Friday, September 17, 2010

Mademoiselle Isabelle

I was cycling from New Glasgow to Antigonish via route 245, the scenic but much longer alternative to the Trans-Canada. I rode with the Northumberland straight to my left, fields of swaying corn to my right, passing through the tiny towns of Merigomish, Brownsville, Doctors Brook and Malignant Cove, hardly visible as dots on the map. No gas station, library, or town halls. Just a cluster of houses along the road, a church, cemetery, and maybe a general store/cafe. I breezed along with ease, the fierce wind pushing me forward as the patches of blue sky overhead brightened up the crops. As the day wore on, a contagious cloud cover blocked out nearly all the sun's rays and the wind began to whip and tear in this direction and that, so instead of assisting me on my quest to Cape George it was grabbing, pulling, and swerving me all over the road.

I also realized that I didn't actually have much to cook up for dinner. I didn't have a place to sleep yet either, but that was of little concern to me. Not long after I had these thoughts, I glimpsed a painted sign for fresh veggies. Seeing my chance to find something for dinner, I veered down the gravel driveway, curving away from the road and into view of row upon row of flourishing veggies beside an old house overlooking the sea. Orange flowers, their pedals spread out wide and heads pointing up to the sky, dotted the orderly rows of beets, chard, carrots, peppers, herbs and greens. A little face appeared in one of the windows, and waved me in excitedly. I twisted open the old-fashioned door knob and walked into a world of delight.

Bag upon bag of freshly picked vegetables lined the side table, garlic hung from the rafters, and the smell of fresh rosemary hung in the air. Isabelle, I learned, was packing up her clients' bags of vegetables for Friday afternoon delivery. I stood in awe for a moment, my senses taking in all that was going on in this dimly lit room. I bought some carrots and tomatoes, the rain began to fall, Isabelle invited me to wait it out over a cup of tea in the kitchen, and I ended up spending the night on her futon. We cooked and ate and shared the stories of our hearts. The next morning when I was 15km down the road at the lighthouse, I realized that I had forgotten to pay for the veggies. So this is the story of Mademoiselle Isabelle, a lively woman from France who has found what she was searching for in life. Isabelle has the tanned skin of someone who's spent a lot of time outdoors, and the wild, choppy hair of someone who's free from the restraints imposed by societal norms. I've relied heavily on quotations here, and I realize that there's no way I've got all of what she said down word-for-word, but it seemed to be a more authentic way to tell her story than to paraphrase all of it in my words.

Isabelle immigrated to Montreal from France after finishing her college education,
"I wasn't meant to live in Europe, you know? I had always known it. There's just too many people, not enough freedom or space. Canada, woooooh! Well the wide open spaces, that's what attracted me to Canada."

But Montreal, it seemed, was too similar to France, and Isabella was still not wholly satisfied,
"I was working at a desk job, you know, in an office, blah blah blah. And I got to thinking, 'if you are going to immigrate somewhere, you've got to make a BIG change, not a slight one', so I jumped on an opportunity to relocate to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for the summer. That's where I really got to experience Canadian culture, appreciate the HUGENESS of the country. And I loved it! I loved the skies, oh the skies! The way the colours change at sunset, the stars that come out at night."

After her stint on the Prairies, she was back in Montreal, but left for Latin America, being unsatisfied with the way things were going. She shared with me how the strongest memories are those of people, and not landscape: "The landscape is important; it may be beautiful and amazing and surely it will always be part of your travel experience. But, I find what really sticks, the memories that last, are the ones with people. When I was learning Spanish in Venezuala, I don't remember the place so much as the people. I stayed with a homestay family there, and the little girl took me to the market. And there we walked around together, and she pointed out the names of the vegetables and this and that. Those are the kinds of things I remember more strongly, not the landscape."

This hit a note with me, for during this journey I have enjoyed the landscape immensely, but always find that my happiest and most memorable experiences are more focused on the folks I've met along the way or the people I have traveled with. For instance, the first day cycling with Toby and Dave, we found a meadow to camp in and sat on a cliff overlooking Lake Ontario, our legs dangling freely over the edge. We cooked up dinner and chatted, all the while watching in awe as a red moon came up over a nuclear power plant across the little bay. The moon rose higher, and hung suspending in the night sky casting a shadow over the water that Toby described as "incredible, might I even say, sexy?".

This experience was awesome because it is something that the three of us shared, and will always remember. If I was alone, watching the moon come up and had no one to talk to, no one to lean on and whisper in a hushed voice, "wow, can you believe we're watching this?", I don't think the experience would be as powerful as it was for me.

Isabelle traveled for years, wandering around Central and South America, experiencing different ways of life and learning more about herself as she learned the language. But after five years, she felt lost. "I didn't have a home!" she exclaimed, "France wasn't my home anymore, and I hadn't been back to Canada for so long I didn't feel like that was my home any more. I really felt that I wanted to be grounded, to put down roots somewhere. But I didn't know where to go."

So she hopped on bike and pedaled out of Montreal. Stopping here and there, exploring rural Quebec villages and helping out with peoples gardens and in cafes and wherever she was needed, she made her way around the tip of Gaspe and into the Maritimes.

"I really thought I was meant for the West Coast, but somehow, I found my home here on the East. You see, what happened was this: I arrived on my bike one day, and cycled right through this area. I pedaled up to Cape George, saw the lighthouse, but suddenly realized that I could not go on! It was getting late in the day, and if I kept riding I would round the corner and miss the sunset. So, I pedaled back down the hill and camped, not too far from where we are right now. I've never done that before; turned around. But I did, I watched the sunset, and the next day while I was in town I spoke to someone and they said that there's a really good place to camp by Doctors Brook. So, I went down there. It was a beautiful place! It's where the flowing water meets the sea, there's little beach and it's just lovely. So I camped there for a night. Then the next morning, I packed up my things and got on to my bike to leave, but found I couldn't. I just couldn't leave this spot."

"So I just stayed there. Each day I would pack my things on my bike, ride off, then wind up back at the Brook by sunset. I couldn't leave. This went on for a few weeks, and I became a bit of a novelty around town! Everyone knew me, because of course they were curious about some girl on a bicycle camping down by the water every night. So one day, someone said to me, 'can you house sit for me?' and I was like 'sure, I can do that', and I knew, I just knew that this is where I had to be."

"I started looking around for a place, and what do you know, this house (the one we're in right now) was just put on the market. I went to look at it, and I bought it. It wasn't easy, finding work and making this place my home. It's a small community, not like the city where there's jobs everywhere. But I did it. First I taught French, because it turns out that the language is really in demand around here. I did others things as well, but I was like, 'this is not for me'. I need to be active, doing things, not sitting all day."

"So one year, I planted this garden. And I had too many vegetables! Waaaaay too much stuff for one person, so I gave the extras away. And I thought, 'hmmmmm, maybe I could grow vegetables,'. So the year after that I tried it out; I only had a few clients. Now I have over thirty. So that's what I do: I grow vegetables, and I love it."

And I realized that Isabelle, sitting across the table from me and telling me this story as she poked her fork into the roasted beets and shallots and potatoes, is alive. She is just totally alive with energy and life, and I feel like there's something passing between us, something unseen but nonetheless it's there and we're both experiencing the connection.

"You know, everyone wants something different in life. For some it's a respectable job, others it's love, marriage, or a big family. Me? I just want to make my heart happy. And this, using my hands and growing plants and feeding people? This is what makes my heart happy. If you told me 10 years ago that this is where I would end up, that this place, this tiny dot on the map in Nova Scotia is where I will set down my roots, I would not believe it. But, I am here. And I love it."

I don't know what I'm going to do in my life. I have no idea actually. But in looking at Isabelle, I saw a possible trajectory of myself. I thought, "this could be you Meaghan. Someday, you might wind up growing veggies and living in a cool old house painted a dozen different colours with fresh food everywhere and the artwork of your friends hanging on the walls."

There are a million different things that I could do in life, and this is but one of them. The infinite possibilities of my existence. Exciting, although the uncertainty of it all is also kind of overwhelming at times. But in talking with Isabelle, I realized that what I need to do is let my heart be my guide, and eventually everything will settle into place.

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