Spots of Time

The reasons behind why people decide to walk the Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle (or the Camino) are diverse. The rich trails of lives, loves, and crises make for moving, often heartbreaking evenings in these quiet corners of France. Eyes sparkle, sometimes hiding with a downward glance; or like the intake before the dive, deep breaths are taken before deep words spoken; and silence… the silence as the words slowly crystallize… the beautiful silence that can only be between people who trust and are prepared to wait respectfully. They are beautiful moments, yet juxtaposed against these star-lit conversations are the often staggeringly beautiful days spent wandering through landscapes both grand and humble. Days where a little rock fall can be as moving as a mighty valley, or where a small leaf covered in droplets glinting like jewels in the morning light can be as enchanting as a green-lit forest heady beneath the midday sun.

Small moments, deep moments; moments define our experience of the world. We remember them like pictures or movies, and call upon them as we have need later in our lives. This is something Wordsworth knew about, despite his often clumsy, childlike articulations of the wonder and beauty of the natural world (which I find quite lovely). Himself a keen walker, old Willy thought that the problem with the industrialised, urbanised world was that, nice as all the ‘stuff’ it produces is, its cities are essentially bad for our souls. Nature, Wordsworth argued, was “sane, pure and permanent” and within it we could find experiences that might help us through amid the hectic bustle and aggro-anonymity of city life. They were small moments, ‘spots of time’ he called them:

There are in our existence spots of time,
That with distinct pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence – depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse – our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mount,
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

These spots of time, these small, tender moments are what people will carry away with them. It is, they hope, a rejuvenating time – re-creational leave. Perhaps, in moments of despair with upturned head they might spot a small leaf glinting in the light, and remember a small moment in a quiet corner of France.

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The Passage of Time

18/09/07
Gollinhac, France

Outside now the daylight has just begun its wane, the sun having set behind the hill this town covers. Gollinhac sits high above the surrounding valley floors, a verticle difference of some 1500ft, and the view from this perch stretches into the tens of kilometres. On the surrounding lower valley walls small villages and hamlets cling, each marked by a small stone church spire - visible, like the golden domed gurdwarras of the Punjab, for miles. I'm reminded again of the organisational sentiment of such physical expressions of faith - 'Where the church spire can be seen, there the parish lies.' Here the parish is everywhere, church spires visible in all directions.
France seems quite actively secular in a thoroughly Catholic way. Yet the cultural influence of Christian history is strong. Here in rural France time is a very regulated commodity. The day begins at the civil hour of 7am with the ringing of the church bells, and people begin to eat their breakfast (7:30 is also quite usual). From after breakfast until midday shops tend to be open (apart from Sundays and Mondays) and businesses run. However, come 12pm the nation, or at least these silvan parts of it, stops. For the hungry traveller caught out by the vicissitudes of the march between towns the period between 12 and 2pm can be dispiritingly cuisineless. Best to have procurred a baguette, saussicon, cheese, and an apple beforehand. A chorus of rumbling bellies often the only sound one hears during these hours. After this the towns burst into activity again anew, and the roads into and out of town can often be a danger to the famished pilgrim, senses dulled by starvation.
As such the day continues until 6:30pm when public life again begins to grind to a halt. At ten to six the church bells ring, calling the faithful, penitent, hungry, or bored to attend to their sins before the most strictly regulated of all the daily events - Dinner. 7pm is, without exception or variation, the time one eats, drinks, and talks around the dinning table. Often, despite typically mid-sized meals, this will last until 9:30pm, at which time people wander off to bed. By 10pm the cobbled streets and alleyways are empty. The townsfolk sleeping, readying themselves for the new day tomorrow.
It is, for a foreign walker (and worker) who speaks little of the language and knows less about the cultural vagaries, a maddening, infuriating way to run the world.
The thing is, I love it!! It makes the working life secondary to family life. The day revolves around the table - breakfast, lunch, and dinner - at which every day all the members of the family sit. School, work, fields, all are secondary to the family table. Everyone returns home.
It is a heirarchy I could live with.
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