Open Writing

In the early morning the mist lies like a shroud on the valley floor, its grey fingers reaching softly up the tree trunks to the green canopy of mimosa trees, cork oak, pine and chestnut. It has been many years since the valley was cultivated, for there was a hamlet here long ago, and here and there you can see an orange or an apricot, neglected now and jostling for space with an occasional olive, stunted beneath the mimosas. I didn’t know how tall mimosa trees could grow until I came to this hidden part of Portugal. Only one of the little stone houses has been rescued from oblivion. The other four or five stand askew in various stages of abandonment, ditches and narrow paths zigzagging between them. A few of the old wooden doors are still in place, chewed at the edges to give access to the wildlife of the valley, and the vagrant bitches of the mountains that sometimes crawl inside to whelp.

In the winter, if the sun doesn’t appear, it can be a cold and cheerless place, for the outlook is away from the sun. If you look straight across the valley, you can see another hamlet that is forever in sunlight, for it faces east and south, yet that, too, has long been left to the winds that sweep down from the mountain.

In the spring and summer months, the warmth of the sun will dissolve the morning mists more quickly. We would look out of the window first thing and exclaim at how thick it was, or how grey or how white, and how all the hamlets and villages must be so cold and damp even though it might already be mid-morning. Then suddenly, as if an invisible hand had swept it away, the mist would gather speed and roll upwards, and we would say “look, look at the mist, it’s going, it’s going”, and sure enough it would be gone. A jewel box of birds and fresh, sparkling leaves and blossoms would turn their faces towards the sun.

This, now, is the time to open the doors from the living room and go out on to the terrace, to watch, and to wait. You have to be quick, but you have to be prepared to wait, for there is no knowing when the sun will have warmed the air just enough for a spectacular dance to begin: it could be in five minutes, it could be twenty-five, or it could be in a few seconds; the participants will only come up from the depths of the valley when they are ready.

There is a spring a little way up the hill, and it is the best tasting water in the world. It finds its way down to the valley bottom, and down there, in the depths, the dragonflies live and lay their eggs. They are the ballet dancers that we wait for. As if on cue, two or three rise up to greet the sunlight, then a few more, then more, and still more, until hundreds, maybe thousands, are dancing and swooping, gliding, floating, a few yards this way then back again. They are performers, “treading the boards” of their stage, every move, every pirouette practised to perfection. It is the most magical sight you could imagine.

“It’s like Heathrow,” said my son, as we watched together, “But there’s no control tower!”

They are all the colours of the rainbow, and they are big dragonflies, not the little ones that flit up and down in English gardens. They seem to make no contact - there is none of the “you-chase-me-and-I’ll-chase-you” that butterflies do, so perhaps they are simply drying off their beautiful wings in the warmth of the sun.

After ten minutes or so, some of them would begin to peel off and rise up into the trees, now warm and alive with insect life and birdsong. Then - they would all be gone. A few would linger for a moment, but it would be over until the next day, when the dance would be performed again. And so it would be for a week or more: if it was cool or cloudy, the performance would be cancelled, and the dragonflies would simply melt into the trees. Nothing, nothing could equal that first time, the very first warm sunlit morning, when we sat on the terrace and were privileged to be in the front row for the “Dance of the Dragonflies.”