…WITHOUT TOO MUCH INSPECTION…
Stage 4 / Thursday 30 Avril / From Hauterives to Tournon-sur-Rhône / 30 km
Today it isn’t a human body which throws itself toward the inviting wooded declivity of the Chambaran plateau for the rather long day’s walk; it’s a “steam locomotive”!
Yes, I enjoy imagining my body like one of the old machines that smoked up our countryside in the past. The rhythm of my breathing accelerates after a gentle start, because the aches of the first days have disappeared. And my breath in the cool morning air reminds me of the vapor jets that marked the path of the trains of my youth.
This brisk pace makes my thoughts boil, my locomotive becomes a distillery on wheels … But alas, now heavy vapors are heating my blood, as if the result of the distillation provoked by the furnace has evaporated any lighter dream. The condensation is producing only weighty distillates and not all those sweet-smelling ones! Only the stench of tenacious regrets: the weight of my past. Ah if only this … Ah if only that … Ah if I had known … Ah if I had wanted … Yes, well, my supposedly liberating pilgrimage today wants me to wade in the thick guilt of rather sticky remorse!
Although peaceful and calm, the nature surrounding me evokes sadness and pain in me, more than gentle contentment. Is this the effect of the woods I am crossing which limits my horizon? Is it the mud of the shortcuts I’ve chosen which weigh heavily on my reflections? I arrive too quickly on a miry slope and begin skidding out of control, almost falling down … and I’m furious! Irritating regret to think of myself as a misunderstood toy of destiny, or objective remorse at not having wanted to do what I should have done? I am very annoyed with myself!!!
Whoa, your locomotive is becoming quite cumbersome! It carries suffering and turpitudes transmitted and accumulated since birth. How lively and acidic are these memories still, periods full of despite, these periods of your existence poisoned by the regret of unease. You, the contrite human, would you not be the fossil of poisonous dragons, the genealogical continuity of transmitted and accumulated baseness?
The surrounding forest gives me another vision: I am a tree with pestilent fruit; I search for the roots and cannot pull them out! Are these fruits the consequences of tenderness not expressed enough, or are they signs of a true tenderness that I myself spoiled?
In any case, by re-scrutinizing these disappointments, I make them my own. Being willing to take them in hand seems the only way to lift this burden. And when I have discerned their shape well, perhaps I will know better how to dispose of this cumbersome malodorous baggage. I would have preferred to take the tree by its roots to shake it more vigorously, but perhaps I must accept this manner of beating with a long pole to knock down one by one these wormy bad-smelling nuts.
The worst thing is that the positive image of my locomotive has become just a pile of torn, smoking ruins, on which I begin to discover who I am! Will I be able to reconstruct myself from these findings? The picture of myself, flattering until now, has become…rather smoky! Oh, the arrogance of seeking at all costs the best of all worlds! Oh utopia of a perfect nature whose limpid pools only reflect a spotless image! O disastrous gleam of the vain search for perfection in this earthly world!
Alice in Wonderland has suddenly measured her smallness, her tears have become the sea in which she contemplates her insignificance, and I myself am rowing on the same pond! So take heart, avoid the reef of perfectionism; don’t let yourself be smothered by a phantom of mythical purity; accept the imperfect self that you are, but get your footing back! Come on, let’s bravely cross this Rhône river with its black and turbulent waves … and reach Tournon! [Tournon-sur-Rhône, South of the city of Lyon].
