Tag Archives: Mondeville

Day Twenty-Six, High Horses

The title is misleading, I know. I read it and picture a couple of equine’s reclined while indulging in some “funny” grass. But it’s not about that.

Besides bouncing a ball back and forth, it’s my job to encourage my client to take walks to maintain mobility. Sometimes he gets cranky and will only walk in the yard which is not very interesting. And then there are days like today when we get to walk down the country lane to a side road that borders a field with four horses. I’ve described them to you, but today, I got pictures!

Chinaberries, variegated bi-color leaves.

That last picture is a fire hydrant. The red top comes up and off. There is a cylinder inside. I saw some municipal workers clearing out the interior of one. It’s an interesting design. I don’t know how effective it is, but they evidently work because they get maintained.

While we walk, we talk about different things. His voice is quiet so I lean in to hear his take on things. He was genuinely delighted that the one horse was so close to us. I like when he laughs. He doesn’t do it often, but when he does, it’s magic.

I can’t see out of the small window in my small room, but I got brave tonight because I could see the sky. There is a short slanted roof below the window. The first picture is pretty much straight out the window. I angled up and down the street to see what it looks like. The sky was prettier in person. My fear was in dropping my phone while trying to see outside.

While at my client’s house, their daughter was in town from her bike-ride across Europe. She and I talked about how looking a fool is something you need to get comfortable with really quick because with the language barrier, charades is sometimes the best you can do. She disclosed that she also shops by picture and was slightly embarrassed that she couldn’t speak French as fluently as she thought she could.

She’s really a great human. I like her very well.

Why can’t we have nice things like this? This is across from the bus stop in the Cairon Commerces. To the left of this is a recycle and trash station. It’s clean, cozy, and peaceful. The horse that stared at me is farther to the left of this pictutre.

Peace be with you. You are loved!

Peace be with you. You are loved!

Day Twenty-Five, Listen

You know, the church bells don’t sing here.

The cars pass by, the scooters and motorcycles whine

At times loud music stays long enough for a stop light

I hear youthful voices interacting in bubble-gum bursts

Males with raised voices gushing laughter at one another

The steady whir of the fan sets a background,

noise I don’t pay attention to for a while because

I’m listening to a spider win against the fly.

Day Twenty-Four, Chores

I was given notice yesterday that the place I’m staying is currently up for sale. The realtor would be popping by to show the place today, would I mind? Uh, well…since I have no real choice in the matter and I feel like refusing would jeopardize my current arrangement, Yeah, sure! A while later I was messaged with a Whoops, sorry. Rescheduled to next week.

Five flights of stairs is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but I’m fat and tend to be sedintary if not motivated to accomplish a task. Hey, I come by it honestly, my mother is the same way! The idea of dragging anything up and down those stairs sincerely makes me consider exactly what I’ll need to do once I get down the stairs (THAT’s no problem).

  • Take out recycling (Google image translate informs me that it’s on the ground floor)
  • Take out the trash (Also on the ground floor)
  • Do a load of laundry including towels (Ground floor and over two doors)
  • Pick up some groceries (.2 miles away is the Monoprix Hypermarket)
  • Get nail clippers and hand lotion (Pharmacie across the street)

I double/triple checked that I had all my dirty clothes and towels loaded into my handy buggy. I got the trash out of the can, tied off the bag and put that on top of the dirty clothes, securing the slide. I put the recycling bag handles over the buggy handles. Double/triple check, yup. That’s everything.

Grabbed my bag and keys, unlocked the door from the inside with the key… Pulled my buggy into the dark hallway, locked the door with the same key I used to open it from the inside…Open the stairwell doors and descend.

Down to the lobby where there are three doors. One goes to the outside. One doesn’t open. One reveals a storage area with a closed door off to the right. I open it because it will and I found the trash bins! Hooray!

I didn’t see a place for the recycling to go until after I’d dropped it into the cans I’d found. It was behind another closed door. Dudes, I thought about correcting my error, but truthfully, I was grateful I even found the trash bins.

I am not a graceful person. I’m large but unaware of my size most of the time. I don’t feel like I’m a size 20. In my head, I’m much smaller. I could be reading more into it than is necessary, but it’s rather magnified over here.

As I’m in the grocery store, shopping by picture, guessing at words, refusing to translate because I’d have to translate the entire store, I felt an ineptitude that I’m not a fan of feeling. It really snaps my awareness into a clarity about what it could feel like to be illiterate. I’m practically mute because although I can say simple things like please, thank you, good day, I’m sorry and my numbers, I’m ridiculously unable to do things I take for granted back home.

I’ve observed that the people I’ve interacted with have primarily spoken more than one language. They have at least a rudimentary conversational base which I am lacking in their native tongue. I feel small here. As if I could be quickly and easily forgotten. I want so badly to communicate, to let them (whomever that may be) know I exist. Maybe I’m like Ariel, wishing to be a part of a world that doesn’t belong to me. Perhaps.

Why did you get the emotional roller-coaster? It turns out that the laundromat is slightly different than the one I used before. I tried to will my brain to translate the words into ones I could understand, for some of them it did, but not enough to know what the hell I was doing. I didn’t ask for help. I just stared at the sign, trying to make sense of the symbols.

A young man, maybe 22-24, asked me in accented English if I were going to be staying long in France. Yes, until the end of the month. He suggested getting a laundry card and loading it. Instead of paying 4 Euros per wash, I’d only pay 3 Euro 60. Well, heck. That’s a pretty darn good deal. I followed his instructions. Voila! I have a loaded laundry card.

An hour for a wash. Yikes. I toddled across the street to the pharmacie, found nail clippers but no lotion. The woman behind the corner kept trying to engage me by asking me questions in French. I smiled and nodded, thank you I said. I tried to explain that I needed a small bottle of hand lotion. She stared back at me with an equally blank look on her face. I felt a little better. I relented and pulled out the translator (Why aren’t babbelfish a real thing?) A bit of back and forth and I tucked my purchases into my pocket-bag.

I’m reading a book by Jenny Swartz. Freddie Nechtow gave me the book “The House That Walked Between Worlds” and I finished that three book series. Now I’m on a new adventure by the author. Maybe it’s because of what I described earlier about illiteracy, but I don’t typically read for fun any more. I like to get lost in the world the author created. I like to ride the emotional pony around the imaginary carousel. It takes up a significant chunk of time which is why it’s not something I readily do. However, I sure am popping them back like illicit drugs trying to get a reader’s high. I returned to the laundromat and read.

After my clothes were dry, I folded them and stacked them compactly into the bottom of the buggy. I headed off to the grocery. The weather was gorgeous out, if not even a wee bit warm. But the sun, the people, the neighborhood feel of Mondeville created a sense of being. It was good.

I arrived at the store, picked through the aisles, collected my necessities, checked out, loaded up my buggy, and walked back a different route.

What steps I have traveled on roads
past tense and presently, 
altared;
a communion of daily lives
exalted as the fevered prayers
of the faithful
knelt in the pews with bowed heads
whispered words of conversations,
of confessions,
of wrong paths and right roads taken
A map to their righteousness
emblazoned on a rosary bead.
I sit in the silence, aware.
I wonder if their God would understand
if I spoke prayers in English.
I wonder if the forgiveness would
somehow taste different or
if the mercy would cold shower me
with a condemnation...
con-damnation?
Instead, I don't press my luck.
I return to the community I don't belong to
hearing the voice of the God
that doesn't speak my language.
MM 2023

I tugged the buggy up to the top floor. I unloaded the groceries then my clothes. I texted with my friend Jen who is currently in an inconvenient situation. I dozed for a bit, then woke up to tell you my eventful/uneventful day. Tomorrow I plan to go to church (at 4PM here) so, there will be plenty to do while I’m waiting.

Peace be with you wherever you go. You are loved!

Day Twenty-One, Nothing

In a way I feel as if I’ve let you down since you’ve been so kind to keep up with my adventures and exploits. However, I do need a day of rest. I took that today. I’ve been up to reading, napping, texting, and generally preparing for my adventure tomorrow.

I’m heading to the main bus station late morning tomorrow to pick up a rental car. A manual mini. Then I’m going to drive from Mondeville (a suburb of Caen) to Honfleur. It’s about an hour away according to Google maps. I chose a route that is a bit longer but there aren’t any tolls on the road.

I’m going to stay overnight and drive back on Friday morning.

To tell you the truth, I’m a filled with a bit of anxiety about this trip. I haven’t driven in nearly a month. I haven’t driven a stick shift vehicle in longer than that…I think three years or so. I’ve never driven a mini-car before, nor have I driven on French roads. Although I have an idea where I’m going, the actual journey is going to be a wild one simply because I don’t know.

My uncertainty isn’t going to prevent me from going. I mean, if I’d let my trepidation take hold, I’d never have come to a foreign country in the first place. But exploring a town on foot and by bus is a slightly different creature than driving it. I really wish I had a sign to put in the back of my window to let other drivers know I’m new here, cut me some slack!

I’ll have a better story and pictures tomorrow to share. I look forward on taking you with me.

Peace be with you. You are loved!