Here and Now

I feel it's vital to remember, for us creatures roaming about over the earth and on/in the sea along with all the other mammals and fish going about their (much more sensible and less destructive) lives, where we are and to appreciate it even when dealing with the more tedious stuffs of everyday.
It's good to step outside of all that, into a field, park, or onto a mountain if you have one nearby; or gaze at a lake, a river, or even a municipal pond, just for a few minutes to remember where we are on this amazing ball in space. That's all we really have after all, this time, now, this instant.
A couple of days ago while climbing up into some hills above Port de la Selva in Catalonia, I turned to look at the sea and felt, more powerfully than I can ever remember before, one of those 'Here and Now' moments; points where you know a memory is being laid down, woven into your mind to be there forever, perhaps surfacing on a grim winter morning when everything is monotone and returning to bed with a hot water bottle seems to be an inexorable pathway.
It was perhaps a combination of the smells of new foliage, lavender I had trampled, the birdsong and the wedge of white-flecked sea in the distance. I had flung my arms up and shouted something, I've forgotten what but probably along the lines of 'Here and Now', and stood for some moments feeling the stretch in my arms and the tail of the Tramontana wind in my hair.
Luckily, no one else was about apart from a small hairy dog ahead of its party of walkers who appeared shortly afterwards. It might have smiled at me but it was difficult to tell through the beardy wisps framing its face.

                         

The south of France

It's not all lavender, pastis, strings of onions and sun-faded ochre houses . . .

                               

Me and the lad went out for an afternoon of photo-reportage to smallish town that shall remain nameless in case someone recognises their drying underpants.




     

As with many towns where industry has mostly ceased, an air of tristesse invades the streets, abandoned shops and overgrown gardens. There were highlights of melancholic beauty and some surprisingly artistic graffiti although I'm not sure about the 'smiley Hitler' and the hastily scrawled 'Le Pen' et FN that covered a lot of walls in an abandoned housing estate.


                           
 
                                      

Pausing our street-wandering we found a newly-started up café-bar and enjoyed a cup of citrus-flavoured (odd but nice) earl grey tea and admired the Dali-inspired artworks.
This town, along with others, and actually including our own, need places like this - art cafés, places to show work, music bars, etc, and to re-invent themselves if they are to survive economic downturn, and the general 'crise financier' that we are in and will remain in as far as I can see.



Refreshed, we continued dallying and photoing, climbing over barricades into semi-demolished housing estates, visiting the main church and exploring a little further into the outskirts of the town where there seems to have been a phase of corrugated iron dwelling-cladding.




                                           

                                             



                                            

Moments in time

If I'd spent five more minutes looking for my sunglasses before leaving the house, or had gone back to check the door was locked, I would have missed this moment.
We (me, son and dogs) had driven up into the nearby mountains/very large hills to escape, for a while, the incredible heat suffocating our town - not complaining! I love the summer, and it is a REAL one this year, but dog walking has become a pathetic amble down the road, well after the sun has disappeared for the day.
So, into the hills we went and walked along ferny lanes that smelt of boxwood and moss rather than the boiled marjoram and tired lavender of our parched garden and lane. On arriving back to the car I decided on a 'me' voyage back, that is to say, let's just continue along this road and see what happens, with no map and no GBH/RSJ/GPL or whatever it is.
After some way the road was barricaded by an open gate and a car. Just as I was contemplating a small track off to the right which would have ended up in some rubbly field, a man appeared and asked if we could wait five minutes as a 'troupe' of 'Brebis' (sheep) were about to be led into another pasture area.
I nodded, got out with camera while the dogs howled in the car, and watched a memorable scene of the young woman herder rattling a plastic bucket, striding ahead of the emerging pack, her cry of "Yeep, yeep" filling the dusty air while the man clapped his hands in manner of a slightly underdressed flamenco dancer.
I don't know why or how the brain makes and stores memories but I'm sure the smells, sounds and sight of that moment will be stored.