Rose Month Day 26: Château Roses

The first professional shoot I did after I had Eloise was @chateaumoissacbellevue. It was hard. My body was not my own, nor was my mind. I remember the sensation of trying to move as I had always moved, easily, energetically, and being surprised at how it felt as if my feet were sunk in mud. Feeling not at all my normal self. And I wasn’t, it was a wake-up call that life would never be the same now that I was a mother.

The owners, two of the most down to earth kind people I have ever met, asked me this evening over an apero on the terrace, “Do you prefer living in the United States or France?” Well, what a day to ask that question. Here’s the other thing about today, and the past couple of days. I can’t stop thinking about Uvalde, Texas. On the two-hour drive today as my mind drifted looking outside the window, questions popped into my head I would ask Kevin who, like me, can’t fully emotionally process this situation unfolding. It’s unbearable, I know we all feel this way. So here were are, in France, not afraid of being shot going to the grocery store, or movies, or sending sweet Eloise to school but… in the words of a poem Kevin read to me today, “America is a gun.” And that gun is a shot heard around the world. It affects us all. Those children are our children. For me, the solution will never, ever, be "more guns" or "more locks" or "more security" or "fewer exits" (how many more times do we have to watch these protocols fail and innocent lives lost?) - the only solution is fewer guns.

Today I closed my eyes and inhaled the scent of friendship, love, safety, my own little family, and inspiration in the vessel of a rose, and as this sun sets on a simple, calm, uneventful day in Provence I felt thankful to be alive, I felt thankful to be a mother, and thankful that on this day Eloise was by my side. All mothers deserve that.

#RoseMonth for all who love