One time we went to Courthézon. The name of the place always reminds me of cortisone, an anti-inflammatory drug used in hospitals. The station, the tracks, and the buildings were all desolate, the doors walled up, the paint peeling. The whole place had the appearance of having been abandoned for many years. Looking at it, one can’t help but think, “God knows how long ago, there must have been a dream here. Then people moved away, and the dream was left behind, forgotten, and frozen in time ever since.”
We didn’t know where to go after coming out of the station, so I said, “Why don’t we go to Châteauneuf-du-Pape?” But we had no idea where it was. We went into a grocery store, thinking we could ask the cashier or find an address on the wine labels. But we came out empty-handed. We said, “Let’s forget about it, just walk around, and when we get tired of walking, we’ll go back to God’s Property.”
We walked along a country road. On one side of it, there were vineyards as far as the eye could see. As we passed a telephone pole, we saw a hole in its trunk. We looked inside but couldn’t figure out what it was for, so we decided to carve the initials of our names into the back of the hole. After about 45 minutes of walking, we came to a place:
It’s a winery, but not Châteauneuf-du-Pape — the road sign made that clear. We went to the manor, asked at the office, and were told that the wine tour would start in an hour.
We sat on the grass at the edge of a vineyard. The sky was cloudy. Everywhere you looked, there was the gloom of late autumn: dead leaves, dry grass, and gnarled vines with brown leaves.
We sat for a long time. We were in no hurry; we had no other plans or commitments for the day. Even if the chateau was closed, even if we had missed the wine tour, it wouldn’t have mattered much to us. If we wanted, we could have sat there all day.
So we sat and waited, my mind void of any thoughts. I didn’t feel like a corporeal being, a breathing body with a beating heart. I was a bodiless soul, my mind empty. Every now and then, I glanced up at the distant gray sky.
It occurred to me that at the time of his enlightenment, Shakyamuni must have been sitting in such a place, and his mind must also have been empty, like mine at that moment.
I thought that if a person is enlightened, it must mean they are no longer troubled by any thoughts because they no longer have any. Or perhaps they still have thoughts, but those thoughts no longer disturb them. Their thoughts are like the clouds in the sky: they come and go, all by themselves, of their own accord. They don’t concern you and have nothing to do with you. You are only an observer of your own thoughts. They no longer trouble you.
I thought that in his time, the world must have looked just as it does today: desolate vineyards under a gray and distant sky.
While I was still sitting, my mind in some remote corner of the universe, my Catholic girlfriend got up and wandered into the vineyards. She reappeared after a while and sat down next to me. “Look what I found!” she said, showing me a handful of raisins she had collected. Obviously, these were fruits left behind by the grape pickers. She stuffed a few into my mouth. They were sweet and had an intense flavor. She fed me a couple more and ate the rest herself. I put my arm behind her, pulled her close, kissed her, and then kissed her again.
“Are they going to open soon?” she asked softly.
We both glanced toward the chateau:
Yego’s Chronicles 