"A l'est d'Erzerum, la piste est très solitaire. De grandes distances séparent les villages. Pour une raison ou une autre, il peut arriver qu'on arrête la voiture et passe la fin de la nuit dehors. Au chaud dans une grosse veste de feutre, un bonnet de fourrure tiré sur les oreilles, on écoute l'eau bouillir sur le primus à l'abri d'une roue. Adossé contre une colline, on regarde les étoiles, les mouvements vagues de la terre qui s'en va vers le Caucase, les yeux phosphorescents des renards. Le temps passe en thés brûlants, en propos rares, en cigarettes, puis l'aube se lève, s'étend, les cailles et les perdrix s'en mêlent... et on s'empresse de couler cet instant souverain comme un corps mort au fond de sa mémoire, où on ira le rechercher un jour. On s'étire, on fait quelques pas, pesant moins d'un kilo, et le mot « bonheur » paraît bien maigre et particulier pour décrire ce qui vous arrive.
Finalement, ce qui constitue l'ossature de l'existence, ce n'est ni la famille, ni la carrière, ni ce que d'autres diront ou penseront de vous, mais quelques instants de cette nature, soulevés par une lévitation plus sereine encore que celle de l'amour, et que la vie nous distribue avec une parcimonie à la mesure de notre faible cœur."
Nicolas Bouvier - L'Usage du Monde
East of Erzerum, the track is very lonely. The villages are far apart. For one reason or another, it may happen that you have to stop the car and spend the night outside. Warm in a thick felt jacket, a fur hat pulled down over your ears, you listen to the water boiling on the primus stove under the shelter of a wheel. Leaning against a hill, you look at the stars, the vague movements of the earth as it moves towards the Caucasus, the phosphorescent eyes of the foxes. Time passes in hot tea, rare conversation, cigarettes, then dawn rises, spreads, the quails and partridges join in ... and you hasten to sink this sovereign moment like a dead body at the bottom of your memory, where you will go to look for it one day. You stretch, take a few steps, weighing less than a kilo, and the word "happiness" seems very thin and particular to describe what is happening to you.
In the end, what constitutes the framework of existence is neither family, nor career, nor what others will say or think of you, but a few moments of this nature, lifted by a levitation even more serene than that of love, and that life gives us with a parsimony to the measure of our weak heart.
Translated by Robyn Marsack
Finalement, ce qui constitue l'ossature de l'existence, ce n'est ni la famille, ni la carrière, ni ce que d'autres diront ou penseront de vous, mais quelques instants de cette nature, soulevés par une lévitation plus sereine encore que celle de l'amour, et que la vie nous distribue avec une parcimonie à la mesure de notre faible cœur."
Nicolas Bouvier - L'Usage du Monde
East of Erzerum, the track is very lonely. The villages are far apart. For one reason or another, it may happen that you have to stop the car and spend the night outside. Warm in a thick felt jacket, a fur hat pulled down over your ears, you listen to the water boiling on the primus stove under the shelter of a wheel. Leaning against a hill, you look at the stars, the vague movements of the earth as it moves towards the Caucasus, the phosphorescent eyes of the foxes. Time passes in hot tea, rare conversation, cigarettes, then dawn rises, spreads, the quails and partridges join in ... and you hasten to sink this sovereign moment like a dead body at the bottom of your memory, where you will go to look for it one day. You stretch, take a few steps, weighing less than a kilo, and the word "happiness" seems very thin and particular to describe what is happening to you.
In the end, what constitutes the framework of existence is neither family, nor career, nor what others will say or think of you, but a few moments of this nature, lifted by a levitation even more serene than that of love, and that life gives us with a parsimony to the measure of our weak heart.
Translated by Robyn Marsack
It is now more than thirty years since I climbed those rocks at the end of a beach in Monaco and sat there observing the shore with young eyes and pondering my immediate future, what my next steps would be.
I had at that point an impulse to continue to travel, pause my studies for a year or so and don't stop travelling, don't stop moving ahead. There was something in my heart that was compelling me, was pushing me to venture into the opennes of my life at that point. Many years later I would have the same sensation, the same impulse, that time not far from the border between Turkey and Syria. For a brief moment there was this movement of diverging from the predicted path and diving into an intriguing and open world.
So it happens that in both cases I came back to my expected, regular life and this naturally led me where I am today. Still I carry in me that tast of the open universe in front of me with its infinite possibilities.
Upon reading "Training in Compassion" by Norman Fischer
I had at that point an impulse to continue to travel, pause my studies for a year or so and don't stop travelling, don't stop moving ahead. There was something in my heart that was compelling me, was pushing me to venture into the opennes of my life at that point. Many years later I would have the same sensation, the same impulse, that time not far from the border between Turkey and Syria. For a brief moment there was this movement of diverging from the predicted path and diving into an intriguing and open world.
So it happens that in both cases I came back to my expected, regular life and this naturally led me where I am today. Still I carry in me that tast of the open universe in front of me with its infinite possibilities.
Upon reading "Training in Compassion" by Norman Fischer
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