la france

glad to be moving again,
the day i left rome
i got the train north to the coast and began to hitchhike - a long walk through a long industrial yard, but full of optimism.  maybe this car will stop?
No.

maybe it will be this car?
no.

maybe this one?
nope.

after not two hours i say: i want to be in france, and head back into town and get the next train north - swoooooosh!  it is the sensation of one's body moving quickly through space.   a wondrous sensation.  it seems like you are stock still - the bone structure is immoble proportional to itself, the blood system keeps going regularly round and round as if you were stock still, but you are actually hurtling through space.   you look outside the window; you stick your head of out the window and you can't make any sense of the blur that is the world spinning past.  trains all the way till two in the morning when i get off on a sleepy stretch of coast before genoa and sleep on the beach there.  the next day up to Torino, and there i take the valley that leads the mountain pass that crosses to france. 
i love to travel around and see the variety of landscapes, but when i am in the mountains i know that that is where i really want to be.  massimo picks me up and lets me sleep in his garden and gives me fresh bread and pizza from his paneficio early the next morning.  my last italian encounter.
i am soon in briançon, france, about to let the peel fall from my orange into the dry moat of the historic centre when a cry rings out.
"ne jetez pas les ordures là!"
it is the woman responsible for keeping the historic centre clean.  she argues that chemicals are sprayed onto oranges and when they are discarded the birds eat them and fall ill.
i say: the solution would be not to use chemicals in the first place.
that would be the solution.
an old man stops and takes me to grenoble.
he says:   il faut voyager.
i say: oui, mais... i know people who are happy to stay settled in one place and do not feel the need to be in other places.
all he repeats is:  il faut voyager.
we establish that voyager is not just a case of changing location on the earth's surface, but is a state of mind, is a receptivity to the other.  a listening to the other.
then he says the words:  le voyager est aller rencontre ton voison
(travelling is going to meet your neighbour).

i liked it very much when he said that.

he adds to it by saying: le monde est un village.  he has eyes which say to me:
joy

i persuade myself to spend a couple of days in grenoble. the art museum has an exhibition by russian avant guard painter Marc Chagall.   his soft luminous colours and quirky composition say:   the world is a magical place.   i find a place to sleep up on the hill with the bastille which affords a grenoble panorama.   big solid soaring mountainsides all around and anywhere that is flat valley bottom is covered with city.  a wondrous sight.
as evening falls i meet a youth collecting wood and ask him if he is going to have a fire. 
his voice is a little subdued and a little meek and he says:  "oui, juste un petit feu"
i consider his words with humour from my little fire place as twenty of his companions scour the forest and return dragging big branches and logs.  as the night progresses the singing starts up, turning into bawling and howling until late at night, their almighty pyre illuminating the woods just beneath me.  letting off steam and being a little wild is important every so often, i recognise.

i hitch i hitch
i hitch happily though the valence cherry picking season to le puy en valey and meet lavanya at gregorie's place.  gregorie is planting potatoes; he says that it makes him happy to hear someone speaking french in a foreign accent - he is made aware that the world is big, and diverse.
lavanya and i travel north to saint etienne, where she is spending a few days working with lucien as guerrisseurs.  work which involves being very very sensitive, paying attention to the energy vibrations of the people who seek their help, feeling much more than thinking.  one night we light a fire and sleep in a rocky gorge and another night we find a big peaceful lake to sleep by. 
then i hitch to Taizé, and most people i meet say: "ah oui, Taizé", and for  the last car journey i am not even hitchhiking when a woman stops and says: "are you going to taizé?".

Taizé is an awesome community of monks which welcomes many young people.  i thought the place was swarming but they say, "nah there are only 4 or 5 hundred at the moment; in the summer there are regularly six thousand"
in first place i love the warm showers on tap, then the good peaceful vibrations become palpable - the entire community sitting three times a day in the église, sitting contemplatively, singing songs of praise in many different languages to The Creator, sitting in silence and turning thoughts to The Infinite, The Eternal, the Divine Essence.  it is a place of encounters, a unique point in the globe where people come together.  i meet a swedish priest who says he became resolved about his vocation when he was washing after a day walking the Camino de Santiago (contact with water begetting a fresh experience), one of his big reasons for walking the camino: to meet people and hear their stories.  and the afternoon discussion groups, during which many christian truths are affirmed and after which dreadlocked german stephan has to agree with me that it was not the place to ask probing questions.


Taizé - an awesome place where i want to be for a long time, but which i have left with Scotland now in my thoughts.