(the misadventures of an expatriate corporate dropout)

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

photo-synthesis.


No Place Like It tagged me in a fun photo meme, the dear....

My assignment was to go to my photo file, select the 4th photo folder and the 4th photo and share it with all of you. With some sort of description.

Well here it is. I snapped this and in essence, it represents that romantic, fantasy-like nature of all of the secret roads meandering throughout my beloved France.

When viewing scenes like this ... any number of things can occur. When the trees lining the avenue are particularly old, I can be transported to another time, imagining the clip-clop sound of horse's hooves ... anxious with anticipation at the impending end of their journey ... some fresh sweet hay, cool water awaiting to reward their hard work. I wonder what the village that these trees welcomed the traveller in to was like. Were the scents entirely sour or was there that sense of industriousness I encounter with so many of the most petite villages in the countryside? Who planted them? what were they like?

My imagination can also take me down a romantic trail, dreaming of warm, sun-splashed drives in the summertime ... a lover by my side, the top down in the car as we lazily glide through the fields and come upon the next little hamlet. I smell the grassy fields, the tang of the earth and the animals who share our space. I picture an unexpected turn into tall sunflower fields and jaunt towards an open, unrevealed space where we make slow and delectable love with the sun on our skin. Strains of Edith are heard in the background.

Maybe it is just before that crisp season's change ... as the day draws to a close and the suggestion of a chill lingers in the air. Not enough to put one off ... just a tease towards scents of apples and freshly harvested grasses and fires in the fields. Where sweatstained, dusty farmers gather round the bar for an evening's toast before returning home.

Yes, a country's drive can indeed transport me. I especially like the slightly-out-of-focus, dreamlike quality of this picture.

okay. paying it forward...

I'll have to come back to that. Why does it stress me so to select people for these things? sigh.

3 comments:

Randal Graves said...

I'm completely with you on this roads thing. You're alright, Frenchie. Just replace Edith with Beethoven's sixth or Debussy's Nuages.

Why the stress? Some people loathe tags, you don't want to leave anyone out, thereby ignoring them; don't want to tag someone a million times, thereby smothering them. I don't know what I'm talking about, but it sounds plausible.

Riana Lagarde said...

gorgeous, your words, your images. i love france's tree lined roads like this. they fascinate me for the same reasons. i imagine monks with hoods over their heads walking to the next place to stay, hot soup and bread awaiting them. there are so many souls between those branches just waiting to be heard.

JChevais said...

Lovely lovely lovely. I love when a little country road is lined with trees. Yum.