Outside the enormous windows of the train, the French countryside slips by, an ancient stone bridge connecting two parts of a village. It is gray, with hopes the rain will relent by tomorrow – though it has mostly just drizzled when I have been outside.
Dawn was slow coming this morning and, for a moment, thought my phone was lying to me about the time. Eventually, as I went down to settle my bill, light began to break across the square outside the hotel. There, I waited for the taxi which took me to the train station.
It was only fifteen minutes to Pon de Bertagne, a ninety-minute wait for the train to Bayeux and two hours to reach there – a total of six stops between.
Fall is beginning to touch the trees, though that touch is surprising light.
I have now been in France for 11 days – Paris, Verdun, Metz, St. Malo and now Bayeux. It has never been in my nature [ask my family] to hurry and I am not, hurrying thither and you to see this and that.
At one moment in St. Malo, I thought: a tourist seeks, a traveler finds. There is nothing I am seeking, and I am in hope of finding what it is I want to do when I return. In each Cathedral I light a candle, asking for what good it is, I might still do in the remaining time. Some kind of wind seems to be at my back. I am hoping I will know when it blows me to where I belong.
Letter from the Vineyard 
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