The Kindness Of Strangers And Other Commentary

A few days ago, I mentioned interviewing a woman to come and take care of my children on the mornings that I start class at 8:00.  The thing that triggered my little nervous breakdown a couple of months ago was a traumatic waking-up experience.  We were all yelling and crying by the time we left the apartment.  I dropped the kids off at day care.  It was 7:40, and I was more than five minutes late for work and feeling sick to my stomach.  I couldn't teach.  I explained to the kids that I felt ill, and that they were to do exercises in their book.  After two hours of class like this, I was granted permission to go home.  Three days later, I was waking my children up again, because I'd planned to go back to work that day.  C. started crying, "Mommy, I'm so tired!  I don't want to wake up!"  That did it. 

I started crying myself.  "Just go back to sleep if you can, then.  I'll take you to school.  I'm not going to work today."

I haven't been back to work since.  The next day the doctor listened to me talk for fifteen minutes, and said, "You're suffering from depression." 

Why am I writing all of this?  It must be cathartic. 

My point is, I'm feeling glimmers of the need to get back to work, which is a good sign.  Then something will upset me, and I can't imagine ever teaching again.   

In any case, I finally got my shit together enough to find someone to come here and wake my children at a normal time, instead of at 6fucking45 in the goddamn morning. 

Three bad words in one sentence!  Cool.  You should have heard me yesterday.  (I'll get to that later). 

After I had established with Françoise what I wanted her to do and how much I would pay her, we talked for a bit.  I explained that I was still off work, and hesitated a bit before saying the word "depression."  She said "Oh, I understand.  My husband went through it."   We talked some more, and it came out that I HATE grocery shopping.  She said, "Well, if you ever want someone to go with you, call me." 

Here's where I get to the point of the title of this entry, and make the segue:

Yesterday Françoise called me to ask if I'd like to go to Auchan in Cognac with her.  Auchan is a pretty big store, and Cognac is about 25 kilometers away.  I said yes.  She's going to pick me up in front of the school, because this being France, my kids have school this morning. 

I thought that was really kind of her to offer. 

Here comes the "other commentary" part of the entry. 

Yesterday I spent much of the day with my friend Donna, who also has been wonderful to me, although she is no longer a stranger.  She's become a good friend.  We went to continue clearing out a house that had been sold by some English friends of hers.  They left everything.  Even bread on the table, unmade beds, and as we discovered yesterday, clean dishes in the dishwasher.  Our compensation for this task was to take items that we wanted for ourselves, although some things had already been sold to another English couple who live here year-round. 
Donna and I had already made one trip, and I got myself a "new" kitchen table (so I can give back the metal garden table I borrowed), as well as a lot of kitchenware and some nice candles. 
Yesterday the other English couple was coming to clear out the things they had bought.  Donna and I got there before they did and started clearing out more things.  (We're not keeping everything.  Some things will go to thrift shops or the junkyard). 

These people arrived, and didn't even introduce themselves.  Just made their presence known and started hauling things off.  Donna was seething.  She kept whispering to me, "Look at these people!  They are white trash!" 

Damn.  I've lost the flow.  In any case, both Donna and kept muttering swearwords to each other.  This house belonged to her friend, and Donna was trying to go through things in order to keep some stuff for her.  The people who came (and there were 6 of them, plus 2 kids and a granny) were just rooting through cupboards, taking things.  Donna had to say, "Excuse me, but I haven't been through that for Sheila yet." 
One of the woman started taking the cleaning supplies from under the kitchen sink, and Donna said "Um, I have to come back here and clean the entire house.  Could you please leave those?" 

It's a huge old moldy dusty house that was only used for 6 weeks a year, for the past 16 years.

In the end Donna was making me laugh with her murmured "white trash" comments. 

 

Anyway, it was quite the experience.  I haven't done the scene justice with my words.  At least I'm writing something down.

It's 8:01.  Time to wake up my kids for school.  Another time I'll write about the whole "school on Saturday mornings" thing. 

Comments

[Peter]

Healing starts within, but often comes from outside of us. Like a magic button we can't see to push, sometimes it takes another to help us.

[Daisy]

Do you think that people who give too much of themselves as maybe you do find it strange to accept the help and kindness of others? You would have done (and I'm sure have done and will do) exactly the same for Françoise if and when the situation were reversed.

As for those white trash house invaders, I'm *seething*!