Method Writing

It's Monday again. Which means an article written at this time last year. And thus...the continuing saga of Crazy Emmanuelle...and her goofy friends. For the beginning of this story, click here.

I have been told several times that I should write a book about my later-in-life adventures. The idea rolls around in the back of my head but I have never been sure that what I have to say is interesting enough or if these times would really be considered adventures. I've changed my mind. My life became a novel this week when Crazy Emmanuelle (see last week's article) sent a brut named Bruno after me.

It began with a voicemail message on Tuesday. The man behind the ominous and heavily accented voice identified himself as Bruno, a friend of Emmanuelle's and he said it would be "interesting" that we meet. I'm always a little suspicious of the word "interesting" (as when someone tells you your soup is "interesting" or your newly acquired painting is "interesting") and even more suspicious of anyone who describes themselves as a friend of CE. I texted him back to ask why he thought we should meet. He replied that it was "of course about the house" and he wanted to talk to me about the missing items before he went to the police. Apparently the tally has gone up and I've now stolen 20,000 Euros worth of antique family jewels and other valuable and items. After a couple of texts back and forth and some very forceful threats from him, I stopped answering. He, however, continued. Incessantly.   He proceeded to threaten me and my family, we would all go through much trauma and pain, I would never again receive a Carte de Sejour, I'm a stranger in a foreign country and this will be so difficult for me.... and so on and so forth. He demanded that I meet him before Saturday at noon, or else.  He did not specify that we meet at the OK Corral but it was beginning to feel like he would say something like that. He continued non-stop and as we got closer to the deadline, he became more and more prolific.

By Thursday afternoon, I became really afraid and went to the police, even though I knew I could never explain in French what was going on. I just needed to be in the police station so I felt safe. While there, I finally reached my friend, Gérald, who agreed to come down and together we explained the situation to the officer. As it turned out, CE had already been to the police the week before. So I filed my complaint against her and some special document that basically says the charges against me are false. The consensus among my friends and acquaintances is that what she and Bruno really wanted was to extort money because, in fact, they have no case. Or else! "Or else" as Bruno so eloquently put it, means my "life would become even more frightening".

I am not kidding, this all really happened! I deduced through all of this that Unbalanced Bruno is the man Crazy Emmanuelle lived with while she was in Paris and judging from the timetable he set for me to respond, I figured he would be back on a train to Paris by Saturday afternoon. All I had to do was wear sunglasses and a hat, walk only on the backstreets, and turn off my phone at night so he wouldn't continue to wake me up.  Saturday afternoon, after "the deadline” he sent a text, which said, "done. You, your mother, and your son for stealing, voluntary degradation and moral prejudice. Congratulations silly woman". And sure enough, he disappeared. Saturday night I slept like a baby.  However, whenever that phone beeps telling me I have a text, I behave a little like Pavlov's dog with the bell. I don't salivate but my stomach drops somewhere down near my knees and I feel sick.

I'm not sure what is going to happen now. This is France, after all, and I've learned that any bureaucracy here is slow moving at best. But apparently a formal complaint has been filed against me. All I can do is hope for the best. I did not steal anything, but of course, I made some serious errors in judgment. As far as I know, these errors aren't illegal and I'll have to wait this out. My only hope is that by the time my case actually comes around, I'll have some idea of how to defend myself in French. Or at least understand what the charges are! My mother is worried and has images in her head of her 50- year- old daughter rotting away in some cold, dark cell in the deepest depths of a third world country but I'm sure French jails are comfortable and probably bigger than most of the apartments I've lived in here (I've lived in 5). Somebody probably even does your laundry and cooking. On top of that, a friend has kindly offered to bring me oranges from the "outside" to fend off the inevitable scurvy. And I will certainly have plenty of time to write my book. I'm looking for suggestions for a title.

And so Mr. Neuske, the bacon is still welcome, but it might be searched before it arrives in my cell. Please do not include a file in the package. I don't need any more trouble!

                                      

"Luck is Believing You’re Lucky"- Tennessee Williams

Time for a Monday Memory...written for my newspaper column at this time last year. To read the beginning of this story, click here. And this is not yet the end of the story...more to follow in the months ahead.

  

It has been a rough 4 weeks. It really has. I try to stay positive; that is generally my nature and for that I am very lucky. And it is, in fact, the only way that I have been able to traverse the bumps, ruts, and sometimes very large sinkholes that I’ve have encountered on this new road I’ve taken over the last 3 years. But there are times when I feel there is nothing left to do but curl up into a fetal ball and cry like a baby. As much as I try to defeat those moments with positive or funny thoughts, they sometimes get the better of me....and I think maybe that’s good. Sometimes crying is cleansing... and perhaps as good for the soul as laughter. I had one of those moments last month and will not feel the need to be “cleansed” again for a very long time.

I returned to my apartment one day to find myself locked out. I was really at a loss until I peered through the keyhole and realized there was a key in the lock on the other side. That meant only one thing. Crazy Emmanuelle (the woman I don’t know who I sub-lease from) had returned. No warning, nothing. And she was inside MY apartment and had locked ME out! I knocked on the door and was greeted by a half-crazed french women, spewing forth venom like I have never heard. 

In a nutshell....and in a delirious mixture of French and English, she let go on me. I had changed her apartment, moved her things (take note: she did not call it cleaning ), this is like rape, slept on her bed, broken her mugs, this is like rape, I trusted you, this is like rape, this apartment was in perfect order when I left....ya da, ya da, ya da. To make a very long story just a bit shorter, I tried to explain to her that I packed her things so I wouldn’t break them because it was impossible to move around, I cleaned because it was filthy and I couldn’t find the floor...or the chairs....or anything else, there were bugs in the furniture, worms in the wood, bedbugs in her mattress, and moths flying out of her closet like the flying monkeys in the Wizard of Oz (well I didn’t actually mention the monkeys but....). Our conversation was reduced to a screaming match and I began the attempt to pack my things, throwing everything in whatever box or suitcase I could find. This was difficult at best because I was shaking like a leaf from both anger and frustration, and she had thrown my things in piles all over my room. In desperation I called my friends Simon and Gérald, both of whom arrived within minutes. We piled, carried, searched, packed and eventually, after they too were subjected to her wrath, I ended up in the street with all my belongings piled up around me. 

The really lucky thing about this whole rotten situation was that as Crazy Emmanuelle screamed and ranted, people began to arrive. First, of course, Gérald and Simon. Then came Patrick from downstairs who caretakes many apartments in the neighborhood, including mine. He doesn’t speak English but offered to show me right then and there, all the apartments available in the neighborhood. His wife arrived, offering her support. Frank from upstairs showed up and was visibly upset. He called Alain, his boyfriend, who is the landlord of the building. Alain arrived toute suite , gave me my two kisses and kindly asked how I was doing and then marched over to CE and began to ream her out. It was fast, angry French so I couldn’t understand but Simon and Gérald came running up the steps to get the scoop. He basically told her that she should be thanking me, the apartment was despicable when she left it, I was paying the rent so I could do what I wanted (she apparently had not been paying), from now on she was getting no breaks from him no matter what sob story she concocted, she should get a job like the rest of us, and once again, she should be thanking me.

Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but I’m still on the street with no place to live. I looked at all of Patrick’s apartments but none were right and I had no intention of living in the same neighborhood as Crazy Emmanuelle. Finally, Frank remembered that his apartment on the other side of town (he keeps it in case he and Alain break up...they've been together 12 years) was not occupied for a few weeks and he offered it to me. Alain offered a space in the garage for my things, we put my few pieces of furniture on the street for some other poor soul to snap up, and he walked me over to my new, temporary apartment. And within a day, I had a house-sitting job for a friend in the country for one week and a mansion-sitting job for the month of August at a most beautiful old villa on the hill. 

I didn’t cry (okay, just a little....my lips quivered) until a week later when I heard that CE was telling everybody that I had stolen 12,000 Euros worth of antique jewelry from her apartment. That was the straw that caused the aforementioned infantile behavior. Once, when I was 13, I shoplifted a ring from Scissors Department store because “everybody was doing it “and I wanted to see what stealing was like. I felt so bad I took it back the next day. And another time I found a tube of mascara in the bottom of my shopping cart as I was loading my car at Target. I was in a hurry and didn’t take it back. But cross my heart, that is the extent of my thieving! And so, after being accused of an act I’m not even capable of, I curled up and cried for 5 hours. I looked like hell the next day but I think I felt better.

Last week, I wrote this story but in much more detail and with decidedly more venom. I didn’t feel good about it. I really didn’t even want to write about it. I took my computer into town to send the story to the newspaper (the mansion doesn’t have internet) and my computer was stolen off the bus. Needless to say, the article didn’t get sent. 

My computer is my lifeline. It allows me to write these articles, it keeps me in touch with friends and family, I need it to find a new apartment, and most of all, I can use it to call my kids. It also contained all my passwords to all my accounts and private sites.

But again, (I hate to sound like a Pollyanna) there were many lucky sides to this new predicament. I had been on my way to have lunch with my ex-landlord Liliane (we are now friends and meet once each week) and she drove me all around town trying to find my Macbook, I had just backed up my computer the night before onto my portable hard drive, and my friends Tony and Bénédicte took me out to their house and let me use their Macbook so I could change all my passwords, email my insurance agent, and begin the process of finding a new computer. I did not cry (my lips didn’t even quiver). I think I had used up all my tears the week before. I did however, continue to repeat the soothing mantra that I used the week before, “I will not give up and go home, I will not give up and go home.”

Yesterday, Tony and I were having lunch and he offered to go with me to Crazy Emmanuelle’s to retrieve the few items that got left behind in all the confusion. She did not answer the door but while we were standing on the landing, Alain heard my voice and came down to chat. He gave me a sleeping bag that I had left in the garage and invited me to a party in September. Then Patrick came down. I thanked him for all his earlier help and said “vous êtes très jolie.” He laughed a little and said, “de rien.” At that moment, I realized I had not told him he was very kind, I had told him he was very pretty!

So the positive and truly lucky moments in all of this are:

I have friends who care about me. That’s worth more than anything.

I have an invitation to a party.

I have my sleeping bag...which really is comforting when you have no place to live.

I’m living in a beautiful mansion right now.

Frenchmen have a sense of humor.

The sky is still blue everyday.

I’m still in the south of France. 

But man, I could really go for some Nueske’s bacon! (the absolute BEST bacon in the world) and maybe some of those powerful sleeping pills that got left behind.

Change is good…n’est-ce pas?

My son and his girfriend are here until Wednesday and I just can't take precious time away from them to write a proper post. But as usual (okay, except for the past two weeks), I'm posting a Monday Memory...an article I wrote almost a year ago today... the beginning of a very interesting story. 

You know you live close to your neighbors when, not only does the smell of their first pot of coffee wake you up, but you can actually hear the espresso pot steaming on their stove. This morning that is what woke me up. That, along with another neighbor's cat meowing insistently and the sound of late night revelers making their way home in the light of day. And, of course, the ever-present guy who washes the street every morning

It's a strange occurance, this washing-the-streets thing. There are actually spigots on each corner and early in the morning, after all the garbage has been picked up (this occurs at least 3 times each day), trucks crawl around the city, and men dressed in yellow and blue hook up their giant red hoses to the spigots and wash all the streets and sidewalks. It's a very curious phenomenon here in France...or at least my corner of the country.

This morning I watched from above as my street was completed. The gentleman was very meticulous about washing away every last bit of garbage and the ever-present dog poop that litters the streets and sidewalks like a minefield. He finished the street, looked at his watch and, perhaps because he thought he didn't spend the appropriate amount of time, did it again. I would think this problem could be solved more effectively by requiring people to pick up their dog’s doo doo and making it illegal to litter, but this is France. Who am I to question the necessity of the men in blue (and yellow)?

All of these new sights and smells are occurring in my new apartment, which I moved into immediately upon my return from The Grand Tour of France with my sister and mom. I have moved 4 times within the last year. And three of those four times my mother has managed to be here to clean up after me. Poor woman. She joined my sister and I halfway through our trip and came back to Aix en Provence to spend a week with me; 2 days were to be in a hotel and the remainder at my new apartment which has two bedrooms.  It turned out to be the week from hell.

The apartment became available at the last minute and, in fact, I’m subleasing from a woman who moved to Paris but wants to keep her apartment in Aix “just in case things don’t work out”. I get a good deal on rent (or at least I thought I did) and she gets to keep her things here. However, now that I have moved in, I understand her real reason for continuing to pay rent here…. she is completely incapable of removing her things.  This woman has never thrown anything away in her entire 9 years here nor has she cleaned. Every single piece of paper, old envelope, moldy box and tissue paper, bill, and magazine was piled high all over the apartment.  Every crevasse and shelf was stuffed with paper and broken items in plastic bags.  The closet doors would not close because of the piles of old and torn clothing spilling from the shelves.  Every movement caused a cloud of dust and the “decorative” items were stuck to the shelves with a paste that had developed from years of dust, grease and neglect. There was neither a place to sit nor a single place to put any of my things. My mother was horrified and immediately rebooked her hotel for the remainder of her stay and began, once again, cleaning bathrooms. Bless her wonderful heart.

And so began 5 days of torture. Alex, (my Swedish friend who continues to live with me for a few more weeks), my mother and I, scrubbed, sorted, packed, swore, moved, piled, scrubbed some more, swore some more, and eventually found the floor and the kitchen countertop. We repaired broken lamps and clogged drains, washed windows and curtains and swore. We swept the walls and the ceiling, washed all the dishes, picked up the beds to check for living creatures…and swore.

We found 5 broken telephones, 4 broken printers, 10 or 12 broken lamps, unopened bills dating from 2001 and beyond, 6 broken tea pots, stacks of cracked dishes, numerous broken kitchen appliances, enough loose change to have a grand party when we’re finished….and not a single corkscrew!  Believe me, after 5 days of this, we NEED a corkscrew.

We walked between my old apartment and the new, pulling suitcases, carrying scrub buckets, mops, rubber gloves and insect spray (we looked decidedly un-posh strutting down the Cour Mirabeau!). We hauled all my belongings up 4 flights of stairs and eventually I was deposited, lock, stock and olive oil, in my new digs.

And here I am, in my new, spacious (for here) apartment in a 17^th century building. My ceilings are 14 feet high with giant, ancient beams and the gorgeous Plafond au Française. The stair ceilings are carved stone and absolutely exquisite. The beautiful fireplace is now a bookcase, but its plaster-embellished façade is stunning. I have no terrace but my windowsills are 15 inches deep and I can sit in the sill in the sun like a satisfied cat and watch the world go by below me.

As I write here in the window, and watch the guy in blue and yellow, I can’t help wishing there had been a spigot and a big red hose available up here to hose out this apartment. But no worries, it’s done. We can walk barefoot on the old stone floors. We found a screwdriver and a hammer, which seems to work for opening wine and Alex is cooking something in our clean pans that smells garlicky and delicious. The laundry is drying on the rack, two of our lamps work, and I believe my neighbor is cooking….. bacon.