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…
Heather, Your life is a continuous adventure! I love Remi and your discovery and the images are perfection of nature.
What I see in this post is also that sometimes we need another's encouragement to pull us out of our depths of fatigue and loss of any energy whatsoever.
As I do not have a Remi in my life right now; I am so grateful for the encouragement of all of my dear blog friends and family to heal and thrive!
I am here for you always.
xoxo
Karena
Art by Karena
Following through this day of yours was blissful. Blissful because I can feel how you were feeling, and I know that feeling. A creative person can truly find profound perfection in life's simplest things, like these crickets & these irises. Brava, Heather, this is so thoughtful and well done. This is the reason you belong with our group, By Invitation Only, you add so much we could not do without you. xx's
stunning. and a beautiful post.
That is BRILLIANT! Oh my that made me smile. I see creativity runs in the family…
Bisous,
H
You are so wonderful, Natalie. Merci beaucoup, beaucoup. How I wish I had the funds to pop up to Paris when you were there–so close yet so far!! Next time…
Oh hooray! Just the sight of Edward's sweet face in the Member box will make me smile EVERY SINGLE TIME that I see him there. 🙂 How we love our puppers.
xo,H
That is gorgeously put Leslie, thank you. And I agree with you, I don't think that there is much more to aim for than that!!
And I appreciate the compliment about the photos, they are some of my favorites that I have ever taken.
xo,
H
Those two words were the key to the whole little story!! Virginia, you are so wonderful. I really have sucked in your kindness and support like a sponge. And I have a lot more quiet in my life than most folks–it gives me plenty of time to focus on the small things. 🙂
My folks lived in San Diego for over twenty years so I was lucky enough to have a few "authentic" moles–I am crazy for them. Well, anything that has that sweet/salty or sucre/salé thing going but seriously? Chocolate with peanut butter is the original plus all of those spices and a kick of peppers (which is why I don't make it myself, can't find the right kinds here) and I am in Heaven! I will be craving this now…
Your posts, all, go down so smoothly, Heather. Beautifully, beautifully done.
As for the mole, my mother makes it with chocolate and a smidge of peanut butter. Sounds kitschy but it is sooo delectable — like dessert and dinner rolled into one happy, unassuming tumult on the tongue. You would love it.