The Last Days

After I left my haven of peace and rest and weaving, I visited my friend Flo at his mother's country estate.  We went out and saw an electric ukulele rock band.  It was epic.

The next day I headed to Paris, planning on meeting a friend.  I sat at the metro station for two hours, waiting for her.  No phone, so I couldn't call, and no wifi until I hiked a quarter mile to the nearest Mc Donald's with all my stuff.  She hadn't said anything online, didn't answer the phone when I called with Skype...  I trucked it back to the station, just in case she was super late and now wondering where I was.
No such luck.

Well, that's fine.  It was about time I graduated to solo homeless sleeping.  I started running through all of the nooks and crannies of Paris in my memory, wondering where would be a good place to hunker down for the night.  The Montmartre Cemetery was my most appealing option, but far away.  I contemplated climbing onto the roof of the metro station before I decided to just stay where I was on my bench.  As I started reading, lounging on my new bed with all my stuff tucked under me, an old man put a sandwich on my lap.  He didn't say anything when I thanked him in wonderment, just walked away with his grocery bags, slowly up the hill.  I was left with a warm and fuzzy feeling that I would be just fine sleeping in the great outdoors.  God was watching.

Picture 1:  my bench.  Picture 2:  my telephone booth.  I moved into it in the middle of the night, when the air was picking up a chill.  It was quite cozy.  I woke up to the sound of a little voice asking "Momma, why did she sleep in there?  Why?"

the view from my bench (that's the eiffel
tower, if you can't tell.  it's sparkling,
like it does every night at 11)

Roused bright and early by the sun and that little voice, I fixed my hair and perched on the banks of the Seine to watch the sun come up next to the Eiffel Tower.  I sang and sang because I felt so lucky to be a witness of such a marvel.  Also because no one else was around.

I spent the day lounging, reading, window shopping in Paris and headed to Amsterdam the next day.  Again, warm sun, tasty snacks on the canals.  I needed a day or two just to myself.  And then I came home.

The strangest thing about all this moving around is that I didn't feel the shock of it.  I've said before on this blog that I often take a long time to process adventures, but this time was different.  It was like my soul didn't experience any lag.  When I got home, both my mind and body got there at the same time.  Seamless.  Fascinating.  Teleportation is the next step.

Je Peux Faire De La Voile Sans Vent

We said goodbye tonight.  But first, background story:

I hurt my back today.  I pulled a muscle right under my left shoulder blade while weaving, I think.  Kate massaged it after lunch, but in the evening I finished my weaving.  I couldn't very well not finish, now, could I?  My back is of another opinion, unfortunately.  Kate massaged it again with a healing oil and Bruno gave me those homeopathic pills as I was lying immobile on the floor.  Breathing too deeply triggers a pretty horrid spasm.  Crying, too, it turns out.

We all spoke and Bruno cried.  We all cried.  And Sebastien sang this song:

 

Qui peut faire de la voile sans vent?                      Who can fill a sail without wind?
Qui peut ramer sans rame?                                     Who can row without an oar?
Et qui peut quitter son ami                                     And who can take leave of a friend
Sans verser de larmes?                                           Without tears?

Je peux faire de la voile sans vent                          I can fill a sail without wind.
Je peux ramer sans rame                                         I can row without an oar.
Mais ne peux quitter mon ami                               But I cannot take leave of my friend
Sans verser de larmes                                             Without tears.

Qui peut faire du pain sans levain?                        Who can make bread without leaven?
Qui peut faire du vin sans raisin?                           Who can make wine without grapes?
Et qui peut quitter son ami                                     And who can take leave of a friend
Sans verser de larmes?                                           Without tears?
             
Je peux faire du pain sans levain                            I can make bread without leaven.
Je peux faire du vin sans raisin                               I can make wine without grapes.
Mais ne peux quitter mon ami,                               But I cannot take leave of my friend
Sans verser de larmes                                              Without tears.

The rest is too special for the internet.
I'm off at 8:30 am tomorrow.

Random Thoughts That Must Out

I love French this evening because it lets me talk with my neighbors.  It lets me feel part of something bigger, different worlds, new histories.  I love that this discovery requires effort.

I saw a fascinating man yesterday.  He had long greying hair and full beard with twinkling eyes.  You couldn't see his mouth but his moustache moved when he talked and smiled.  He must have been in his late 60s, but he had the body of a 30-something-year-old cowboy, complete with the fluid gait and the impressive biceps.  I must have been staring at him, but he was so interesting to look at!

Last night Bruno, Kate, Sebastien, and I went to a harp concert in Peillac.  We walked home at dusk, just as the first stars were starting to peek out.  We were laughing and joking about the concert and things in general, and I felt like part of a great love, like there was nothing missing in my soul.  We sang as we strolled down the hill, and we waltzed to "Love One Another" while Sebastien tried out some harmonies.  It was a moment when age and language meant nothing.  Time and space were just details.  And I didn't waste any of my attention on hoping it would never end.  That is such a futile gesture.  I just was. 

My weaving muscles are growing.  I found a rhythm.  The shuttle doesn't fall much and the batten isn't nearly as heavy anymore!  I have repaired dozens of broken warp threads, though.  That gets old quick.  Bruno says it teaches me patience.  I say it teaches me to use a stronger warp next time.

I am not good at hiding my feelings.  This has never been more evident than in the case of cherries in cherry season in Bretagne.  And apparently, when people see me eat cherries with undisguised relish, it makes them want to bring me more!  Dominique kept filling the bowl of cherries and encouraging me to eat them when I was at their house for the weekend.  Some random lady that we picnicked with after church on Sunday gave me all of the leftover cherries (why there were leftover cherries is seriously beyond my comprehension).  And Aymeric, when I saw him for the last time this evening, filled my pockets with cherries as a parting gift.  He had seen a cherry tree on his bike ride home and thought of me.  It's pretty wonderful.

Musings

I was invited to Aymeric's yurt for dinner tonight (that's Emerick, just spelled correctly this time) because I have finished his custom pair of pants and he wanted to pay me and thank me at the same time.  We got to talking about life and belonging and moving and leaving.




I have become very used to my nomadic single life.  I don't cry when I leave anymore.  Or if I do, my grief is brief.  I think it comes from practice and from a broader understanding that change happens.  I'm living more in the present, and each step, each train, each airplane can't take me any farther away from right now.

But I wonder if I should miss feeling bereaved.  Is the amount of my sorrow at goodbye a measure of my joy in the time together?  Is my heart growing calloused in that moment when I turn away and don't look back?

I don't think so.  I think that my sorrow isn't lost but rather swallowed up in the contentment I find in taking another step, meeting another loved one, seeing another day.  I can still see within myself the pain of letting go of the past, but it is a futile pain that I don't have much patience for in the day to day; the past will move on without me no matter what I decide to do. 

And I am getting better at guarding my old heartstrings, keeping up old relationships.  I do feel like I will come back here, for instance.  I feel a lot of power in my life right now, in that I can do whatever I want.  I can make things happen.  I got here in the first place; I can come back again if I want.

The community at the Petit Moulin has become my home, of which I have several.  I seem to find myself at home more and more in my life, and I have a feeling that it has more to do with being comfortable with myself than any outward circumstance.  Maybe being at home within myself is another reason why an end isn't the end; I still carry it all with me.  As Aymeric said, my self includes all of my past and accepts the people and events that have shaped me just as I desire to be accepted.



Dinner was delicious, and I am feeling very whole. 
Grateful.  I am feeling grateful, too.

Vidoes That Are Not Boring To Me

In this first one, I weave.  It's only interesting to the lay viewer in comparison to the previous video of my attempts to weave on this gigantic loom and the final moment, when my navette goes flying out of control.  

The second one is Petit Noel eating a fly.  He's very good at catching them against the window with his paw and then munch munch munch.  I've taken to herding them towards him because I can't stand the noise of them buzzing all the time. 

Enjoy!  If you don't, I will!

I killed a tiny slug today.  Sliced it right in half in the middle of a head of cabbage.  Slug guts on the cabbage slices.  Oh the carnage.

High Adventure On The River Arz

Yesterday the weather was lovely, so about 7:30 in the evening I decided to go for a solo canoe voyage down the river Arz.  I packed some dinner in a tupperware and brought my chocolate and my scriptures.  The bottom of the canoe was a little wet, but I set my scriptures on my sweatshirt to keep them dry and set off. 

My dad would be so proud of how I skillfully managed the canoe all by myself.  I moved calmly and confidently upstream, basking in the nature and the setting sun.  There were largeish furry creatures swimming around the banks, skampering in from the fields to splash into the water and duck into their tunnels.  Muskrats or something?  Once I saw a momma with 9 (!!) babies paddling from one hole to another.  Playdate at the neighbors?  One guy thumped over to the river so fast you would've thought a raptor was after him.  I daydreamed about raptors, about muskrats, about writing a blog about daydreams, and then wondered if I was getting hungry.

I tied the canoe up to a log so I could eat my dinner of lentils and cabbage in peace.  I was rocking out in my head to Pocahontas ("What I like most about rivers is, you can't step in the same river twice...") when I thought to myself that maybe I was sitting weird because it felt like my butt was falling asleep.  On further contemplation, I clarified that to, "no, my butt just feels cold" and then, "what the heck, my butt is wet!" as I looked down and saw the level of water in the canoe had risen to reach my bench.  "This was not the amount of water I started with," I thought, and I looked around in a panic to find the leak.  Sure enough, an old patch in the corner of the canoe behind me was bubbling water like nobody's business. 

I scarfed the rest of my lentils and cabbage and used the tupperware to bail out a good bunch of water before untieing myself from the log and taking off downstream as fast as I could paddle.  I briefly entertained a daydream about the patch busting loose entirely and finding myself standing in my sunken canoe, neck deep in the Arz (I'd grab my scriptures, my chocolate, and my sandles to hold over my head, in that order), but then decided not to invite further disaster with negative thinking.  Bail, paddle, bail, paddle...  Past the home of the nine babies, past the creepy fish corpse in the water...  Most of you won't be surprised that I was laughing the whole time, freaking out all the muskrats.

I'm here to tell you that I made it.  My butt was damp and my sweatshirt was soaked, but there were no casualties.  In the future, I'll pay more attention to suspiciously rising levels of water in the bottom of my boats.  Maybe I'll use one of the metal canoes without any benches next time.  That way I get to kneel in the middle like Pocahontas as I paddle around those riverbends.