Here and There

  There's something about the light down here in the Gers. It gives every colour a vibrancy that makes the whole place feel alive. The bare, taupe branches of the Indian bean tree in my mother's garden seem to reach like contorted fingers into the cloudless blue. In it's lower reaches the bird feeders are adorned with a russet and terracotta cacophony of sparrows that, anywhere else, would simply be described as 'brown'.

  The flowing landscape of hills and troughs - so reminiscent of Tuscany that the first locals christened the nearby town 'Fleurance' - muffles any sound that isn't entirely natural. The rumble of a ploughing tractor, the lazy, inconstant hum of cars on a distant road, even the throaty growl of a labouring troop transport plane, are absorbed into the newly furrowed fields. Yet, the trilling song of a skylark, spiralling upward until you have to squint to see him, is crystallised, a mist of notes hanging in the stillness.

  Another sound, the contented sigh of one of our Breton spaniels as he slumps down beside me in the spring sunshine, echoes my feelings. I must head back to Paris this evening; four and half hours and I'll be back in the 'naval of the world'. How can it be the same world, here and there? There, everyone on top of one another, here, the nearest house a kilometre away. Here, the gentle flow of the breeze, there the grating grind of the commute.

   Yet, you cannot appreciate the one without the other. Some of the wine I drink in my favourite bars in Paris comes from here, but the train I took to get here comes from there.

   You cannot have the colour without somewhere for the grey to go. You cannot have the calm without somewhere for the buzz to be. Sociability needs solitude to be special.

   After all, only when it's raining can you see the rainbow.