It's Still Life

I. Archives

Thankful for moments when centuries condense into a single instant, and full circle becomes something almost physical. This week, I stood before a flame-scorched sixteenth-century copy of Le Grand Herbier en Françoys, and for a moment, history was no longer behind glass.

This image is from the Internet Archive as photography was not allowed.

II. Market grapes

Thankful for the richness of fresh food in Provence, where grapes at the Sunday market have travelled barely farther than the people buying them, and still carrying the sense of where they grew.

III. No Hurry

Thankful that I feel no need to hurry through an amber light. That I am content in my own company; that, for a little while, I can simply be in the motion of wind, a quiet woman at a counterpoint.

One person sitting, one passing, the lane holding both stillness and movement.

IV. Pride of place

Thankful for the young woman at the market, so softly spoken and yet so proud of the loaves of bread she had arranged before her, and for a moment the whole stall seemed less like commerce than welcome.

V. Before the Wind

Thankful that I saw this spiderweb before the wind broke it.

I had been away for ten days, and there it was. Delicate. Temporary. Exact.

Proof enough for me that nature is always waiting to take the earth back.

VI. Home Again

Thankful for opening the front door, racing to silence the alarm, and then stopping long enough to breathe in the familiar scent of home.

A wonderful road trip behind us; our own rooms around us again; and that quiet moment when return feels every bit as precious as departure.

VII. Honour Guard

Thankful that I saw this narrow Avignon street at night, held beneath an honour guard of trees whose branches seemed to lean together in protection. For a moment, the whole road felt watched over.

VIII. Contagious

Thankful for the invaluable gift of laughter …the kind that belongs to someone else first, then spills over until you are laughing too.

I saw this couple’s joy, and for a moment it became mine as well.

IX. Time’s Broad Shoulders

Thankful for the narrow passages around the Palais des Papes in Avignon, where we seemed to walk beside time’s broad shoulders.

Voices and footsteps were swallowed by the limestone until people could be seen talking just ahead of us, yet what reached the ear felt no louder than monks whispering somewhere beyond the walls.

For a little while, even sound seemed old.

X. Six Sentence Stories

Thankful for Six Sentence Stories hosted by Denise, and for the friends I have made there, writers who began as names beneath six sentences and have became part of my week.

There is something wonderful about friendship arriving through words first.

This week’s two Sixes are Dead Men Don’t Drown and The Alcove.