ordinary vs. un-ordinary

The sky above the marché is the ordinary blue of Southern France that inspired the Impressionists. It is an un-ordinary blue for the rest of Europe at this time of year.

The village, once walled, has narrow streets with centuries-old stone houses. The commercial centre is in the centre with the same architecture.

The marché has the ordinary buzz as people buy their vegetables, meat, cheese, clothes, belts and flowers. But the merchants and those that live there are have un-ordinary expressions on their faces.

The Algerian artist drinks coffee with two friends. All three men have sober expressions, red eyes. "I'm praying for her," our artist friend says.

I repeat the words I have said so often they are almost a recording. "There will be something next weekend. Her daughters are arriving Tuesday at the latest. It was instantaneous. She was at the doctor's office. She was talking. She was gone. We will let you know."

The last three days have been a muddle. People come in and out. Calls come from all over the world. Mouths are even better than the Internet. I get a call from the UK, within three hours of it happening, the mutual friend alerted by the hotel owner down the street from my friend's store and home. The summer people learn, call, email their disbelief.

Fathia sits on my couch crying. "She was like my mother," she says. "I will bring couscous when her girls arrive." We were all going to eat couscous together when a date could be found. That was before. 

Rick continues to place tea in front of whoever is sitting on the couch.

The sausage seller, his stand across the store, tells me he can barely get through the morning as he packages up three different sausages for 10 Euros for a waiting customer. "She was an icon."

Another mutual friend offers to help with the paperwork. 

I see others whom she knew. She knew the village. Again the same message... "There will be something..." To those whose faces I know but not their email or telephone I say, we'll put a notice in the shop window."

Ptah II, the obese white cat is not in the window but in a carton when I enter the shop for the first time after. I am one of the cat committee who feeds, combs and pats him. We've done it before when my friend was travelling, only this time she won't be back.

"What about the cat?" is almost always asked. He used to sleep in the store window amid the English books, African Art and clothes on display. One of the books is my novel. He too is an icon in the village.

Different members of the committee will go in until Wednesday afternoon when the waitress from La Noisette will take him...if she can find a good home, she will. If not, he will become a member of her family.

I dread going in. I have a key. It was ordinary to let myself in, pat Ptah II, and call her name. Today, tomorrow, forever, there will be no answer.

Rick is with me. It is his loss too, although to him she was a new friend. Her immediate reaction when I introduced a person from Texas, a state that espouses the conservative values she abhorred, was horror. However, they became friends. He called her Babs. They went off on errands together, talked together, laughed together. He helped her where and when he could, and she in turn gave us her blessing.

When Rick cooked for us, he always took her some and she teased that all his cooking had tomatoes in it. She loves tomato-based dishes.

When the phone stops ringing, when our flat has only us in it we try and do the ordinary things: watch a DVD, hang up the laundry, put and take out dishes from the dish washer.

Yesterday we decided to eat lunch at Bartevelle. Their ordinary meal is always extraordinary. Stephanie and I exchange a few nods of understanding. We cannot talk in the bustle of the diners.  Her adorable daughter Margaux comes down at the end of the meal as she often does.

I am so tired I can barely walk home. I take a nap beginning around 3. I wake to watch Max Keiser--ordinary. I go back to bed to read.

Ordinarily I have many white nights, sleeping maybe two hours, waking for two or three and sleeping a bit more before I get up early.

I sleep through to almost 5:30 this morning. I still am in yesterday's clothes.

I get up to write this. I am a writer. If enough words flow through my fingers, maybe the pain will flow with them.