Fond of Fronds

The first palm trees I ever saw in real life were in the south of France as a teenager on a month's vacation with my boyfriend. That trip also introduced me to beer and salami at breakfast, good jeans, pushup bras and food poisoning from beachfront icecream. My life would never be the same.

Next palms were in Algeria, still in the Mediterranean basin with sun and sky unlike anything my London born and raised fair skin had ever known. Sun burn and beachfront trots repeated.

The most memorable were the date palms in an Algerian family compound in Guardaia, an oasis town in the Sahara where we spent an overnight visit. A strict Muslim town where the men did all the shopping, the women hid behind doors, walls and veils, being of the M'zabite sect and forbidden to show themselves outside the family. As with strict Muslims, smoking and drinking were allowed only for foreigners like us at the hotel where our room was so thick with flies we were forced to buy bug spray from the local store, which is where we met our date palm host. In exchange for some French chat, a few smokes and a glass of wine (took him back to his days in Paris, he told us) he invited us to his home. We sat on rugs on the sandy ground of his garden, shaded with palms and grape vines, sipping tiny cups of sweet mint tea, nibbling dates and trying to be demure and polite, despite our infidel uncovered hair, arms and legs. I didn't speak French well enough to participate and allowed my sister-in-law to do the honors while I absorbed that incredible light through the palm fronds.

Years later, in Singapore, palms again, tattered beach front ones and elegantly tended ones in front of the Raffles Hotel. Later in LA, palms, tall skinny anorexic model types, like so many of the Hollywood crowd. Now, again, lining the avenue to our church where this Sunday we will hand out palm fronds to the faithful and remember Jesus' triumphant entry to Jerusalem, today a troubled and divided city still.


There's something mysterious about palms that alters my psyche in a way that makes my breath more relaxed. I find myself gazing and smiling at them as if they are old friends. It makes no sense that a Londoner would respond to such spiny charms unless I have a built-in sense memory from another lifetime. But I won't trot down that beach today.

May your entry into the next moment be triumphant and may adoring crowds lay palms before your donkey's hooves to make your way easier today.