“[I]t was said he did not know the difference between a turnip and an artichoke.”

Marcel Pagnol’s “The Water of the Hills” Translated by W. E. Heyningen

“It is a fact that when luck favours imbeciles, they quickly become unbearable[.]”

Marcel Pagnol’s “The Water of the Hills” Translated by W. E. Heyningen

Dreams—[INANANNAMANNER] continued …

Subject: We are here. From here.

OK … so, we are in the car … East.

It’s that soft suspended moment, the place where anticipation settles deep into the body … and keeps our voices. You know why we’re here … not that I have to say as you let the moment stretch … breathe.

Still East (I think), but right there, you say, pull in? Uh—huh, ok—and the place opens out into a small park for cars—wheels crunch lightly, the engine idles. I reach over, turn the engine off.

The key turns and sound collapses—it’s a silence we recognise. There’re absence and fullness, and the texture of noises we carry with us—painted by the feeling that brought us here … butterflies … they pause as the engine dies. We time it by the half breath we both held in this small pocket of peace we’ve found, exactly where we were looking for it.

We open the doors—cooler air, almost wet against the skin … it brushes (I can tell it cleanses you). The light has changed too, different: softer perhaps, angled? (Is that a thing, my love?)—everything looks more … deliberate—the ground underfoot, subtle shifts against the surface and the weight we bring to it—It almost feels as though we’ve left a world behind and stepped into something new, unknown, never visited, uncharted,laid out for this very visit … ahead. Beside. Beneath our feet. All of it settling into place, made for us, just in time for us to arrive together.

You are beside me. In front of me—I can feel it in the way you pause, one heartbeat at a time, taking in the space around us: the quiet, the smells … they unfurl in front of us—just a sense that they hint of a beginning—though not loudly—the echoes haven’t found us [nor how could they, then reach us] yet, but they will. There is no sadness—just a slow unwinding of sound, light, and breath.

The gravel layby—the park for cars—has a sign (I notice it, but the letters are obscured) … the stillness is immediate, engine clicking as it cools, winding down and away as we walk away from us, as the valley, if it is a valley, gathers around us.

I reach for your hand … you take it, and it feels like we breathe for the first time—there’s a hint of damp bracken, peat, and somewhere—a sweetness … heather maybe? This is Wordsworth Country, after all—nature never did betray the heart that loved her.

This is the promise of the walk.

JustD

Abstract Drawing by G Kustom Kuhl, Acrylic on Paper, 22 x 29.9 in