I gazed at the teetering boulders overhead as we rounded the sharp curves, feeling a bit like Chicken Little.
The roadway to Courmes is narrow and winding. The creek lays many meters below the drop-off to the left. To the right steep, jagged rock faces cut into the hills are lined with fences to keep errant bits from falling on passersby.
It is stunning… and alarming.
As we approached a tunnel cut quite rudimentarily out of gigantic boulders, I noticed a sign that read:
Cette route a été construite par le Department des Alpes-Maritime 1904-1906
And I had to wonder about the engineering sophistication in France in the early 1900’s. I can’t imagine it was much more developed than in the US. In 1900, cars were just emerging and widened roads like these were newer occurrences.
True, the tunnel had withstood 120 years, all the elements, and two world wars. Yet it caused me pause.
How do you trust what your eyes don’t want to believe?
We have learned to trust our eyes. To take their input – many million pieces of data in a glance – assimilate it with years of personal experience, and reorient ourselves.
All in a nanosecond.
These reflexes have been groomed for tens of thousands of years. Our ancestors who couldn’t accomplish this, simply didn’t make it.
So, when we enter a tunnel that looks unstable, it takes some convincing to proceed. We are forced to argue against ourselves…invest our trust in something that feels unnatural.
And yet sometimes our eyes get it wrong. We believe that our path is clear and tread steadily forward only to trip over a rock partially hidden in the leaves or land clumsily down an embankment that we hadn’t noticed.
We stumble on with a twinge of pain. Hey eyes…I was trusting your direction. Where did you go?
The truth is…trust is tough business.
When we are young we are taught to trust things outside of ourselves. Trust the adults in our lives. Trust authorities. Trust our religious dogma. Trust our system of government. We put our faith in coaches, teachers, club leaders, everyone who seems to have the answers.
Most times, this faith is well placed. But there are many times when this trust leads us to places that don’t serve us. We find ourselves off-course, bruised and confused, feeling deep inside that we should have known better.
The truth is, we did know better.
We just didn’t trust ourselves.
It’s hard to unwind old patterns and instead develop trust in our own wisdom. It’s hard to believe that we already know enough to direct ourselves down a path that teaches us what we need to learn in this life. And yet if we quiet the external noises and listen deeply, each of us has that inner knowing.
This week marks our half-way point on this year’s sojourn to France. And the question of the hour is: what are we going to do next? Will we stay another year here or just finish out our time and head back to the US.
It’s not an easy question to answer. And yet somehow despite my need to reach outside of myself – to research all the options, investigate schools, pour over Redfin listings all over the world, and start yet another planning spreadsheet, there is another voice.
The still small voice that is telling me to relax. Let the answer come to me instead of rustling about listening to this input or that piece of advice.
It’s telling me to trust myself. Feel into the answer. And just let it be.
Now that is a wild ride.
Bisous,
Hanna
40 Weeks in France 