...and
many other things besides. on a trip to Laos this winter good friends
delighted me with a full moon watch. they took friendly wagers on
when the full moon was going to fall. we were staying at a resort not
too far from the city, Ban Pako, on a bend in the river and the
winter moon was rising behind us, waxing and as full of promise as an
expectant mother. before us the Nam Num river spread its broad
currents west toward the Mekong and all about us were the fervent
fireflies and insect night life of the tropics. in the late
afternoon, crickets posted in the tree barks like sentinels pushed
out their strident calls, one calling to another and back, setting
the air to vibrate with all the fury of a forest fire. it was turning
into another perfect winter evening in the tropics with crystal clear
skies and the liquid pinpoints of the stars now beseeching overhead.
beers were served, the cylindrical hollow ice-cubes tinkling in our
glasses as is the way here. Aulne and Swanny, Pierre and Isa and
Pascale, as gentle as church-mice had all jumped on an airplane to
come here and so, in this corner of the Far East we were able to
recreate the charm and delight of our little French peninsula, our
circle of friends, always open at one end. the old stone farmhouse
with its massive hand-hewed oak beams, crackling fireplace,
flagstones and terracotta tiled floors was far from us. Molières! and yet here
we sat on the banks of the warm river listening to the rustling
insect life.
talk
soon turned to the question of the full moon and here I was able to
fall in love all over again with this little handful of friends; they
had brought with them the peasant concerns of the marvellous
Southwest and with all the delicacy of wood elves had dedicated much
thought, conjecture and speculation into guessing when the full moon
would be. there she is, I thought looking over our now light-drenched
patio, as she rose, the conquering seductress. there she is spreading
her share of doubt and joy over our mixed company, spreading her
shadow-like light in hues of dull polished orange over all of us,
over the woods behind us and the flat expanse of river before us and
the forest beyond. a boat flowed down the river almost silently, its
stark attention marked by a frantic spot light searching something in
the underbrush of the far bank. we laughed and talked and smoked, our
talk going far back in time, searching also for indications and time
anchors, remembering parties and dinners and crises, births, deaths,
scandals and songs all out of our mutually shared past. and this is
when the subject of the full moon came up and, as I said, all the
magic and intimacy of the great French Southwest came to me as if I
had been a refugee.
all
the peasant folklore pertaining in those sun-kissed and
winter-drenched hills, where generational vineyards meet vegetable
gardens, corn fields and sunflowers, orchards of plum and where the
air is heady with the late summer ripeness of falling fruit, falling
on dried grass and fermenting there in the warm shade making whole
gardens smell redolent with the scent of eau-de-vie ... the peasant
folklore, donc, of that enchanted Tarn et Garonne is that the weather
on the night and day of the full moon will persist until the
following full moon, and so for our friends, tourists with one shot
of the wild, the question is very important indeed. Pierre, with his
soft eyes, soft sad whimsical eyes confirmed in accents as
sturdy as pebbles entre-choqués in a
stream bed, that this was so.
