Our last writing block of the retreat was given on the train, after some heartfelt goodbyes, being bundled into Mercedes "Multivans" or as we would call them, people movers. This is after there was a good chat, in broken French, with the driver, Christian, about everything from the Australian Nanny State to the price of petrol. It is amazing what you can talk about when you get creative with language. And we had a less eventful trip back from the South of France. This was a godsend.
About an hour out of Paris, the message came through on the group chat.
"Your final writers prompts.
1) Think about the trip and spend some time writing about these:
- Airing of Grievances
- Feats of Strength
- Acts of Courage
- Showing of Gratitude - because the most urgent task is the showing of gratitude. “
I'm not going to write there here. Not yet. I'm still processing the trip, as excellent as it was.
The last prompt is "and so it begins."
What begins is the new you. The New Chapter. Your life post this trip.”
And so it begins.
I haven't recognised myself over the last ten days. Who is this chick, and where did they find her? This rather plucky, very courageous, multi-lingual, happy, occasionally funny, rather inciteful woman who just gets on with it. The one who's not gone to everything on the itinerary, but marched to the beat of her own drum, traipsed off, done other things, but joined in enough to be welcomed and wanted.
This is the girl who's been taken to countless stores and restaurants and told, "You tell them - they'll understand you...". Or, increasingly in Sommieres, "Can you ask Tom for this? He likes you. He scares me." (Tom had been likened to Basil Fawlty - he's nothing like him.)
Somebody who trots down the street without a care in the world, happy in her own skin. A woman who goes into the pool without feeling self-conscious. Somebody, who after thirty years of sleeping alone in a room alone, happily shared her space with another. (Saying that, El and I really did kick on well, to the point that we got called Ernie and Bert as we were sleeping side by side in single beds. We're going to get the matching pyjamas. We've said we'd travel with each other again without reservation. This is such a big call)
And so it begins.
The next chapter.
This has me heading to Normandy tomorrow evening. I'm meeting Reindert at the airport in the afternoon and we're heading to Amiens for the night. Then it's off to St Malo and Mont St Michel before I head back to Melbourne on Thursday night.
It's a different woman going back to Australia.
The woman who swore she would never go back to Paris without a partner is now looking for ways to return. She wants to continue to do her French classes, maybe even find some conversational French groups to keep the language fresh and expanding.
You have no idea how good it feels to be able converse with people. Even if it is just ordering your coffee or talking to a cabbie on the way back from somewhere.
She is comfortable chatting up attractive men in a gentle way. Maybe it's because she comes across as somebody who is non-threatening. Maybe, it's just her new found confidence and her preference for the aesthetics of European men. There are some bloody fit blokes around here.
This woman knows how to ask for what she needs, and she goes and gets it. She can articulate these succinctly, but without putting people out. She has always been polite to a fault, but she is no walk-over. Often it's little things, like facing forward in the car or on trains. Asking to open a window. Removing herself from noisy situations. She's happier this way.
She's also providing herself with spiritual nourishment, even if it is as small as an afternoon swim, a stop at a local church for some quiet, a pain au chocolat at breakfast or a walk through one of Paris's unknown parks.
Today, coming back from the catacombs, she stopped in at Shakespeare and Company, the famous bookshop near Notre Dame Cathedral. Third time lucky. The first two times were scuppered through long queues and tiredness. Today, she made it in after a five-minute wait.
Just inside the door sat a slim volume of Pablo Neruda love poems.
She loves Pablo Neruda.
She gave a similar volume to somebody thirty years ago.
Today, she bought it for herself.
The poems are in the original Spanish and English.
"You stand upon the earth, filled
With teeth and lightning.
You spread the kisses and kill the ants.
You weep with health, with onions, with bee,
with humming the alphabet.
You are like a blue and green sword
and you ripple, when I touch you, like a river."
(Pablo Neruda, from Ode with a Lament.)
She will cherish this self-love.
She has remembered what it is to open her heart, even if only for a fraction in time. And she has remembered that she can do all of this.
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