You Get What You Need

Yesterday, I was thinking about the fact that if I’m just patient, everything that I really desire and need shows up in my life.  I was thinking about getting a horse last year, and then Pierre-Yves introduces me to Nicole who has two horses, who have first-class tack, are fed, and all I have to do for them is the fun part, to ride them. Then, several days ago, Norman rides into the farm yard on his white horse, and I find out that he and his wife are very happy to let me ride their horses.  No horse showed up immediatedly when I first started desiring it, over a year ago.  But now my life resembles a Magrette painting as horses are raining down on me. 
 
The same thing happened to me last summer when I decided that I wanted a table for the dining room.  I found a man on the eastern side of the departement who crafts farm tables that look like the old ones that were used in this region hundreds of years ago.  I talked my husband into buying it.  Then the next week, Pierre-Yves’ brother-in-law gave me a bigger table for free. 
 
When I went back and re-read my daily journals, I realized that I had been writing about sheep for over a year before I bumped into an acquaintance, Inez, on the street in our big town and she mentioned that the farmer next to her was a large sheep producer.  She had no sooner got the words out of her mouth, than the farmer’s pretty daughter came walking down the sidewalk, heading towards our café table to greet Inez.  The next morning, I was standing in the sheep producer’s barn, surround by ten orphan lambs from which I ended up with the two who turned out to be Blanche and Olympia.
 
I originally chose Olympia (the one who recently died) and another lamb because both were very friendly towards me.  But the farmer’s daughter told me I shouldn’t take the other sheep because it was an uncastrated male and it would be easier for me if I took two females.  Feeling a bit devastated that I couldn’t take the friendly boy sheep, I asked her to pick another out for me.  She chose Blanche.
 
What’s so interesting to me is that when I got home with the sheep, Olympia, who was so friendly in the orphanage, turned out to be rather standoffish.  Blanche, who I didn’t want, turned out to be very affectionate and loving.  Serendipity again triumphed over my desire to control every aspect of my existence.
 
One of the qualities that I’m learning to admire about the rural French, especially the older ones who lived through the war, is that they have an acceptance of fate, destiny, whatever you want to call it.  By contrast, we Americans, and when I say “we Americans” I’m including myself, we have this very mistaken idea that we can control our lives.  “Take control” the financial ads blare. We mistakenly believe that we control our lives because the media sells us the idea that if we would just buy this product, or that drug, or this service, we will find a resolution to our problem.  We will EVENTUALLY find happiness.  The decision is ours, but, we must consume in order to perfect our lives. 
 
And so, in our mad cap quest for the good life, we never get to live it. We're too busy racing around trying to consume our way to Nirvana. Meanwhile, back at the farm, the rural French shut down their stores, stop working, and have a two hour lunch everyday, where they drink wine, eat fantastic food, laugh together, and define the good life for the rest of the world.  I can tell you that it takes quite a while for an American to get used to having a two-hour lunch every day.  Couldn’t I be DOING something productive I keep asking, when in reality, the best thing I could do for myself would be to sit back, relax, eat, and enjoy.    
 
Yesterday, we drove into our little town to eat lunch and were surprised to find an antique fair in progress.  The heat was intense, and so there weren’t a lot of buyers wandering around.  For the first time in my experience, I had French antique dealers immediately taking the listed prices down twenty percent before I even asked.  I was so emboldened that when I purchased something, I would ask them to throw in something else for free, and cheerfully complied.
 
I started out looking for chairs and small tables.  I found two lovely chairs but my husband thought they were too overpriced and delicate for a farmhouse.  He went back to the house leaving me with my bicycle in town because I had an appointment to have my nails done. He had wanted to go along to make an appointment with the woman to have his nails done, because she had told me that she needed a reference from the man’s wife before she would take a man on as a client.  She had several men show up when she opened her shop twenty-two years ago, who booked for a facial, and then took their clothes off demanding a different type of service.  Sylvie must have been the most beautiful woman in the world twenty-two years ago, because she’s still amazingly beautiful now.  Unfortunately, my husband had to return with my son and his girlfriend to the house, so he didn’t get to see how sexy Sylvie was yesterday in a very tight fitting white knit dress which showed off her perfect tan, to perfection.  
 
After my appointment, I wandered around the antique stalls in blistering heat, looking for chairs and small tables. I didn’t find any that I liked, other than the two that my husband had nixed.  However, I did find six beautiful linen napkins with my mother’s initials embroidered on them, and a pair of satin, green and yellow stripped curtains.  I kept eyeing the curtains every time I walked by the woman’s stall.  I thought they were perfect for my bedroom, and they looked as if they would be long enough.  I hesitated though because I didn't really want to buy used curtains.  I finally purchased them after the vender took the price down twenty percent.
 
I took the curtains home.  I hung them up.  They are so perfect, that I’m convinced they were the custom-made curtains that Madame Reste removed from that same bedroom when she moved out of our house. 
 
I didn’t plan to go into town for lunch.  That was my husband’s idea.  I didn’t know that there was an antique sale in progress.  I wasn’t looking for curtains.  Yet, the perfect pair of curtains for that bedroom found their way into my house yesterday.  In the same way that Blanche entered my life.  My son entered my life.  My husband entered my life. The same way the horses entered my life. 
 
The best things in my life were never planned.  The worst fiascos have all been plotted and planned by me. I’m throwing out my organizer and then I’m off to Pamela and Norman’s to pick up Nicole’s horse to ride this morning.  Tally-ho!  (I’ll let you know when the perfect jodhpurs show up in my life.)  Vive la destinee!