Soar-Dream-France: Someone Old, Someone New and Someone Déja Vu!

Forgive me for yet another garden post, but it is the season and discoveries (garden and personal) abound! I was on this end of the Chatette this morning cutting the piece of grass that is adorned by our trés chic gas tank. (These days, this photo is NOT possible!) It takes great skill to cut: over the wavy metal piece that covers the fosse septique, around and under the gas tank, and to then dangle my snazzy red lawnmower down the incline to the tunnel without getting knocked out by flying rocks and (heaven forbid) falling into the fosse septique!

I started early and from the bottom of the tunnel this morning, making my way up! For some reason, it seemed easier than usual...maybe just a new perspective. I rounded the gas tank, stopped the lawn mower, and began to pull dead weeds at the two corner stone bases of the addition. Under all those weeds, perfectly centered just below each base, I discovered two tiny, but perfect happy and healthy yuccas! I don't know what possessed me. I screamed: "Just like a man!" (Or, maybe I should say the men who have been in my life!)

Three years ago, when Dal and Sam and I came to the Chatette, I planted a yucca in each of the previously mentioned spots. They died quickly and I certainly didn't expect to see them again. Low and behold, three years later, here they are...totally unexpected! I guess they never really died. They were just hovering there below the surface waiting to make their comeback, or to live long enough for me to see them and not run them over with the lawn mower!

I didn't cope very well with our life in New Orleans after the storm. Nothing was the same. You've heard of brides wearing "something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue" on their wedding days! Well, my relationships in New Orleans after the storm went something like: "someone old, someone new, and someone déja vu! I'd begun seriously seeing a friend of 30 years before the storm. The storm changed that. I met my debris removal man in the aftermath. And then for his second time in 20 years, someone I was engaged to in the late 80's resurfaced in my life. You could say I left the states with a lot more dangling than just where I was going to be living! This May was three years here. I think that's long enough for anyone to sort out their lives. On this last trip to the states, I realized that I was tired of having my heart split between two continents. I was also tired of the pattern that had developed of me carrying the ball. I've found when I quit carrying the ball...it drops! So, I'm back in France, feeling truly untethered for the first time in three years.

I was not looking my most luscious today while I was cutting the grass in my overalls, blue gypsy bandanna stuck in a strap, butch-ly work gloves and grass stained tennies with more than my share of weeds sticking out of my braid. An attractive man road by on a bike while I was cutting and we both said "Bonjour". (At that moment my yuccas grew penises!) I'd finished that side and walked the lawnmower over to the main yard to rest! I wheelbarrowed some weeds, pruned some branches, and then when I turned around, voila: the same handsome man on his bike was in my driveway! "Jean-Louis" asked about the house next to me that is for sale. We rambled on in French (I only used English when I cursed under my breath because I forgot a word) and I had fun. He admired the Chatette. I was tempted to invite him in for the tour, but let him go on! He is here from Toulouse on vacation and is staying in a camping car somewhere! That I would even consider trying to find him is huge progress for me! I've continually said to friends here that "relationships are hard enough when you speak the same language, much less 2 completely different ones!"

But, I'm here. I live in France. I speak French (kind of)! And I don't plan to hang around for another three years while someone old, someone new or someone déja vu sorts out what is or isn't happening in their lives! They're certainly welcome to look me up and stick their little heads out of the soil like my yuccas did today! For their sakes, I hope there won't be a snazzy, red, lawnmower in sight!