country roads, take me home

After finishing my dinner and savoring four squares of deep dark chocolate, I took a short walk down one of the old roads that lead out of the village.

The sun was a perfect circle, and looked like a giant illuminated nectarine. Or maybe James’ giant peach. It smothered the fields in its light like marmalade, lighting up old wood and barbwire fences, and revealing Jersey cows chewing grass in the distance.

Under this light I feel like I’m walking through a cook book called Cooking in Provence, and feel as if I should be wearing a white linen dress and carrying a baguette.

But of course I’m wearing all black, and the only part of me that says South of France is my body’s olive oil skin tone.

As a tractor made tracks through fields in the distance I wondered what it’d be like to grow up on a farm. To wake up before sunlight and feed the animals, or milk the cows. To pluck a chicken for the evening meal. To know that most of what you eat is off your own land. To drink wine from your very own vineyard, getting drunk off your own hard work. I romanticize the idea, and dream up a simple life while neglecting the hard labor involved. I just think it would be a very rewarding lifestyle. A lifestyle so far from everything I know.

Out of my trance, I came to a small grass hill I’d run up a few days before. It was completely made over, the long blades of grass replaced with short stubs and tractor marks. The dewy smell of rain was replaced with a dry summer heat, and the bright purple flowers that flickered in the evening light were gone. Last time I had felt like Alice in Wonderland, drugs and all, as the light brought the plants alive. This time I felt sober and serene, and before I had time to think about it my body broke into a short run, as if to remind me that I was living in it.

I finished my walk by climbing up the small mound that leads to the statue of the virgin, La Vierge, to watch the sun set. An old man stood staring out at the sky. He glanced at me, and then fiddled with his sweatshirt and looked away until I came near, when we both exchanged a “Bon soir,” which is mandatory here if you want to come across as polite. He had gentle eyes, and there was the short bonding moment in knowing we had both climbed the hill for the same reason: to admire the sunset, admire the scenery, and stare off wistfully into the distance. I went to the edge of the hill and watched as the giant peach slowly disappeared into the hills. The old man glanced at me as I stretched my arms and legs, then turned around to head home.

The air is warm and pleasant tonight. The wind messes up my hair playfully and makes me feel like an old-fashioned poster girl, hair blowing in the wind, a cheeky smile across my lips while I bat my eyelids and shrug my shoulders at no one in particular.

On nights like this darker thoughts set with the sun. Tourists voices ring out from the cobble stone streets as the sky turns a light shade of violet, drunk after their meals at the local restaurants, and I am happy to do nothing other than just be.