase spiders and even mice. And at night, I watch the stars twinkling generously in the pollution-free sky.

Pleasurable, incomprehensible or embarrassing, each day offers something new in a foreign land, even in the remote village where I live. Every month in The Weekly, I'll be introducing you to some of the people I meet and I'll be telling you about my life in France. And, of course, because this is France, I won't be forgetting the food, especially as my time turns largely around the kitchen and the table.

After several years here, this mysterious country and its unique inhabitants haven't stopped intriguing me. Maybe I'm too Japanese to understand French riddles.

One day another wind may spring up and I'll have to change tack again, but until then I'll enjoy finding my answers here.

I'd welcome any comments or opinions, in Japanese or English, about my column. You can write or fax me at The Weekly, or e-mail me at jtweekly@japantimes.co.jp

The Japan Times Weekly: May 1, 2004
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