In the Monastery

View from my window onto the monastery garden


Early evening, before dark. Such peace reigns here, only a few sounds. There's the background noise of water from a mountain spring or fontana running into an open tank, where goldfish dart and circulate or rest near motionless, perhaps feeling, this morning anyway, the warmth of sunlight on the water. Snatches of birdsong, the occasional yap of a dog, the yowl of a cat, possibly our own cat unnamed as yet and who shall simply be called Bella, at least by me. Though it is unlikely to be her, as she yowls infrequently, usually when I come out of the kitchen door onto the patio in front of the tended garden. A mixture of greeting and hope that she might be fed.

A cloud has drifted down now onto the snow capped mountain I can see from the window of my cell, but this morning for the first time, the sun came out, wreathing all the mountains in light.


This place is impossibly picturesque.




Yesterday's walk was to my local train station




then on to the village of Fontan. 


 
To reach the station you have to walk through a dark and dripping tunnel, one of many cut into the mountainsides to let road and rail traffic pass through. I walked back from Fontan along the main road, and then climbed – slowly – up the steep slope back to the village. Wherever you go here, you have to toil up steep slopes, or descend steep slopes. That's how it is. It will either make me very fit, or – incline me to take the train quite frequently.

Today's walk was up the GR 52A (grande randonnĂ©e – hiking trail) which starts just behind the monastery, and goes on for several kilometres. I don't know how far I walked, it seemed like a long way, but then it was uphill!



This is a little closer to the snow-covered mountain visible in the first photograph



The strangest thing is that in 2011 I was on a train from Torino to Ventimiglia. This train wanders briefly into France, as it passes through the valley of the Roya, before returning to Italy. Going through this spectacular mountain scenery on a sunny morning, clear blue sky, it made a brief stop close to a medieval village of cream, yellow and ochre buildings, topped with purple roof tiles, and built in layers into the side of a mountain. I wished I'd taken a photograph of it, but its image stayed in my mind, as somewhere I had to visit one day.





When I applied for this residency I had no idea that it was in this same village I passed through a couple of years ago, for I had not remembered its name. But I recognized it as soon as I saw it, despite the grey skies, despite it being much higher up than I thought, for the train track runs almost half way up the mountain, with the road far below in the valley, skirting the river Roya. So here I am, in a building where Franciscan monks have lived, off and on, from 1662 to 1988. And which is still as it says in the guide book un lieu de retraite, a place of retreat. The curved archways and vaulted ceilings – even the ceiling of my cell is vaulted like a chapel - give a sense of gentle enclosure. The stone corridors of the cloisters echo with the slightest sound.


Comments

You get around, dritanje!

This . . . is . . . just . . .spectacular. The steep-sided, snow-flecked mountains, the village clinging to the side of the rushing river, the monastery with its arches and vaults and stone corridors, the monastic cell, the isolation. Oh, how this reaches out and appeals to me!
Anonymous said…
M. what can I say? I think words are unnecessary.
But...penultimate picture is perfect...sublime!
The text?...wonderful.
Go on my friend
Hugs
W.
dritanje said…
I've sometimes thought I was a monk/nun in an alternate life. Feels this other life has come a little closer...or maybe we try on different selves from time to time, like spotlights illuminating now this area now another, brought closer by being in different places. We sure as heaven are not singular! This is indeed a very appealing place -
Indeed... how strongly I feel this myself. Other possibilities, other selves, other lives.

"Je est un autre" (Rimbaud)

"World is crazier and more of it than we think, / Incorrigibly plural..." (MacNeice)
Anonymous said…
Oh wow....how I would love to be in your situation right now. I wanted to be a nun in this life time, but I very much doubt I could ever have lived in such a sublime setting.

Many things will 'come' to you in this place..many thoughts, ideas. Possible recollections of a past life which you mention. Write it all down.

Enjoy your residency. Am I the only one who sees faces in the photo of the corridor or do others? I wonder what tales they would have to tell.xx
My initial reaction to your photos was....Wow! Even more wow now that I've read the text.The colours of the buildings are amazing.I know you will be making the most of your time there.Enjoy!
Rubyxx
Adam Parry said…
Beautiful pictures, but I imagine first hand those pictures are far more wonderful one day you'll have to hide me in your suitcase and I might find mysely being there
just managed to catch up with your blog - and to echo other people - wow! it looks unimaginably beautiful, atmospheric. a place where i imagine you can easily contact the deep silent place within. i feel the peace almost! and also the life (i imagine) in the village!
will now read your next one :)
miss you, but glad you are obviously in such a good place.
xxT