Return to Shangri-La

Paradise is a myth, but it’s good to be here

They say you always bring a little bit of home with you. On July 22, I left a summer of heat and fire in the American West and boarded a plane to our Shangri-La, the bit of paradise we’ve carved out in the French Alps. That same day, a fire broke out in the Gironde region of Southwest France that has grown into one of the most destructive megafires in European history. The blaze created France’s first recorded pyrocumulonimbus cloud, driving its own wind and igniting more fires as hundreds of thousands of people fled the region. The smoke plume wafted east toward the Alps, filling valleys with haze. In mountain villages, typically mild temperatures climbed into the high 30s Celsius — high 90s — shattering heat records. This past week marked Europe’s fourth major heat wave since May. The relentless summer has caused an estimated 20,000 heat-related deaths in fewer than three months. It all feels a bit apocalyptic — and also painfully mundane.

We don’t have AC at our chalet. Nobody in this region does. We tried to buy a floor fan, but the shelves at Monsieur Bricolage had been emptied of ventilateurs. The supermarché was also cleaned out. Amazon is out of stock. There isn’t a fan left in Western Europe that desperate citizens haven’t snapped up already. Beat found a ceiling fan online and installed it within an hour of delivery. It’s a welcome remedy to aid the struggle to sleep at night.

Still, besides long nights of waking up every couple of hours drenched in sweat because my perimenopausal, jet-lagged body is in a bit of shock, the heat hasn’t bothered me that much. It feels like a natural adjustment to our “new normal.” It’s a state of living that extends across the warming world but also comes back to my body, with a bum knee that has come so far in the past four months but still feels a world away from the freedom I enjoyed here in paradise just 10 months ago. Back then, I could hike all day, the air was clear, and the weather was Jill-friendly. Sometimes it even snowed.

One thing I hadn’t banked on was the intense FOMO I’d feel upon arrival. My weakened left leg will currently permit about two to three hours of hiking on steep terrain every other day before it begins to stiffen and complain, reminding me of the perils of overdoing it. I should be grateful for three hours. Four months ago I was on crutches! But Beat has been galavanting all over the nearby mountains. The other day, he took our friend Liehann, who is visiting from California with his family, on a little-traveled loop over a rugged ridge that he called one of his “top ten ever.” They saw a herd of ibex perched along a cliff. The views were clear and spectacular. They gushed about the day through dinner.

I didn’t expect to feel so hurt by Beat’s joy. I know I shouldn’t. But I can’t help my human impulse toward jealousy. I’m still so far away from being able to join him for a route like that. It probably won’t happen for me this summer. The notion that it could happen again at all in this lifetime is a miracle of modern medicine. And yet. Even though it’s likely temporary, the loss of something that has always been a relatively effortless source of peace and joy, when I am right here, right now, feels like another difficult “new normal.”

Of course I still have bikes. I’m not sure I have many physical limitations left on a bike. My Niner hardtail has been gathering dust in the garage since last October, and I’ve already taken it on a few big rides — 20 milers with more than 4,000 feet of climbing, which is the going rate around here. Frequently the grades on loose gravel doubletracks spiked above 20%, and I had to step off and do the walk of shame while hikers made sarcastic remarks. I didn’t mind. The hikers were good-humored, and I was too. I was enjoying my hike, just like them.

“Vous n’êtes pas censé rouler avec ce vélo?”

“Oui, mais mes jambes sont faibles.”

(My French is not yet nearly conversational. I practiced answering “my legs are weak” after my first ride up a steep 4WD road to a refuge.)

My knee complained not a whisper about these rides, mostly because I was able to utilize wheels for the downhill part, the part my knee hates. I could probably manage some eight-hour epics, although I should build more slowly than that. It’s tempting, though, to extend my bike explorations. I’m back on the bandwagon of wanting it all. I can’t believe how quickly I’m forgetting the lessons of my crutches era.

One lesson from my crutches era that I have not forgotten is the value of mobility, no matter how it’s achieved. So I got an eBike! It’s part of my long-term vision for our future here, once we become more permanently based in France. (It won’t be this year. We are returning to Colorado in October, and I’ll remain limited to 90-day tourist visits for a while.) I want to embrace the lifestyle of commuting by bike — a simple vehicle for day-to-day errands and shorter trips, while being mindful of the 2,000-foot climb that lies at the end of every visit to the gym or supermarché with panniers full of groceries.

I planned to get a commuter hybrid bike, but the full-suspension mountain bike was available and on sale at the local dealer. Suddenly, I was envisioning all of the bike-to-hike trips I could do with this machine. I’ve done exactly one ride on it, which I had to do in “eco” mode because the bike shop sent me off with only 32% battery for my 10-mile, 2,200-feet-of-climbing commute home. But even that bit of boost was … amazing. I had no idea eBikes felt so smooth. Even with the assist, pedaling the 24kg chonker still required a satisfying amount of work. My heart rate stayed near 130 bpm for much of the 58 minutes it took me to ride home. But it only took 58 minutes! I couldn’t believe it when I looked at my watch. I felt like superwoman. Am I ever getting back on a manual bike? Hard to say. (Kidding! No one will take my beloved slogs from me. Anyway, the eBike still has a limited distance range, even compared to my weak legs.) But isn’t she beautiful?

I’m so glad to be back in the Alps. Despite the haze, I feel like I can breathe. And despite my limited abilities, I feel free. It doesn’t yet feel real, though. We’re still dipping our toes in the dream that has somehow, implausibly to younger me, become a reality. A place of my own, surrounded in awe. And with so much freedom to move. We can wake up in the morning and just … do what we want.

Well, eventually. Predictably, we’ve spent our first week here embroiled in the usual adult stressors: paying bills, cleaning up, accumulating necessities we lack, and realizing how much more complicated all of that is in France. We’ve also been locked in our usual vacation mode, spending time with our California guests, seeing local friends, preparing for Beat’s upcoming race, and getting out for exercise when we can, often in the worst of the late afternoon heat.

The whole vacation mode mindset is what I think is causing my irritating case of FOMO. During our past trips to the Alps, time was scarce, so I trained my brain to gobble up the awe-inspiring terrain regardless of how much my body complained. So many mountains, so little time. Have to squeeze it all in! Such a mindset is murder for the interminable recovery timeline of a meniscus root repair. So I am striving to retrain my brain away from the mindset of more and find gratitude and contentment in smaller movements.

On that front, I’ve been considering the longer-term future in a world where life will continue to become more difficult for everyone, everywhere. The haze masking Mont Blanc is a reminder that there is no escape, and that radical acceptance and adaptation are the only way forward. And that we — all of us — have agency over our joy and our despair even when — as my favorite Instagram philosopher Brittney Hartley titled her next book, “Everything is stupid, the world is on fire, and nothing matters.” (Brittney writes about the pursuit of spirituality outside of religious dogma and resisting the black hole of nihilism. I’ve been meaning to write an essay about how her ideas have helped me, and hope to do so now that I have more time to write.)

This post is just a quick update, but I also hope to write more about another idea I’ve been pondering — the “Four conditions of happiness” put forth by Albert Camus:

Life in the open air.
Love for another being.
Freedom from ambition.
Creation.

As I grapple with ongoing physical limitations, Camus’s “freedom from ambition” has given me pause. My long-term vision of a good life includes the others — communion with nature, less indoor time with screens, freedom from routines, nurturing emotional connections, and creation — both in my neglected practices of writing and drawing, but also through new avenues such as gardening and music. But that third one — the letting go of the ego-driven race for external validation, status, power, and gain. That, I think, is going to be the key.

But more on that eventually. For now, I need to get out in the open air for some eBike explorations — with the excuse that I need to test the bike’s range. Then again, that’s my ego making that excuse. Maybe I just want to get out for a joy ride without crushing myself in the process. There’s nothing wrong with that — perhaps the most important lesson I still need to learn.