Chapel of the Woods

“Late at night, early in the morning, Sundays began with the delivery of the daily newspaper.
My mother, who had taken up the profession of taxi driver with a taste for emancipation, carried out this weekly Sunday mission. In all the villages, lost in the snow and the cold, I assisted her, sometimes forced to because I often followed a night in a club with the rounds... But always, I was rewarded with the slow rise of the sun on the white and mute snow. Despite the difficult roads to drive on and the ruts, despite the cold - it was regularly minus thirty - I have kept a tender and warm memory where my mother and I, in silence, drove at measured pace. From hamlets to villages, where the regional newspaper depositors were waiting for us, in the adjoining farms, we shared a large bowl of black coffee, comforting and hot. Standing, around a corner of a table and a worn oilcloth, each one tasted the boiling and good coffee while burning their lips. From the coffee pots placed on the cast iron of the wood stoves, aromas mixed with the smell of embers escaped. In Chapelle des Bois, a small, remote village in the Haut Doubs, in what is called Little Siberia, we allowed ourselves to savor the coffee offered a little longer. Chapelle des Bois marked the end of the tour. The hypnotic white snow, the sky that was gradually turning intense blue, the inky and black coffee proclaimed in unison the awakening of the world."