Love Is All There Is

Water Update
I received an e-mail from Corinne this morning. Roger asked her to send me an update. She reported that Roger closed the vanne leading into our basin and diverted the incoming water to the river. However, the water hasn't gone down enough for the forgeron to come in and repair the vanne at the moulin. Stay tuned.

Because Roger told her I wanted to know if there was any report from WATER ATTORNEY #1 regarding the appelate court hearing, Corrine opened a letter from the attorney which said the court will give their decision on March 8th. Stay tuned.


Everyone, French and American, asks me why I wanted a farm in France. And I tell them that I wanted to recreate my childhood on the farm in Ohio. When I was a kid there were still quant little towns in the midwest, with real live shopkeepers, that provided almost every service you needed. Milk was delivered to your house in bottles. I walked down a long lane, past the cows, past the horses, past the sheep, to catch the school bus each morning. I had a German Shepherd, named Freida who kept watch over me. If I was hungry, I could just grab an apple off a tree in the orchard or go in the kitchen to see what my mother was baking. My father came home for lunch every day from work.

I lived in the Garden of Eden.

Of course there was a war raging in Vietnam, and tens of thousands of people were being killed while I skipped around the farm, building tree houses, sewing Barbie doll clothes, feeding bum lambs. The world was a mess, and while I always thought that I could change it, I failed and I'm very sorry for that.

Instead of following the route of Ghandi, or Gloria Steinem, or Martin Luther King, (notice how people who really change the world for the better are often murdered) I chose the coward's way out and frantically searched out a little haven that came close to recreating the set of my idyllic childhood.

I didn't exactly know for what I was searching. I just wanted some land that actually produced a crop, with WATER flowing through it, and a woods. I only desired to escape the world I couldn't change.

The place I ended up with surpassed my dreams. On my little postage stamp of France the honey and the wine flow freely and my sheep graze peacefully with no shadow of the butcher's knife hovering over them; it's a place where people pay attention to what older women have to say, hell, we're even desirable sex partners; it's a place where silicone breasts have not invaded; it's a place where factory-excreted food is disdained; it's a place where a man who tears down McDonald's is a national hero; it's a place where "intellectuals" are revered and the majority of the population regularly goes to the theatre, or opera, or symphony, or dance performance when it comes to their town; it's a place where everyone has good health care; a place where you can walk on endless paths that wander through forests, vineyards, pastures, and little villages with your unleashed sheep following behind.

In short, my little cottage and farm is everything I didn't know that I deeply wanted. How lucky I am to have stumbled upon what truly makes me happy. All my youthful, disappointing expectations were created by Madison Avenue. But, the joyful bounty I now possess springs from by soul's refusal to accept the trash, the agenda, the dreck, that the media, the politicians, the corporations want me to devour.

We're on this big roller-coaster called life and it's too short to spend it not doing exactly what you want to be doing . So be selfish. Listen to your soul. Drown in love. That's what you really want . . . all your work, all your actions, all your thoughts, are trying to lead you to a place where all there is is love and acceptance.

When I'm laying in bed at night with my husband, and he's already asleep, I like to put my arm around his chest to feel his heart beat and his lungs breathe, and I get teary eyed because I realize that some day, his heart won't beat, and my heart won't beat. And then I hug him tighter because I'm so happy that I have this grand moment where all that exists is love.

That's it folks, that's the secret to life: love. Surrender to it.