MAKES ME WONDER

We made our way slowly north through the steep Pri­o­rat val­leys adorned with crim­son and amber leaves – that year end en­chant­ment of patch­work vine­yards, al­mond and hazel groves and cherry or­chards flam­ing be­fore the fall.

It is easy to ro­man­ti­cise the farm, es­pe­cially on days of cham­pagne air and such palettes of fleet­ing colour when the year holds its breath. Deeper still, the rural life can be es­pe­cially be­guil­ing in these mael­strom cli­mate and COVID days of doubt that tilt the nor­mal order of things.

I cau­tion against long­ings to head for the hills. Life can be ar­du­ous, maybe too raw – and quiet – for many. It can be too dis­tant, too much of one’s own com­pany. But my words fall to whis­pers and dry up. For it is a life I never want to end.

Once more, dur­ing olive har­vest, we met up at the co­op­er­a­tive mill at dusk with the proud, sto­ical vil­lagers with their strong backs and steady hearts. There is im­mea­sur­able worth in their wis­dom and that quiet pride – pride in com­mu­nity, in know­ing this land of their deep roots and how to work and sus­tain it. Trust, co­op­er­a­tion and hu­mour water the many chal­lenges of long days and labour.

That spe­cific mem­ory of the en­chant­ing colours was re­in­forced by the rea­son we were mak­ing that jour­ney north. We were head­ing up into the lee of the Montsant moun­tain range, that ma­jes­tic wave of smooth, mel­low rock that dom­i­nates this as­ton­ish­ing land­scape. We wanted to walk a path our friend Deanna loved. She has left us. Too soon. She was an ex­tra­or­di­nary soul, part Per­sian, part Eng­lish, of an African child­hood, worldly wise, multi-lin­gual, cu­ri­ous and ef­fort­lessly kind; a singer, a shin­ing light in our lives with the most won­der­ful laugh. Mag­gie had known her since uni­ver­sity. Music brought them to­gether. That day on the moun­tain Mag­gie had dried rose petals to scat­ter in her mem­ory as her fu­neral took place 1000 miles away.

Scala Dei, lad­der to God, stair­way to heaven, is well-named. It is not dif­fi­cult to rea­son why, in the 12th cen­tury, Carthu­sian monks from Provence es­tab­lished their order’s first monastery on the Iber­ian Penin­sula here be­neath the mas­sif. It is over­whelm­ingly beau­ti­ful. Climb a lit­tle and you can see for­ever. There is ample air and na­ture to con­tem­plate, whether you are re­li­gious or not.

The monks were here and the pri­ors ruled this county for seven cen­turies, hence the name. Theirs was a de­ci­sive con­tri­bu­tion in the cul­ti­va­tion of the vine, so in a fun­da­men­tal other way the legacy lives on.

We walked up be­hind the monas­tic ruins, now being grad­u­ally re­stored, on that trail Deanna knew, to a lush bowl of growth, to La Pietat, a now derelict build­ing with a spring pool that was once a rest­ing place for vis­it­ing prelates.

We sat and, yes, con­tem­plated. We lis­tened to life-af­firm­ing Kenyan music called Obiero, by Ayub Ogada. We gave thanks and counted bless­ings.

That is why, should you have also made the climb that day, there were rose petals and teardrops in the spring pool.