Today, my father turns seventy-four.
It is the most peaceful place in the world. There are hardly any guests left. The season is over. The mornings are cool. The old farm front yard has been paved. A lazy sun stretches on its cobbles and on the finca's white walls, its low rays tripping on each asperity and for each, throwing a needle-thin pale blue shadow. The range of olive trees and the four sturdy palm trees chirp with sparrows and tree tits. Biniatram's old mule brays.
It is eight o'clock on a Wednesday morning. I am sitting at the little table under the porch of our holiday room, sipping coffee, pushing bread crumbs, chasing away last night's heat and the early flies. Time has this empty, hollow texture it takes on long vacations away from home. Idleness is quick to set its routine. Open your eyes, see the sun seep through the shutters. Slip in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Feel your way to the kitchen and, in the dark, make the first coffee. Wait before opening the shutters. Enjoy the coolness of the tiles under your feet. Pour a hot strong cup. Unlock the door, push the shutters, sit in the shade with your elbows on the chilled marble table. Sip. Chase the flies. Sip. Chase the flies. Sip. This is going to be my whole day.
The hostess crosses the yard. She walks in quick, busy steps. Off season, with no more than three rooms to attend, you almost envy her lifestyle, so quiet, so regulated, so predictable. Every day the same gestures. Every week the same planning. Every year the same rhythm, the ebb and flow, cool and slow, hot and speed, then slow and cool. In the times where things are winding down, when the year is behind you, life must feel so peaceful, so worry-less, your days finally in harmony with the pace of nature. The idleness of routine. At last you can let it take over. It is time to relax, and let go.
I look at her. Her steps are quick and busy, her eyes, worried, fixed on the ground some twenty centimeters ahead of her feet. She wears a lose orange T-shirt and baggy yellow shorts. She carries a denim backpack and trots, businesslike, to her car.
Alas, this is not the way our human mind works! Even in the heart of the most tranquil, serene existence, our tormented soul sketches the few days to come. It builds the incidents to which, later on, it will cling, to quench its thirst for worries. "Will Wednesday's delivery be on time?" she wonders, "Will I be on time to collect it?", even though, in twenty years, she has not missed a single one . "Our daughter said she would arrive Friday next week" the gate-keeper thinks, "but will she be here before or after I have to block the road for the 20.31 London express?" Even he who lives the most regulated of lives, a monk, wonders whether the prayer book has been opened at the right page for tomorrow's matins. Deprived from all uncertainty, his days ahead smoothed out of all asperities, the prisoner sentenced to solitary confinement finally sinks into madness.
It is the most peaceful place in the world. There are hardly any guests left. The season is over. The mornings are cool. The old farm front yard has been paved. A lazy sun stretches on its cobbles and on the finca's white walls, its low rays tripping on each asperity and for each, throwing a needle-thin pale blue shadow. The range of olive trees and the four sturdy palm trees chirp with sparrows and tree tits. Biniatram's old mule brays.
It is eight o'clock on a Wednesday morning. I am sitting at the little table under the porch of our holiday room, sipping coffee, pushing bread crumbs, chasing away last night's heat and the early flies. Time has this empty, hollow texture it takes on long vacations away from home. Idleness is quick to set its routine. Open your eyes, see the sun seep through the shutters. Slip in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Feel your way to the kitchen and, in the dark, make the first coffee. Wait before opening the shutters. Enjoy the coolness of the tiles under your feet. Pour a hot strong cup. Unlock the door, push the shutters, sit in the shade with your elbows on the chilled marble table. Sip. Chase the flies. Sip. Chase the flies. Sip. This is going to be my whole day.
The hostess crosses the yard. She walks in quick, busy steps. Off season, with no more than three rooms to attend, you almost envy her lifestyle, so quiet, so regulated, so predictable. Every day the same gestures. Every week the same planning. Every year the same rhythm, the ebb and flow, cool and slow, hot and speed, then slow and cool. In the times where things are winding down, when the year is behind you, life must feel so peaceful, so worry-less, your days finally in harmony with the pace of nature. The idleness of routine. At last you can let it take over. It is time to relax, and let go.
I look at her. Her steps are quick and busy, her eyes, worried, fixed on the ground some twenty centimeters ahead of her feet. She wears a lose orange T-shirt and baggy yellow shorts. She carries a denim backpack and trots, businesslike, to her car.
Alas, this is not the way our human mind works! Even in the heart of the most tranquil, serene existence, our tormented soul sketches the few days to come. It builds the incidents to which, later on, it will cling, to quench its thirst for worries. "Will Wednesday's delivery be on time?" she wonders, "Will I be on time to collect it?", even though, in twenty years, she has not missed a single one . "Our daughter said she would arrive Friday next week" the gate-keeper thinks, "but will she be here before or after I have to block the road for the 20.31 London express?" Even he who lives the most regulated of lives, a monk, wonders whether the prayer book has been opened at the right page for tomorrow's matins. Deprived from all uncertainty, his days ahead smoothed out of all asperities, the prisoner sentenced to solitary confinement finally sinks into madness.
