Friday July 30th
Doing nothing actually heightens your senses. No , really. Despite all that is said about keeping active, exercising your brain, mind power etc, doing absolutely nothing brings a different perception into focus.
I have always been able to lose myself in the moment when I am doing SOMETHING. Sometimes dangerously so. When I’m writing I am completely in the place I am creating, with no sense of time or place in the real world. My time frame is the script’s time frame. I don’t return to “real time” until the script is finished. It is an out of body, out of life experience where fantasy is reality. It’s interesting that writers have more autistic children than any other profession, but not surprising when you analyse it. When you are a writer, rather than someone who writes, it is much like autism - creating an alternative reality to function within.
Most of us have to concentrate on SOMETHING to do nothing. Even those who meditate usually have a mantra or a mandala or something to focus on. If anything breaks the focus, they are back to reality in a nanosecond.
This morning I realised I had been doing absolutely nothing for some hours….not daydreaming even. It was an unconscious meditation where time passed and I was in the world but not of it. The result was astonishing on the return to reality. I could see a hawk in the far distance and hear a jet plane that was out of sight….merely a tiny contrail in the sky.
When we drove to Uzes my senses were bombarded by things I might never have noticed. The long shadows of six pencil cedars against a medieval wall….a huge spider’s web horizontal between wheat stalks…..a flock of white birds - doves - though my first thought of course was cockatoos. I thought what brilliant photos Kelly would have taken of them…she is a gifted photographer where as I am hopeless. Kelly takes photographs for herself….anything that interests her. I do that with my eyes…the image stays etched in my mind but it doesn’t occur to me to reach for the camera. I take photos for other people to see - typical tourist shots. Just awful. My memory is far more artistic.
Bourdiguet now has official status! It happened while we were in spain. We were warned before we came that we would not find the village on the map or the satnav - but now there is actually a road sign outside of Aigaliers which says Bourdiguet 3 kms. And a larger sign as you enter the village. In truth the village is a collection of about 10 houses - most of which belonged to the old farm, and a couple of new builds. No shop, no post office, no school…. No nothing. I hope now there won’t be a rush of - say - four or five people wanting to enlarge the village.
Today we went to the local pool and swam. Impeccably clean, the water was a balmy 24C - comfortable after the 35C temperature outside the water. We swam for a couple of hours and then went home to sleep. This few days is all about US being together. I can’t remember what we ate…or if we ate - and I am drinking gallons of water; over the wine for the time being. We watched some of the athletics. Life is very gentle and beautiful right now.
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