Summer holiday Day 9/10

I wake up to a durgy morning. The clouds have not lifted and seemingly reflect the mood I felt yesterday, not one for being deceptive about my emotions, I feel its only right to support the fact that sometimes days on holidays are just as disappointing as in our real days ! I still feel cheated by my expectation and im prone to blaming everything else – the French tourist board, the tick tock videos………

I glance at my journal and feel the burst of colour coming back at me. I can navigate these tricky feelings !

We set off a little clumsily – none of us can decide what to do. I make the final decision….. Before embarking on this journey, I had made friends with a member of the van life community who lives in the Pyrenees – in fact it had been him that had led us to the great heights of our first stop. He had sent me a screen shot of his favourite drive through the Pyrenees, and in my yearning to find “the” waterfall ( in amongst the hundreds of waterfalls) we had driven far off course.

I crack open my disappointment veneer when I realise that half way down his route is another of our “hoped for” visits – a trip on “le petit train d’artouste”. Let me explain, my dearest husband has been a great lover of trains for as long as I’ve known him – steam trains being his particular passion. Hes not the train collector of hobbyists – more, he just loves a good train ride. I, on the other hand – have been the ever-patient wife who trawled her bored children onto said steam trains for the first 8 years of their life until we finally all admitted that we couldn’t stand it anymore. However, when I was browsing the plethora of offered delights in France, I came across a little article on this train… and when I realised that it travelled through parts of the mountains that we wouldn’t get to on foot (certainly not if yesterdays walk is anything to go by) – then I thought it would be a little treat for all of us, including of course mark.

And so, on day 9 – we made our way back to the beginning of my online friends “favourite route” and rediscovered the beauty of the Pyrenees.

First stop a little village tucked into the flat plains that open up like great embraces and a navigation of a market without any cash or cash machine in sight. We discover a treat called “le gateau a la broche”. This “cake” is essentially made from a batter which is something in between a waffle, a pancake and a cake – this batter is dripped over a rotating spit which is over hot charcoal. The job of the baker, is to continue to drip the batter over each cooked layer until the end result is something like a Christmas tree ! You can buy them as hard baked which are crispy like a cookie, or soft baked which is much more like a waffle. Either way, utterly divine – and the scrapings of 13euros worth of small train that was rattling its way around the van, bought us a small helping which we enjoyed for our mid morning snack (I will confess here that I did have to dry some with my favourite dark chocolate spread which is the most blissful alternative to the popular Nutella)

Our drive took us through some beautiful gorges, steep rock faces dotted here and there by mysterious trees which suspend themselves over the road dropping pink leaves onto the tarmac. Waterfalls (yes those darn things) arrived in regular persistence, ever etching away at the rock face, ever demanding a presence despite this hot climate and the occasion clang a lang prefaced the arrival of a sheep, or a cow – or a goat.

Now and then one arrives at either a concrete tunnel, a rock carved tunnel or just a road ceiling made of wire netting. These are there to stop rock falls from crushing the car, however – on each intersection of road, one is warned that there is a “severe risk of death”. It puts things into perspective – these cliffs are, undoubtedly the most beautiful mountains I have ever seen – AND, nature will not be stopped.

We arrive at “artouste”, a beautiful lake at the half way point up a mountain. The sun has re-arrived and yet the sky is dappled with clouds that we have rarely seen since arriving in the southern part of France. We park up by the side of the lake and head towards the train station. And here is where the trip becomes a little more – exciting. The train departs every half an hour from 9 until 7 pm, one must take a chair lift up the side of the mountain to arrive at 1900 feet !!! and from there you get on the train. It is by now 5pm, and getting cloudier and darker by the minute, and so we retreat to the local restaurant, enjoy a wonderful plate of tapas (we are now only 30 minutes from the Spanish border) and head to the van to make our plans for the next day.

Now, before I go further – I must explain something, Mark loves trains. Mark does not love heights. In fact, he absolutely has the wobbles around anything higher than 10 metres when he is not on solid ground. We have had to march quick pace across bridges, he has reversed on kids climbing frames – Mark, does not enjoy heights. We reason that the chair lift will be over and done with quickly and he can close his eyes.

We go to bed dreaming of the day to come.

It is 6 am, I have woken early for no other reason than my body chooses to do so. I look out of the window towards the lake and I feel like I am still dreaming. I chuck on some warmish clothes (its chilly half way up a mountain), and grab my camera and ease myself quietly out of the van. It’s a short scrabble down the side of the lake however within minutes I am sat in front of a natural miracle. The most perfect mirror.

It is somewhat mind bending to be looking down and seeing the same as looking up. The lake is so still it is incredible. Trees grow down as well as up, clouds are suspended in the floor as well as the sky – and the mountains…. Oh the mountains, even the pattering’s of snow sit deeply in the pool of water. I bend over into the mirror to catch sight of myself – it is true natural magic to find a space like this. In therapy we often use the term “mirroring”, it is an essential yet often damaged part of our childhood development and indeed one of the most important skills one learns as a therapist. It means, to reflect back oneself until one can digest what is being seen. Watch a healthy mother and baby, as soon as the baby cries, its mother will change her face to match – this is mirroring. Listen to a toddler scream “I don’t like peas”, and the mother will say “you don’t like peas” – eventually that child learns to mirror themselves until in a moment of teenage disagreement, said teen will say “no mum, you are wrong, I think like this……” (it happens all the time in my household, Im happy to say I have two boys with incredibly healthy internal mirrors !).

My own journey with mirroring has been interesting, and you can find much more about that on my therapy page (www.jolenepayne.com), and there is something delicious about being next to this very female womb of water with no one else around – and just letting her reflect back to me. I heard her say, “are you ready to know now”. This sabbatical is certainly turning into the most marvellous internal journey !

Mark joins me moments later, and he is as mesmerised as me. However the pure stillness has been mine to enjoy alone because suddenly the lake comes to life, fish start to emerge and ripples of water form distorting the perfect mirror. Traffic builds and brings with it a breeze that one is totally unaware of until you see the impact on the water.

We head our way to the train station. We buy our tickets. We walk towards the chair lift. And its only when I see how high this thing goes that I realise two things. 1) this is going to be an epic journey. 2) im not sure I like chair lifts. We are seated into our 6 person gondola alongside 2 french mid-life lovers who are delightfully comical with us both, there is something wonderful about human presence that meant despite my limited French and their limited English – we learnt, without words that “he” was a complete daredevil and wonderful comedian, and “she” was as terrified as me of the gondola, her knuckles as white as mine on the bar that we both gripped intensely whilst trying to look joyously as we climbed through the clouds. Mark was fine until the cloud moment, then he just went very quiet and uttered swear words under his breath. Small, told both mark and I frequently that we were being daft. We have realised over this holiday that he is without question an adrenaline junkie, and it wont be long before he is descending from bridges at great heights suspended by elastic – I hope I am not there to cheer on his first bungie jump !

Finally, we arrive at the top of the mountain, and we board “le petit train”. It is a delightfully rickety train that would sit easily on the end of a pier or in an English garden. It is the sort of train that retired grandfathers “tinker” with and gaggles of toddlers take their parents for rides in and out of daffodils. It is not, the sort of train that we expected to be taking on a ride that would see us millimetres from the edge of a cliff at 1900 meters high. I loved it.

Mark did not love it. Mark may have given up his love of trains.

The ride is an hour long, we pass blue thistles (yes they exist), rock formations that would not be misplaced in epic films such as lord of the rings. An eagle takes flight – yes you read me right – an actual eagle, majestically takes flight from one of the jetty’s of rock as our carriage ambles past it. Round and round the rugged mountain the ragged train did run – and with peels of laughter from the front of the carriage (where our two gondola companions sat) the train grew with speed and gusto, and marks language got bluer and bluer.

There are many times when I have been speechless by the beauty we have encountered on this trip, and many of them arrived on this train journey. I will give mark his credit, it was nerve wracking to be hurtling around cliff edges on a toy train – AND, its also true to say that having the opportunity to gaze down into a valley at 1900 metres is quite something, sheep become cotton tufts sewn into the fabric of the landscape and I am reminded of the tapestries that I have seen in art fairs. Waterfalls (yes those again) lose their definition and instead become turquoise stitches that dart down the rock face in a straight line, and clouds hanging in a valley are just the most magical thing – little tufts of wishes suspended in the air. I loved every minute.

The peak of the train ride is a 90 minute stop at the upper mountain lake, which has been damned off and is used as a hydro source. And it is the most perfect shade of copper blue that I have ever seen. Crystal clear, its depths go on forever it is fed by the glacial snow that hangs in crevices and creaks in the sunlight. White sun bleached rocks tempt climbers to venture even further, however it is enough for me to sit again and just enjoy another moment of being with the water, and her potential to reflect and mirror all who dare to ask the question “who am I”

The return train ride is slower, this driver choosing optimal moments to slow down and allow those of us who wanted, to take photos of the view. The eagle returns, I wish I had caught him on camera – trust me when I say that he was majestic – I have seen eagles at zoos, and wild bird shows – I have not seen them like this gliding across a cloud suspended valley, arching his next and cawing out across the chasm. Breathtaking – awe inspiring. A different mirror.

The return gondola / chair lift was hell on earth. We were in thick cloud for 15 minutes unable to see the ground, I remembered the eagle and I breathed slower, and let my soul soar for a bit. It was still terrifying, and yet I felt like I conquered something.

Fear is a funny thing, a feeling that no child should encounter without the careful and appropriate attention of an adult. Yalom says “it is not the event that causes trauma, but how the trauma is responded to”. With enough after care and love, children can process any number of scary situations – without it, fear becomes a state of being to avoid at all costs.

Had mark and I avoided our fear today, we both agree we would have missed out. We are lucky, we have both as adults, discovered in therapy, wonderful navigators of fear – and so instead of avoiding it, we faced it – head on together.

I shall create a fantasy mirror landscape this evening. I have found a leaf with wonderful holes in it like a stencil and I want to use it somehow. What a day.

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