I find peace in plenty while walking through an olive grove…
…and I know I am not the only one.
Yes, I am well aware that these trees have been declared a simplistic symbol, the Provence of Provence…
…but I breathe them in and love them now with time and understanding, just like our varying sky.
For the leaves twist with the seasons, dipping into a palette…
… that soothes yet is vibrant enough to inspire a shout or a joyful run…
…while the trunks, raising raides sometimes a hundred years, twist inward with still solidity.
It is my Japanese garden. Ordered and quiet…
…with just enough rustle to sweep away the gray.
*Update: Oooh, I am so excited to be guest-posting today, Thursday, over at the absolutely amazing D. A. Wolf’s blog “Daily Plate of Crazy”:
I hope that you will enjoy and stop over to say hello!*
i, too, was wondering where ben was – glad you added the last image!
The light seems to have changed – there is a clearer glow – spring must be teasing. You are welcome to our summer this year – will be glad to send him on his way to your half of the world – has been so very unusually hot that I am excited even more than usual for those first few days of golden autumn. xx
I look forward to your walks with your dogs in Provence. It a little trip for me as well. Believe it or not the color of the cedar trees and limestone outcroppings here in the central Texas Hill Country remind me of past trips to the countryside around Uzes and Valence. I walk my two dog daily and the peace and break from work is refreshing. Thank you for sharing.
As I happily walked along with you in these groves, beautifully evoked, I don't want to say captured, too brutal, I was also thinking of the great diversity of beauty and drama in nature, and our capacity to be moved by, to experience it. I note this because as I loved your photo essay, I had just returned from a palms, hibiscus and bougainvillea and 100 shades of green plants February walk home, Sarasota, Florida.
Pure poetry, Heather. I love olive trees. I am not sure exactly why I find them so fascinating but I do. I really do.
P.S. Just for the record?……Dominique had already written (by herself and for HERSELF) "Slow Love" when a publisher she
'd-known-for-years approached her and said "What about your trying to write something about losing your job and finding happiness?…that might sell…"…..and she said (I'm paraphrasing) "Funny thing….I've already been doing that…for myself".
Frances Mayes (a friend and neighbor of mine) has the same story regarding her memoir "Under the Tuscan Sun".
The same goes for my friend, pulitzer-prize-winning Geraldine Brooks and her first novel.
I'[m not gratuitously "name-dropping". I'm simply trying to assure you, as much as I can, that really good artists and writers write and draw for themselves before they bother with finding a "market" or "contract".
all of them began by doing what you're doing now.
I have to constantly remind myself of this these days, when I could easily just sit back on my ass and draw only when I'm assured beforehand of being paid to do so. That's not at ALL how or why I began this work twenty years ago.
Best of luck to all of us…and I hope this doesn't sound more than usually avuncular (our ages scarcely differ) of me.
—-david terry
Dear Heather,
Since we've never, of course, spoken of the matter, I have no idea whether you're a practicing/devout/whatever Christian or not. As someone who happened to have long-assumed that I'd be a priest before I was thirty, I do happen to be.
As someone who's travelled (sp?) the world and witnessed many forms of spirtuality/religion, you probably don't waste much time fretting over the issue/s of specific religions and/or denominations.
that said?….I'll spare you the first stanza of the 19th century poet (sorry to go all skoolmarmy on everyone, but this IS/was my field)Gerard Manley Hopkins's poem (it's available on the internet and in more than just a few books).
Your lovely posting, however, reminded me of the second stanza of this brief, beautiful poem (I first read it when my grandmother gave it to me, when I was 16).
" And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings."
I'm so glad to see so many folks responding so sincerely to your postings and writings and art. I'm a fairly harrowing(some would say "acidic" or "mean") critic, myself….and it takes something special for me to suddenly be reminded of a poem as lovely as the one I've just quoted.
As the old blues song goes?….."You've got what it takes".
so,Heather?…. keep on writing and taking those snapshots and generally delighting folks with what you see and think.
Admiringly,
David Terry
http://www.davidterryart.com
…but I breathe them in and love them now with time and understanding. Beautiful!
Totally normal. And yes, it was a beautiful spot. We made it to the wedding — just, but but due to airline problems, had no time at all in Firenza.
Ahhh, Remi just mentioned that I have only been showing Kipling, not Ben two seconds ago! It is a bit normal that I am a little fixated with our new pupper, non? 🙂 And oh my, I too am taking in your memory of being in a villa in the hills near Firenza–yes, please!
PS. Hooray for work!
Thank you for this little zen moment. I am taking it in along with some tea and cookies before I get back to work (yes, I have some work!) It reminds me that I love olive trees too and that I have actually seen them, in the flesh! My niece was married at a villa in the hills near Florence. It was summer and the sun was hot. And boy do I need that image today as the rain is pouring down so steadily that we didn't even take Karina out for her morning walk.
The rocks, the tree bark, the running dog…. And just as I was asking myself, "Oú est Monsieur Ben?!" there he was in the last photo.