You were born
and you will die.
In between...
is life.
Social etiquette may tell you:
Do this, don't do that.
Go to school
Get a good job
Make some babies
Don't pick your nose in public.
But, really, where did all these rules come from?
Instead, be free.
Dance in the street
Live in a cave
Sleep in a tree
Who cares?
Ordinary is pointless.
Life is here
Life is now
This is it.
Are you living?
Choose life.
Break free.
There are many things I will miss about Lyon. I will miss the time spent at Penny's warm flat, and making food together. I will miss my walks beside the Saône river, and the small spot on top of the Croix Rousse where you can watch the sun go down. (There are other things I definitely won't miss, such as the wind, which never fails to blow dust off the street into your eyes). However, I think the things I am going to miss the most are those things that have become so familiar to me, they could almost be my left knee. One of these things is the walk I take each day to get home.
This trail to my small apartment has ingrained itself on the soles of my shoes, so that my feet take me down those streets without my brain uttering a word. It is the same feeling as those times when you find yourself driving to the wrong destination, simply because you are so used to driving this road, and turning at that corner. Then you feel like a bit of a twit.
My journey home changed within the first few weeks of being here. After becoming exasperated with the noise and the fumes from the constant stream of cars on the main road leading through Oullins, I turned down one of the small side streets. Ever since then, I enjoy taking the longer way home, with less cars and more silence. It feels good to hear your own footsteps on smooth pavement. The solidarity of my route has offered me times of reflection and moments of joy. I have even danced down that road, arms waving wildly. And, with each passing, back and forth, I begin to see more and more wonder in the world around me. So here it is: my long way home and all the small things I will miss...
Running my hand along the rungs of the green fence, till it makes a tingtingtingtingting noise.
Veering left into an oasis of calm.
The fence with the beautiful blooms of wisteria flowers, which turn fragrant when the air is hot enough.
Next is the whitewashed house, with tiny shutters and creeping wisteria.
I swoosh my fingers through the bright leaves.
The avenue of tall trees by the school, throwing down their leaves; which then scatter around till they dry up and are crunched under my foot.
That roof of greenery.
This small crosswalk.
Passing by the bakery that sells the worst, most stale bread in France,
and that one pub where the sleazy men lounge around drinking
at one in the afternoon.
The ever-changing flower pots on the corner before the hill.
Tulips and crocuses, daisies and geraniums.
The never-changing construction zone.
I am always saving snails.
This letterbox made for a giant.
Walking on the white line, the divide between bicyclists and pedestrians.
I like to watch the reflections from the street lamps skip ahead of me,
sparkling at night.
Farther up is the rosemary bush
where I throw my banana peels in the morning;
and that area where I like to save lost hedgehogs from being roadkill.
The hallway plant, who greets me warmly outside my apartment as I push the key into the lock and jimmy it at the same time.
“let’s go out past the party lights,
where we can finally be alone
come with me, and we can take the long way home
come with me,
together,
we can take the long way home.”
There is nothing like a pure moment in time.
When you are fully aware of the grass beneath you, and the wind that touches your skin, seems to move through you, and that exhale, and that ripple of the water as a bird cries, and all those dim outer noises on the horizons.
Pure moments are magic.
I sometimes wish to gather them up like butterflies in a net, and study them in this-here glass jar - this blank space which I can fill with my words and pictures and ideas.
Others, too, have felt that longing to capture a pure moment, and I empathise. In fact, I idolize. Above all, I pay homage to the paintings of Monet...
“To me the motif itself is an insignificant factor; what I want to reproduce is what lies between the motif and me… Other painters paint a bridge, a house, a boat.. I want to paint the air in which the bridge, the house and the boat are to be found - the beauty of the air around them, and that is nothing less than the impossible.”
The lotus and the water lily are symbolic of the true nature of things. Their seeds may sit in mud, till a rain forms that mud into a creek, and then they will emerge, rising from the murky waters to bloom in all their glorious transcendence.
In the Hindu and Buddhist lines of thought, these flowers represent the ascension of the self to enlightenment, and the cycles of life, and of the natural rebirthing of nature. A blooming lotus or lily is an awakening of energy.
Shade, cold and damp under willow leaves
between the water
on top of my skin
and in the darkest recesses of the lake
caught in weeds,
promising that night will fall.
Now dappled, among the flowers and over
a small bridge
the air lifting it, placing it down only for a second
on the tips of the clematis.
A million whisperings,
gravel rustlings.
Birds and a dog barking,
skimmed over the surface
like a glance of a window from
the far off distance.
And the sun on the water, making the clouds dance
between bright sparks
between red, dark, and
pale pinks:
the nodding heads
of the flowers.
“I’ve got it... the Saint Lazare. I’ll show it just as the trains are starting, with smoke from the engines so thick you can hardly see a thing. It’s a fascinating sight, a real dream. I’ll get them to delay the train for Rouen for half an hour. The light will be better then.”
“I have gone back to some things that can’t possibly be done: water, with weeds waving at the bottom. It is a wonderful sight, but it drives one to crazy to try to paint it. But that is the kind of thing I am always a tackling.”
“My only merit lies in having painted directly in front of nature, seeking to render my impressions of the most fleeting effects.”