Mme Cora's letter
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September 23, 2022
A beautiful Sunday in August
Back from my Gaspesian tour and already settled into a daily routine, what else is there to tell you about than the small ups-and-downs of life at home? The life of a retired CEO can easily be mistaken for a quilt that got unceremoniously shrunk in the wash. A few meetings here and there, one or two words of advice from the founder to department directors, a few chocolate-dipped recommendations for my children… That’s how much my former importance has dimmed.
And yet! How many times have I begged angels and even demons for a single day of peace, for one quiet afternoon spent reading, for one midday movie accompanied by some popcorn and cola or a Monday morning when I can sleep in until noon?
The sky has finally fallen on my head. Everything I asked for was given to me a hundredfold. I’m telling you! Do you remember the two merciless bullies I told you about at the beginning of the pandemic – retirement and old age? They came to me holding hands, without any warning. They ruined everything, both the good and the bad. Now I have to be satisfied with the ordinariness of life from one morning to the next.
Thank goodness, writing saved me! Writing has become my vigorous plant that keeps growing and purifying my existence. I need it as much as I do breathing. And when I don’t have a spectacular tale to tell, words wrap little things up in ribbons and turn them into colourful surprises.
And so each Sunday morning, I sit at a table at the café in my little corner of the Laurentians. The constant coming and going of people keeps the mood lively. Almost no one sits down. Just me, always at the same table. The café-bakery is perfectly situated, at the centre of the town’s bustle. Most of the patrons stop here to get bread and pastries to take home. Occasionally a few regulars sit down to enjoy a coffee. Almost all of them wave to me. To them, I am merely the lady who’s always scribbling, not the woman whose name appears on restaurant fronts across Canada. From where I sit, I am a faded former CEO who still feels useful to any reader hungry for some small talk.
Sundays are a very special day for me because my letter is published on the Cora restaurants Facebook page in the morning. Each week, I have to fight the temptation all day to check how many comments I’ve received. I always worry there won’t be many. Truth be told, the higher the count, the sunnier my mood. And so I always wait until Tuesday morning before taking a look. I am dumbfounded each time by how many readers appreciate my words. And, you know what? I have my own ritual when I read the comments. I sit down on the fir-green sofa in my sunroom, a notebook on a small round table next to me to jot down a few notes if needed, along with a large cup of hot black tea and a few delicious Nonni’s Limoncello biscotti that I buy at Costco as a treat.
I am not an author by profession. I have no clue how to invent a story or to write a beautiful poem. But I have hope. Even if my journey as an apprentice scribbler improves at a snail’s pace, it still opens the doors and invites the little details of daily life, distant memories and the unexpected to enter. My paragraphs are still like showers of disjointed words; “the sum of all that I see, hear and perceive,” as the famous Quebec author, Robert Lalonde, used to say.
10:32 a.m.
Like each Sunday during the summer, I leave the bakery around 10:30/11 and stop at the local flea market. It’s an activity that is almost bucolic, thanks to its country setting. It is also the perfect opportunity to get in a good kilometer of walking, usually taken at a leisurely pace. Glancing left and right, and a few times in front of me, I bump into a rather nice old man. We are in front of a stall filled with fresh vegetables of the day. He offers me a few ears of corn for dinner. I take three and thank him. Darn it all! Even at my age, my eyes are still bigger than my stomach. I will eat two and will have to slice and freeze the third one for vegetable soup this fall.
I move on, feeling somewhat contrite, when a golden nugget grabs my attention. A $1 book by Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who holds many honoris causa from various universities around the world. She spent her life at the side of the dying and firmly believes that “death is but a transition from this life to another existence where there is no more pain and anguish.” According to her, the moment of death is a unique, beautiful and liberating experience, without fear or distress.
Wow! I was too young when I read her book for the first time. I want to believe in her words such as those written on the back cover: “Dying only means moving into a nicer house….Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon.” Good heavens! I need to revisit this book now that three-quarters of a century is pushing me towards the exit. And if I must leave, I will move to paradise and will write about the sublime happiness of the faithful.
12:06 p.m.
Back at home, I open the fridge. Since I already have three peeled hard-boiled eggs, I decide on the best sandwich in the world, one we have been serving in our restaurants since the beginning: the delicious “Egg salad sandwich” (in French, Midi Dolores). It was created in honour of and named after the mother of one of our first franchisees.
With the apron around my waist, I slice a few branches of celery, two or three green onions, a handful of parsley and the hard-boiled eggs. I mix everything together in a bowl and add two spoons of mayo, salt and lots of pepper. I’ve always preferred black pepper to all other colours. I am not a fancy eater and I often wonder where my creativity came from to invent breakfast dishes that our competitors never tire of imitating. I toast two slices of multigrain bread and finish off my sandwich with two large leaves of lettuce. I add radishes and Nantes carrots to my plate, and I peel and slice a cucumber. I am almost convinced that these daily veggies that accompany my main courses are the secret to my narrow septuagenarian waistline. Believe it or not, since the beginning of the pandemic, I’ve lost 15 lb. by stuffing myself with raw vegetables instead of chips, a second serving or extra bites of something fattening.
1:28 p.m.
I finish my tea at the table as I peruse the pages from the weekend edition of Le Devoir. Almost each day after lunch, I fall asleep on the couch in the sunroom while I read. Today, Morpheus might have to wait a little because I am reading a story whose splendid heroine has me transfixed. The author is JULIA KERNINON and the title of the book is LIV MARIA. It’s an exceptional story!
On the back cover, Marine Landrot, from the French magazine Télérama, describes the heroine this way: “Liv Maria’s trajectory has the blinding beauty of ancient tragedies and the frenetic tumult of the contemporary world.”
Cora
❤
September 16, 2022
A message in a bottle!
You can easily imagine that during all those days I spent crisscrossing my native GASPÉSIE, I couldn’t resist the urge to throw a bottle into the sea. I’m telling you! It’s a means of communication just like any other and, who knows, maybe one day a handsome Prince of the sea will find my letter.
And so, when I arrived in PERCÉ in the afternoon, I knew immediately I would act on it. Even more so because the Hotel La Normandie put me in a pretty room steps from the sea, with a big patio door overlooking the famous rock. The location was idyllic, making it the perfect place to write a message to a potential alter ego. But what would I tell him? So many years separate us, and perhaps continents, different cultures and foreign languages too. Would I write in French, in English, draw a dozen red hearts interspersed with twinkling stars? What to do?
I crossed the hotel lawn and walked a few steps to the seashore. I sat on a weather-worn log and soaked my feet in the sea. Overhead, a thousand seagulls were trying to answer me. And, just like a miracle, the wisdom of the water reminded me that I had already written a letter about old philosopher Plato’s theory, recounting the perilous journey of soulmates.
Plato declared that the Earth was once populated with spherical beings with four arms, four legs, a head with two faces (one female, coming from the earth, and the other male, coming from the sun) and the reproductive organs of both sexes. According to the philosopher, these ancestors felt they were superior. In fact, the strength and vigour of these androgynous beings were so extraordinary that they even dared to attack the gods.
Wanting to hold on to his supremacy and weaken these superhumans without wiping them out, the great Zeus decided to split them in half, with each side having one face, two arms, two legs and the respective reproductive organs. Once separated, the halves were pointed in opposite directions, so that they would spend the rest of their lives looking for their missing half, their soulmate. Only then would they finally be happy and whole, as they once were.
If we believe Plato’s word, humans as we know them today are incomplete half-beings –constantly trying to recognize and find their other half in order to be happy.
I don’t believe in this philosophical myth, but the truth is that I have never met my true “soulmate.” And every time I am near the ocean, I feel at home, I become bolder and I am tempted to send my message in a bottle. Who knows what a kind-hearted cod, somewhere in the depths of the sea, might do for me?
Back in my room, I decide to write a poem to my Prince. Using my LAMY red ink fountain pen, I write it down on a nice crisp sheet of white paper whose height I have previously measured so it will fit comfortably in the bottle. An obliging server had given me an empty bottle of Errazuriz Estate Sauvignon blanc with a blue twist cap. I let it soak in hot water in the tub while I write. After I’ve finished writing, I unglue the two labels from the bottle, polish its surface and meticulously dry the interior with the room’s blow dryer. I then roll up the poem and gently slip it into the pretty forest green bottle, accompanied by a strand of my white hair.
The very next morning, before leaving for GASPÉ, I return to the dock in L’Anse-à-Beaufils, dear readers, with my precious bottled message. Everything is perfect. With a hopeful heart, I muster the courage to ask an old sailor about to leave land to kindly take my precious bottle to the open sea and throw it into the water. “Of course I will, ma’am!” I will never forget the kind sailor’s smile as he held my bottle close to his heart and wished it to its destined port for my sake.
POEM FOR MY SOULMATE
I was born tearful, for I had left you.
Where we were joined in love, united.
Did we walk here together through this tunnel?
By Zeus, now I am alone, forbidden and punished.
My weeping eyes fumble for you.
Where are you? In what mysterious depths?
Three new breaths came out of me.
Three reasons I wish for better attire.
I managed, and managed well at that.
Clinging to work, so far from your fingers’ reach.
You are always there, in my head, looking for me.
Me, your beloved, your beautiful other half.
I imagine you are both talkative and serene.
Can you hear in the distance my heart in turmoil?
I long to find you and hear your voice.
May you find me as beautiful as before.
My walled heart combs the bottom of the seas.
May you find my bottle in the sea.
May you break this glass prison and console me.
Cora
❤
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September 9, 2022
I dreamt it into life
During all those long, almost forced months of confinement, I often thought of my dear GASPÉSIE dearest and I was desperate to finally see it again one day. Now I have done it, and I am delighted to have done so. There is something magical about finally bringing a dream to life that you have held on tightly to for a long time; an unequalled sense of contentment. Have you ever experienced it? Think about it. Life is like Sputnik, it goes by so fast! And we have so many things to do just to stay alive. It’s rare we are satisfied and greatly content. This morning, I am satisfied and I realize that this recent trip was different from my previous expeditions to the land of my childhood. This time, I barely spoke to anyone. I travelled as one with the sea, the lush nature, the audacious mountains and the infinitely beautiful road. And yes, I was alone in my Mini Cooper, just like each time I head out on the road to a far-off destination. This trip was a great surprise to me. While roaming totally free in nature, my inspiration shot into the clouds.
I definitely intend to repeat the experience, to leave on these adventures more often. I return home, my head filled with achievable ideas: Go to MONT-TREMBLANT more often, MONT-LAURIER and even further north. Visit the Eastern Townships and also travel WEST and dip my toes in Ontario’s Great Lakes.
Try it and find out. Take the car and head somewhere, even if just for an afternoon or an entire day. Take a few apples with you, a sandwich, a bottle of water and your favourite candy. I’m telling you! Do like I did; bite into a candy and turn back the years. Open the windows and let the wind brush your lovely face. Admire the landscape; take in all the beauty that’s in front of you. And empty your mind. Empty the wastebasket of worries that clog the artery leading to your heart. Birds fly because they don’t carry any baggage.
You must surely know of Thomas Edison, the famous American who commercialized the electric light bulb. He also left us with the popular saying that genius is 2% inspiration and 98% sweat. Do you know what his last words were before passing on October 18, 1931? He said: “IT IS VERY BEAUTIFUL OVER THERE.” Encouraging, isn't it? You should know that one of my favourite pastimes is to collect famous people’s last words before their final rest. And you, dear readers, do you sometimes think of the last words your loved ones will hear from you?
I didn’t have a precise itinerary for this trip; I had no event to attend and no friend or family to visit. The reality is that only the seagulls knew I was among them. I just wanted to hang on to the wheel and drive towards the sea. I had my iPAD with me, a box of sharpened colouring pencils, HP lead pencils, a drawing book and three notepads in case a whale whispered a few secrets to me. And, to my surprise, I didn’t draw or colour. I just filled four notepads with everything I saw and thought of while driving. Very often, I would park my Mini to describe the scenery, note a question, an impression or simply how I felt in the moment. I was happy to drive with the radio and an iceless cooler containing (many!) well-washed apples, carrots, pears, keto crackers, water bottles and my assortment of vitamins as my only companions. Once I had crossed the Matapedia Valley, I was home.
While driving, I truly had the impression, dear readers, that you were with me, comfortably installed in the back seat. I was talking to you, turning my head on occasion to hear your comments, ask you a question or laugh at a silly village name. I wasn’t alone in the car, you were with me.
I read, the other night, in a small $6.95 book entitled “The Golden Rules of Positive Thinking” that we can find a way to stay young at heart if we smile 400 times a day. I can produce a dozen smiles in the morning in front of the mirror – that’s easy. I try on one or two pairs of different coloured glasses, I choose a nice scarf or flower-studded headband, I crimp my hair, apply lipstick, remove the siren red and switch for a candy pink hue, and so on. My face is a blank page on which I begin a new story every morning. And the book’s author will have the last word. It is up to me to multiply the smiles by pairing the colours of my clothes with a pretty pin, some handmade bracelets and matching socks. Bright colours invariably elicit smiles. Try it and you’ll see. I provoke many smiles myself as I hobble along. And that makes it a lot easier for me to stay young at heart.
How I would love to go back to the little girl with the golden locks I was when I was five. Playing marbles with my brother, I would believe in my mother’s love and I’d never meet the dreadful man who ruined my dreams as a young woman.
Hypnotized by the whirlwind of life, do we really have time for a small movement of the mouth and eyes? Of course WE DO! A smile takes a nanosecond to appear. Shall we deprive ourselves of thousands of small daily joys hidden within a contagious smile? Of course NOT!
Coming back from my trip with nine letters filled with this and that, I truly felt like I had no more beautiful sentences left in me. And yet, as I switched on my iPAD this morning, hundreds of pretty words jostled to leave my mind. Words tonified by conviction and hope.
So I will continue to write to convince myself and you, dear readers, that life is worth living. Let us fill our days with bright smiles and let us remain young at heart, together.
Cora
❤
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September 2, 2022
Rivière-du-Loup, headed to Montreal (Final travel letter)
I finally arrive in Rimouski at 5:20 p.m. I’m starving! I follow the river and, when I reach Hôtel Rimouski, a hundred graduates in their prom suits and gowns are roaming the lawns and sidewalks. Two small cruise ships are moored at the dock. The adolescents get onboard. I am so hungry, my stomach rumbles. I leave the waterfront and turn onto St. Germain Boulevard. I park and enter the “Spaghetti House” restaurant, an institution since it opened. My belly satisfied, I decide to drive to RIVIÈRE-DU-LOUP (literally “wolf’s river”). Quick, I need a coffee to keep me awake! The sky is still very bright. The road is beautiful and the wolf awaits.
8:10 p.m. Do I have any cherries left? I’ve eaten all the hard candy and my throat is dry. I cross the bridge over to RIVIÈRE-DU-LOUP. I look right, left. I look everywhere searching for the wolf and a place to spend the night. I finally find lodging, but no wolf! At $200 per night, even the outskirts in GASPÉSIE are pricey. Perhaps that’s why so many RVs are on the roads. Food and lodging for less, but monthly payments throughout the year. To each their own package.
After soaking in a hot bath, I finish François Rabelais’ biography. I fall asleep in an oversized and super comfortable bed. I wake up very early, around 4:30 a.m. according to the hotel clock. I have a single thought in mind, the last sentence pronounced by Rabelais before his passing on April 9, 1553: “I GO TO SEEK THE GREAT PERHAPS.” I repeat this sentence nonstop until I come to the conclusion once again that nobody knows what awaits us afterwards.
I put my clothes away, turn the Keurig on and pour myself a black coffee. I write for about two hours until I clear my head and leave the hotel. Anxious to lie on my favourite couch in the Laurentians, I jump at Highway 20’s invitation to head home. My foot heavy on the pedal, I drive on the long tail of a siren who swims faster than all. The harlot dares to carve up farm land. She disturbs the villages, the wind’s direction and the moose’s trails. When I reach LA POCATIÈRE, thousands of baby fir trees try to grow, glued to this villain. I need gas. It is already too late to take the exit when the big yellow Shell emerges from the clouds. I have to concentrate like Tom Cruise in his F18. The words PETRO-CANADA appear on a sign. I miss the exit again! I did read the sign, but immediately forgot the exit number as I read it. Damn old age. A kind-hearted friend suggested I get a chauffeur. Not going to happen. I love to drive!
“Everything that happens is not without consequence,” says Boucar Diouf as I tune in to RADIO-CANADA. Seven million years ago, mankind stood up and discovered back pain. I, for one, have pain in my left knee. I often imagine that the muscles in this leg are knitting a steel scarf around my kneecap. According to Boucar, 1 billion people live with back pain. How many have bad knees?
Highway 20, also named Jean-Lesage (a former politician), has such a serious demeanour. It never learned how to waltz with the landscape or twirl with the mountains in GASPÉ, or brush against a beautiful lake, lost in nature. It is the straightest road in the Gaspé Peninsula. Dearest readers, can you keep a secret? For goodness’ sake, please don’t tell anyone that I take notes as I drive, in a notepad placed on my right thigh. I know! My kids must never read these travel letters or they will take my car keys away from me. I seem sweet and kind, but under my hawk feathers, I’m a bold one who’s not afraid of danger. I am only afraid of snakes, eels and everything limbless that slithers on this earth.
I nearly died as a young mother. I was mopping the floor in the kids’ room. I came across a big brown grocery bag in the closet. I open the bag, and in that instant, I experienced the worst moment of my entire life. I see a dozen young snakes tangled together in the bag. My heart stops beating. I exit the room, close the door, take an armchair from the living room and place it against the door of the snake room. I had to stop them from finding their way into the rest of the house. Seriously, I thought I would die of fright!
11:20 a.m. I still have some cherries left. I eat a few. The pits fly out the window. The soft rain transforms into a storm. I close the windows. A miserable pit hits the glass, reverses direction and falls directly on my white shirt. The HORROR! I promptly stop eating the damned cherries. There are only 4 or 5 left and I throw them to the crows. I hesitate and then open a pack of CLOROX disinfectant wipes. Will I make it better or worse if I attempt to clean the cherry’s red blood that has settled into the stitches of the white knitted top? “When in doubt, let’s refrain,” my late mom whispers to me.
MONTREAL, 160 kilometres. I drive and, suddenly, the only things my eyes see are the many dark brown spots on the two hands holding the steering wheel. What are those? Small parcels of old age roasting in the sun? I never cared for my skin despite the 3 or 4 jars of cream I receive every Christmas. I much prefer getting new books, but my daughter is forever hopeful I will improve my personal appearance. She insists every time she finds a blackhead on my nose, a new wrinkle on my neck, or worse, the damned red pimples on top of my forehead. Sometimes, I would like to be someone else, a magnificent woman. A Lise Watier, for example. So sweet, so noble and so beautiful. I’m certain she can never get old.
The 20 clears up and so does the sky. I try to sing a little. My heart flies to Iceland, where a few of my favourite authors live. These geniuses of the page know how to dress their sentences with beauty and masterfully strike a judicious balance between the human spirit and our physical shell.
1:29 p.m. I bite into a carrot, swallow vitamins and it takes the edge of my craving for food. Which bridge onto the Island of Montreal has the least traffic? It’s Friday and urban dwellers are escaping the city, I suppose. I grab a “cream of coconut mint” candy. The mint part of the candy tastes good, but the coconut has no flavour. Disappointed, I bite down on the candy and, miracle, I discover the delicious coconut cream. Such is life! We meet someone, we chat a bit and, most often, we part ways. We throw away the candy. But when we insist, when we shatter the first impression, we often discover the delicious, the marvellous. Are we so disposed to hiding the best in ourselves?
This small, unique heart of goodness inside each of us is our treasure, our vessel of tenderness and generosity. Take very good care of it; take very good care of yourselves, dearest readers. Take care of this vessel of love at your core that animates your existence. This is the grace that I wish upon you with all of my heart!
END OF THE TRAVEL LETTERS.
Cora
❤
P.S. – You needn’t worry, more stories to follow!
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