Word of mouth, an exchange with inspiring beings!

I’ve been a corporate copywriter for 30 years and I have never written professionally in the first person, never! 

My job is to talk about others, to interview exceptional people in the second person and to write stories about achievements in the third person. 
But today, exceptionally, I want to talk “with my own voice” to say how the exchanges I’ve had on Covid-19 with seven chefs, pastry-makers and consultants around the world working with Les vergers Boiron has deeply affected me. I also want to thank the people I work with at the marketing and communication department, in particular Jean-François Granat and Catherine Bonnardel, for having given me the opportunity to experience this great moment, so truly profound and human. 

You have all given me, through these seven articles on this terrible pandemic, an incredible medley of hope, courage and examples of humanity and resilience which touched and inspired me. Not one of you expressed any sign of feeling sorry for yourself, despite the fact that you were all hard hit by this crisis. 

The words that appear most are solidarity, thinking and rethinking, exchanging, learning, carrying on, innovating, improving, creating, etc. You also talked to me about family, friendship, neighbors, community, but also about meditation, dancing, singing, poetry, nature; in short, the discovery or rediscovery of what’s essential in life and the little things that bring us true happiness and well-being.

In addition, you revealed to me the wealth of the other dimensions of your humanity, your philosophies and experiences that guided you through your often uncharted and sometimes difficult paths, where you always traveled with passion. I already loved what the French call  your “métiers de bouche”, your “crafts of the mouth”, but now I realize that you, who provide the treats that enable us to celebrate the most important moments in our lives, are also capable of providing us with a “word of mouth” which provides magical pleasure, like a birthday cake for a child or a dessert or drink we share with the person we love most in the world.

One last word, in fact an expression, I would like to comment on: “social distancing”. Obviously, this epidemiological term is what we need to understand and apply most to avoid that this virus does not spread and to potentially make it disappear. I don’t want to make a semantic point, but I would have preferred “public distancing” or “physical distancing”. This is because so-called social distancing during the lockdown in fact generated its opposite. In all the articles, with everyone I was in touch with, everyone talked about “social closeness” (rapprochement as we say in French) and fundamental changes in their relationships, where our competitors become partners, where our neighbors become friends, where bosses and employees really collaborate. I don’t want to paint a rosy or idyllic picture of what happened during this period. We all had our highs and lows, we were all surprised and delighted by some people and all disappointed by others.  But what I take away from the conversations I had with the men and women I spoke to is their extraordinary determination to make this into a unique moment in their lives that made them more human. 

I thank you all,
Michel Celemenski

Read the interviews with the Chefs: