A CRACK IN THE SHUTTER

Just over the bridge, the lesser-known twin of Avignon sits quietly gloating in a confidence of superiority that subdues the need for unnecessary debate.

This is Villeneuve, the embodiment of the notion, “What is, simply is.”

Sometimes the loudest lessons are learned in the quietest place.

The cobbled streets make getting from one lamp post to another a gradual proposition, forcing me to regard what is left and what is right. What surrounds me, it becomes apparent,  is the intention. Not where I’m headed. Not what’s next.

I remember the initial frustration—shoes lingering in the little grooves, the mindful awareness of mitigated purpose, plans altered and tossed out.

The world will tell you that the grand and glorious sites are The “must-see.”

Like everything, and in particular the unremarkable days of our lives, we scurry through and past what the soul craves on the way to somewhere ‘else.’

Soul, if you are wondering, is not something mysterious or difficult to define. It is the whole of being human, firmly imbedded in a singular moment in time.

Then there appears a shuttered window with this heartbreaking, beckoning crack. It speaks to me in reverent whispers, in ways no crowded cathedral can—
To be guarded and yet long for connection.
An incarnation of fear and hope in the same breath.
Is this not what we seek in holy places?
Are not holy places everywhere?

Soul expands in the unhurried tempo.
It finds its rest in ancient things once and still loved
standing enduring and elegant amid every temporary and unpleasant thing.

Soul is a window. Soul is the peeling in the paint.
Soul is the one peering through the crack in the shutter.
Soul is both abandon and restraint.

I know nothing of the one who sits behind chipping wood and plaster but there is one thing I believe—We are all hiding. We are all wanting to be seen.

There is no stained-glass cathedral, no museum filled with exquisite artifacts, that could teach me more, awaken me more, than this shuttered window.

NOTES ON BIRTHDAYS AND WINDOWS:

Three years ago this week I was celebrating a big birthday in Provence.
There was no need to unwrap presents. The gifts were everywhere.

Of all the images I returned with, the one you see here is my favorite [honorable mention must go to the old man carrying a baguette walking a narrow street in the St. Germaine district of Paris].

Though what is seen is exquisite, I believe what lies beyond the frame, just out of view, is what I am drawn to. Experiences throughout my life have revealed that it is the “unseen” that quickens the soul. Something in us, something difficult to define or contain, is constantly holding its own conversation in decibels most-often inaudible while we simply go about our day.

I seek the quiet places now. Holy. Unexplored. Ignored. Missed.
Not in hopes of finding something “out there.”
But in hopes of discovering something hidden within.