Return to the harvest

“What is this, some not even winter night? When we are all looking at each other with neither surprise or delight? We are holding our own souls tight.”

So, where are we? Where am I? Yesterday it helped me enormously to go out and walk to look for the leaves green who don’t lie, at least not on purpose.

Just a week before, I was back in the harvest. And that action of bringing something to fruition felt like nothing as simple as hope. One that came unbidden, not forced.

It was at their house. Yes, my friends at La Mas de la Fourbine who saved me more than once before, quite literally, and yet here I was again, back in that bed so soft as to give promise…at least of dreams, for once a restful night.

Back to this bedroom and this joyful family. 

Today, I had a thought of young Juliette demanding during a break, “I like it when you make your legs like that,” meaning mine crossed like Buddha and her sitting in the middle that was left. I would love to watch her do that simple manoeuvre of pulling herself up towards me with one hand and a book in the other while trying not to wonder too much what is the beauty to be a Mom. I would correct her quietly, as she sounded out the words but not every time that she made a mistake. Sometimes, it was fine to listen to that otherwise confident voice testing out the sounds, learning in live time. 

During the days, I would pick at the olives so quietly. I was most happy when I was inside the tree.

I would rotate the swampish green fruit between my fingers and marvel at the perfume. Picking without thinking, time rotated from between “until lunch” to “until sunset.” And then, we were done. We folded up the nets that had been placed under the trees in the near dark with wispy exhales that reached up towards the cold, stubborn stars. 

I would have stayed another day if there had been more to be done. Another week, another year.

And now those treasures, fought for with a declaration of, “No olive left behind!” (that was me, on the first morning, a bit giddy) will be pressed and strained until they have transformed into something else entirely. A briny, initially spicy, oil. A promise of something that will continue to change and develop over time.

I know that feeling. I know it well.

As there was so little to take this year, R and N relied on their friends to do the picking, a traditional provençal style affair. And I would chat and smile with these strangers, instigating conversations. Curious. Stealing a laugh when I could. How different an experience from when I last participated in 2016, a period when I could barely understand the pain as it ripped through my body, let alone the challenges to come. The trees held me up then. I hid behind my camera. Don’t see me. Don’t see me, please. My hosts were generous in their carefulness.

Will I always be one, or two days behind of believing again, truly? Sometimes. But not always. In those recent few moments I felt rooted with that balmy earth. I wasn’t as desperate for the light of the moon as usual. The sun felt rather good. 

I suppose the point of this story (remembering it once again) is that I am still here. I have grown. And although I am still not able to forsee the possibilities, I can start to feel them coming. Or hear the door creaking on its hinges as if begging for a push. 

That moment with my friends preceeded, directly, the US presidential election. In the joy of the past few days, with the dancing in the streets, it feels like a harvest of another sort has also taken place. How I cried to see humanity…win. Despite what lies ahead. I kind of know where I am, as a person and as a person of the world. My community. My family. And hopefully, there will also be more kindness and love towards my struggling self. 

That one still to be completely refined. May I rest inside those branches in peace. 

May we all, each in our own way.