The French Angel

“When I was in school and in college, I got told I am brilliant and very exceptional from my teachers. Well, at the moment, I think I need to get back on that track. I am falling apart, working on jobs that I thought I never had to go through. I had plenty of good experiences and none of them matters anymore. Maybe I should start depending on my own and my God and not to the people around me anymore. It’s either I drive home safely or drive off a cliff (kind of) situation now.”

After posting that status, I prepared to get off the stop near the petrol station in Belair. Yesterday, I had to catch the return bus to go back and go to where I parked my car, at Sheoak Café. I didn’t want to do the same mistake from yesterday especially that I am lugging 5 cans of some Asian preserved goods in my bag. I was on my phone, talking to a good friend from high school through Kik, she’s now in Canada and going through the similar situation—‘mid-life’ crisis; I was also talking to this really matured young man that seems to inspire me in every word he states.

I message both of them that I’ll ‘kik’ them again as soon as I get home as I am about to get in my car. I unlocked my doors and opened my car, and just as I was going to go behind the door, I saw this lady seated in the Café dining veranda with her back facing me. She turns around and I said “hello” with no hesitation. I’ve had a very rough day and I always thought that my mood should never affect anyone else’s, as much as I can. She then responds to me to me how she likes my car, and I was just about to sit down and mentions to me that she wants to buy it off me if I’ll be selling it. It was so strange; it was like she read my mind! On the bus, I was dreading about my car; I want to sell it, not because that it’s in bad condition or anything. In fact, it’s in a very good condition and appearance. I want to downgrade, or maybe get a 4-wheel drive kind of car. I want to have a smaller car. 

So, I told her I might sell it and consider her the first to offer it, if I do. She immediately writes her name and number on a piece of paper and told me to contact her when I am ready to sell it. So I approached her, at first I thought she was Scottish, but then the French accent just takes it significance, she also mentions that she used to own that Café and now how that she’s really good friends with the present owner and that she has links with everyone that’s behind the Café now. I thought she was such a friendly lady. I already lost hope on people. I successfully convinced myself for a very long time that people are nice and genuinely friendly. I head back to my car, I was thinking of stopping somewhere to have a little reflection time, or maybe read the magazine or watch the DVDs that I loaned from the library.

I wasn’t even able to sit down as I stood back straight up to tell her that I got it for a really cheap price. She was impressed and immediately asked if she could come and see it. I said of course, of course. She likes it; she sees the leather seats and thinks that it’s amazing. Then she asks me to open the boot, I showed her and she sees that I have a CD-stereo system that she says is worth the same with how much I got the whole car.

She then asks me what I do, and I told her I work at a fast-food restaurant in the city. From there, she takes me inside the Café and told me that I should be in a better place; it was like she knows the whole-time everything my heart was crying about. Just after work and before heading home, I have texted a few close people about how appalling my job is going. It’s so hectic and there’s no little appreciation being showed to us, at all. At that moment, I was thinking that it was such a horrible place to be in. Then my mum asks me to buy her some things from the Asian market in town, I accidentally even replies to her “This is so depressing.”, her reply was something like, “If it is depressing, just don’t grab them.” I replied to her that it was for a friend (also the following morning she asks me about it and I told her it’s a normal expression nowadays, which is true though!)

So, now I am seated in the Café where she was. She then introduces me to the owner, Xavier and some other woman. We were talking and we came across that she was a writer and that I am an aspiring one, too. She was so excited and asked me if I wanted to come with her to the Fringe. I was literally so happy that I was tearing up and shaking a bit. I never would have thought I would be able to go there, ever. I think I’m too poor to go there, and I actually was. She told me that she has an artist’ pass and that she want me to come with her. I was being modest, and of course, I just met her; but I ended up saying sure. She was telling me how she is in the catering industry and all that. After a few chats, she asked if I want to pop in her house first to grab a quick dinner. She showed me around her house and offers me this lemony chicken dish, with couscous. It’s so good! She tells me that she likes to cook differently every time. I like it! That is so much like me, I don’t want to stick to a routine or have a monotonic ‘identity’. I like to get out of the box and try something new.

She told me so many things, and a lot of her experiences. I actually thought she was the person that I project myself to be in the future. She is free-spirited, but organised; faithful but real. She told me her experiences in Paris and how she has to go through a new life in Adelaide. Just exactly what I needed to hear! She tells me a very good illustration about this town, and how people are here. She is right, very right; but it doesn’t get to her. Just like how I take it before. She has established herself to be just the person as she is. She also tells me that I am lucky to that I have found myself or trying to look for my true identity young. I thought I’m a bit too old for this, quite actually. Her stories make a lot of sense to me, a true enlightenment. She also believes in almost all the same things I do! She even tells me that angels are not always seen as with wings, and I truly agree because she was too me. She turned everything around and did bring the light back in me. She also told me about the people who will try to draw me into their darkness or maybe even steal the light in me, but no matter how they try to make use of it, they never will because they don’t know how to. A fool’s gold, because we all our treasures in us, we just have to realise that we are standing on it. I remember she told me that when I saw Paulo Coelho’s L’Alchemist on her table, I paraphrase “We travel very far just to realise that on where we were was the right place. Many people do this.” That was actually my favourite book as well; I know what she was talking about.

She was like teaching me life philosophies over dinner; I especially like how she is very right about the true meaning of love and family. I learned a lot, and I am truly blessed that God sent me her to guide me on just the right time. Also, prior that day, I have met such good people from the church I’ve been going. From two Sundays of such beautiful and eye-opening words from the pastor in church, it just all made sense again to me. 

People may have dreams that they want to put to us, or they just merely have dreams for us; but it takes you to know what it is really. She also told me that it’s greed that makes our heart weary, that we became a slave of it. Most people also do an expedition just to reach the destination. It is about the journey and the final end-point. Learning never ends for all of us. Doesn’t mean that you have a very high IQ, it means you’re meant to go to university. You can teach a man to use a cash register and balance it, but if he isn’t born a salesman, he’ll only know what you instructed him to do.

Who would think this French lady, who’s really into history and world cultures would seem to be like a mirror-image of the future I am aiming for, just in a different physical form. As we walked off from the 4+ hours of dancing to actual music, she tells me how she likes it there in that ‘Fringe Club’ (The exclusive venue for the Adelaide Fringe artists/sponsors), everyone is different, they have their own identities but they are all in one party. No colour, no creed. 

This narrative is not just about me telling how life can turn around with faith and kindness; I encourage you to find yourself. “People are capable, at any time in their lives, of doing what they dream of.”, says Coelho. Open your mind, follow your heart and not live on greed or the externals pressures because peace is within. Talk to new people, find the real ones, enjoy their company, cook continental breakfast, pray and at the end, surely, there’s no regret.