I'LL MEET YOU IN PARIS

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A LOVE LETTER

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Meet me in Paris, where we will kiss by the Cathedral of Notre Dame, while watching the fire dancers.

We will have no money, and will eat eight-dollar kebabs for dinner. We will walk by the Seine, and in the Latin Quarter, and of course we will buy pastries from Pierre Herme and savor them on the steps of St Sulpice.

Come with me to Paris, and I will show you the paintings; I will talk for hours on end about the light and the lines of her hands. Then you will fall asleep as we listen to Vivaldi in a church that resembles a jewel-box.

I will show you the Paris I have been telling you about - where you may see in the same scene: a riverside sunset 'twixt the arches of Pont Neuf, and a man peeing beneath the bridge with his junk on show. Let me show you also, those metro stations that could rival Dante's vision of hell, and those tree lined parks where tulips grow and you can buy a crepe slathered in Nutella. And we will conjecture: that maybe all this just adds to the fun of Paris. Or, maybe a selective memory is a lovely thing to have.

And I will apologize now, ahead of time, for the night when, famished and only a little stir-crazy, I get a bit huffy and make you walk for an hour, turning down every restaurant we come across because none is good enough. Yet, we will go back to that one that actually looked promising, and we will drink wine there and talk sweetly, and there will be a piano player with her husky voice that matches the wine we are drinking.

Meet me in Paris where we will buy a ring from Tiffanys. We will go to the real-life-Parisian, velvet cases, diamond-dust and sparkling-windows Tiffanys store. We will plonk our giant backpacks down on that shiny floor, looking to all the world like two ragamuffins, and we will buy the cheapest ring there is. Because that is the one I wanted. 

So please darling, meet me in Paris, where we will begin our adventures.

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HIKING IN AUVERGENE

...FEELING ALIVE...

What is it like to be alive
in the Middle-of-Nowhere, Auvergne?

Feelings: the sun beating down on me, warming my hair, getting caught between my lashes and my retinas. The cool respite of a cloud passing over the land. Itchy air, warm and tingly, like it is full of pollen. The breeze between my fingers. That thwacking swish swish swish noise of flowering grasses against leather boots. A stile over the meadows, and then another. The grasses give off a sweet smell. 

Then there is that moment when I just stop everything and look up from the ground, and I can hear my breath leave my mouth. It seems loud in the stillness. I feel like I have not seen a cloud in years, at least, not a real one; or maybe I have not been looking in the right way. Because, when I gaze correctly, each cloud has a shape that seems to denote the very width and depth of the landscape before me.

Now looking around seems the best thing to do, as I can see a great many things:  A brook, a deciduous tree, a small fountain, a ginormous dandelion clock, a stone covered in yellow moss, thorns on the blackberries... and, looking down for a moment again, the tracks of a small wild pig in the mud underfoot. 

But, really, looking is not enough, instead I have to pick that giant dandelion clock, and blow off all the seeds; and when we pass a farm I will always inhale all the smells very deeply; and I have to stop at a wild cherry tree to fill a hollow in my shirt with cherries for later, which I then eat straight away. And even then that is not enough, because I also have to swirl my hands in the waters that trickle from the fountain - they are cold - and I must duck into the small stone structure on the edge of the brook, to breath the air in there too - it is musty.

And when I do all of these, I feel very alive. 

Being alive is simple, too, it runs in my veins just like it runs in yours. I feel it when I walk uphill: heart colliding against my chest, and lungs pumping air. 

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EPIPHANY

The most ultimate moment, though, was when we walked through the wheat fields under the storm. It had been brewing for a while, and it broke when we reached the grasses, which stretched on for miles. I could feel the electricity in my teeth. Thunder rolled through the fields like the sound of rice on a tin roof. With an uninterrupted view of the storm as it gathered, I realised that there was even more to feeling alive than simply seeing or breathing. There is also the occasional full-bodily epiphany: of the fragility of your own life, knowing that it could be snatched away from you in a second. It reminded me of the moment before a bungee-jump, when I was standing on the edge of the abyss, and I became acutely aware of just how compact and solid my body was compared to the vast expanse of air beneath me. 

Walking through the wheat-field full of lightning, I sensed the bright spark of my own life, and the thin lines connecting it to the wider whole - the powerful push and pull of nature in all her glory. Then, I truly felt alive.

GARDENING AT BRENAZET

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HANDS IN THE EARTH

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my grandmother always wishes
that I would root my hands in the dirt.
nasturtiums and roses in her garden
behind that door where the cold blows in
between the wall and the high fence.

talk of the earth was in my head
mingled already with my blood
because aren't we all made that way?

but the pure joy in the doing
the coming back to the being
and the light that passed upwards
from the earth to my hand
connecting me to her
was not like the talk in my head.

I wove tendrils around small sticks
and made ponds out of nettle water
and watched, wide-eyed, as Mariken
revealed to me
    the secrets
         of creation.

and if you had seen me
pulling weeds by the chicken wire
you might have thought (with good presumption)
that I hated those plants
some of which stung my arm.
but I didn't hate them.

in fact, I loved them all
and carrying them by the armful
I hugged them close
 

the plants could be my medicine
those stings of the nettle are treated
with
small white flowers of the opposite kind
to the one that stung me in the beginning.

each part of nature is highly intertwined
but I am not separated from the whole
finally, I am digging my hands
back into the earth.