Our
plans to visit the Château de Chenonceau made me a little afraid.
But,
as I said, I was a little afraid. Not of the powerful women past and
present. But of my foot.
It hurt a lot.
I
had plantar fasciitis, an inflamed tendon along the heel. Not the ideal companion for a walk of some
120 kilometres down roads, through forests, and across vineyards. But there was
little room for backing out. So, I rested
my foot and braced for the first leg of our holiday through the La Forêt
d'Amboise to Chenonceaux (the town with an 'x').
I
hoped the pain would be intermittent. It
was. Only every other step hurt. No Pain. Pain. No Pain. Pain. No Pain. Pain.
And so on for that inaugural seventeen kilometres.

“Does it hurt less on flat surfaces?” “Or did the broken mud and rocks help by alternating pressure points?” “Should I tie my shoe tighter or loosen it a bit?” “Where are we now?” “How far?” “Could a cab find us in the forest?”
You
could say I savoured the walk that day as the location and ambiance of every
step, or at least every second step, is burned into my memory.
We
arrived at Chenonceaux in mid-afternoon and checked into the Hotel
Rosarie. At the front desk, we learned
that Elenore Rosevelt once stayed there, and I was impressed.
The
room was nice, but the grim, grey visage of a woman in black stared down at us
from the wall.
“I
wonder if she is Rosarie – that is a woman’s name isn’t it?”
“Maybe
the artist caught her in a bad mood.”
“Maybe, she had plantar fasciitis.”
“Maybe, she had plantar fasciitis.”
I visited it too, but I did
it by walking a few metres and then sitting down, walking a few more metres and
sitting down again, each time hoping that the old wooden benches were for that
purpose not works of art or parts of the displays.

Michele
found me by the tower and wanted to walk around the gardens.
I
couldn’t do it and instead sat on another bench, one overlooking them.
This
was not bad either. Again, I rubbed my
foot and told myself I had been given an excuse to rest, to be more observant,
and absorb another vantage.

I thought about all the people who walked around these halls in high heels and what it meant to be a woman in those times.
I thought about all the people who walked around these halls in high heels and what it meant to be a woman in those times.
It was late April, time of the Presidential elections, and we passed posters of Marine Le Pen. Once again, I winced.
This time, I thought about other features of French history, Catherine de’ Medici’s role in the persecution of the Huguenots, about my foot, and how we react to the pain that comes our way.
If
we ever go back to the Loire, I hope my foot flares up again, or, rather, the
memory of it and of how to see pain, not as a reason to be afraid, but as a prod to stop, reflect, and look at
things from a different perspective.
So, I wrote this.