Being immobilized for the moment, more time can be found to reflect on past travels, and dream of future adventures. These quotidian posts will continue throughout our confinement as messages of hope, not just for our own survival, but that when storm-flags are taken down, we might begin to treasure what we had taken for granted, to draw strength, wisdom and compassion from deeper engagements with nature.
Confluent des Deux Creuses. Oil on canvas. 60 x 60 inches. 2002
In the summer of 2000. I made a road-trip from the Veneto to Paris with an old friend, by way of Franche-Comte and Limousin. Struggling with difficult relationships at home, we found solace in each other’s company. From Feltre to Bolzano, through the Brenner Pass to a spa in Zurich, then on to Ornans, hometown of Courbet. Descending into the chasm to the Source of the Loue, we stood at the base of a sheer wall of stone. Bursting forth from the dark grotto, tumbling down a rocky descent, the torrent fed a trout-stream below. Clear as glass, flowing quickly between wooded banks, the shaded river glowed bright in patches of sunlight.
Three or four days pass. We stood atop a precipitous hill, beside a medieval fortress. Its ramparts having collapsed, the ruined chateau became a quarry. Its stones provided masonry to build the village nearby. Looping around the foot of the hill, the River Creuse winds through the gorge. From atop the precipice, Crozant’s maiden-spinners would drop their spindles, to see whose would touch the water first. Taking our supper by a blazing hearth, a hard rain falls outside. Locking the door and filling our glasses, the innkeeper sings. Playing his guitar, Joel dit Buffalo, dreams of the Wild West, in a seventeenth-century tavern. Hanging on the wall are portraits of Sitting Bull and Custer.
Morning arrives, with warm sunshine. Puddles linger along the roadside. Exploring the village, we find every stone has a story. The door-stoop of a stone cottage had once been the lintel of a dungeon-door, within the ruined chateau. Passing shuttered dwellings, a lingering sense of long habitation is palpable, like a scent. Pop-music drifts past a cat, sitting in an open window. A dog barks. An old woman lights a cigarette. Magpie chatter. The postman passes by. Ghosts keep watch.
We drive to Fresselines. A hedgehog lies dead, in the center of the byway. Turning left, we follow a smaller road, until the pavement ends. Parking the car, we unpack our kit and follow a cow-path to a trail-head. Moistened by rainfall the night before, the steep muddy path descends through an umbrageous woodland. Our spirits are high. Beside us flows a murmuring stream, on its way to meet the river. Stepping from dark woods and into the light, we stand on a grassy rise. To our right, rocky substrates emerge from the bank. Tawny currents race foaming, across stony ledges.
Dropping our gear, we set up to paint. Rising from a widening stream, the vertiginous banks are thickly wooded. Along the right bank, a thinning in the understory forms an emerald chamber. Further downstream, exposed grey cliffs rise up from the shore. Drifting like Zeppelins, majestic clouds pile up in the distance, promising later rain.
Four hours pass. Crushing a large Badoit bottle, I stuff it into my knapsack. Folding our easels and packing our gear we depart, leaving no trace. Walking back through the woods under darkening skies, the patter of raindrops gives warning. The weather is changing. Quickening our step, each footfall sinks a little more into the moist earthen path. Birdsong stops. Silence is broken only by the sound of our movements. Upon entering a small clearing we stop. Among the trunks and branches, above the mosses and ferns, there hovers the perfume of thousands of flowers, but not a single bloom. I wonder. Could this enchantment a blessing, or might it be a curse? Churning overhead, dark clouds unleash a downpour. Racing beside the path, the gentle tributary has become an angry torrent. Climbing the path to the fields above, we are soaked when we reach the car. Returning to Crozant, the torrent abates. Blue skies peek through racing clouds. We pass a dead hedgehog, at peace in the middle of the road.
(A preview of SKETCHBOOK TRAVELER by James L. McElhinney (c) 2020. Schiffer Publishing).
Copyright James Lancel McElhinney (c) 2020 Texts and images may be reproduced (with proper citation) by permission of the author. To enquire, send a request to editions@needlewatcher.com