In the mountains

I went to mass in T... this morning. It was the first time I'd been there, and to tell the truth, even the first time I'd stopped in this village instead of just driving through it. The church was beautiful, and I regretted not having the opportunity to take photos; bright, with a beautiful wooden high altar, obviously very old. I felt unusually good. This was due to something very specific to the place itself, which I eventually managed to put into words: I had the feeling of being "in the mountains". I was far from my depressing city, far from the concrete, the grime, the noise, far from the degenerates, far from the decadence, ugliness and death that the city in general has come to symbolize for me; There I was, on a sunny Sunday morning in this peaceful village, nestled deep in the mountains, surrounded by other equally peaceful villages, true refuges, and it was like being at the other end of the world, in a magical, protected, inviolable zone, where everything was still intact.

A simpler, slower world

I discovered this afternoon this village which is only five minutes away from the city where I have been living for fifteen years, but which I have always neglected to visit, because I simply had nothing to do there, and because I had, for a long time, never even crossed its name.

My goal was to drive randomly in a direction I had never taken and to stop in the first unknown village that would intrigue me.

I parked at the very entrance of the village, even before the first houses, on a kind of intersection between a parking lot and a playground, with a small wooden structure, quite new, that housed benches and a table; the kind of shelter that one comes across in the middle of nature and that is usually used to shelter from the rain or to have a meal, during a hike.

The first building of the village, just a few meters further, was fascinating, I had a real shock when I discovered it. An agricultural building, obviously, whose function still escapes me, but absolutely huge. It was dilapidated, roofless, open to the four winds. Instead of windows, thin and long loopholes. Something threatening - but indefinable - was emanating from it.

A few dozen meters further on, after the first houses (old farm buildings, mainly converted), we turned left to arrive in front of the church. Some beautiful and big houses, that I guessed were welcoming, cozy, in their juice. All this led, to my great surprise, to the banks of a canal, which was bordered by a footpath; I promised myself to take it on occasion, to see where it led.

I then arrived at the edge of an old cemetery, outside the village, surrounded by a stone wall. I have always liked old cemeteries, old graves. Especially in villages. They don't evoke anything macabre, nothing sad, on the contrary, they have something almost soft, even cozy, in this kind of setting cemeteries are true to their etymology of "dormitories". They evoke rest, peace, the proximity of loved ones, the softness of the native land. Just the opposite of a colombarium.

Afterwards, there were only the fields, but in the distance, we could see the neighboring village, a few hundred meters away, whose roofs and church steeple we could make out. I didn't plan to go there on foot, but I dreamed for a few moments of a simpler world, slower, quieter, where people would go from one village to the other through the fields, to trade, to visit each other...