A little something something

The clouds whirled and twirled above my head, the trees swayed drunkenly this way and that and the wind chime jangled a tuneless melody. It was that magical moment before the storm broke. And then the rain came – hard and heavy.

For half an hour it poured down from the bloated clouds, pelting the windows in an erratic, staccato rhythm that ended in a burst of hail-stones the size of marbles. Then it was over and around half an hour later the sun tentatively showed its golden face amid the fragments of the storm and shooed the clouds away.

That was last week. Saturday morning dawned with a perfect mixture of sunlight and brooding clouds and I felt that inexplicable urge to go out in search of something that I could not name, in the hope of discovering what I shall call that little something something, that missing fragment of the puzzle.

So, without further ado, we set out and drove to a cove that we had frequented many times. But this time we did not take the easy path to the sea but took the trail to the path less travelled; the lonesome path beneath the cliffs. Soon, it was just us, the bleak garigue, the craggy rocks, the patchwork sea and the huge expanse of the infinite sky.

It’s mostly barren here – the long hot summer and predominantly dry autumn have taken their toll on almost everything except for some hardy bushes that, in spite of the harsh conditions, cling to life. Everything seems dead, beyond any hope of redemption and the flowers of spring are but a distant memory, a few withered fragments at our feet.

I had lost hope of finding new life or new growth but Nature is resilient in a way that I cannot quite comprehend. In spite of all the odds, life is renewed. Despite the excesses of the past season it still burst forth in an emerald explosion right where I least expected it.

I had found life where no life should be. In the most secret places of my heart I smiled. This was the little something something that I had set out to discover. It was enough for now. The promise of regeneration is near at hand.

Location: Ghar Lapsi, October 2015