It is April and we have run away.
My smoky bones are filled with fatigue, one that is older than last night’s half-sleep. Heavy and somber, I breathe into the starched pillow, sink into the unfamiliar futon and listen. The rain is calling, whistling, sighing as it comes down. Ben, my Golden Retriever is staring at me. I roll over to avoid his gaze.
We have rented a tidy vacation cottage in the Var region to escape the Easter bullfights in Arles. The tension, the drunkeness, the ugliness that accompanies them is louder than the stomp of flamenco in the streets. My companion Remi, a professional photographer, is out working but I can’t move. My nerves have let down, yes, all the way down. Time taunts me with its looseness.
Ben pricks up his ears and soon I hear the crunch of the car’s arrival. I count the moments that it will take for Remi to arrive at the door, pulling myself up to the edge of the mattress in the interim. He bursts in, glistening with more than the rain. “You have to come see this!” he practically shouts with enthusiasm. “I have found the most amazing place, you won’t believe it.” He regales me with a tale of discovery while I systematically create and reject various excuses not to go back with him, to stay right there in my non-comfort zone. None of them work.
Soon we are heading down a dirt track to a mysterious red rock mountain towering over Roquebrune-sur-Argens. A blush of a blur pulses in my mind’s eye. Remi pulls over, reverses and stops. He gets out and still I wait, still I am unwilling. Again, he tugs at me with his call. I know the sounds of his voice, that beautiful voice that pulled me across an ocean. He has seen something that is worth moving for.
I nearly slip over the moss as I make my way into the small valley that dips down before rising again. Clutching at my camera strap, I find my balance and look up. I am in a field of irises, their purple so profound, their petals bedecked with drops like the unreasonable tears that I have felt clinging to my heart. “Maybe they are diamonds instead,” an inner voice whispers. Then I start to focus.
Just in the simple act of seeing, something shifts slightly. With the acknowledgement that beauty surrounds me, a door starts to crack open. The shape of the irises, their bended elegance, draws me in until I spy perched on one ever so lightly, a bright green cricket. His antenaes stop wiggling under my gaze but he does not flee. I slowly lower my face towards him. He is not alone. Nor am I. Inexplicably, I am filled with utter joy that expands to shake the clouds down. How giddy I become in remembering that hope repeats. What a fool to forget. My clock starts ticking at twelve. Anew, anon. The scales have been tipped and all with the weight of a cricket.
Today’s post is for the “By Invitation Only” series. The current theme is “cycles.” One of the definitions of that word caught my eye: “a permutation of a set of ordered elements in which each element takes the place of the next and the last becomes the first.”
To read the posts of the other wonderful participants, please Visit Splenderosa.
And as always, thank you for being here…
Did I tell you my last gift from my SON and his girlfriend GIULIA was a box with words written on top"A SWEET SERERNADE FOR YOUR SUMMER SOIREE"Inside the box it held 100 crickets!!!!!!!!!!They sing tonight as I read your post and think WOW………
"…and all with the weight of a cricket". That's why I adore and love you so much Heather for being YOU . You write in pastels even deep purple. No lines, just the gentle whiffs of color…
Thanks so much for your visit and for leading me here to your beautiful blog.
You're right! How is it that we haven't yet "met"?
I'm sure to be a regular visitor here, and hope to see you often over at my place.
xo,
pamela
Beautifully written Heather. The cycle of life.. and the story repeats itself. To see that life is full of colors {not just black or white) and paying attention to detail.. following your heart and finding joy in the simple things.. that's what life's all about! Your photos are perfect 🙂
leslie
"hope repeats" oh yes indeed, how beautifully put. As the whole story is. A work of art, your words are. You take the simplest, tiniest thing, like this, and turn it into a thought of wonder, of wisdom, of appreciation. How I do adore the way your mind works, my clever and wise friend. xx
Sometimes opening our eyes lets us open our hearts. Pure poetry Heather – just lovely. And wonderful imagery to match!
Hello Heather
What a beautiful story you weave here. The scene with the iris's and dewdrops is enchanting. In Ireland it was always considered a lucky omen when a cricket lived in the hearth.
Thanks for the beautiful story
Helen xx
I agree with all that compliment your talent for writing….and the flowers are beautiful. I too rented a place in Var once. There is magic in those hills!
Thank you for visiting my blog…Neat that you saw yourself in the little redhead!
Lovely post, Healther. What a treat it must have been to see those iris; thank you for sharing them with us!
I was there with you taking in the beauty of the irises and smiling at the cricket. Strange isn't it the things that make us smile? So inconsequential sometimes and yet, they may alter our whole mood.