FIELD OF VISION - 27 September 20121
27th September, 2011
The big window is flung open and I am sitting at the long table in front of it, looking across the valley to the hillside where, in the midst of the vast forest, a field of lavender and 7 cherry trees has been calling to us ever since we arrived.
Maggie's photo
Yesterday evening we went to visit, driving along the tiny lane, made for a horse-drawn cart, no doubt, some centuries ago, and walked into the field, the soft-tilled earth giving like sand beneath the feet, the evening sunlight on the low domes of the clipped lavender plants. I must count the rows when I return because it seems to me that part of the harmony of this field has to do with its proportions, the 7 cherry trees being just so, right down to the middle one which held in its lush branches clusters of dried cherries so sweet and chewy as to resemble natural candy.
Although the lavender was harvested at least 2 months ago, the air in that square of lovingly tended land seemed filled with a lavender mist. We walked the circumference, slowly, and the word that comes to mind is: heaven.
I am not a religious person, although I grew up with it until the age of 15 when I denounced it after one too many cruel events associated with it. In the following 50 years I have slowly unearthed what I call my spiritual path, with not some few years spent attempting to find salvation at the bottom of a bottle. But words exist and heaven is one of them and I think that one cannot avoid having one's own visual, literal and metaphoric interpretation of it. After all, when one reads a work of fiction one automatically conjures a mental vision of the places and persons described therein, even though we know they may not exist in reality.
So, I suppose my interpretation of heaven is a place of serenity and ordered proportion, imbued with a sense of safety and mystery and yes, goodness. A place where, like the lavender and cherry trees, one will be well-tended and come to fruition year after year after...
Fields. Confined openness. I grew up in England at a time when fields seemed to be everywhere: over stiles, behind hedges, through farm gates. Perhaps my happiest memories en famille were Sunday and holiday picnics, sitting in a grassy field, the Coleman stove primed for tea, sandwiches and cakes aplenty. A few cruelty-free pastures of childhood. My favorite Psalm in the few years before adolescence when I still readily believed Jesus was my friend, was Psalm 23 and the line "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures," filled me will with the possibility of kindness and consolation.
This morning, after a disturbing night's sleep, I awoke feeling leaden. By mid-morning I felt severely depressed, which is not something I allow myself anymore, having learned that taking action is the fastest way up and out of it. So we decided to go to Oppedette which, it turns out, is the town Paul had recommended to us last week, but which we had heard as "Oppede." (See Post dated 21st September, Back On Our Feet.)
We traveled along some back roads which I know - intellectually - were quite beautiful but which failed to penetrate me. I felt used-up, empty, not even capable of a few tears. I began to feel a bit frightened, the feeling of perhaps it was time to die starting to feel like perhaps I actually was.
Some 4 K from Oppedette, my having tried to explain to Joel how I felt, or rather, didn't feel, he pulled the car off to the side of the road and we got out for some air. Surely this would do me good. Instead I merely sat down in the dirt, literally feeling like I couldn't go on. It was as though my entire system was shutting down and suddenly I felt if I didn't get up and force myself to walk back to the car I would expire.
And then Joel took over. He got the blanket from the car and led me across the lane to a field, put the blanket down under a tree and gently lay me down.
And then the tears came and I asked him did he think it was possible to die of weariness and he said, yes. And I told him of the dream that had disturbed my sleep, how we were on our way to be married and he asked the taxi to stop while he got something, telling the driver to wait but he didn't and my phone wouldn't work and I hadn't enough money and I was in my nightie and I just couldn't make it all all right. And now lying in the field, looking up to Joel under the lovely pin oak I told him, I just couldn't make it all right anymore. And he said that was okay, he was there no matter what and all of our love and our life became enormous and finite and he said, "This is a practice run," as the tears streamed down his face. And we wished that we might find such a field as this to lie down in together when our time comes. And then we saw the butterflies.
Hundreds of butterflies. Like wild flowers, wing born. White ones and mauve, cream and orange, flitting above the surface of the field, some venturing to chase each other in the air. They say some butterflies only live for 24 hours.