I'm in my garden in Finistère filling out change-of-address cards. It's an afternoon at the beginning of September 2000, a soft haze over the countryside. The Atlantic is breathing tides and seaweed, the reassuring sound of the warning buoy like an owl.
I live in Finistère because I've moved here. It wasn't by chance; for a woman of experience there's no such thing as chance.
Sleep with open eyes and you shall find.
... In the same way that there's a partner for every person, there's a place. All you have to do is find your own among the billions that belong to other people, you have to be awake, you have to choose.
Extract from The Price of Water in Finistère by Bodil Malmsten.
Who could resist a book with an opening like that ...
I'm a reader who loves to fall in love with the opening paragraph. I found this book today, by chance, in my favourite secondhand bookshop here in Belgium. And fell in love.
I began reading it while waiting for the metro, read it as we slid through the underground on Tram 5, and will read it whenever I have a moment spare.
It's beautiful so far.