32 - Still moments in the French countryside

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Bonjour, in this quietly reflective video set in the French countryside, I invite you into a slower rhythm, gathering fresh eggs in the early light, turning pages of a beloved book, and savoring the stillness that defines life here. At the heart of this video is a gentle tribute to Sido, a deeply evocative work by French author Colette. Through her poetic recollections of rural life, the garden she adored, and the quiet presence of her mother, we are reminded of the timeless beauty of simple pleasures. I share why this book means so much to me, and read a passage aloud, accompanied by soft imagery of quiet corners of the countryside. If you love slow mornings, meaningful literature, and an elegant, nature-connected lifestyle, this video was made for you.


Colette — Sido (1929) — English Translation

Summers reverberating off the hot yellow gravel,
summers passing through the woven rush of my big hats,
summers almost without nights...
For I already loved dawn so much
that my mother granted it to me as a reward.
I obtained from her that she would wake me at half past three,
and I would set off, an empty basket in each hand,
toward the market gardens that nestled in the narrow fold of the river,
toward the strawberries, blackcurrants, and hairy gooseberries.

At half past three, everything still slept
in a primordial, humid, and confused blue,
and when I walked down the sandy path,
the fog, held down by its weight,
bathed first my legs, then my well-shaped little torso,
and reached my lips, my ears, and my nostrils —
more sensitive than any other part of me...
I walked alone, this ill-thinking land held no danger.
It was on that path, at that hour,
that I became aware of my worth,
of an ineffable state of grace,
and of my complicity with the first arriving breeze,
the first bird, the sun still oval, deformed by its emergence...

My mother let me go, after calling me “Beauty, All-Golden Jewel”;
she watched her work — “masterpiece,” she would say —
run and diminish down the slope.
I was perhaps pretty;
my mother and the portraits from that time don’t always agree...
I was so perhaps because of my age and the breaking day,
because of eyes darkened by greenery,
blond hair that wouldn’t be smoothed until my return,
and the superiority of being a child awake while others still slept.

I returned at the bell for the first mass.
But not before I had eaten my fill,
not before I had drawn, through the woods,
a great circuit like that of a dog hunting alone,
and tasted the water from two lost springs I revered.
One rose from the earth in a crystalline convulsion, a sort of sob,
and carved out its sandy bed by itself.
It discouraged itself as soon as it was born and plunged back underground.
The other, nearly invisible, creased the grass like a snake,
spread out secretly at the center of a meadow
where a circle of flowering narcissus alone revealed its presence.
The first tasted of oak leaf, the second of iron and hyacinth stem...
Even just speaking of them, I wish their flavor would fill my mouth
at the moment of ending it all,
and that I might carry with me that imaginary sip...


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