WHAT I WISH FOR

I stand in my usual spot, be­neath where the blue tit sings. The al­most white branches of the wal­nut tree are leaf­less and I can see the lit­tle bird. It is my up­beat dawn rhythm. I am on my way to our old pony, La Pe­tita, now plumper by two cen­time­tres on ac­count of her deep win­ter coat. The whole - all that lives and turns, the year, the sea­sons, the ex­tra­or­di­nary sym­bio­sis of na­ture - puts me in my place.

Hope surges.

One mo­ment there is that en­rich­ing sense of a be­gin­ning, the next it is snow­ing ash. All bird­song stops. Grey flakes fall in slow mo­tion. I race as fast as I can to the high­est point of the farm to scan for the cause, hop­ing not to see a plume ris­ing from the tin­der-dry for­est that blan­kets the Serra de Llaberia. In­stead I find that, higher up the val­ley, a farmer is clear­ing the leaves and dead­wood of 2017.

Then comes an ugly sound. Yet an­other mil­i­tary air­craft, a dark, jug­ger­naut he­li­copter, not a scream­ing jet this time, is cross­ing the Pri­o­rat north to­wards Reus, Tar­rag­ona and Barcelona.

The ash re­lents, the men­ace di­min­ishes. I set­tled on the bench be­tween the olive trees and take some deep breaths. At my age, after sev­eral close shaves, I have very few anx­i­eties now. But with man, fire and wilder­ness it is a ques­tion of when not if, and there is such a wealth of time­less good­ness and wis­dom in these forested lands and tended ter­races. I can­not bare to think of the vi­o­lence and loss.

I make some wishes for the sea­sons ahead.

No wild­fires this year, please. But rain, steady, pro­longed, would be good.

What else?

I stare at the ever­green swathe of pines.

Peace, es­sen­tially. I want that. Don’t we all. It is every­thing. It is, for ex­am­ple, the pin­na­cle of the Eu­ro­pean Union’s achieve­ment on an in­sanely flam­ma­ble con­ti­nent and that is why, for all the ills and griev­ances, no­body should spurn the com­mu­nity.

As for the com­bustible world, Amer­ica and oth­ers too need to rapidly come to their senses.

Com­pas­sion. The in­creas­ing, cold ab­sence of this to­wards our fel­low be­ings and planet needs the shin­ing light of an egal­i­tar­ian ex­am­ple - for a leader or state to show the way, to counter the per­vad­ing weak­nesses and ig­no­rances of greed, in­tol­er­ance, vi­o­lence, waste and de­struc­tion with un­com­pro­mis­ing moral­ity, sus­tain­abil­ity, multi-racial­ism, equal­ity for women, fair­ness, and pro­tec­tions for the most vul­ner­a­ble and for the nat­ural world.

Time. We need to take it, value it, be af­forded it, for our in­di­vid­ual and col­lec­tive well­be­ing which, yes, im­plic­itly and pos­i­tively af­fects our ca­pac­ity for peace and com­pas­sion. I pre­scribe it is best taken in en­deav­our, with pos­i­tive cu­rios­ity and good hu­mour, among fam­ily, within na­ture, while being ever mind­ful that we have still so much to learn and not so long to do it.

I want to see Cat­alo­nia’s star con­tinue to rise in all these re­gards.

I want more pride in the state of this beau­ti­ful coun­try, with a na­tional Clean-Up Cat­alo­nia Day which would wipe away the stain of dis­carded plas­tic and de­bris and fos­ter so much good within our com­mu­ni­ties.

I want to live in a coura­geous, so­cially re­spon­si­ble coun­try that is pre­pared, for ex­am­ple, as Fin­land and Canada have been, to trial uni­ver­sal basic in­come.

I want – oh – no more space. One more…..

I want to never lose hope.

And if there is fire…… then, well, we will re­gen­er­ate and go on.