martedì 23 ottobre 2012

a wee walk up bin hill


it sometimes happens in autumn that you get crisp clear sunny days

 mum and i took a wee walk up bin hill yesterday afternoon

 shafts of sunlight were streaming through the trees





it was still nippy in the shade, but we got climbing the hill and soon our moving bodies generated their own warmth


i climbed a tree.
i thought i could capture the flaming orange beech leaves contrasted against a faroff pale blue sky with my camera.



but, in reality, it was better in reality

(a pale off flar bue sky)

mum was waiting for me at the top, and walked in front of the sun just at the moment when i pressed click




there was a certain nippy wee edge to the breeze that nudged its chilly way across the top of the hill
so we climbed down a bit
and got the flasks of tea out. 



i took this photo of us two while the sun was shining bright and making me squint a little
mum was alright cos she had tinted glasses


it is great to get out and fill your lungs with fresh air and fill your eyes with good views. 
a little bit of exercise also makes you appreciate your evening meal all the more.
it is nice to be outside but it is also nice to come back to a warm house.

on the way back home we noticed that somebody had streaked the western sky with flamboyant pink and yellow lines





i was so impressed i got mum to stop and i jumped into the field to take another photo



mamma mia, bello bello -  una bellezza incantevole

i can't help talking to myself in italian in matters relating to Beauty.

sabato 13 ottobre 2012

remarkable encounters

"the leaves are very similar to those of a beech tree - it could actually be a beech tree - but the leaves are glossier.  they seem somehow more robust.  the branches, certainly, are more robust.    a little lithe branch the size a little thicker than your thumb would hold your weight.   however, its littleness and litheness does not compromise, by any degree, its strength.   the whole tree in fact shines with robustness, exudes Robustness and Beauty and Grace.   the tree rises to about, about the height of a three-storey house and then the big robust branches spill down gracefully like the water after an upward jet in a fountain, but actually growing gradually outward, in the shape of a steep pyramid.  like a candle that severely loves to melt.



an exemplar of a tree of the same genus, here in Hyde park, London
(photo courtesy of friend francis)




man, what a tree.

a noble tree.  we climbed from the inside, never straying far from the dark trunk.   friend francis cautioned against being spotted by the police officers, which we had just seen as we entered the park.  what!  i thought, how could they object to the beautiful action of getting close to such a tree?   the inside of the tree is like a tepee because you can't see beyond the flowing curtain of glossy leaves on the outside.
being at the top gave an unparallelled sensation of being at the top of something really sacred and noble and monumental, like a little himalayan peak, in the shape of a tree, in a park in oxford.   friend francis was like a monkey.  he climbed down one of the downward flowing external branches.  i didn't have enough confidence.  i was archly aware of the distance separating me from the ground, and slowly picked my way down, keeping close to the trunk in the gathering gloom".



i was telling this to brother finlay as we were heading to the abandoned house, just outside st andrews, when suddenly we caught sight of exactly the same noble tree, only a little less tall, and a little less conical,  its downward flow interrupted by the excrescences of exploratory uprising branches.

we set about climbing her immediately, unhurridly.  the diaphanous daylight of the midafternoon was the ideal occasion to become aquainted with that tree.  to become aquainted with a tree, to become intimate with her.  to hug her branches with all of one's will, it is an embrace which is intimate and necessary for one's safe passage along her lithe but robust limbs.

a lithe tree, a beaming, green tree.

a tree growing exultantly.

a tree to be proud to be aquainted with.








another remarkable encounter was produced a few days later, after spending the afternoon hitch-hiking to aberdeen, after standing at a layby in the gathering gloom thinking: most likely i will head into those fields and pitch my tent somewhere, then being picked up by a geologist who told me about his project to build a house on the ruins of an old farmhouse overlooking the sea to the south of stonehaven, then walking through the streets of dark aberdeen, in the direction of seaton park where i planned to sleep by the river, and then catching sight of steve addy, an old acquaintance from the university of aberdeen climbing club, who strode past me in his characteristic brisk pace.
"steve!" i said.
"carson!" he said  "i half wondered if it was you . . . fancy coming to my house for a cup of tea?"

a cup of tea, which turned into a plate of pasta, which turned into an evening of pleasant conversation.  i told steve about my plans to head soon to Iona, and do a painting of the beach there, and steve told me about finlay wild's paintings of familiar scottish highland peaks, made unfamiliar through his use of wild flamboyant colours for sky and hill, only recognisable by the unique shape of the hills.   at one point steve got out his african bongo drums and we had a session in his kitchen, which was very satisfying - feeling our way through a repertoire of rhythms recorded in our memories, looking at each other quizically every so often, wondering where the rhythm would take us.  after a cosy night's dreaming on his living room sofa, and after some breakfast the next morning, i said to steve: "i am very glad to have been deflected on my route to seaton park."




another remarkable encounter had been produced when i was hitching to the vineyards.  i got as far as reims, then misread the bus timetable, then spent a while admiring the imposing cathedral (see photograph below), then discovered i had missed the last bus and walked in the gathering gloom to the big road which leads to the motorway south and stuck my thumb out and thought: "most likely i will sleep somewhere in the park, then get the bus tomorrow, and miss the first day picking grapes" but very soon a sleek low-slung sports car stopped and a business-looking man ushered me in saying "it was only by faulty-route-finding that i was passing through the centre of reims".  he was going all the way to geneva.  he told me that he had hitchhiked in his twenties through USA and canada, and had lived in the USA for seven years.  i told him that his english accent was incredibly english sounding, with no hint of US twang.   he replied crisply: "yes, i was careful not to let myself become . . .
infected"   
everything he said he said crisply and deliberately.   he said that he commutes regularly between geneva and his company somewhere north of Reims, and every so often he stopped for hitchhikers, but added: "i do not stop for every hitchhiker that i see.   there are some that would make my car . . .
smelly."

conversation was sparse.  towards the end of the lift i asked him what he worked as and he told me that he had set up a company that gave pilot runs for the fastest newest cars on the market.   he said that the car we were in was capable of doing 300km/hr, but that it often wasn't practical to go at such a speed.  for me it was my first experience of sustained fast road travel, for he cruised along the motorway at a steady 180km/hr for over an hour, gliding easily past all other vehicles and very soon i had been dropped off near Troyes.  there remained about 25km to the place where i would pick grapes, of which i walked about 10km along a quiet road under the stars until someone else stopped for me, having spotted my piece of cardboard upon which i had painted "Les Riceys."  he said to me, "i knew you would be here for the vendanges, heading to les riceys with your rucksack."

it felt a bit miraculous to walk into the salon at 11:30pm and be welcomed by a little group of that year's grape-pickers, among whom was marie, who gave me a big hug and insisted that we had met at a party in paris back in february.

it took me about twenty minutes for the memory of that encounter to come back.

it is funny that it can take about twenty minutes for one's memory to dredge up an event which is actually lodged firmly in one's mind but which initially remains concealed from memory's probing feelers.



Reims cathedral



martedì 2 ottobre 2012

after the grape-harvest




uuuuuun rayon de soleil
sur ton si beau visage


those words sung in the happiness-filled reggae cadence of william balde entered my ears through the mp3 player which virginie from montpellier had lent me one afternoon, and seemed to me to be the perfect soundtrack to the grape picking season - a ray of sun on your so beautiful face - the rolling cadence of the land strung with vibrant green rows of vines sometimes as far as the eye could see in southern champagne.   the eye could see.  the swollen song of solomon bunches of purple grapes - the bountry of nature, nature's harvest, her fruit at the end of a year's growing and energy transfer.  investing one's interest in those grapes, seeing nothing but those grapes, the secateurs going clip clip clip, working as a team of thirty, clipping in unison, giving each other bleak looks of back weariness towards the end of the week, but strength in our thirty-strong unity, exchanging back massages in the evening, i look for her eyes in the vineyard, the sun is warm and bathing, across the rows and rows of greenleaved vines everyone is crouching down, clip clip clip, she stands up and looks for my eyes and we instantly smile and lower our gazes, the grapes, stained with white powder from the sulphates, clipping, a bucket filling up with bunches of grapes.  adele, she called herself; belle adele i called her, i said: elle s'appelle adele et elle est belle.





thirty people all come together, and not all the time does each person know what to say to the other people.  benois was sitting across the table from me one evening.  until then all we had done was exchange wide probing smiles so after asking his name for the second or perhaps the third time i said: "benois - that must come from the latin blessed.  it is a good name.  it recognises the favourable general situation of being alive - being blessed - being favoured by god, god in his favour has said: be alive benois"
what i wanted was to say something positive to benois.  i often find myself commenting on a person's name when i learn it for the first time.   for example gery introduced me to solange a few nights ago and i said "hmmm solange, never heard that name before.  first of all it makes me think of the english expression so long, and then it makes me think of the french word louange, which comes from louer...to praise, doesn't it?"   she said yes and gery said "tu vois, carson est un peu...particulier"
it reminded me of how marie described herself once.  "je suis"
then lowering her voice, as if confiding a hushed tone "un peu differente"

un peu differente was the perfect description of marie.  in a hushed tone.  i had first met marie in a party in paris and had picked up on her use of the word mec, "doesn't mec have a masculine value, like guy or dude in english?" (marie spoke english like an american and so understood perfectly) she said yes, but you know i feel more male than female.   blonde-haired marie; once she crammed her bosom full of grapes and stuck bits of vine and leaves in her hair and crept along the vines to 8-year-old margot and there stood rigidly against the vines saying "shhhhh, je suis une vigne"
marie studied theatre in paris and loved to impersonate other people.   so much so that i strugged to form a good idea of who she really was.  it seemed to me that she really wasn't; she was but a vehicle for impersonating other people.    i can understand her being fascinated by other people, and wanting to try to impersonate them.  as we advanced along the rows of vines her voice could be heard moodily, sultrily, nonchantly impersonating some stereotypical blasé french attitude that has made an impression on her. 
"bah, franchement, je m'en fous, tu sais?"
je m'en fous.  one spends time in france, listening to the french and perceiving something of their attitude.  the je m'en fous attitude.  menefregismo.  i couldn't care less, i don't give tuppence, twit-twoo i don't give two hoots, i don't give a damn, i don't give a dickeybird.  i don't give

not give


give


after i said that benois gave me a little rundown of his life philosophy, unblinking, his eyes devoid of warmth, he said "bah, franchement, i really have no opinion about the fact that i am alive.  i could just as well not be alive, for all it concerns me.  of course, i am not going to go and commit suicide, but franchement the notion of death holds absolutely no fear or dismay for me"

it remended me of the indifference shown towards life by the main character of albert camus' l'etranger

but there was warmth and flickering happiness in benois' eyes when our eyes met at other times, and i know that his je m'en fous words were not completely sincere.

17-year-old hugo, at times displaying a wisdom far beyond his years, but at other times undeniably 17 years old, asked me what were the typical characteristics associated with the french.  i had commented on the rather widespread readiness to express irritation at little everyday contretemps, and hugo had responded "ah, but we are not really irritated you know.  we say putain merde often only in mock irritation"

the words ah, putain - merde - ca fait chier - ca m'enerve quoi entered my consciousness and i started to think like that too.  when learning a language you are essentially imitating the way the native speakers speak. however, within that group of native speakers one must discriminate.   griet taught me about discrimating between words when i swung past l'arche community on the way back.  a new volunteer - a lithuanian learning french - had exclaimed putain, reenacting the very common exclamation of surprise or irritation on the lips of the french, and griet responded "ah, j'aime pas ca, c'est pas la bonne usage de ce mot-la"
he had taken the putain's name in vain.

fabri and i were fond of filling the vineyard with vibrations of taize chants of praise, sometimes soft and tenderly intoned, other times extravagently low and solemn sounding:

Ostendi nobis domine
misericordium suam
amen, amen!
maranatha, maranatha!





other times a long rumbling rendition of jeff buckley's rendition of leonard cohen's alleluya, along to the clip clip clip of our secateurs.  little hugo would say aimlessly "they are church songs aren't they?" and then fabri would go off on a tangent and laugh like a hyena, or else we would send up dog howls, a mournful orchestra of howling dogs which other vendangeurs would join and it would end in a cacohpony of baying bleating barking neighing miaoing and cockadoodle-doing from across the animal kingdom. the best was the horse's neighing but the absoulte best was melanie's extraordinary imitation of a young goat bleat . everyone laughed then and she would distribute her bleats throughout the day, often at the table in the evening, at a moment when conversation had largely subsided, the goat would give her pathetic charming bleat and everybody would laugh.

petite and charming, with sparkling eyes, that is why it suprised me on the last day of the vendange to hear melanie exclaim "ah, j'ai marre de cette vigne de merde!"





apres les vendanges, after the grape-harvest gerard gave us all about three bottles of champagne each and we all headed off in various vehicles to jean-batiste's house fifty kilometres away in the countryside - a beautiful place to stay - a simple wooden chalet surrounded by pine woods and caravans for everybody to sleep.  we got a big fire roaring and roasted potatoes over the embers and grilled chops of pork and sat around the picnic table eating.  from somebody's van stereo toots and the maytals were playing.   copious bottles of champagne had been opened - pop pop pop! - and got us feeling fine.  i said:  that is another characteristic of the french - well, at least a characterisitc which one finds with a certain frequency among the french - a real appreciation of the good things in life.  good food, good wine, good music, a good fire.  an incredibly sexy language.  ah oui, i can really sympathise with that french national pride.  i think that if i was born french i would love that fact.

afterwards fabri and i didn't know what to do.  fabri had suggested we go to the alps and climb mont blanc and usually when we are together and one of us suggests that we climb a mountain the other one says "okay".  we got on the same train as adele and celine, going south, and when we stopped at macon i said "hey, lets go to taize!"   all the songs that fabri had heard me sing, but had never heard himself were sang in the church that evening, and next morning: Ostendi nobis...!

and

il signore ti ristora
dio non allontana
il signore viene ad incontrarti....viene ad incontrarti

and

tu sei sorgente viva tu sei fuoco sei carita
viene spirito santo, viene spirito santo





and in between we camped in the woods, opened a bottle of champagne by the fire and played chess until at one point droplets of water began to fall.  fabri suggested that we seek shelter in the church but instead i pitched my little tent, and we snuggled in.   then at one point it began to really lash.  my tent is not of the best quality, and largely lets lashing water in.  however, the one impermeable impenetrable part is the groundsheet and there a pool of water grew.  we stuck it out anyway and i lay with heart throbbing as everything outside the tent was illuminated by flashes of lightning, then the enormous cracking thunder split the atmoshpere in two and it seemed that even the earth beneath us was rumbling.  
the next day we got the bus back to macon and there i decided to head back to the uk and get cracking with applying for visas while fabri said he would return to southern italy.  before we parted, we opened the last bottle of champagne and sat drinking on the street, stretching out the tent and sleeping bags to dry in the sun and played a last game of chess, before the owner of a nearby carrefour addressed us and told us we had five minutes to clear off because, franchement, camped out on the street like that, (it didn't take her long to find the word) was dégueulasse.

fabri and i spent a while impersonating all the french people we had met before returning to our respective home nations.