Blaisy Bas
This past winter break, my brother (Max) and I went to Blaisy Bas for the first time in about a decade. Blaisy Bas is a tiny, tiny, tiny town outside Dijon, France where my dad grew up. It’s the kind of town that has one bakery and one general store, and you can bike through in under 5 minutes. My brothers and I spent a lot of summers here when we were younger – helping my aunt with her farm, biking on the rundown motorcross, and hanging out with the other 7 kids in town.
During these summers, my brothers and I would “help” (play) at my aunt’s farm. Luckily, she was very patient with us. She grew these flowers for cream that needed to be picked by hand, so my brothers and I would spend hours trying to find the most perfect flowers to pick.
She had another plant that attracted ladybugs – there were hundreds, if not thousands, of ladybugs on these plants. I would play a game where I would try to get as many as I could to crawl on me, and put more in my cupped hands. Then, I’d open my hands and call myself the lady bug princess. She also grew grain for livestock, and let us play in the tubs of grains she had.
One summer, she watched Shrek with us and enlisted us to help her make an outhouse for the farm. It was awesome.
January 2025
When my brother and I returned this winter, we took a walk around the village. While I hadn’t been there since the 4th grade, it was exactly how I remembered it. Nothing changed – it was the same houses, same streets, and same level of rundown.
