I have many favourite places. Having moved houses, regions, and schools extensively since I was born means I have left many kind memories of places I loved behind me. But when I close my eyes I only see one.
I remember first a feeling of heat. The hot summer air surrounds me like a burning veil. It carries a delicate smell of dry grass, pungent thyme, aromatic rosemary and sweet lavender, and from far away the acrid smoke of a bush fire. I am lying on a mattress of short-cut grass that slightly scratches my bare legs and arms. I can also smell the olive trees nearby and the tenuous fragrance of the lemon trees farther away.
The air is thrilling with the continuous chirping of the crickets. Wrapped in the noisy silence of Nature, I can also hear the hard-working ants and the beetles crawling between the sharp blades of grass beneath my head. The air is too hot for birds, hidden in their nests, they are waiting for the cool evening air to free them. The chimes of bells from the village church below reaches me, carried away by the wind. I am too far from the house to hear the voices of my family. At that time of the day, grown-ups are digesting their gargantuan lunch in the shadow and coolness of their bedrooms. It is the time when children are left alone, free from the careful watch of the elders.
I open my eyes and the white brightness of the sun is blinding me for a few seconds. The air above me is buzzing with brightly-coloured butterflies. A couple of dragonflies – elegant and ruthless killers – glide in complicated arabesques. A ladybird lands on my right hand. I am looking at her and raising the finger high in the sky I lead her to the sun. Far away above my head, very high in the sky, white fluffy clouds are racing each others. Around me the steep hills look dry and slightly hazy in the heat. I can see the observatory at the top of the highest one. Behind me the vineyard flanked by two peach trees seem immutable. Olive trees with their silver leaves are host of thousands of crawling creatures.
In my favourite place time doesn’t matter and I’m staying there forever, as immutable as the twisted and bent olive trees around me.
ahh sounds nice, wish i could jump in my london wardrobe and come out in a place like this…