61 - The Greener Grass

Once you’re lost on the river you may as well keep going. You may as well pick a bank and search for people. There are more turns than you could ever find your way round.

At this one bank there is a short stretch of beach in front of high cliffs. An entrance to a valley is visible through a break in the stone. When you’re despeate to find someone you have no choice but to go on. The way in is narrow but you force yourself between the rocks, while your clothes tear by the guts and your arm gets grazed.

Once inside you see a group of trees dropping blossoms. Though the place you come from is poor, seeming even more so in comparison, you have these same trees. You have, too, the same birds flying about and the same scent of grass. The homemade cooking probably smells roughly the same here. Yet this is already a better place, where simple sights are elevated.

Having left home a frustrated man, sick of the company of men, you find here a peace unknown by monks in their monasteries; a tranquility which no nun in any convent could ever aspire to. It could be the happiest place you'll ever see.