A la recherche du temps perdu . . .

The Robidoux Home by Henriette Robidoux-Deojay - Our Caron-Rose home is in the background. I've always loved this pen and ink by my Cousine Henriette. Her daughter Kate gave this to me. She had made the sketch into note cards. I'm so glad that I saved one. It was my intention to have more made up but I never did. There was a well worn path between the homes from time immemorial - I am overcome with love.

I've been looking for the tin types, daguerreotypes and other old photos from the Moosup house which we inherited  by dint of buying the Moosup property back in 1969. Ma Tante Rose came with the house and our children were fortunate that they never had a baby sitter as Ma Tante cared for them whenever P&D's Pop and I were out. We ended up with many items of sentimental value which came with the Caron family when they moved to Moosup around 1910. I've given much of it away to cousins as I didn't know what to do with all of the photos and religious items. Since there were 11 living children when my grandparents emigrated from Canada to Salmon Falls, New Hampshire where Pa was born and therefore there were 12 who finally moved to Moosup, Connecticut we had lots of stuff  'on the other side' upstairs in our old home. Even though I had given much away we still brought some things that I couldn't bare to not have with me. I think that somehow old things and I just gravitate to each other. Part of the reason we're comfortable in our vintage 1996 home here in Louisiana is because we brought a lot of the 1803 Moosup home with us. But now it's time to see if I can give some of the older items to a museum in Baton Rouge.

That is why I have posted the photo of my cousin Henrietta's sketch on my page today. I had put it for safe keeping in the old trunk 'on the other side'  that came from Canada with my grandparents. The memories are strong. When I get teary eyed about Moosup it's not because we're not there anymore it's because I miss what we were when we lived in that old house. Most of the people are now within Heaven's Gate and those that are on Earth have their unique lives to live but the old times are alive and well in my heart and soul. We are fortunate to have been born and brought up in an age where people took the time to talk with us little kids and we learned how hard they worked and how hard they played.They enjoyed sharing all they had with each and every member of the family no matter how far removed.  Yes, I still love the old memories; hopefully we've become a part of someone else's comfortable 'temps perdu.'

Quote: 

No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.

— Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Et tout d’un coup le souvenir m’est apparu. Ce goût, c’était celui du petit morceau de madeleine que le dimanche matin à Combray (parce que ce jour-là je ne sortais pas avant l’heure de la messe), quand j’allais lui dire bonjour dans sa chambre, ma tante Léonie m’offrait après l’avoir trempée dans son infusion de thé ou de tilleul.
La vue de la petite madeleine ne m’avait rien rappelé avant que je n’y eusse goûté ; peut-être parce que, en ayant souvent aperçu depuis, sans en manger, sur les tablettes de pâtissiers, leur image avait quitté ces jours de Combray pour se lier à d’autres plus récents ; peut-être parce que, de ces souvenirs abandonnés depuis si longtemps hors de ma mémoire, rien ne survivait, tout s’était désagrégé ; les formes- et celle aussi du petit coquillage de pâtisserie, si grassement sensuel sous son plissage sévère et dévot- s’étaient abolies ou, ensommeillées, avaient perdu la force d’expansion qui leur eut permis de rejoindre la conscience …
Et dès que j’eus reconnu le goût du morceau de madeleine trempé dans le tilleul que me donnait ma tante (quoique je ne susse pas encore et dusse remettre à bien plus tard de découvrir pourquoi ce souvenir me rendait si heureux) aussitôt la vieille maison grise sur la rue où était ma chambre vint comme un décor de théâtre s’appliquer au petit pavillon donnant sur le jardin qu’on avait construit pour mes parents sur ses derrières (ce pan tronqué que seul j’avais revu jusque là) ; et avec la maison, la ville, depuis le matin jusqu’au soir et par tous les temps, la place où l’on m’envoyait avant déjeuner, les rues où j’allais faire les courses, les chemins qu’on prenait si le temps était beau.
Et comme dans ce jeu où les japonais s’amusent à tremper dans un bol de porcelaine rempli d’eau de petits morceaux de papier jusqu’alors indistincts qui, à peine y sont-ils plongés, s’étirent, se contournent, se différencient, deviennent des fleurs, des maisons, des personnages consistants et reconnaissables, de même maintenant toutes les fleurs de notre jardin et celles du parc de M. Swan, et les nymphéas de la Vivonne, et les bonnes gens du village et leur petits logis, et l’église, et tout Combray et ses environs, tout cela qui prend forme et solidité est sorti, ville et jardins, de ma tasse de thé. »