the normandy experience

"You're pathetic," said the old man sitting across the square countertop from me. I paused; I'd never actually been insulted to my face before, and it was a moment to savor. Because right then, as this old man I'd met just over a week before, spewed out his vitriol, I felt nothing more than the annoyance of that one mosquito in your room when you're trying to sleep.

If this had happened a year, or maybe even 6 months ago, I likely would have been in tears by that point, questioning my entire identity. But now, I knew that it didn't matter what he thought of me; he was wrong. I could tell that I would never convince him otherwise, and so I didn't try. Some people are smart enough to realize this when they are kids, or when they are at a normal job, or some night when they're lying in their beds. I wasn't quite there yet, so I had to be at a B&B in rural France.

You see, I'd found this program several months earlier that connected small businesseswith travel-minded people who would work a few hours a day in exchange for room and board. One listing immediately caught my eye: charming B&B in the Normandy countryside,  3-4 hours of work a day in exchange for food and a private room; it couldn't get much better than that! The owner warned me that there would be a few days of sleeping on the couch when a large group was there, but other than that, it would all be as it was on the listing.

After a few wonderful days in the south of France, I hopped on a night train and started to make my way up to the Northern coast. About 2/3 of the way there, I realized that I didn't know what either of the people looked like who ran this B&B, and hoped I'd be able to pick them out of the crowd (not that there was going to be a large crowd at the middle-of-nowhere train station I was headed for). Eventually the rest of the sand from Cannes left my shoes, and I found myself debarking the train onto a crumbling platform.

An older gentleman was standing somewhat awkwardly in the train station, so I figured that was the owner. I walked up, we introduced ourselves, and then got in the car and headed for the b&b. As we pulled into the driveway, I couldn't believe my luck. It was a beautiful, 17th century stone building, with a large, green lawn and pétanque field. It was a dream.

That night, I had my own room, and I fell asleep almost immediately after dragging my enormous bag across the entire country and then up the narrow stairs to my room. The next morning, I woke early, cleaned the room and bathroom, and moved my things downstairs, because it was going to be one of those few nights sleeping on the couch just outside the owner's room.

That was the first time I took a good look at the couch, and the room to which I'd be restricted for the next few days while the group of guests had the run of the full house to themselves. There was dog hair everywhere, some mold, and I learned that the owner let the dog lick the plates after meals. "Okay," I thought, and braced myself. "It's not that bad. You can do this. Life experience."

So I slept on the couch for a few nights. One night I woke up, certain I'd heard a mouse over where the owner was keeping our food for the days we couldn't go into the kitchen. It was dark, so I conducted a quick search by light of my phone, but didn't want to look too hard. I convinced myself it was a noise from one of the bedrooms upstairs, and went back to the lumpy couch to stare at the dark, cobwebbed ceiling for a few hours.

I'd already gotten into a good rhythm of working all day, and I didn't mind that it was a good 4-6 hours more than I'd expected. It felt good to do some weeding and hang washing on the line outside like an old-fashioned French girl. It was awkward, sure, living in this confined space with a man three times my age, but I knew there had been other single girls there before me who'd left positive reviews of their experiences, so I knew it must be alright. And in fact, one of those girls would be coming back in just a couple days to work with us for the rest of the month.

When she got there, we clicked instantly. That was good, since we'd be sharing the couch for the rest of the month (those few days on the couch had somehow turned into just a few days with beds, so we were confined to one small room most of the time). We worked and cooked and worked some more, and belted out show tunes while we made beds.

With another person on the couch at night, we confirmed that there was indeed a mouse. Again, we didn't look too hard for it (it was the middle of the night, what were we going to do if we found a mouse?!), and decided to wait for the morning to tell the owner. When we did, he said, "Hm, I didn't hear anything and I've slept in there before." Translation: "there is no mouse."

So when the other girl, who'd been pretty vocal already about certain things that should change, brought up the idea of getting a tent for us to sleep in, I was on board. It would get us out of the dogmouseroom, and let us get some sleep when the group of guests stayed up making noise until 3:00 am. She mentioned the idea to the owner, who asked what I thought about it; I said I'd be happy to sleep in a tent, especially since I hadn't expected to sleep on the couch all month. That was apparently not the right thing to say, because then he looked straight at me and said that if someone was unhappy there, they should leave: "especially if they are just generally unhappy." Despite this pointed remark, the conversation ended civilly, and the girl and I thought we'd at least come to a conclusion to consider getting a tent.

But a few minutes later, while I was hanging more laundry out to dry, I heard the owner say to my friend, "I'm glad I think we'll be able to resolve your problem, but I just can't handle Alyssa." Now, I'm a pretty peaceful person, and, as far as I know, people don't generally think I'm unmanageable or hostile. So later that afternoon, I surprised myself with my boldness, and asked the owner as politely as I could manage, what it was that displeased him about me.

He was shocked into silence for one of the first times since we'd met. A minute later, he started mumbling again about how if people are generally happy then they'll be happy anywhere, but if you insist on being unhappy, then nothing will ever be good enough, making sure I knew he was speaking directly about me. I let it go again, thinking, "Well, he's old.. he's probably confusing me with someone else...I'll give it another chance."

But that night, he called both of us to the kitchen again for another chat. And by chat, I mean we listened to him for an hour as he told us we were rude, insensitive, not lighthearted, too friendly with the guests ("I prefer to be more stand-offish with them, and I'm the proprietor of this establishment"), and too negative. I know, it's a confusing accusation. I listened to it all, and, still determined to make it work, apologized profusely for all of the things he'd imagined I'd done or said (without telling him he'd imagined them), and thanked him again for the chances he'd given us to see the area.

I was on a roll at that point, so I decided it was about time I brought up, very respectfully, something that had been concerning me. "I have felt disrespected by some things you've said to me," I told him, because you can't argue with the way someone feels (or so I thought). "You know what your problem is?" he retorted. "You have no sense of humor. I've never disrespected you, and if you feel disrespected, then you're pathetic.." Wide-eyed at the paradoxical nature of that sentence, I realized something was not right in his head, and nothing I could do would change his opinion about me. Instead, I tried to make a graceful exit from the conversation by begging pardon for my apparent lack of a sense of humor and grovelling, "I must have misunderstood you. It's all my fault."

Finally, after some more verbal abuse (which included calling me a religious hypocrite for abstaining from alcohol but not facebook), he told me to think about whether I would stay or leave, and to tell him in the morning. I stared for a moment, amazed that he thought there was still something for me to consider, and told him I would indeed think about it.

I went upstairs and immediately began searching for trains and rooms for the next day.

As the other girl and I discussed it later that night, she said something that made more sense than anything I'd heard all day: "He's so insistent that sometimes I wonder, 'Wait, is he right? Am I wrong?' And then I remember that he's a 70 year old man who lives alone and sleeps on a broken bunk bed on the floor with his dog and a bird. And I realize, 'Yeah, I'm right." Tack on to that the fact that he didn't bathe or change his clothes once while I was there, and I was feeling pretty confident in my approach to life.

And that's how, 10 days after arriving in Normandy, I packed my bags again and headed to Scotland, where I couldn't be happier! But I guess that's just because I'm a generally unhappy person...