The Quiet

It didn’t take long for me to find my place. 
On a slight rise above the cabanon that we had rented, a creaky deck chair was waiting for me, slung low across a wooden platform and encircled by a shin high stone wall. 

From my post, I could look out over the lavender fields. Flowerless, yes but lined with organized stripes that calmed my mind with the efficiency of a Japanese garden. In the mornings, I could do my yoga then sit in meditation afterwards, imprinting such a view through barely open eyes.
I had instinctively turned away from the swing of the hammocks, not wanting to be enveloped in a cocoon but preferring to be exposed. So grateful to be in the open air, under the sun until it threatened to burn, letting the breezes turn my novel’s pages for me and string the wisps of my hair into the corners of my eyes, my mouth.
I wore the quiet lightly on my shoulders at first. As the days passed, it began to sink below my skin until it became something of an embrace. 
A grownup gray grasshopper stretched out his violin legs and I could hear their scratch.

The clouds rattled with the youthful brio of kids pulling strings of tin cans in a race across the sky while the earth below my seat would shift with a sigh of oh so old. 
It was the opposite of silence, this implosion of life. From my place, where I was supposed to be, I took it all in and now keep the quiet in a jewel box just below my heart. 

22 comments

  6. I love this Judith, a "scratch and sniff" for the internet! Well, for now we'll just have to rely on our imaginations and I was right there with you on your bike ride…
    Bisous.

  7. That made me smile, Amelia! And thank goodness, since it doesn't seem to be happening any other way…
    Bon Dimanche…

  10. Beautiful. Peaceful. And the final photo reminds me that I just caught a whiff of our local Concord grapes growing wild near some wetlands. I was on my bike riding home on a glorious, clear, cool fall day. Wish I could also catch a whiff of those lavender fields. We'll have to invent the smell technology. I'm sure one day it will happen if it hasn't already.

  11. Much appreciation back to you too Heather! I heard the only way to get out of loopyville is slowly and leisurely…:)

    Have a great weekend!

    XX

  12. Oh my! I have been seriously remiss in replying to your many kind and always interesting comments. Still somewhere on the edge of loopyville, I guess. 😉 Thank you though for your thoughts–they are very much appreciated!!!

  13. As a lover of 'real' books, I loved the image of the wind turning the novel's page. It would have lost the magic had you written, I pushed the Kindle's button. . .another beautiful post, Heather.
    xoxo
    j.

  14. Heather.. this is just beautiful. Quieting the mind and finding inner peace is a challenge in our fast paced world. How wonderful that you found a place where you could stop and take it all in. Interesting that you chose to be open … not cradled in the hammock. What a wonderful feeling .)

    Have a wonderful weekend!

  15. Sounds beautiful, Heather. I can almost feel the quiet on my shoulders, too, in spite of all the noise around me. I'm going to take a little piece of that peace with me as I make my way today. Thank you!
    Have a lovely weekend. XOXO

  16. It would have been an automatic reflex for me to choose the hammock. You as a wise woman chose the low slung deck chair. From your low vantage point, you could survey the quiet life and absorbed the peaceful solitude of your haven. Those beautiful pictures remind me of where I grew up until my teen years. I go back there often in my mind. Although a different country and long ago, it's always been…"in a jewel box just below my heart". Thank so much Heather, for sharing your writing and experiences with us. XX

  17. I think after a summer battling noise from the street below, you are ESPECIALLY craving silence; maybe this is why it was so sweet for you? Either way, it is, as always, beautifully shared, and I'm pining for that deck chair right about now!

  20. Such indulgence for the mind and body. I crave the restorative properties of tranquility and solitude after two weeks of hurly burly induced by a wet school holiday. Mercifully , looking out the window, the blossom is out and bare branches are budding iridescent green leaves. I take what I can get! Rx

  21. Hello Heather:
    This post conveys so well, through your most evocative description and images, the sense of place and the inner peace which such beautiful surroundings gave to you and which, even now, remain in the 'jewel box' below your heart.

    And what truly lovely countryside with both images of the shorn lavender bushes appealing to us hugely for they are so very tactile that, even here, we can feel the spikiness where once the flowers were and the warm, dry earth beneath our feet as we walk, as you must surely have done, the rows.

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