Promise

July 2013

I am sorting through stuff, even though I really don’t have time and should just all put it in boxes to sort through next year. But tonight, as I was sorting through my cook books and piles of recipes, I found these photocopies from a recipe book I read in the South of France last summer, when we stayed at my grandmother’s house. I had hand copied some recipes on a page, and then, must have felt inspired to journal the next minute, because on the same page was this beautiful reflection of my heart at the time. It was almost exactly a year ago:

“Sitting outside my grandmother’s mazet, sipping tea in the coolness of the evening, while my brother’s guitar is playing a Francis Cabrel song, a melody that evokes Michael and I's courtship days in this part of the world…

The crickets alternate between symphony and silence, and my heart vacillates between nostalgia and bliss.

Today we went swimming in the river Gardon, North of Anduze, in the heart of the Cevennes.

The road leading there was everything I love about the South of France. Old stone “Mas”, tall and narrow, with blue shutters, standing proud in the midst of olive tree orchards. The colors are warm. Orange, yellow, ochre. Old medieval towns still untouched and unaltered by progress and technology, leaking of history and memories.

The river was perfect. Deep. Crystal clear blue, wide with big smooth rocks to jump from and little waterfalls to swim up to.

 Fresh, but warm enough to stay in it for a long time. I recognized all the rocks I used to jump from. I swam up the river and felt it all cover me, envelop me, the happiness, the innocence of those childhood years, the bliss of being back in this place.

 I swam non stop for 10-15 minutes and back. A lady, reading on a rock, looked at me with a smile as I was swimming back, the smile of a mother delighting in her child’s play. It surprised me, and within the next second, I felt God’s look on me, a tender look, smiling, delighting in my pleasure. It moved me to tears as I presented to Him the longings of my heart, to be reconnected to this place, this culture, this environment. Nostalgia and bliss.”

A year later, I remember that moment, and have actually thought of it often since then. I remember what happened next, a prayer, a request to be back here again, to experience this more often, and as I dove underwater to take a stroke, this still small voice whispering to me: “you will”.