I'm a great believer and lover of synchronicity. I've recently reconnected with some wonderful beings that I have held close to my heart since I met them in Barcelona,Spain years ago. It had been almost four years since I'd seen them. We met in Cape Town this week, after last having spent time together in their new-found home village of Lagrasse, Aude in France. It was the very same day that we reconnected that I came across something I'd written the last time I was in Lagrasse.
a little bit of background... I hadn't been there before my 40th birthday and it was Mark who suggested I hire a gite for the celebratory weekend. It couldn't have been more memorable. After a couple of weekend visits, I was invited to the event of the century - Mark and Carlos's wedding. October 2014. I was lucky enough to be able to get there earlier and I was given the honourable role of concierge to the wedding guests. I was shown all the accommodation, lined up with the keys and tasked with looking after the sporadic arrivals. It was a simple, yet wonderful job as I got to meet all the guests and many locals from the village. I got to see some of the special little abodes as I walked up cobbled streets and opened the doors to history alive in the present. What a weekend it was. Classic cars and headwear, champagne in the square, sunshine and smiles with strangers, music, laughter and wine. Dancing in the village hall, love exploding in the valley.
Once it was over, I stayed on in the village as the newly-weds flew off to Venezia. I had their beautiful warm home to look after, with Clarke, the spunky little kitten,for company. It was a week of grazing on left-over cheese and cupcakes, loafing in the herb garden guzzling wine that had been tucked under the stairs, boardgames,dinners and chuckles all in French, walks through the vineyards and the cemetery,by the river and the abbey. Movies and woodfires, Clarke and cuddles.
There was one afternoon when I went down to the river. I was the only one there. This was the moment captured in the little notebook I'd carried with me in the hope of being struck by artistic inspiration. I like to think that it worked. Will you follow the words and make their picture? Then will you look at the picture and tell me if it's what you saw in your mind's eye? Don't look yet! Promise?!
Lagrasse, France
October 20th, 2014
If I were a writer, I'd be able to put the picture I'm sitting in into words. I'd sit you here, on this rock, on my right, to take in what I see through the letters in your eyes.
You'd feel the hardness of this thick, grey boulder under your bum, and its coolness under your bare feet as we sit in the shade. The surface is mottled with spots of bright,white lichen stains and dark crevices of time that are the pathway of transit for the single file of black ants as they carry their daily bread home.
We're looking at the river as it flows from our west on the right to our east through one enormous arch towards another. You'd be able to hear the notes of the water as it gurgles quietly over the little dip formed by some large stones in its path as it follows the sun downstream ~ strangely, away from where it will set.
The level is low and the whitened pebbles in all their sizes are exposed to the afternoon breeze. A small black-and-white bird with a tail longer than its body bounces up and down,trots and flip flaps across the smooth tops. He is joined by another,and together, they chirrup and chase each other in tight,low circles, skimming the tiny yellow flowers on the opposite bank.
This side of the river is the widest, and if I were a painter, I'd be able to capture all the autumn colours in front of me with a brush : the squatter,frothy green iced with yellow, spread most generously along here; the sharper,drier copper crispness in a narrower,taller line closer to the water ~ caught half in the shade while reddening in the warmth of red October.
I could possibly manage to copy the arched dark semi-circle of flat stones lying against the river bed ~ the highest point just short of a low-slung,dense dark green plant whose leaves are bowed down as though drinking.
I'd just about catch the concentric circles that shiny little jumping fish made as it fell back into its liquid golden safety net after an insect attempt.
I might even find a way to etch the lines of the rectangular windows set amongst the blocks of grey-brown medieval stones squared by history and now, watching the same centuries-old sun as when they were first raised.
Just like us.
The River Orbieu, Lagrasse
a little bit of background... I hadn't been there before my 40th birthday and it was Mark who suggested I hire a gite for the celebratory weekend. It couldn't have been more memorable. After a couple of weekend visits, I was invited to the event of the century - Mark and Carlos's wedding. October 2014. I was lucky enough to be able to get there earlier and I was given the honourable role of concierge to the wedding guests. I was shown all the accommodation, lined up with the keys and tasked with looking after the sporadic arrivals. It was a simple, yet wonderful job as I got to meet all the guests and many locals from the village. I got to see some of the special little abodes as I walked up cobbled streets and opened the doors to history alive in the present. What a weekend it was. Classic cars and headwear, champagne in the square, sunshine and smiles with strangers, music, laughter and wine. Dancing in the village hall, love exploding in the valley.
Once it was over, I stayed on in the village as the newly-weds flew off to Venezia. I had their beautiful warm home to look after, with Clarke, the spunky little kitten,for company. It was a week of grazing on left-over cheese and cupcakes, loafing in the herb garden guzzling wine that had been tucked under the stairs, boardgames,dinners and chuckles all in French, walks through the vineyards and the cemetery,by the river and the abbey. Movies and woodfires, Clarke and cuddles.
There was one afternoon when I went down to the river. I was the only one there. This was the moment captured in the little notebook I'd carried with me in the hope of being struck by artistic inspiration. I like to think that it worked. Will you follow the words and make their picture? Then will you look at the picture and tell me if it's what you saw in your mind's eye? Don't look yet! Promise?!
Lagrasse, France
October 20th, 2014
If I were a writer, I'd be able to put the picture I'm sitting in into words. I'd sit you here, on this rock, on my right, to take in what I see through the letters in your eyes.
You'd feel the hardness of this thick, grey boulder under your bum, and its coolness under your bare feet as we sit in the shade. The surface is mottled with spots of bright,white lichen stains and dark crevices of time that are the pathway of transit for the single file of black ants as they carry their daily bread home.
We're looking at the river as it flows from our west on the right to our east through one enormous arch towards another. You'd be able to hear the notes of the water as it gurgles quietly over the little dip formed by some large stones in its path as it follows the sun downstream ~ strangely, away from where it will set.
The level is low and the whitened pebbles in all their sizes are exposed to the afternoon breeze. A small black-and-white bird with a tail longer than its body bounces up and down,trots and flip flaps across the smooth tops. He is joined by another,and together, they chirrup and chase each other in tight,low circles, skimming the tiny yellow flowers on the opposite bank.
This side of the river is the widest, and if I were a painter, I'd be able to capture all the autumn colours in front of me with a brush : the squatter,frothy green iced with yellow, spread most generously along here; the sharper,drier copper crispness in a narrower,taller line closer to the water ~ caught half in the shade while reddening in the warmth of red October.
I could possibly manage to copy the arched dark semi-circle of flat stones lying against the river bed ~ the highest point just short of a low-slung,dense dark green plant whose leaves are bowed down as though drinking.
I'd just about catch the concentric circles that shiny little jumping fish made as it fell back into its liquid golden safety net after an insect attempt.
I might even find a way to etch the lines of the rectangular windows set amongst the blocks of grey-brown medieval stones squared by history and now, watching the same centuries-old sun as when they were first raised.
Just like us.
