Originally from Corrèze, Franck Bouysse received, in 2019, the Booksellers’ Prize and the Readers’ Prize for “Elle for Born of No Woman”. His novel “Buveurs de vent” also won the Jean-Giono prize in 2020. His latest novel (Lamartine prize) is entitled “L’hommepopulé”. The chronicles of the present time are part of the tradition created by Alexandre Vialatte.
Whether it’s windy, rainy, or sunny, I can’t imagine a day without a walk in nature. I like to feel the pulse of the earth beating, that each of my steps matches its tempo. A hundred meters of meadow to cross and I reach the edge of beech trees under the impassive gaze of a herd of heifers. The forest is never the same as the day before, there is always something happening under this mask which reflects an apparent immobility. At the moment, porcini mushrooms are growing on the borders, pretty black heads which offer shelter and cover to slugs.
Paradoxes of human existence
Here, life takes its ease, expresses itself in multiple ways, and sometimes invents new ones. This ranges from the slow underground progress of the earthworm, to the majestic stride of the deer in the undergrowth. These living beings only respond to the urgency of fleeing the predator, when we, poor humans, are governed by the emergencies that we create.
We spend our lives experiencing forms of escape, and when we wake up, we only think about making up for lost time.
We are not close to a paradox. We believe that the movement is our best ally. We are taught very early on to fill an agenda, anticipate our desires, to do rather than to be. The tree here is doing nothing important but making its way to the sky. Even if he doesn’t do anything more, he will still be taller than me.
No life rises above the grass
Or from the hearts of sheep, and the wind
Comes pouring out like destiny, curving
Everything in one directionwrote Sylvia Plath.
In my opinion, the only direction there is, the only meaningful direction, is the opposite of our illusory conquests. You just have to not resist the wind to follow the same path as a blade of grass.
Franck Bouysse’s chronicle of the present: “the trash throwers are among us, acting with complete impunity”
Far from stress
During my walk, time has no tangible existence. I have nothing to measure your running, especially not one of those connected watches, which, in a metallic voice, tells you the route, the distance covered, your heart rate, your state of hydration, stress, and scolds you when necessary.
I only want to get lost, to feel free, welcomed in this place where calm reigns, far from the harmful waves, which bludgeon us with human defeats.
empty (empty)
The sublime simplicity of the world
When I arrive in sight of the small stone bridge, I can already hear the water clicking on the rocks, like a chime shaken by the current. Not far from the bank, I see a fox mulling among the rushes. A buzzard stands guard in a willow tree, watching for unwary amphibians and rodents. Here, everything brings me back to the sublime simplicity of this world, to its unvarnished beauty, to the splendor of the useless. The feeling of learning a grammar that we have unlearned over the millennia. You have to listen, listen.
Here the silence is a score on which all the sounds arise, from the branch giving way to the whistling of the blackbird. Here, you have to sharpen your eyes to see the harmonies and make them your own golden rule.
The time to go home is approaching. I take a detour through old quarries that have been abandoned for a long time. Remains eaten away by rust, a crater colonized by stunted birch trees, a ruined cabin covered in ivy, remind me that I am only passing through.
Franck Bouysse
