I had an idea today. V/9 pt. I

So I had an idea today. I got it just after lunch.

It was a pleasant day today - in a way. I took a nap in the car after lunch. The sun was radiant. The windows were all open, j’etais torso nu and the heat of the sun was like on a summer beach. The kind of heat that gets you in the eyes. The heat that makes you think of those little double plastic spoons that fit over the eyes that you always see funny people sporting when you are on that beach in the summertime. Oh yes, c’etait une bonne sieste dans le vigne.

It was just a few minutes after three thirty when I had the idea. I remember it because it came in a flash. Though I must say there was a harbinger of its coming just after my nap when I stepped out of the car. A slight detail that perceptually changed. A quick variation that came and went and said ‘prepare for the heat to give way’.

We started work as usual at 1:30. We went up a row and then back and were working our way up the next when right in the middle of the row we all felt the heat give it up as a breeze from the south kicked in. We all stood up and looked in the breezes direction. I looked at Sandrine's watch.

The change brought with it a high covering of thin cloud that filtered the suns heat rays down a few degrees. When we got to the end of the row it was three thirty and where we stood, we directly faced the sea (30 miles away but never the less a direct and unobstructed view upon this source of the wind). We felt the humid, colder than simply cool, but not yet cold, air with it.

I am a fake farmer now, but none the less a farmer. You didn’t need to tell me it was going to rain. It wasn’t going to come right away, but it was coming. Everyone agreed. The weather was changing. We all agreed too, that it was for the worse. The sun and warmth make everything march better here. It was just then that I got the idea.

It was an idea for a story where nobody would be the protagonist. The story would be the weather. It was the weather, it always has been the weather. The weather is the only story that doesn’t have an end. At least an end that can be predicted. The humans in comparison are meager. After a while, our stories all become somewhat predictable, or at the least, you can give a good guess where they are going. We all know the end of our story.

That’s why farmers always talk about the weather, like fortune it is constantly changing, like chance it is perpetually coming. It is intimate without being personal. It contains destiny.


Part II.

The old farmer from St. Jean came by today. He has the four hectares my vigneron is working. They are nice parcels, down by the river...