Days and nights are getting warmer. Snowdrops are out. The fields turn bright green. When the sky is so gray that it's almost dark blue, there is a stunning contrast of brown from the leave-less trees, bright green from the pastures, and dark gray from the sky. Days are partly somewhat sunny, partly somewhat rainy, and it seems almost impossible to predict what the weather in the next hour is going to be. This afternoon, a double full rainbow lay over the hills.
It is the first time in my life that I live in such a rural area, where one cannot see a neighboring house, and where the only outside people that I might see, if I do not go out for a walk (and actually, I never meet anyone on my walks), is the neighbor uphill, who shares the front road with us, and passes by in his typical french farm white van, or the postman, in the same van, but yellow.
I can see how my mind, totally unused to such stillness, and addicted to the movements and noises and business of the city, needs a time to adjust to not needing to rush anywhere or to do something, to having nothing else of importance to do in the evening than staying around the table, chat and laugh. During the day, while working, I can see how my mind sometimes tells me "there has got to be something to worry about!". Then I listen to the silence, the birds chirping, the sheep bleating, or look at the cats hanging around, and I think, hm, no, really, there is nothing that needs to be worried about. This sensation of peace and of time slowing down is most striking when around goats. They are so strangely quiet, peaceful, yet playful. When you come nearby, they come to look at you, neither too curious nor demanding nor scared, simply inquisitive, simply silent, simply there...
Lindsey arrived earlier this week. She comes from Seattle. She studied architecture and has been working for the past three years. She marvels at almost everything with genuine enthusiasm - the dogs, the flowers, the things that Peter and Julie do - yet she remains critical and independent in her thinking. She is beautiful (eyes of a deep blue on the verge of turquoise, skin of silk, perfect white teeth) but she doesn't seem to be aware of it or perhaps rather, to care. When I compliment her on the things that she has done or that she plans to do, she giggles happily, like an innocent child. She eats and holds her glass of wine with great poise and grace.
Lindsey's grandmother was German, her great grandfather Irish. She loves dogs. She studied architecture because, as a child, she met a great man who was an architect, and she then decided that she would become an architect, and the idea always stayed. She loves architecture. She showed me a drawing of a house around here that she has made - it is beautiful, like everything she does.
Lindsey never sits still. Either she knits - a blue shawl -, or she reads - Moby Dick -, or she carves a spoon (one of the things Peter and Julie want to show us - I managed to pierce a hole in mine). She always seems to be at peace and within herself.
She is now wwoofing in France for three months. Why? Because one year ago she started raising chickens in her backyard, for eggs, and then she thought that she actually might enjoy having a whole farm - a small farm, for herself and her family, while doing her own architecture work at home. So far she thinks that indeed she would - I think so too.
In Seattle, on the standard 5000 square feet lot, one is allowed to raise three chickens -but no rooster-, one goat, two or three beehives, and perhaps one pig too (more, for a larger surface). In practice, people oftentimes surpass the limit. Lindsey built a little shed with the help of her boyfriend and got five chicks. She simply loved going out to get them in the backyard.
Lindsey's boyfriend grew up on a dairy farm. His grandfather started with fifty cows. The business grew larger, and now, the family deals with... 1500 cows. Lindsey today told me "and you know, the most ironic thing is: they buy milk! Because they cannot get bothered anymore going to get it in the milk station, twenty meters away from their house". So, when she goes there, she observes, as is it interesting to see the farmer's point of view, she says, but she keeps her thoughts for herself.
She is now waiting for the answer for a Fulbright fellowship which she applied to for a 9-month project that she designed, in Fez, Marocco. From what I gathered, it sounds quite interesting, and deals with the question of how to restore old architecture in a most meaningful way for the present, from the social and practical point of view, and not only for the purpose of looking pretty. She said that her mother was worried, when she told her that she was doing this trip on farms, that she would want to leave architecture all together afterward. "But no! This is entirely related to how I want to do architecture later on!". I am very impressed that she gets all these personal ideas and initiatives on her own, without seeming to need guidance nor much encouragement, and that she carries them on with so little apparent struggle.
Lindsey loves to travel. She started at age 15, when she came to France for a one-year exchange. She found it hard to be away from home for so long, but she so much enjoyed the experience that afterward she traveled whenever she could. She studied a few months in Morocco, traveled in Italy, in Spain, and I don't know where else. She seems to have fear for nothing, and to be simply enjoying her life a great deal. She says, "being shy, oh no, would that be awful, to be scared of everything!". She says that life becomes so much more exciting and inspiring, when on a travel.
***
Two days ago we found a dead deer nearby the house. Julie saw it, underneath the fence door, as we all passed by with the car. It lay on its side, so mind-blowing pretty, with its tiny legs, black hoofs, little tail, sweet face... It had been shot with a shotgun, which blows lots of bullets in a large diameter, which, said Peter, is totally unethical for deers - but the hunters in this region aren't quite bothered with ethics, apparently. Peter said the beast must have been shot on Sunday and have been running until the next day when it finally died from its wounds. So we took it, Peter butchered it, and Lindsey and I, one morning, cut it in pieces for freezing; lungs and other delicacies for the dogs, the rest for people.
We have been eating a little from the deer already - fillets, liver, soup from roasted bones. And tonight, the Scottish dish "Stovies": potatoes, onions, and the meat from the bones used for making the broth. All was delicious. This meat is as gorgeous as the living beast.
