What was that old Joni Mitchell song? 'My father always promised me that we would live in France...'
That was Jens idear. In all her surburban homes, all her moves there was this picture. An indifferent but pleasant water colour sketch. A french town house up some steps a pot of red geraniums the one splash of brightness but somehow the whole conveyed light, azur skies, warmth.
When I visited her in France for the first time this painting was one of the few things she had salvaged from her former life. It all suddenly made sense.
Every one of us had untill now completetly misread her. She had always had this dream.
Now I am the one living in France and it is two and a half years since she's been gone.
I read an article in ELLE magazine the other day. You know one of those 'I miss the person' what they meant to you pieces after someone has lost someone they love. A pair of shoes a funny story or a moment they shared takes on an eternal meaning.
Jen however was everybodys 'Miss Fix It'. A huge store of advice on everything from household hints to fashion advice, how to lay parquet flooring or raise specialty breed chickens. An avid reader even on subjects that didn't really interest her, she would pick up and file away all kinds of knowledge to add to her large store of practical experiance.
We spent hours on the phone.
I followed her around Do-it-youself hardware stores as I had once followed her around Harrods.. A string of staff when usually it was impossible to find even one, accompaning her, obeying her every instuction and request. In english with expressive gestures they always understood what she wanted.
We could go easily and without the slightest intimidation into Chanel in much the same manner. She got the same reaction. That the skirts were too short this season would be, assured the staff member, a frightenly elegant parody of perfection in my eyes, reported to Monsieur Karl.
She was in the middle of the notoriously complex negotiations to buy the new house in France when she was diagnosed with cancer.
