Annemarie's story
The Sun was Shining When...
I don't like visiting Emmaüs especially on a Saturday. Granddaughter was due to stay with a friend and their old bikes were now too small. New helmets will probably cost more than a second hand bike! It was hot and of course I got the opening time wrong. There was already a standing queue of nearly 100 people and the sun was shining when we arrived half an hour early. Spotting a low walled shelter we opted to lose our place in the queue and just sit out the wait.
Minutes later a sunflower yellow van arrived and and an old man clambered out. His back was bent, his nose was bent, he wore Coke-bottle glasses and he appeared to be somewhat toothless. Wearing a brightly checked shirt and baggy blue trousers held up with braces he shuffled to and fro from his van and with the help of his daughter (same nose, same checked shirt and trousers but no braces although she did have teeth) they pulled out from the van a trestle table, flipped its legs out and placed it very precisely facing the sweltering queue.
"Il a quatre-vingts ans," said the daughter, very proudly, to us watching-sitters-on-the-wall.
Two more tables were erected in the same precise manner - slow and steady.
Back into the dark of the van and the old chap manhandled a metre-wide chiller display cabinet and carefully positioned it on the table.
" A lot of effort to sell a few things," remarked John, sotto voce but they had only just begun disgorging the van.
Out of its depths the daughter brought trays of succulent scarlet strawberries and knobbly avocados and laid them on the low wall, winking appetisingly at the queue. There followed string bags of unwashed potatoes placed in mounds under the trestle table. A crimson cloth embroidered through with silver thread was spread over the trestle. Wooden boxes of oranges were carefully placed beside low crates of frilly green lettuce, whose leaves were teased and fruffled as though preparing for a debutante's ball. Out of the magic yellow van appeared trays of pink radishes and boxes of long elegant cucumbers destined for the smaller trestle. Towers of cardboard egg trays displaying a melange of brown and white eggs, a few feathers clinging to the corners of the trays - hinting at how recently the eggs were collected?
Trays of leeks, their straggly, hairy roots sticking out of the box ends like too tall people in too short beds, laid facing us and, finally, bunches of green asparagus wrapped in brown paper, the woven tips beckoning us - 'come and buy' or perhaps being French vegetables - "Allez, approchez".
Six varieties of young tomato plants stood on the low wall at the back of the shelter. We were obviously sitting on their shelf space alongside two women and would soon be asked to move. The queue now snaked into the open, the sky a sea of cerulean blue devoid of clouds and the sun beaming down. It was hot. We'd stay sitting a little longer.
One of the two women wearing a hijab, the folds falling neatly around her cheeks could resist no longer. She rose and surveyed the produce, picked up a bunch of asparagus, sniffed it, put it back, peered at the strawberries, stroked the oranges while being watched implacably by the vendor. He was not quite ready primping and placing his wares.
"Where from?"queried the woman.
"We grow it all ourselves on our farm, not far from here," replied the toothless old man.
"Global warming," whispered John, "so I'll buy you an avocado tree for your birthday and perhaps an orange tree!"
Then suddenly a scurrying of feet - two-thirty - the doors were open, the queue was running, the two women alongside rushing to join over two hundred bargain hunters, people in dire need or just a day-out browsing.
And the shop was open for business; we felt as if we had watched a piece of theatre, father and daughter quietly, relentlessly magicking fruit, vegetables, eggs and plants from the Mary Poppins van, as a magician produces white doves from beneath a handkerchief. To each other we applauded the hard work and enterprise (despite the French not having a word for 'enterprise' according to George Bush). Of course we bought asparagus, eggs, strawberries, hairy-bottomed leeks and the six tomato plants which had just been positioned on 'our' seats. We only came for a second hand bicycle.
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Paula's story
The sun was shining when my mother died. She keeled over in the garden, where she had been weeding her beloved hydrangea plants. She might just as well have been on her back porch swing, sipping a cup of coffee. Or sitting at the kitchen table playing solitaire. Or enjoying her evening martini with my dad.
She wasn’t that old after all, in her early 70s, and we all thought she was healthy as a horse.
Turned out, she wasn’t.
It was her heart. (It’s almost always the heart.) And she was gone.
I was shattered. I called my mom every day, in that sweet spot between the noon newscast and when one of her soap operas began. We talked about everything and nothing: what she was making for dinner that evening, how she had fared in one of her weekly bridge games, widowed Aunt Margie’s latest suitor, what news we had both just listened to that could end up on page one of the paper I would be producing that night. We ended every call by saying “I love you.” It wasn’t schmaltzy; it was matter of fact.
I didn’t have enough time with her.
I began finding ways to keep her spirit alive in my daily life. I would sing to my son, who was 18 months old when his grandmother died, the lullabies she sang to me when I was a child. If I made martinis for my husband and me, we called them, “Grandma juice.” If my son said he was cold, I would sing out, “Chili today; hot tamale!” and he knew that was one of my mom’s sayings.
So many of mom’s sayings found their way into our daily life. And my son, who was too young to remember his grandmother in the physical sense, began to know her through her songs, and her stories, and her sayings.
When I turned 40, without my mom to celebrate with me, it seemed fitting to commemorate her in some way. So, I made the very unlike-me decision to get a tattoo. What should it be? A playing card, perhaps the queen of hearts, to mark her love of bridge and solitaire? A martini glass, to mark her preference for the cocktail, always made with vodka, not gin?
In the end, I chose a flower, a tiny hydrangea etched on the inside of my left wrist, to mark her love for her garden.
When it was finished, I showed it to my son, who was 5 years old by then. He nodded, smiled, and said, “Now Nana will be with you all the time, won’t she, Mommy? Will you come play legos with me?”
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Jackie's story
“The sun was shining when….”
I am someone who is always cold. Wooly vests, scarves and super socks is what I wear most of the year. Having lived in warm sunny climates in my younger years I crave the sunshine to keep me going. When I feel the sun it somehow lifts me up – everything changes my mood is raised, the warmth permeates my skin I can relax into the coziness of colors that change my surroundings.
On a recent trip to visit family in the north of England. Middle of July and on the high street young girls were wearing crop tops strapless dresses and short skirts. Picture me, cotton vest, long sleeved tee shirt cardigan and a coat. Scarf wrapped firmly round my neck. People stared and I stared back as I couldn’t believe that they didn’t feel the cold.
It was 15° outside.
Why do some people feel the cold more than others. I checked it out. People with less body fat or lower muscle mass tend to lose heat faster. Fat acts like insulation, and muscle generates heat. So where is the butter…
On my trip to Yorkshire I was delighted when the sun eventually came out. I quickly prepared to go in the garden with sun cream, hat and sunglasses – got the deckchair out and waited. The sun was shining I was looking up at the sky wondering when the heat would be turned on! Well have you ever put your hand on a LED lightbulb –Lots of light yes, but no heat or warmth - well that is what it felt like. I love living in France and when the sun is shining it’s the best ever.
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Wilson
