“What a remarkable expression that is, to ‘satisfy the memories of one’s blood.’ Our memories, to be ours, must be more than those memories we have only of ourselves. Our blood remembers our grandparents, our ancestors, the kind of being we are whose soul and body mysteriously belong both to eternity and to our forefathers who begot us.”—James V. Schall, The Esssential Belloc
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What a remarkable expression indeed, she thought of it all the day as her blood and body filled with memories of before and beyond her life. She felt them of the land, of the place, root and ground of blood and being.
All the day, he shared with her quotes that touched and stirred her mind. Sharing, she felt effect in her as well in muse and thought upon their mean.
“…a wanderer that loved to be at home: two virtues kept together only with the greatest of delicacy, but both belong to our being in this world.”
She felt that too, in muse of life abroad—adventures in distance and difference from banal of everyday—and too the beauty and love that came to her in live of the plain and commonness of home and the places she knew as so.
“This seeing-of-all-that-we-can-find is one way to live our lives. But it is not the only way, nor is it necessarily the most exciting one. There is an alternative: ‘Or else stay in one village, and marry in it and die there. For one of these two fates is the best fate for every man. Either to be what I have been, a wanderer with all the bitterness of it, or to stay at home and hear in one’s garden the voice of God.’…We can, we suppose, find the voice of God in either choice of path, but we must listen, even in our own garden.”
He read the passage to her then as they sat on porch in gaze on the sky, evening shade and sunlight through the trees; dark shadow of leaves deep and full in green; chartreuse of the new and sunlight through that shone in outward growth and, too, in the open heart of tree.
We must listen, even in our own garden…
She quieted, listening then, looking on the light that pulsed like beating heart in chartreuse-center of the tree; rise of her skin—warm and cool of sun and shade—skin’s attune of every sense; heighten of the sounds, soft pass of the wind, scents of the living earth: memories of one’s blood recurring to her then—pasts, present, and futures alive, already, in lineage of her Creation.
She thought of God in the places she went—finding even when she never sought—just as now: breath of wind—warm and alive—like heartbeat-glow in chartreuse-center the tree.
She listened. She awed; inspired and beside the One who cared too much: who spoke in word and sign.