Stories Collected While Living in France

French la Vie

Where do you leave your heart?

CoreyAmaro_Mendocino_

 

CoreyAmaro_westport_coast

CoreyAmaro_Mendocino

 

CoreyAmaro_Mendecino house
Photography by Corey Amaro

 

The song says that someone left their heart in San Francisco. Some would think my heart is at the brocante. Sometimes I wonder if that could be true? But this much I know, a large part of my heart is in Westport, California:

The rugged coast.

Simplicity.

The sound of the Pacific while falling to sleep.

Memories of camping with my family and Uncle Jule, Aunt Frannie, my cousins… Bern, Alma, Bev, Dan, Julie, Gene.

Have you ever thought if you could go back to one or two memories which ones you might go back too?

I believe I would go back to Westport on a foggy summer day 1972… My cousins and I swimming in the roaring tides, while my dad and Uncle Jule fished with nets, my mom and her sisters sleeping on the beach with an alarm clocking ready to ring and take them back to camp to cook for the thirty-three cousins…

I am, in some way, going back to those memories today.

Westport bound with family.

Comments

22 responses to “Where do you leave your heart?”

  1. Karon

    When would I go back to in time? Two times, just this summer, July in France. Walking through a meadow full of butterflies and wild flowers, warmth all around and sunshine in a haze around me, before the storm, before the news shook my world. Before that, way way back to a crossroads and a different road to choose.
    Karon

    Reply
  2. Jackie

    You are so lucky to have such a storehouse of wonderful memories…thanks for sharing then with us.
    jackie
    bliss farm antiques

    Reply
  3. Jenna

    I could never pick just one! Have fun with the family, maybe you’ll make new memories to tuck away.

    Reply
  4. Jeanette M

    Yes the summer reunions in Fort Bragg are wonderful memories! But than again all the camping trip are great memories and when remembered laughes and smiles spill out! Typing this all kinds of memories are coming to mind!!!!

    Reply
  5. nan tofanelli

    Westport is a special place for us as well. We have good friends who live there…Jeff and Millie Saunders. Please say hi to them for us. You’ll find them every night on their front steps saying goodnight to the sun.
    Nan
    PS When will we see you?

    Reply
  6. Kathie B.

    My maternal grandparents lived just outside Leggett, California — where the Pacific Coast Highway (SR 1) junctions with the Redwood Highway (US 101), inland a few miles from the coast — and I can still recall as a child on one of our many visits to my grandparents, going over to Westport for the day and walking along the beach (my mother was so excited to find a dead jellyfish on the sand). We also made a number of trips from Leggett to Fort Bragg.
    Another time we took US 101 north from Leggett into southern Humboldt County, then took a side road west to Ettersburg, where we met the by-then very elderly postmistress Catherine Etters, who told us she was the daughter-in-law of man for whom the town was named! There had been terrible flooding there that winter, and signs marked how high the waters had risen.
    BTW, has anyone here ever been up to Usal (north of where the Pacific Highway turns inland)? I’ve always been curious about it, just because it’s there! I believe the Usal road has been closed to the public for a long time. Does anyone still live there, or is it a ghost town? Would one have to take a helicopter to reach there now?

    Reply
  7. Marilyn

    Loved seeing Sacha and hearing about him in the previous post.
    Going back, oh I think it would be running through the apple orchards in Sebastopol, California on a hot summer day many years ago, barefoot and letting the soft warm dirt ooze through the toes while picking a slightly green apple, eating it and allowing the juice to run down the arms.

    Reply
  8. Denise Solsrud

    NOTHING can replace those loving memories. Bestest,Denise

    Reply
  9. LaurieSF

    Abalone, camping and the tide pools…

    Reply
  10. Sally

    Hi Corey!
    I’ve always dreamed of going to Mendocino! Such rugged beauty. One day, huh?!
    I would probably return to a childhood day at the beach too … such sweet days spent in the sun, sand in my bathing suit and sandwich, my mother under her big sun hat, reading a mystery book.
    Oh! I could not believe my eyes when I read you were first in the South Bay here in So. Cal. and then in Venice at the canals!!! My gosh, the motor cycle mama and FH were only FIVE minutes from me and I didn’t know it. WAH! Talk about missed opportunities. I told Jenny that I would tell you that next year you must pick her up in Texas and then come visit me in Los Angeles. Deal? 😉
    I’m so enjoying hearing about Sacha’s time in the States. What a funny twist of fate.
    Happy happy week to you and your dear ones!
    Sally

    Reply
  11. Shelley Noble

    My past is nothing but pain. These days now are the days I would like to continue living.

    Reply
  12. Diane

    The Mendocino coastline is full of honeymoon memories for me. The ocean is my heart’s home!
    Diane

    Reply
  13. Sharon, Morrison Mercantile

    I would go back to the beginning, and start over with the knowledge I have now.

    Reply
  14. Rhonda P.

    We drove every spring from Chicago to San Francisco when I was a child. That is a lot of driving.
    But with six family members living there it was always a fabulous California vacation.
    Those road trips hold a lot of memories for me. California is so beautiful.

    Reply
  15. Bramble

    Springtime in my grandparents apple orchard with all the cousins running around and the delicious scent of apple blossoms filling the air. Love, friendship, commeraderie and pranks were a part of the boisterous family I was lucky to be a part of. They are with me in spirit but I surely do miss them one and all.
    Would I go back in time…yes but only to tell someone what they already know, that I have always loved them and always will. The test of time has proven that.
    Have a wonderful time with all your loved ones!
    PS…Liking Chelsea’s hair and Sacha’s American year so far!

    Reply
  16. Denise Moulun-Pasek

    Bless you and all of your family on this day that transports you back almost thirty years.
    Be grateful that you have these memories Corey because soon, your kids and mine will be remembering their fondest childhood memories of time spent with us.
    Mine: suppers with my big French Canadian family (well, 6 kids). Loud talk, burning political discourse, acting out stories and laughter, a lot of laughter.

    Reply
  17. Joanna

    Ah, Westport.
    Ah, Mendocino.

    Reply
  18. ellen cassilly

    Every Easter the eight of us would make our New Orleans pilgrimage from St. Louis down the Mississippi (or rather highway 55) to visit my mother’s family. The 25-35 of us would have a lovely time on the banks of the river, climbing live oak trees, cooking, playing cards, eating and drinking with cousins, aunts and uncles.
    My mother died on Tuesday, one week tomorrow. Just one month ago she was in Louisiana visiting friends and family. I think that it was her homecoming. She needed to see, touch, taste, hear and smell it just one more time. She returned to St. Louis and went down hill fast. Happily for her and for all of us, her five daughters were at her bedside. It was a lovely and grace-filled event.

    Reply
  19. momof5

    When my children were little and I watched them play at the beach on a perfect summer day. I remember thinking this day will be etched in my memory forever as a perfect day.
    Another favorite memory is spending a month with my 5 kids in Tuscany on an agritoursimo farm.
    I also think fondly of playing with my cousins at my greatgrandmothers farm. We’d find turtles and write our initials and the year in red nail polish on the bottom, hoping to find them again the next summer. Sometimes we did, poor turtles. We’d entertain ourselves for hours with frog races and just playing outside with each other.

    Reply
  20. Jenny F

    Did you go in the grocery store in Westport and sample any of their special gourmet items and see the owner,Marie, behind the counter making up salami sandwiches? Marie is a life long friend. So many stories.
    _______
    Hi Jenny
    I just spent time with Marie talking about Westport, Movies and the photo she has of Ansel Adam’s…..I’ll tell her you said hi!
    c

    Reply
  21. Sheala

    Looks like you are having a wonderful time in Fort Bragg. Does this mean I won’t be seeing you this Thursday????
    Enjoy your trip, I’ve always loved the Fort Bragg/Mendocino area.
    XOXOXOXO Sheala

    Reply
  22. Kiki

    Oh, although I am years too late to reply – I must say – this post made me really sigh…. from the very bottom of my heart!
    MY heaven of this earth where I left my heart is a tiny (but oh so very famous) village of vintners right at the shores of Lac Léman (that’s Lake Geneva or Lake Leman to most of you) in lovely, lovely Switzerland. It’s called LUTRY and for two and a half years we were permitted to own a little house right in the heart of it. From our home we could go on a cruise in 3 minutes (running!), on a bus taking us into beautiful LAUSANNE (2 minutes) or any train to anywhere in 7 minutes (uphill, down only 5!)….. A village with people who love living there, who talk to each other, who are happy to be at the lake shores, they are rather well off and like good food and wines, their Saturday market, the gorgeous shops and bistrots, the wine bars and the long, leisurly walks along the lake. My heart is bleeding with homesickness when I write these words, but it’s also singing because now that I have seen and lived (in) paradise, I know where I shall return one day…..
    Of course, being Swiss, we ALL will always have left our heart there…. 🙂
    One day, given more time, I will be happy to read where all your readers have lost their heart!! I look forward to that lecture! Now, I MUST go out and look after my autumnal garden; it’s glorious weather, cold but sunny and the empty bags are waiting to be filled with fallen leaves, uprooted summer flowers, nuts from the neighbours’ walnut tree (full of worms)….!!!
    Thank you, Corey, for this brilliant post!

    Reply

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