NYBG
So here I am, hanging one towel after the other, the boys’ underwear,
their many T-shirts, their socks flecked with the reddish clay from Roussillion
which, I hope, will never wash off. I like the smell. I like separating the
shirts on the line, leaving no more than half an inch between them. I must
manage my pins and use them sparingly, making sure I’ll have enough for
the whole load. I know my wife will still find something to criticize in my
method. The thought amuses me. I like the work, its mind-numbing pace
which makes everything seem so simple, so complacent. I want it never to
end. I can see why people take forever to hang clothes out to dry. I like the
smell of parched wood on the hanging pins, which are stored in a clay pot.
I like the smell of clay too. I like the sound of drops trickling from our large
towels onto the pebbles, on my feet. I like standing barefoot, like the sheets,
which take forever to hang evenly and need three pins, one at each end,
and one for good measure in the middle. I turn around and before picking
up another shirt, I run my fingers through a stalk of lavender nearby. How
easy it is to touch lavender. To think I fussed so much and for so long—and
yet here it is, given to me, the way gold was given to the Incas who didn’t
think twice before handing it over to strangers. There is nothing to want
here. Quod cupio mecum est. What I want, I already have.
Yesterday we went to see the Abbey of Senanques. I took pictures of my
sons standing in front of a field of lavender. From a distance, the lavender
is so dark it looks like a bruise upon a sea of green. Closer by, each plant
looks like an ordinary overgrown bush. I taught them how to rub their
hands along lavender blossoms without disturbing the bees. We spoke of
Cistercian monks and the production of dyes, of spirits, balms and scented
extracts, and of St. Bernard de Clervaux, and of medieval commerce routes
that still exist today and that spread from these tiny abbeys to the rest of the
world. For all I know my love of lavender may have started right here, in
an essence gathered from bushes that grow on these very same fields. For
all I know this is where it ends, in the beginning. And yet, for all I know,
everything could start all over again—my father, my mother, the girl with
the perfumed wrist, Frau Noch Einmal, her little boy, my little boy, myself
as a little boy, the walk in the evening snow, the genie in the bottle, the Rosetta
stone within each one of us which no one, not even love or friendship,
can unburden, the life we think of each day, and the life not lived, and the
life half-lived, and the life we wish we’d learn to live while we still have
time, and the life we want to rewrite if only we could, and the life we know
remains unwritten and may never be written at all, and the life we hope
others may live far better than we have, all of it, for all I know, braided on
one thread, into which is spun something as simple as the desire to be one
with the world, to find something instead of nothing, and having found
something, never to let go, be it even a stalk of lavender.
from "Lavender" by André Aciman
their many T-shirts, their socks flecked with the reddish clay from Roussillion
which, I hope, will never wash off. I like the smell. I like separating the
shirts on the line, leaving no more than half an inch between them. I must
manage my pins and use them sparingly, making sure I’ll have enough for
the whole load. I know my wife will still find something to criticize in my
method. The thought amuses me. I like the work, its mind-numbing pace
which makes everything seem so simple, so complacent. I want it never to
end. I can see why people take forever to hang clothes out to dry. I like the
smell of parched wood on the hanging pins, which are stored in a clay pot.
I like the smell of clay too. I like the sound of drops trickling from our large
towels onto the pebbles, on my feet. I like standing barefoot, like the sheets,
which take forever to hang evenly and need three pins, one at each end,
and one for good measure in the middle. I turn around and before picking
up another shirt, I run my fingers through a stalk of lavender nearby. How
easy it is to touch lavender. To think I fussed so much and for so long—and
yet here it is, given to me, the way gold was given to the Incas who didn’t
think twice before handing it over to strangers. There is nothing to want
here. Quod cupio mecum est. What I want, I already have.
Yesterday we went to see the Abbey of Senanques. I took pictures of my
sons standing in front of a field of lavender. From a distance, the lavender
is so dark it looks like a bruise upon a sea of green. Closer by, each plant
looks like an ordinary overgrown bush. I taught them how to rub their
hands along lavender blossoms without disturbing the bees. We spoke of
Cistercian monks and the production of dyes, of spirits, balms and scented
extracts, and of St. Bernard de Clervaux, and of medieval commerce routes
that still exist today and that spread from these tiny abbeys to the rest of the
world. For all I know my love of lavender may have started right here, in
an essence gathered from bushes that grow on these very same fields. For
all I know this is where it ends, in the beginning. And yet, for all I know,
everything could start all over again—my father, my mother, the girl with
the perfumed wrist, Frau Noch Einmal, her little boy, my little boy, myself
as a little boy, the walk in the evening snow, the genie in the bottle, the Rosetta
stone within each one of us which no one, not even love or friendship,
can unburden, the life we think of each day, and the life not lived, and the
life half-lived, and the life we wish we’d learn to live while we still have
time, and the life we want to rewrite if only we could, and the life we know
remains unwritten and may never be written at all, and the life we hope
others may live far better than we have, all of it, for all I know, braided on
one thread, into which is spun something as simple as the desire to be one
with the world, to find something instead of nothing, and having found
something, never to let go, be it even a stalk of lavender.
from "Lavender" by André Aciman
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