Grenouille #22 - Pillow Basalts (from Way Back)

 

Etienne is too mellow from his artistic day to post. And besides which, he posted once sans moi, so I shall now balance the scales by posting without him.

Etienne and oldest son loved to collect stones (Etienne would call them rocks with his tous tous charmant accent Americain) when they were building the stone walls around the gardens. Here I sit with some small pillow basalts. Etienne says these were formed in volcanic eruptions, where the lava bubbled up into a sea or large lake, and cooled quickly on the outside and more slowly on the inside, making globes with layers like un oignon. The land northeast of Hillsborough, around Bahama and Rougemont (quel beau nom!) have many veins and layers of this kind of stone, and construction unearths them.  Perhaps the Rougemont is a sleeping volcano? Might it wake one day and we would be like Pompeii, frozen forever with a fork of fois gras or salade nicoise only part way to our mouths - able to smell it forever but unable to consummate the gustatory moment? And Jean Paul Sartre thought he knew what hell was?

Etienne also said that he and older son once found a pillow basalt as big as their van. They could not bring it home, so they have no proof, and I am inclined to believe it a story of fish as you Americains call it. In this photo I am sitting by some larger basalts, but plainly beaucoup plus petit than a van mini. Etienne says these are hard to use in stone walls, because they have few flat sides. He says it is like stacking bowling balls. (Why would anyone do that? Is it perhaps like other drole Americain pastimes such as the hopping on pogo sticks for the longest time possible, or the name calling during the Americain elections?)