It was many years after the night of the aurora, after I had walked the stony paths of the north and sailed upon seas gray with storm, that I came at last to the southern lands — where the sun poured its warmth upon the earth like golden wine, and the air was sweet with the breath of growing things.
I was a man of twenty-seven then, my boots worn thin by roads and fields and forest trails, my hands calloused from the oar and the walking stick, my heart filled with the quiet wonder that had become my constant companion.
France welcomed me with its sunlight, its scents, its colors that seemed brighter than any I had known before. And of all the places I wandered there, it was the lavender fields of Provence that carved themselves most deeply into my soul.
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I arrived in Provence at midsummer, when the world was thick with heat and the sky above the hills was a dome of endless blue. The air shimmered where it touched the earth, and the hum of bees filled the spaces between bird song and breeze.
The first time I saw the lavender fields, I was standing upon a low hill, the dust of the path warm beneath my feet, my pack resting upon a flat stone beside me. The land fell away before me in gentle folds, and there, stretched out like a sea turned violet by sunset, lay the lavender.
Row upon row it ran, the plants in perfect lines that followed the curve of the land, their blossoms a tide of purple that rippled in the wind. The scent rose upon the breeze — rich, heady, a sweetness that spoke of sun and soil and rain long past.
I closed my eyes and breathed it in, and in that moment, the years seemed to fall away. I was no longer the traveler weary from the road. I was a boy again, standing beneath the birches of my home, the wind in my hair, the world new and full of promise.
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I stayed there for hours, watching the wind play upon the lavender, watching the light shift as the sun moved westward, watching the shadows grow long and soft across the fields.
The bees moved among the blossoms, their small bodies heavy with golden dust. Swallows dipped and turned above, their cries sharp and sweet against the hush of the afternoon.
I found shelter that night in a small stone house at the edge of the fields. An old woman lived there — Yvette, whose hands smelled always of herbs, whose eyes were dark and kind beneath brows silver with age. She gave me bread still warm from her hearth, a wedge of cheese sharp and creamy upon my tongue, a cup of wine that tasted of the land itself.
We spoke little — my French was rough, and her speech soft and quick as the wind in the lavender — but words were not needed. She saw the wonder in my eyes, and I saw the peace in hers, and that was enough.
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The days that followed were slow and golden.
I rose with the sun and walked the fields, the lavender heavy with dew that turned the blossoms silver in the dawn light. I sat upon stones warmed by noon, watching the farmers move among the rows with sickle and basket, their voices low, their motions sure. I watched the great bundles of lavender carried to the still house, where the air was thick with steam and perfume.
And at night, I lay beneath a sky alight with stars, the scent of lavender rising around me, the song of night birds in my ears, the earth warm beneath my back.
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There was one evening I remember above all others.
The sun had just slipped behind the hills, leaving the sky streaked with rose and gold. The wind had fallen still, and the lavender stood quiet, as if listening for some secret voice. The first stars pricked the deepening blue above, and a crescent moon hung low, pale as pearl.
I walked the paths between the rows, my fingers brushing the blossoms, their fragrance rising with each step. The world seemed to hold its breath, caught between day and night, between the warmth of the sun and the cool promise of darkness.
And in that moment, I felt I had come at last to the heart of my journey — not in some distant land, not upon some high and perilous peak, but here, in this quiet field beneath the wide sky, where the earth's beauty needed no grandeur to be complete.
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I write these words now, and as I do, I see again those fields, feel again the soft wind upon my cheek, taste again the sweetness of the air.
The lavender of Provence taught me that the horizon is not always a line of mountains against the sky, nor the edge of some far sea. Sometimes, the horizon is a field of blossoms beneath your feet, and the journey is simply to stand still, and see.
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Outside my window, the lake lies quiet beneath the stars. The birches whisper in the night breeze, and I smell the pine and the cold of coming snow. But in my heart, the lavender
still blooms, endless and purple beneath the summer sun.