Difficult Decisions
Lydia Dean
Over the course of the years our villa business had expanded well beyond Mas de Gancel. On my trips back to the US I noticed Provence's prominence in every bookstore and in many travel magazines. It had become the rage to learn about the food, culture and lifestyle of a region so opposite from that of the States. The demand for renting our house was more than we could handle so we recruited homes of similar style and quality in nearby villages and worked with their owners on a commission basis. Expanding our website and services the business was soon rolling along successfully with more than 12 other houses next to Gancel. Managing chef services, tours, cooking classes and wine tastings, I continued to enjoy the magic in helping others explore the area that had become such a special place to us.
While I took care of the villa rentals John had searched for some sort of clear career path. Since leaving the Executive Search Business in the US he felt as if he had floated from one thing to another without any real direction and he felt unsure of where we were going. A plan to build a Costa Rica boat business had never left the ground and a year of planning and logistics had been wasted. He had kept himself extremely busy in Provence with the renovations to our properties but he never looked at those projects as jobs or as a future. I noticed that when anyone asked him what he did for a living he just froze. He often made comments comparing himself to a retiree, tinkering with projects here and there but nothing with a definite direction. But then with a buoyant real estate market in Provence and a love for renovation, he started thinking more seriously about restoring and reselling old stone houses as a business. The idea was simple—merely a continuation of what he had already been doing for ourselves. The business would be called Renovancien, a word John created from the French words Renovation and Ancien or old.
But there were challenges with this business from the very start. Part of what makes such an undertaking work is bank credit, which is very tight in France. While we had squeaky clean credit and a solid history of money making, French banks are wary of lending to foreigners who come and go on a whim. They prefer those with stable job histories and income. Loan rejections came in one after another. We were baffled at being unable to borrow money, something unimaginable to us coming from the US where businesses are encouraged and banks willing to take reasonable risks. John considered raising the capital from private investors in the US, but the return he would be able to provide was not significant enough to attract anyone. He would be facing a 50% capital gains tax on each house he sold as it was. John's days took shape around crunching endless numbers alongside considering what he felt to be unreasonable tax structures for businesses in France. I started to see less and less of the spark that makes him who he is. Instead of speaking in terms of dreams and potential, he was forced to flex muscles he had not used before, namely those needed to prevent oneself from sliding backwards.
With no prospects for financing, we were faced with only one remaining option for raising money – selling either the Mas de Gancel or our recently renovated village home in Alleins. If we sold Gancel we would be selling the heart of our villa business, not to mention a property we were painfully attached to having spent so much effort bringing it back to life. If we sold the Alleins house we would be out of a home once again—a thought that was particularly horrifying for me after all of our moving around. I felt like we were finally living a normal life. We had spent an entire 12 months in the same location and it felt blissful. But John desperately wanted to work again and in order to get Renovancien off the ground one of the houses had to go. The alternative was the elephant in the room, the idea of returning to the US, to the place where we could more easily launch the dreams and ideas that floated in our heads. We then found ourselves in the most horrifying of quandries – needing to choose between an earthy, simple and rewarding life in Provence and one in the US that was most certainly less simple yet offered endless opportunities.
I secretly take a photo of John as the realities of business building in France take its toll.
Home
I lace my shoes and pull shut the wobbly door we are forever complaining about at the Mas and walk into the early morning misty dampness that autumn brings in Provence. I consider my running route options – across the fields to the vineyards of Chateau Bas and up around the winding footpaths leading to Lambesc, or straight up the hill to Vieux Vernegues and its cluster of Gallo Roman stone ruins overlooking the Luberon and the Alpilles.
It has been on these trails that I have made all of my most important decisions. These rocky herb studded paths have been home to all my personal epiphanies. Lost in some sort of private freedom I sort through issues in my head, and connect with the part of me that makes sound and clear decisions. But today my pace is sluggish, my legs feeling heavier with every step. Every scent of fresh rosemary and pine stabs at my heart and every glimpse of sleeping lavender is a brutal reminder of an end to come. We have come to a very big decision recently and my mind struggles to come to terms with it. In a few months we will sell the cars, the Alleins village house, and bid farewell to our dreamy life in Provence where the crazy world has been left at bay. We will return to the US to Upstate NY—we are going home.
I stumble on a rock in the path and land on a mossy mound. Big heaving sobs come tumbling out and I feel like a school girl who has lost her best friend. Wiping away my tears I look up and I am greeted by an entire field of grazing sheep. I find comfort in their wet earthy scent while they stare with baffled curiosity at my sorry state.
The moves we have made in the past have all been born out of some wild flight of fancy, some sort of "hell, why not you only live once" attitude. This time it's different and logic has ruled the hand—the children need English-speaking schools, Isabelle needs a new leg, the administration in France has squelched any decent prospects for a secure future. And perhaps somewhere hidden among all these reasonable and logical thoughts lies a fundamental need to connect with our past, our friends and family, to be tucked into the fold of the familiar. Yet I feel a deep mourning that I can't explain. Even though we will keep Mas de Gancel and return during the year, it is the end of a most wonderful period in our lives. For 6 years we have beat to a different drum, our own drum. We have let our hearts and passions direct the course of our days. Success has come in the form of the simplest pleasures, around tables with our children and friends and in the satisfaction of what our hands could accomplish. Perhaps most importantly though, has been the pure pleasure of feeling free. But all good things must come to an end. Like finishing a deeply moving book you find yourself in a heap of tears with a closed, ragged, dog-eared bunch of pages in your hands. When your spouse raises a brow and asks you what is going on you say, "I'm sad my book is done. It was so good, it moved me." It was as if you had been transported on your own silent journey that shifted the pieces inside your soul. Our time in Provence has been that book for me.
