Tuesday, 27 January 2009

• I'm not under any illusions.  It's going to take a long time to know people and to be known in a place like this.  I realized that when we prayed with one friend, and she pretended like nothing had happened....  even though I knew she had been weeping during the prayer.  So I don't expect to feel tomorrow as if I'm in my place and I've got a network and all is right with the world.
  But something happened yesterday that certainly helped my outlook.  I was trudging back up the hill after having put the children on the bus for their Monday afternoon at school, when, as I walked by Monique's house, her window swung open.  Monique is one of the faithfuls, one of the pillars.  She plays the organ in Waldersbach, Belmont and Bellefosse, and she is an elder.  But she went away right after Christmas and has been gone all month.  Each time we walked by her empty house, I would think about her, and sometimes I would say to the kids, "I miss Monique.  I wonder when she's coming back."
  She has a beautifully kept home with varnished wood shutters and lace curtains.  And her kitchen windows look out on the street, so that she sees each person who walks by.  We sometimes chat right there at her window.  She offers me a taste of the cookies she just baked, or I hand her the list of hymns for Sunday...
  So this time, when the window swung open, it was like a ray of sunshine.  "Eh c'est toi!" I said.  Monique is one of a handful with whom I can say "tu"  instead of "vous."  And I told her how often I had thought of her, and how we had missed her, and we gave each other a kiss.  And she invited me in for coffee.  Her next door neighbor, Marie-Eve, was also there, so she invited her too.  
  This is nothing spectacular or exciting.  Just coffee in an elderly widow's kitchen.  But that coffee changed my entire day.  Why?  Because of connection.  I suddenly felt connected in my neighborhood.  I know my neighbors and we can have impromptu coffee.  In fact, Marie-Eve invited me to her place afterward because there was something she wanted to tell me in private about another mutual neighbor (and that's another story for another time...), so I spent pretty much the whole afternoon chatting with neighbors, knowing their kitchens, getting invited to a Tupperware party (these are a big deal up here), trying to pet an unbelievably timid St Bernard... 
  Connections.  I found myself smiling at everyone I met in the street today.  I live in Waldersbach.  And maybe I will fit here after all.
  
  
  

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