Chapelle des Bois

Delivery Sundays

Late at night, early in the morning, Sundays began with the delivery of the daily newspaper. My mother, who had married the profession of taxi driver with a taste for emancipation, carried out this weekly Sunday mission.

A reluctant traveling companion

In every village, lost in the snow and the cold, I assisted him, sometimes forced to because I often followed a night in a club with the tour... But always, I was rewarded with the slow sunrise over the white and silent snow.

The ritual of sharing coffee

Despite the rough roads and potholes, despite the cold—it was regularly minus thirty degrees—I have a tender and warm memory of my mother and I driving slowly and quietly from hamlet to village, where the local newspaper vendors waited for us in the neighboring farmhouses. We shared a large bowl of hot, comforting black coffee. Standing around a corner of a table and a worn oilcloth, we each tasted the steaming, delicious coffee, burning our lips in the process. From the coffee pots placed on the cast-iron stoves, aromas mingled with the scent of embers.

The awakening of the world

In Chapelle des Bois, a small, remote village in the Haut-Doubs region, in what is known as "Little Siberia," we allowed ourselves to savor the complimentary coffee a little longer. Chapelle des Bois marked the end of the tour. The hypnotic white snow, the sky gradually turning an intense blue, and the inky black coffee all proclaimed the awakening of the world.