The CTR Ring

The CTR Ring

I stopped sleeping about a quarter after 3:00 am, feeling rested despite it being only four hours before that I started. Knowing myself well enough, I just got up instead of wasting two hours laying there, trying to convince Time that I deserved, that I had the right to continue sleeping. I decided I should take some pictures of the lovely room afforded by my 48 Euros, so I did.

Then I decided to do my hair and makeup, get dressed and pack up. Did so. Meanwhile my alarm set for 5:00am went off and I gave it a taunting teeter of stretched-forth chin, a sort of ‘neener neener I’m already awake and so ready to go without you’. Don’t you think by now I would have learned not to neener Time?

A more casual trip to the train stop this time, I still kept an eye out for poor left mitten, all the way until the platform. I pulled up to the display screen which informs standers by which train will be coming next and where it will be stopping along its way. To my right was an African gentleman and I started up a friendly conversation. The first train to stop was one that was headed in the direction of the airport but had a different destination, therefore would not stop at the airport. The trains that said “CDG aeroport” on them did not stop. We saw it comin and, bye bye. So two trains that did stop weren’t going where I needed, and it looked like none would be coming before the time I absolutely needed to be at the airport. Wasn’t that a practice run the night before, to be better prepared? Bof.

Luckily all Africans are somehow related and/or know each other, and my new friend had a friend come up and start explaining how to get to the airport, using this stopped train to get to a stop three stops from our current location where the airport train DID stop. It was so simple I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before. Of course Time had a vice around my brain, the tool, so thinking was very elementary. And not in the Holmes way.

Off we trained to the airport. Off I ran, up the stairs, through the exit booth barely wider than a suitcase, up the escalators, under the staircase, through terminal 2D, around those slow people, past McDonald’s and voila, EasyJet Check in, three minutes before reruns would have started.

Oh praise heaven. I made my flight (took a bus on airport grounds to get to the plane), sat in the front row between a sleeper and a smoker, read a magazine (yes, actually read it, it was sincerely interesting like most airline net-pocket magazines aren’t), and stared at my hands. Ah crap.

Where was my CTR ring? For the remainder of the short flight to Toulouse I sat, staring blankly at the half-square pattern on the wall in front of me, trying in vain to think of the last time I saw my ring. I remembered bare-naked hands on the train ride in, so I didn’t lose it in the airport. And I remembered seeing it in the pictures I took of my squishy bed covers.

What I’ve decided is I must have removed it to put on lotion or something and entirely spaced where I’d placed the dear band. Those who followed closely the thrilling story of my life would feel the weight of the loss, but even then, not completely. That ring had been reminding me how to choose the right for nearly ten years, being misplaced for months at a time, perhaps, but never lost – closely lost – but never so far entirely as to not be findable again…

Sad day. Stupid pattern of losing things while traveling. I don’t want to have a whole string of stories themed with things ranging from petty to important being lost. What a very lame idea!

But, bravely counting my blessings (like a CTR ring would have wanted me to), we landed in Toulouse. As I got to the baggage claim level, a smallish, lovely woman came running to me, with a slick-airport-tile-floor shuffle, and gave me one of the special French hugs that pass between friends (if you’ve been to France, you know what I mean. Cuz the French aren’t huggers, they’re kissers. So hugs are…well, they could use a few lessons).

Carole Fayol it was, the “mom” I gained in Nimes. She’d moved to a town not far from Toulouse (Montauban) and was nice enough to come and get me. It was just so lovely to finally see someone I knew! Ça Faisait un peu bizarre aussi, quand meme!

I spent a wonderful day and evening and morning with a wonderful, LDS, French family and was inspired by their goodness. Sure, life still had its difficulties and its imperfections, but they handled it warmly, with confidence that all their efforts counted for creating love and harmony, for making happiness available. Where I noticed that it really branched from was how loving the couple are, how affectionate the wife is to husband and mother is to her children. Even if there are hair-frazzling moments, the consistent reality is that she openly and deeply loves her family. That’s why she earned the title of my mother of Nimes. She’s just plain delightfully inspiring.

Her kids warmed up to me, too. I am so happy when kids do that, when I can earn their trust, enough that they’ll even pout and throw tantrums when I leave (my apologies to the parents in such cases). Timothe and Claire, ages six and five, are sweet, energetic children who know they are loved. They are also very well disciplined and above averagely obedient. And they love kid things and laughing and they treat each other generally well, with little kid patience and occasional argument.

Timothe (Tee-moh-tay) is taking Judo lessons, loves his gameboy and giving his mom kisses. He is extremely handsome (French mother and Malagasy Father) with tan skin and golden hair, and likes to laugh, draw, and be loud on purpose. He seems mature but, like most kids these days, knows too many slang and grown up words, but his innocence is clear; he’s a well-behaved kid.

Claire is shy or she’s a goof. I’m glad she only spent about three minutes of shy on me before being her true self. I made her a ring out of a twisty tie (enterprising, yes?) and she accepted me into her five-year-old world very quickly. Claire is timid, her emotions on edge much like my own, ready to release the tears at any upset, or change of plans, or who knows what else (sometimes girls just cry, okay?), but is such a sweet, darling button. She loves to laugh, and I love to hear it.

I hope to visit again sometime soon, because I just didn’t get to spend enough time with this beautiful family. Plus, in Toulouse, nobody stepped forward to say they wanted to see me, so I may have to go back some day, on a Sunday and make them see me.

I did, however, make a special effort to see Agnes Sieja. She’s an awesome lady, very matter-of-fact and optimistic, talented and helpful. There certainly are inspiring women all over the world in the church. Well, she recently fell in a hole and broke just about everything that helps one to move, so she was unable to come to the church where I was, but, miracle of sweet tender miracles, her home teacher was at the church where I was at the time I made the phone call, overheard that there were damsels in distress and came to the rescue!

I spent about twenty or so minutes with this dear sister before a friend came to pick her up, and when I told her that I would be studying to possibly become an editor she lit up and signed a copy of her first novel over to my possession, which I will read and, if it interests me, make an effort to start a translation project? Could I do something like that? Whew, Heaven knows. It would be something to try. Especially since it’s 565 pages.

The return to the church held another quick visitor, Anne Terreaux, a sister from Toulouse. She helped me to contact Agnes (which is just the prettiest name in French, ‘Ann-yes’, which you really wouldn’t think for how it’s pronounced in English…) and then set out to come see me herself. So, I got two people after all.

(pictures to come when internet use doesn't cost $0.65 a minute...dang cruise ships suckin us dry)