Hello everybody!
I hope that you’re all doing okay. It’s been a busy period for me, since I’m handling a few things at the same time. Good thing I just stocked up on energy during the little biking trip I just came back from. I’m ready for what’s next! And it’s going to be awesome!
In the meantime, I still wanted to come back on those three weeks spent with my beautiful friend Caroline.
We left at the end of September, after being finally done with all the last-minute preparations. Our bikes were waiting for us in Geneva, starting point of more less 850 km of biking towards the Pyrenees. On the way, we have followed the Rhone, gone through beautiful French cities, joined the sea, braved the elements, found our way after pedalling for kilometers in the wrong direction… and even taken some bits of the Camino de Santiago.
We also visited some friends, met some beautiful people, played with puppies… We camped, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, sometimes in someone’s garden, and we even slept in an amusement park. All the ingredients for a successful trip!
We made it to Suzan, our final destination. We spent a beautiful week there in the farm of Bragat, where a collective of awesome people are doing their best to incarnate their values by creating a place of sharing, in harmony with nature.
Their members are very active, not only on the farm where they take care of goats, bees and gardens, make cheese, honey, cultivate vegetables, work with wood and take care of a huge house (among many other things!), but also on the outside, where they militate for important causes such as GMOs. The topic of the moment was glyphosate, and we had the occasion to support a group of people who went to court in order to officially file a complaint, after they tested their urine and found out dangerous amounts of those pesticides in them. Those people eat for the most part organic, pesticide-free products, which means that we are all at risk. A nice action that I hope will pay off.
I have therefore discovered a bit more of France and its inhabitants during those few weeks, and I haven’t been disappointed. I left full of inspiration and hope for the future, as shown in the next few lines I wrote just before I left…
18.10.18
My little getaway is coming to an end, and it is time for me to prepare my return to Helvetic land. This trip, although short, has been rich in personal developments. It didn’t happen by way of grandiose instants of clairvoyance, like they surprise me sometimes, on the road. No, this time, there were more like seeds that were planted progressively, carefully, often without even being conscious of it. At the time of contemplating these last few weeks, however, I realize that they are very much there, growing slowly. For someone who has the unpleasant tendency to fill up my life with drama and thundering events, often reluctantly, I now appreciate the calm of a sea that the wind only sprinkles with quiet swells. I remain attentive, because I know that the storm is never really far away, as I taste some respite in the simple pleasures that life gives me. I try to feed myself as much as I can with this serenity that I lack too often, in my daily life, while hoping that beautiful flowers will bloom in the future. An uncertain future, admittedly, but a future that I feel will be grand and beautiful; tumultuous too, surely, because the natural always returns at a gallop.
My roots will however help me in that case, because they are deeply anchored. They carry with them the lessons from my existence, as well as the words of the wise people who have met my road, their smiles, and the look in their eyes that have always told me so much more than their words. They have grown to the sound of the music of the world and its secrets, those that are not thought but sensed. Those that live in the heart, next to the joys and the pains, next to the hope. This heart is young, full of desires and curiosity, full of doubts. At times, it gets lost, and the roots murmur to him the direction to follow, in their own way. If he listens, he can hear them, admit his mistakes and move forward. Sometimes he plays deaf, but you have to understand him: he is like a child exploring his limits, he only really learns from the mistakes he makes.
That’s what the roads have whispered to me, among many other things, while my bicycle was carrying me. I only really understood it when I stopped. It is important to stop too, sometimes. It’s better than to turn around in circles. And this time, I leave even more conscious. Some things have changed but the roots are the same, and my heart is still beating, maybe even a little stronger. In my bags, I haven’t forgotten to pack some gratitude for this new experience, and I take everything with me to go back. I know this time that I am not going home quite, because my home is with me, it hosts my heart, my roots, my legs that walk or pedal, my outstretched hands and my head that thinks, talks, hears and laughs, and all the rest of course. That will help me go away again more peacefully, when the time comes, when I let go in front of the obviousness, without having to explain it, without having to justify it. When I go live, simply.
As always, thank you for reading me.
Much love <3
PS: I almost forgot! Here’s a little bonus! It’s the first video I make, so be indulgent 🙂