Kenavo

The whirlwind and the wonder and the disbelief (and a computer too full with images) prompt a post denuded of both images and deep thoughts. But I am holding tight (oh so tight) to these last two days, to the gentle good will and sincere kindness of people we've come to care deeply for, to the beauty of this landscape which changed (with) us, to Eleanor's speaking French, to Iris denying that tomorrow is ever going to really happen to the end, to Oliver dreaming already of Switzerland, to habits which became unconscious, to the ease with which we said "Bonjour messieurs dames" when walking into a store, to not thinking about where we were going, to still being surprised about how to make a haircut appointment, to buying crazy cheeses that bite back, to still wanting to see Monteneuf's megaliths one more time, to imagining the number of times the terraces will fill and empty with laughter and tired travelers, to daydreaming about fall here and the quieting of Brittany, to humming Breton music, to finding the Brittany connection no matter how distant, to knowing life was good really good here, to feeling lucky, to feeling connected thanks to the gracious generosity of our benefactress Brigitte, to being witness to a history that survived history itself, to knowing this survival rode on the voices of oral tradition and the breathing of the biniou, to being in a place that carved out its own pace and place, to the Fountain of Barenton, to la Pointe du Penhir, to the Granite Coast, to the medieval streets of Nantes, to Dinan, to Quimper, to Mont-Saint-Michel, to Trebeurden... I can't name them all. I don't want any of them to slip away. And yet we move now from discovery to memory, and this, I find difficult. Once we have left, once we can start to remember (always a process of simultaneous rejoicing (we were there!) and mourning (but no longer)), there will be great comfort and inspiration. But I wanted our lunch on the island to never end, the conversation to continue, the spring to still unfurl in the garden, the discoveries to emerge, emerge, emerge... Something there was about this place that made us want to give ourselves to it (already I remember the tremulousness rather than feel it), and I think that we did. Now we will have the years ahead to find out how.