I’ve been updating this blog more infrequently than I’d like over the past few months, in part because of a new job but also due to the distraction of a major renovation of our row house in Philadelphia.  I didn’t think this project — tearing down and rebuilding the brick three-story front of a 103-year-old row home — had anything in common with the French Open until I began thinking about the “terre battue,” the surface of the courts at Roland Garros.  (Terre battue’s translation is “beaten earth or ground.”) Of what does the red clay in Paris consist?  Crushed red brick.  What have we had all over our street and in the front rooms of our house for the past month?  Busted red bricks, and more than a century of  dust. 

The good news is that the work is almost complete – a few finishing touches, and it will be done.  The TV is back in place, and those matches on the red clay of Paris are beaming into our living room once again.  And although it was a total coincidence, the new bricks have a very similar orange color to the red clay of European tennis courts. It must have been my subconscious at work when we selected the brick.

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