Next time, I’ll answer my two most common questions: “How will you communicate with the cats if you don’t speak French?” And, “How can I get a gig like this?”
But first – this just in – we’ve realized we have the plot of a TV show here!
To wit:
Inside
The south outer face of the castle is new and smooth stucco. When I saw the photo of it shining in the sun, I pictured the inside of the castle (where we are going to be “sitting” for the next four months) as bright, and airy with high ceilings. The walls would be smooth plaster and the stairways stone. The floors, let’s see…how about cool marble!
My imagination smelled lemon oil, and I heard my footsteps as a gentle, quiet tapping. I believe I also saw just two stories, and unconsciously filtered out what was obviously four levels of windows.
I’m going to compare this with social media again like I did in my last post. You know those pics of your cousins and their kids, showing smooth, bright exteriors.? They are misleading. Yes, we know they fight, they poop and they struggle with priorities, but even knowing this, we still give too little thought to how complex every single human is inside.
Everyone we know is complex, confused and (either) currently growing or currently shrinking back from growing. Have compassion on them!
Likewise, every single French castle we see is…old! It is in various states of renovation, it may be, like this one, a mix of cuckoo-clock-style antiques, Ikea specials and old stuff from your first apartment. It seems fragile and sturdy at the same time. It has a funky smell. And, yes, it was occupied by Nazis (I’ll come back to the Nazis in a future post) during WWII.
You say you thought it would be Downton Abbey? Some of it is! But there is no large hall as you walk in, just a normal hallway with a very high ceiling and lots of dark wood trim. The floors are creaky and uneven, of tattered dark wood, with a few nail heads poking up. I’m glad I brought sturdy slippers.
The library off to the side of the main entrance does have more high ceilings, with walls and windows in ornate dark wood trim, the obligitory faded regal (spotted and torn) wallpaper, but has been converted into a medium-sized living space with an attractive small kitchen and two bedrooms off at the end. The kitchen has two lovely windows that look over the property’s bucolic pond. And the windows! They are all brand new with modern openers. All of the external doors are new, too.
Off the other side of the entrance is another set of large doors, opening to another apartment sized space, this one with a nice dining room, a so-so kitchen and a couple of bright bedrooms.
Instead of just more story like I pictured, there are THREE more levels. One floor down is a walkout type space (and some dark cellars), but with large reception and party room and breakfast room with table for 15 or so. One floor up from the main level are the paying guest bedrooms (in the summer the place hosts weddings and so forth). They are each perfect, elegant and lovely and have a tiny bathroom. Some of the ceilings are 20 feet high!
One entire story is located up in the slanted roof, where we have one side as a little flat, with a kitchenette and bathroom for our use. The heat is a pellet stove. There are little attic windows, so it isn’t very bright. But walk over and peer out – the views of the surrounding fields and 600-year-old trees are astounding.
Finally, the turrets or towers seem to me like “floors” in themselves, albeit vertical ones. They are off to themselves and have a variety of mysterious rooms and windows that I don’t quite understand and are kind of scary!
Back to my people comparison, I’m hoping I can be more generous and kind to everyone by keeping in mind that they, like me, are complicated and that they have a few more levels that I might imagine from looking at them. And my two cents of advice to you is to pay attention to your inner turrets, and work on cleaning out those scary parts!
Thoughts?
Social Media and Castles
What do you think when you see this photo and fantasize about spending a few months there?
What mental mind-flashes does this picture of a real castle provoke?
I have a number of friends who oppose social media because nice photos mask the reality of messy living. It is damaging, they lament. They have a point, even if most of us do know that our friends don’t post pictures of their shoes every time they’ve stepped in dog shit. And your Facebook friends do NOT usually show you pic of themselves after a big fight with their spouse.
We, as social media users, do know that everyone struggles, just like we do. But, maybe, let this castle picture be a new warning.
When I look at this sun-drenched photo of the south face of the castle now, I’m trying to remember what I thought I’d see inside. Before I stepped across the threshold, I certainly didn’t take time to consider a variety of alternative possibilities. I just quickly “pasted” in the rooms of a doll house.
Here is a 2 minute meditation for you: What grand fantasies does this picture of a real castle raise? What do you envision inside this castle; what – specifically – do you see in your mind’s eye when you look at this photo? If you want to write your answer below, I’ll give you a run down of what it was like for me to see inside. At some point, I’m going to count all the doors and windows, so if you want to hazard a guess, please do. I’ll give you another chance to guess before I post the numbers – I’ll have to think of a prize for the closest guesser. Suggestions welcome.
Surprises/Happiness/Butterflies
Do you know what really makes you happy? Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu have written a book about joy that makes me question where my happiness comes from.
Example: there was a cat-black butterfly on the ceiling of our bedroom, in the attic of the castle we are sitting. “Cat-black” is a color I just made up, to describe the wings-closed look of this butterfly. There are three black cats in my charge right now, so the color is fresh in my mind. The human eye is drawn to deep black, but in a butterfly – eh, maybe just note and move on? Anyway, it was there two days before I looked more closely and got a jolting surprise.
Years ago, I took a butterfly seminar from butterfly-master Robert Michael Pyle, and he taught me how to hold a butterfly and then to open its wings and see the topside. I took all four wings of the cat-black carefully between my thumb and forefinger, but…instead of gently holding it by the thorax and opening it up, it started struggling so I flinched dropped it and it landed on the desk.
Then opened up to the creature you see below!
The surprise made me happy. I think surprise in travel and in nature is what draws me. But I’m feeling thoughtful after reading Dalai Lama’s words, “…enjoyment can come through our senses [but]…it is inevitably fleeting...”
He adds, there is a “deeper level of joy…which brings inner strength, inner peace…”
The Book of Joy lists more than a dozen types of emotions associated with happiness or joy. I’ve been examining these emotions in my daily life, and I believe that pleasure through sensation (in this case, surprise) is the one I seek out most often.
But I’m loving the idea of actively nurturing some of the other ways to experience joy. Even though most of us have long known that money and buying stuff are shallow places to cast our lines if fishing for joy, these wise people have me wondering if some of my alternatives are also more shallow than I thought.
Castle Concerns
Since I’ve lived overseas, I knew what to be worried about…I thought.
Worry list from experience:
- making cultural mistakes (turning the wrong cheek for a kiss and hitting their mouth!!)
- not being understood over that tall language barrier (I once thought we were talking about watermelon, when the topic was something else entirely.)
- buying food/drink that seems normal but tastes odd*
- food and gas and so forth being way more expensive (turns out exchange rate is 1.17x more expensive)
After I got here, I realized I’d forgotten to worry about a few things:
- everything is slightly different, from laundry to garbage to phones to water, to turning on and off lights, to opening and closing windows and locking and unlocking doors and so throws you off a bit
- what if we get sick or injured?
- what if we get pulled over by the cops?
- what if one of the cats we are watching gets hit by a car?
Luckily, item number one, the different, is easy to handle, it just takes 10 times longer. As for the rest, to paraphrase Jesus, “what-ifs – those, we will always have with us.”
I got to thinking about our hostess, who leaves for the winter. Her what-if list must be really long:
- what if the house-sitters have a big party and trash the place?
- what if they burn the place down?
- what if they fall on the stairs, break a hip and want to sue me?
- etc. etc. etc.
*Someone, who shall remain nameless, bought a 6 liter pack of bottled water yesterday. How can you go wrong with bottled water? Took a sip at lunch, and it was SALTY!
Our friends’ Questions
We told our friends that we got a cat-sitting gig for four months in a castle in France.
They had a few questions…
How did you manage that!!!!???
What if you don’t like it?…Can you have a guest?…How big is this castle?…Can you leave the cats overnight? No really, how did you get this gig? Do you even speak French?
I had a few questions, too. Or concerns…I admit it, they were/are outright worries. I’m curious what your main questions/concerns would have been if you were doing something like this…Tell me your questions in the reply box below.
I’m glad you are reading the blog, I do hope you’ll share my posts about it on social media…and I bet you agree…“The most beautiful place in the world is, of course, the world itself.” -Wallace Stevens
Oh, Chateau! 