“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”—Eleanor Roosevelt
The invitation: “Would you like some fresh oranges and lemons," our host, neighbor and friend, Gretchen Sand-Preville asked? "Stop by with Cecile and Bruce could slice an orange and make us a few Martinis Rouge…just like at Deux Magots,” she added. As a representative of Rinconada Hills, Gretchen gave us a welcome package when we first moved into this gated community over two years ago. She and her husband Bruce live at the other end of the cul-de-sac from us.
Les Deux Magots (i.e.“two Chinese figurines”) is a famous cafe’ in the Saint-Germain-des-Pres area of Paris. Cecile and I had been there several times while staying at the Hotel Lutetia back in 2006. Back in the day it was an old hangout of artists and writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus, James Joyce, Ernest Hemmingway, and Pablo Picasso. Gretchen and Bruce sat at the Les Deux Magots and enjoyed martinis during a month long trip to Spain and France. They wanted to relive that experience with us and we were more than willing.
At 5 PM we walked down to Gretchen and Bruce’s cozy home with the colorful bougainvillea out front. Bruce made us Martinis Rouge. I remember the taste. Growing up my parents used to serve guests Martini and Rossi vermouth (Martinis Rouge) on ice followed by a cup of espresso. The Preville's also offered Pellegrino and had a coffee table set up of Hors d’oeuveres, including sugar peas, white fish dip with capers and crackers, assorted nuts, and chocolate covered almonds.
The invitation came after Gretchen read a recent story I posted on my blog site: enjoyyourlifenow.net that triggered a childhood memory that had changed the course of her life. While at her computer, she could see their naval orange tree out her window, a reminder of her Aunt Mary and Uncle Bill’s visit from California to her home town of Flint, Michigan when she was a young girl. They showed her a photograph taken front of an orange tree in their back yard in Campbell, CA. At that moment she decided that she would live in California some day, and in 1973, with a “well used Schwinn 3 speed, a thousand bucks and two suitcases,” she made the courageous decision to move out west. Since then she has planted several oranges and lemons trees to “keep the joy and discovery of that moment” when she created her own destiny.
I forgot to tell Gretchen and Bruce, that I too have a connection to orange and lemon trees. During an exploratory trip to San Jose in 1975 we discovered an old ranch house on a corner lot. The side yard contained orange, lemon and grapefruit trees. It reminded me of the stories about my late mom, Maria who grew up in Sicily and used to get up at 3 AM each day to make her way to the orchards with my grandparents to pick oranges and lemons so that they could put food on their table. This is where Cecile and I decided to live and set up my practice specializing in podiatric medicine and foot surgery which would late become the Park Avenue Foot Clinic. The citrus fruits would always be a reminder of my humble roots.
Inevitably, if you share your personal history long enough with people, you will always find some things you have in common. Bruce and I discovered we both took the EST [Latin for “it is,”] a six day training course founded by Werner Erhard in 1971, that offered entrants in the human potential movement a path to personal transformation. We also were Guest Seminar Leaders for EST. Two hours whizzed by, and in that time we discovered many other lines of connection between us including gratitude for what we have and living in a community of nature, a lake, waterfalls, cascading ponds, wildlife of all kinds and walking trails. Thanks to our hosts for the bag of lemons and orange and a little touch of Paris!
Photo credit for Les Deux Magots: Wikipedia
