Tag Archives: boyfriend

Mar23

the french disconnection

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my boyfriend was an irish canadian, true and true, funny, and smart, and creative, and happy – a footloose and friendly graduate student and just what i needed at the time. i’d just been divorced, and we’d met in the states, he was my roommate’s cousin, here for a family visit. we’d planned to all go to an american baseball game together, but it was rained out, so he and i sat up all night, watching old movies, talking and laughing. he was kind of a cross between david letterman and tom hanks, with a bad boy streak, and i fell in love with him immediately. the first time i went to visit him in his hometown of ottawa, i was both a bit nervous and excited to see him. on our first day there, he took me to the beautiful town of hull, in quebec. 

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we rented a car and drove to a little neighborhood bar in the middle of town. once there, we were celebrating my visit with a few adult beverages and having a great time, and i began to spread my cheer around a bit and chat up the locals. having taken french in school for a number of years, it somehow all came back quickly, and i became amazingly more ‘fluent’ in direct correlation to the number of drinks i had. (l’alcohol math de francais theory)

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i talked to everyone around me and soon was engaged in deep conversation with a local motorcycle rider.

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we were having a ball, people were very friendly, and i was sure they could understand my french clearly.  at some point, i even felt comfortable enough to take the motorcycle guy’s sunglasses off of his head and wear them myself, after asking him in french if it was okay. he responded to me in french with words that i had not heard in all my classes, and after my boyfriend spoke a bit of french back to him, i gave him back his glasses. we all smiled and said our goodbyes, and we decided it was probably a good time to head home.

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we got into our car and as soon as we had driven 100 feet, we made a quick stop.

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we were suddenly surrounded by a huge pack of police.

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we were told to get out of the car with our hands up, and i wondered just what he was into that i hadn’t known about. i began to imagine all sorts of scenarios, he was really an international drug dealer, a gun runner, a smuggler, a spy?, and i told them i didn’t understand, as i did not speak a word of french.

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once out of the car, they told me to put my shoes back on, as i was now barefoot for some reason, and ordered us to open the trunk and step back. i imagined there would be some contraband, a body – god knows what. i looked at him and wondered just who i had really become involved with. after a thorough search, and a questioning of each of us, they determined that we were not criminals after all, and explained that they’d had been staking us out for the last 2 hours while we were at the bar celebrating and speaking french, and that we had rented the exact make and model and color of a car that had been recently involved in a local armed robbery. they apologized profusely for the inconvenience and advised us to drive carefully. 

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ADIEU!

i said goodbye to the police and we got back in our car to head out and talk about what an eventful day it had been. i took my shoes off once again and then we laughed until we cried all of the way back to his house. in english, i told him that i had believed he was a clever felon for just a bit, and in french, we told each other that we loved one another. as long as we dated, it never failed to be an adventure. right up until the day we said goodbye. and we remain friends. 

 I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying. Oscar Wilde

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image credits: rcmp, tumblr.com, wikipedia, moviesmakeover.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jan20

‘Good things happen when you meet strangers.’ – Yo-Yo Ma

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it was going to be a sad trip home. i was on via rail, and had boarded in the beautiful city of ottawa, heading back to my home in the states. i’d been to visit my canadian boyfriend, we’d been together 2 years, and had decided to go our separate ways. it was going to be a 13 hour train ride, and i just wanted a chance to think and drift in silence. i sat by myself, purposely, planning to listen to music and not do much else.

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as we were about to leave the station, a man sat down in the seat right next to me. he looked a bit world-weary, and had on a well-worn leather jacket, that looked much like his lived-in face. he introduced himself, had a very deep and gruff voice, and my first thought was, ‘oh no, i really, really don’t feel like talking to anyone, and this is going to be a really, really long trip.’

after a bit of polite banter, we sat, in silence once again, next to each other, and watched the landscape roll by. as i looked out, i began to think about everything, and a tear rolled silently down my face. i knew it was the right thing that had happened, that my boyfriend and i were not meant to be together, but also, how much i would miss him being a part of my life, even if we were in two different countries.

when he saw this, my stranger on the train reached into his jacket and pulled out a flask, and offered to share his whiskey with me. and  he began to tell me his story. he had been on this trip that he was so excited about, but was returning to his hometown a very sad man. he had gone to ask his girlfriend to marry him, had the ring and the speech and the flowers, and she had answered him, ‘no.’

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hours went by as we shared his whiskey and shared our stories. after a while, i began to stop feeling sad for myself, and took on a sadness for him and what he had just been through. we talked and talked, and found that we didn’t have many things in common, other than wounded hearts and our love of people. after a long while, i fell asleep and he continued to sit near me, ever the vigilant soldier, protective, and somehow connected by a break of the heart. i slept for a long while, and woke up to an amazing act of kindness.

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i discovered that he had taken off his beloved coat and covered me with it, had put a granola bar in my hand,  and put the engagement ring on my finger. when i looked at him, wondering why, he told that he worried i would wake up cold, be hungry, or feel unloved. he wanted to make sure that none of that happened.

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he said i had made him feel so much better, just by being there and listening, and that he hoped that i knew someone cared, even if it was a stranger. i told him that i was overwhelmed by his kind heart, that he had helped me in the same way, and as i gave him back his coat and his ring, i wished him the same. when we got to the final station, we hugged and went our separate ways once again. my friends were standing there, waiting to take me home. i told them how i had been engaged for a few hours, not to my boyfriend, but to a stranger i had met on the train. he may never know how much this meant to me, but somehow, i think he does.

Great perils have this beauty, that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers.  – Victor Hugo

 

Jun1

things i learned in my kindergarten classroom today #3

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 as we walked down the hall and he pointed into a classroom, v said to me, ‘i had a girlfriend eve, who is in that big kids’ kindergarten room, and she is 6, one year older, but now she has a new boyfriend, and so i got a new girlfriend, who is 5 like me, and is right in our own room.’  (well played v, and for some reason, the only word that came to my mind was, ‘cougar.’)