In Leiden!

Okay, I guess I have to give up on the French for now.  Because NOBODY speaks it here.

It feels like I'm on another planet, actually.  There's something NOT French about this place.  Something fun and slick and old but new at the same time... it feels like Ikea.

Here with Forko and Waffelle and their cats.  Nena had a bit of a run-in with a scooter so she's on house rest for the next several days.  She's also a leopard cat, which are known for their surprising ability to communicate with humans due to their very unique and distinctive meows.  She's been demonstrating them all morning, letting us all know things like, "I'm hungry" and "I want to go outside" and "please let me go outside" and "I REALLY REALLY want to go outside NOW PLEASE."

Yesterday we revved my engines a bit for the trip to Amsterdam today.  And by "revved my engines" I mean "drank a lot in anticipation of drinking more once we get to Amsterdam."  I'm actually a bit grateful for the accrual of the last six weeks' pastry pudge as I think it gave me about 4 or 5 free gulps before the canal started spinning.

And now that it's almost noon, everyone is up with their coffee, bracing themselves for madness in Amsterdam.  Lawd, Lawd, am I ready for the red light district?

Packing

Woke up somewhere around 4:45 this morning and could NOT go back to sleep.

We had the End of the Summer potluck last night.  Food was eaten.  Beer was consumed.

There's something about beer that makes me wake up bright and early.

And also the little niggling anxiety of packing.

See, tomorrow is departure day.  Wake up at 7, hike up the hill to the student dorm and catch the specially-rented shuttle bus to the train station at Angers.  From there it's a hike across Paris and off to the Netherlands for the final part of the trip.

The final part?

Yep.  It's already been 6 weeks.

It's time to go around this little place I've been calling home for the past two months and gather up all the things that have gradually moved farther and farther away from the suitcase.  I guess that means I feel like I live here or something.

It's a really funny feeling.  On one hand, I feel like I just got here, and on the other, I DON'T.

Part of the anxiety, I think, comes from what the end of this MEANS.  It means I'm about to not have a house to live in.  It means I'm about to not have a gig again.  It means I'm about to go back to a stressful life in NYC, wondering how I'm gonna make it and what I'm really supposed to be doing.  It means I'm not going to say, "Desolee, je suis American.  Je ne comprond pas" NEARLY as much as I do now.

It also means leaving a bunch of people who have become a kind of...oh my goodness.  I can't say it.  No.  Not a FAMILY.  But...something LIKE a family, I guess.  All the stability and security and peace and quiet... say goodbye folks.

Another part of the anxiety is that, when the timer went off at the end of the last set yesterday, something felt so FINAL about it.  Like, "That's it, Forky.  Let's do something else now."  And that has me a little bit scared.  Because if I took the path of least resistance, I'd probably just do this for the rest of my life.  The problem is, I don't think I OUGHT to do this for the rest of my life.  This modeling thing has become a crazy career that I didn't mean to fall into.  It's safe, I'm good at it, and I enjoy working with extraordinary talents and having .jpegs of portraits I can print off and give to my family at Christmas.

But is that all that this little Forky is destined for?  Hey, not knocking it.  There are worse things.  But are there OTHER things?

Yesterday I guess I unofficially decided that, when I get back to NYC, I'm not going to model for a while.  Go back to temping, focus on Christmas Carol rehearsals, work on these long put-off illustrations for these little stories I've written...  As long as the modeling is there, why do I need to explore?  Why do I need to ask myself, "What else is out there that you'd really like to do?"

So the Nutella gut may be here a little while longer if it keeps me from leaping back onto the model stand.

Is this unwise?  Is this stupid?

I just re-read "when I get back to NYC, I'm not going to model for a while" and I suddenly felt really really SAD.  Okay, how about I put it THIS way instead:

When I get back to NYC, I'm going to focus heavily on creating something resembling a 5 year plan...no.  Just 2 year plan.  Yeah, that's the ticket.

Okay.  I'll shut up now.  This suitcase isn't gonna pack itself.

:^\

Trop Beaucoup de Vin

I guess the fact that the room is still spinning a little bit--just a little after noon--means that we had a really good time at the town festival last night.

Seriously...the Frogs throw back a TON of wine.  I don't know how they do it, but the would-be alcoholic in me probably needs to be a bit more vigilant the next time I go to a party and wine is flowing like a river.  I mean, a stranger saw that my glass was empty and just filled it right on up from his own bottle.

All good sense just goes right out the window.  And yet, all I can think about is the Wedding at Cana.  I feel like we ought not kid ourselves.  The implication in the text is that people were getting HAPPY thanks to the wine.

I dunno what that means for me today.  I guess just that the Lord had been to parties like the one last night, so in a funny way, I don't feel quite so guilt-ridden for telling myself, "Have another glass!  Party time!!"

But still.

We're about to begin the last week of the summer class.  Friday is Departure Day.  I CANNOT believe it's been 6 weeks already.  Actually...as I look at my beard, which has been growing this whole time, I kind of can.  It's feeling substantial again.  Just the way I like it.  On the road to Christmas Carol 2012.

But back to the town festival.  It was sort of a local thing, where people from the area come to sell their wares, everyone eats a ton, drinks more than is good for them, and watches a surprisingly impressive fireworks show.  And yes, everyone Oohs and Aahs in the same language.

Sampled some rather odd things...  Ostrich sausage, pigeon fillets, and my very first escargot.  At first I was resolved to never EVER eat a googly-eyed slug-in-a-shell, but then someone said they were basically oysters.  Flashback to Cousin Billy's oyster roast and I thought, "Okay.  Maybe I can do this."

Gotta start getting ready for an afternoon modeling session.  One of the instructors is bound and determined to finish this portrait this afternoon.  More later!

Routine

Today is one of our "weekend" days.  Because of something having to do with public transportation not running on Sundays (and because the big Farmer's Market in the next town over is on Friday), the school makes the weekend Friday and Saturday.

No big plans for today.  Woke up with a leftover migraine and made some instant coffee to try and shake it.  Then went to the café and got the real deal.  Also went to the pharmacy to see the selection as, in spite of my setting aside the bottle of Motrin specifically for the purpose of relieving the post-migraine pain, I must've left it in my bathroom in NYC.

However, the place was pretty crowded (I like speaking my broken French when there aren't a lot of people to point and laugh "hau hau hau!"-style at me) and none of the boxes looked familiar (that is, no "Advile" or "Tylonelle" or some sort of French extra-E variation on an obviously American brand).

So I bought some bread instead.  But I DID run into the wife of the owner of the school on my way back home.  She was just leaving the house and was kind enough to run back inside and grab me a handful of headache pills.

Thrilling update, I know.  But you take the excitement when you can get it here in Argenton.

Tomorrow is the beginning of week 3/6.  Already getting close to halfway!  Feels like I just got here.  Things are very routine and there's not a whole lot of variety.  Breakfast, morning pose, buy bread, nap, lunch, afternoon pose, dinner, email, French lessons, bed.  And throw a couple of trips to the Barn in there for good measure.  That's about all.  It's a nice change of pace.  And, as much as I sort of miss New York, I'm kinda glad to not be there.  I see why people move out to the middle of nowhere France.

That's all for now!  All I'm doing today is working on more French and possibly working out at the Barn if this leftover headache goes away by the afternoon.

Sleep

I sent out a rather cryptic prayer request to some of you a few nights ago that has left a lot of you guessing as to what in the world is going on out here.

I've been hesitant to talk about it, as I already tend to lean toward the more sensational explanation of things.  Except when something sensational DOES happen--then I become a bit of a skeptic.

When I was a kid, I thought I saw a halo around this man who was preaching during our Mexico mission trip.  I decided it was a miracle and told everybody about it with an air of saintly piety that would have made Joan of Arc blush.  But then I learned that if you look at something too long, your eyes get tired and you start seeing all sorts of blurry colors and things.

So, for fear of this being a similar sort of thing, I've restrained myself until I could get a little more information.

We'll start with the most basic part of this story.

Regardless of what conclusion we land on about what REALLY happened, Sleep Paralysis is, apparently, a THING.

So that's at least something.  If the rest of this turns out to have been a dream or my imagination, okay.  The main thin is, this is something that DOES happen to people and my experience fits the description.

What is Sleep Paralysis, you ask?  It's basically when your mind wakes up, but your body is still in "sleep mode" and hasn't caught up with your brain.  So you can think lucidly, but you can't move.

Okay.  Great.  Fine.  It's annoying, but eventually your mind and body get it together and you wake up for real.  Nothing wrong there.

Oooh, but that's usually not ALL that happens during these episodes.

It seems that most people do not have pleasant experiences when they awake in this state.  That is, they don't feel cozy and snug in their beds.  Rather, they virtually always describe feeling an intense evil or dangerous presence in the room WITH them.

This has happened to me twice since arriving in France.  The first time I just remember THAT it happened.  I don't remember anything else.  The second time, however, was a bit of a different story.

But before I go into the details of what happened, let me give you a little background.

I had unwittingly learned about Sleep Paralysis--what it is and how to stop it--while doing some research in the Internet Rabbit Hole that is the UFO phenomena.  Scoff if you like, but this, like Sleep Paralysis, is also a THING.  People want to know about them.  Christians want to know what they are and if their faith in YHWH and Jesus Christ could survive if one day they turned on the news and saw ships in the sky.

Sleep Paralysis is also connected with what is commonly known as alien abductions.  Again, people are sleeping, they are unable to move, they feel something in the room with them... only they may actually SEE things and feel the things touching them, etc.

Seems like a pretty awful thing.  You're lying there in the dark.  You can't move.  You can't defend yourself.  Looks like you're stuck.

Aha, but there is one thing you CAN do.  You can call on Jesus Christ.  Yeah, I know.  It's crazy.  But it's true.  There is a spiritual side to all this.

The first time this happened to me this past spring, I remember feeling there was something in the room that hated me and wanted to eat me.  No joke.  I remembered in a FLASH what I was supposed to do.  I SCREAMED the Name with every fiber of my being--but I remember vividly that I wasn't just calling a name.  I was calling TO HIM because I knew He was the ONLY ONE who could help me at this point.  My mouth wasn't working and the only thing I could get out were the vowels ("EE-UHH!!!") but that apparently was enough.

It stopped INSTANTLY and I could move again.  A feeling of peace such that, after I thought about what had just happened, I was able to go back to sleep.

Fast forward to a couple of nights ago.

I was asleep.  The first thing I remember in the sequence of events was waking up ALREADY SHOUTING the Name.

I could hear footsteps in the house, in the room outside mine.  I could somehow FEEL that something was in the house.  Then there was the sound of the door downstairs opening and closing.  Impossible, I thought.  I locked the door and left the keys in it.  There's no WAY someone could just open the door and come inside!

Then I heard the floorboards in my bedroom creak, right by the foot of my bed.  At that point, I really began to panic, and I redoubled my efforts to say the Name as clearly as I could.

There was another sound of the front door somewhere below me, and more creaking on the floorboards in the room outside my bedroom.  Then my eyes snapped open and I saw a red glob disappearing into the ceiling.  You see weird colors in the dark all the time--it's what our eyes do as they search for something to SEE.  But I can't EVER remember seeing RED before.  Red, oval-ish shape.  I could move again and I rolled over and snapped on the lamp.

Just like the first time this happened, the feeling of panic and fear melted away with my ability to move again.  In other words, whatever I thought was in the house with me had gone.  I sang a verse of "Jesus, Name Above All Names" (what else do you do?) and I fell asleep again.

The next day was kinda bad.  I was angry and crabby the whole morning.  I kept thinking about things that made me upset.  Maybe some sort of PTS.  I don't know.

As the day went on, I decided that I must have dreamt the whole thing.  That it was probably just a neighbor coming in late (uhh...4am?  Hey, it's the only logical explanation).

I couldn't even remember the floorboards upstairs ever creaking.  It was probably just in my head.  I was ready to go with the scientific explanation--that these sounds or things people see are just a normal, physiological response to finding yourself vulnerable and unable to move.  Hallucinations.

So I went upstairs to my bedroom and walked around for a minute.  No creaking anywhere...except...

Yep.  That spot by the foot of my bed.  Creaked nice and loud when I put my weight on it.


Still, I couldn't quite believe what happened wasn't all just in my imagination.  I mentioned it to a friend of mine who is a relatively new Christian who had been involved in attempting astral projection (don't worry, you don't need to know) and he assured me that the "limbo" between waking and dreaming is a kind of glimpse behind the veil.  That these things are very real.


Last night, however, as I was brushing my teeth around midnight, I heard the sound of a door shutting. It sounded EXACTLY like what I'd heard a couple of nights ago.  But now I knew what it was.  It was a neighbor who had just come in (we even exchanged "bon soirs").

So okay.  We've got the fact that Sleep Paralysis is a real thing.  And the sound of doors opening and closing was probably just this neighbor who came home at 4am.  Sure, why not?


This morning after our trip to the farmer's market, I sat and had coffee with one of the students.  She asked how I was liking the place and we talked about the view of the valley and the little gardens and river.

She's been living here taking classes for two years.  She told me that, when she first moved here, she had the bungalow downstairs (the house is divided into an upstairs area and downstairs) and that, while her view was good, she knew the upstairs one was even MORE amazing.

I thought I'd ask her...

"Hey, when you stayed here, did you find that when your neighbors would open and close their doors it would sound like YOUR door?  It's so weird.  I find it kind of alarming, actually, because it sounds like it's coming from MY apartment.  Like someone just let themselves in and are walking around inside my apartment.  It really freaked me out the other night around 4am."

She gave me a funny look.  Took me a second.  Then I realized it was a look of recognition.

"How easily freaked out are you?" she asked.

"I'm good," I said.

She then went on to explain that there's something very ODD about this house.  That people who stay here for any length of time consistently report having had "visitors" in the night, usually little things, like children.  I got the impression that's actually why she requested a move.  But the owners of the art school--who are aware that funny things happen here--continue to rent it from the landlady because she gives them a good deal.

Then I remembered something.  The owner of the school told me, the day after the night of the second occurrence, that he had received a letter from the landlady asking if I liked the house.  But he asked in such a curious tone that my response was, "Why?  Should I NOT like the house...?"

The girl I was talking to went on talking about new agey things--suggesting I use sage to ward off evil spirits or try "making a deal" with them.  She suggested I mention it to the owners of the school.  She seemed curious as to why I wasn't more frightened.  I guess I could point her to the part in Matthew where Jesus gives His followers power over demons and spirits?

So that's what happened.  I feel like I can post about this now because I have more information.

1.  Sleep Paralysis is a Thing.  It happens.
2.  The floorboard in the middle of my room creaks when you stand on it.
3.  Weird things involving demonic ghost children are said to happen here on a regular basis.

There's a lot more to this--thoughts as to WHY this happened (these sorts of things are not "supposed" to happen to Christians)--but I won't go into it.  The big thing I learned from this one was this:

When the episode was going on, I remember saying the name "Jesus" as a magic word.  I wasn't calling TO HIM, I was just throwing the Name out as if it, by itself, would do something.  Since coming here, I have not had much contact with my Christian friends, I haven't prayed almost at all, my Bible study time has dwindled, and I've indulged heavily in France, France, France, and haven't thanked God ONCE for any of it.

The thing is, I haven't really been walking with the Lord.  Not closely anyway.  

At some point in all our lives, we're going to die and we're going to call out to Jesus.  That name is not a magic word.  It's the name of a PERSON.  And if you are using that name as a magic word to save you, you need to be careful.  Because He even said that lots of people would use His name to do all sorts of things, but He will turn to them and say, "I'm sorry.  I have no idea who you are."  

It's not enough to SAY you're a Christian.  You have to actually BE one.  You have to KNOW HIM and WALK with Him.  If you don't, THAT'S when you're truly vulnerable.  You have to throw yourself at His feet and acknowledge that there is nothing you can do to save yourself--that it's all HIM.

Bastille Day

Today was Bastille Day!  Slept in a bit, then headed to the grocery store to get a few items before they closed at noon.  Then I went back to the studio and the instructors and I set the pose for the coming weeks.  Then it was back to the house to cook!

I made Dad's Tomato Casserole out of all the Frenchy things I had lying around, plus some tomatoes and onions I picked up at the Farmer's Market yesterday.  They don't have cheddar cheese in France, so you wind up using something that's sharp...but distinctly flavorful!  It turned out really well.  I'll have to double the recipe next time though as it made about enough for me to eat all by myself!

There was a bonfire set up in the backyard of the student's house.  Someone suggested we burn an effigy of a political figure in honor of Bastille Day.  I suggested Ben draw his greatest fear--a spider--with a powdered wig playing a harpsichord.  Humor won.

That's not a margarita.

There's the bonfire!

Je travaille.

I don't know if I spelled that correctly.  The important thing is that I think it would be correct if I spoke it.

I've been taking a French language course that I downloaded for my iPhone.  It's based on making logical associations with what you already know about English and I'm learning a TON.  It's become part of the routine.

Ah, routine.  I need one.  And I have one.

Morning:
Make breakfast (usually farm-fresh eggs, cheese, yesterday's baguette, and honey)
Go to the barn for workout #1 (depending on the day--otherwise I sleep in later)
Go to the studio and climb the stairs up to the third floor where the studio is (hence the name ... studio stairway)
Drink coffee
Model for the Drawing Session.  This pose is a seated one very similar to the "Ezekiel" sculpture, only I'm holding a pole.  They're going nuts over it. Drawing session is 3 hours long.

Lunch:
Lunch break is two hours.  I usually go to the bakery and buy a fresh baguette at this point and begin eating it on the walk home as I'm usually pretty hungry by now.
Once home, I check a few emails (not usually very many as it's 6:30am in New York) and then go upstairs for the pre-lunch 25 minute power nap.
Lunch lately hasn't been anything as involved as breakfast or dinner.  Bread, peanut butter, fruit, cheese, water, and maybe a bite or two of leftovers from the night before.

Afternoon:
Head back up the hill, past the ruins of the chateau, and back to Les Escaliers.
Model for the Painting Session.  This is a different pose.  I opted for a standing pose that I'm not just nuts about.  It's a LOT of work and pain for something that isn't really all that dynamic.  The students like it though, as they've had little else but reclining females for a long time.  Standing male feels new.  Fortunately, tomorrow is their last day with this pose so I can change it.  We'll give them something even better in the next go-round.

Evening:
Lately, it's been a trip to the Shopi (show-pee...the one grocery store in town) for more foodstuffs.
Followed by a trip home...
Then maybe another trip to the Barn for workout #2
Either way, then it's back home to make dinner.  Since the kitchen is so big and well-equipped, I've been getting back into cooking and eating a bit more of a balanced diet.  I'm sort of holding off on the veggies until the farmer's market on Friday.  More on that as it comes.
Oh, and it's the local rosé before, during, and a little after dinner.  When in Rome...

Night:
Email, email, email
Followed by French lessons on my iPhone
Read a chapter of the Gospel of Matthew
And lights out.

That's what's been going on of late!  Things may change a little here and there, but that describes the past week pretty well.  I'm super-tired from the 6 hours of poses and when I get home, I switch on the classical music, open the wine, and just want to crash right there.  But it's wonderful and the more French I learn the more determined I am to stay here FOREVER.

We'll see if I change my mind by the end of six weeks.  But so far, life in the idyllic little French town is pretty awesome.