Lucky, happy

Today, quite a long day and a little disturbed for this morning I fell while going to the loo in the Starbucks in the 5th arrondissement near Les Gobelins, an old HQ.  

Anyway after some thought, I went to the doctor, for it hurt and I fell on my right knee just as it was starting to heal after I had a hematome after falling from the bike 2 weeks ago, this time not because of me but because a stupid passenger from a taxi car opened his back door as I was doublecrossing the taxi car on the right of the car.  Anyway, a classic accident as it happens, as I was told later on by friends or acquaintances who know someone who had the same accident happens.  Anyway this morning and 2 weeks ago, although I fell, I can feel myself lucky.

After going to the doctor, I went to Chez Neung, the Thai little restaurant I love near Les Gobelins, there I met a very kind lady, Sylvie with whom I ate for the place is often full and I don't mind sharing a table with someone else, on the contrary and this time it was nice, a 60ish woman, a resilient lady who told me about her life, her experiences and so on.  For over an hour we exchanged about our respective life and we got to know each other very well. She's very proud of herself, with 4 children if I remember correctly, a difficult early life with parents bringing her and her siblings in the old ways, rather strict and severely.  She told me about some Chinese friends she has, especially a woman who got traumatised in her childhood after she had to live with her mother in a readaptation camp.    Terrible what people have to go through sometimes and it's always a mystery to see how some people find resilience and others don't, a matter of consciousness level maybe but also a matter of encounters, it depends on who you meet, how you open yourself to new experiences and how one lets go of the past and enables love to triumph and to lead the way, how one trusts life, people and oneself.

This afternoon, missed the workshops at the ATRT to rest, the doctor gave me a certificate for my absence, I'll give it to them next time I go.

I was happy for I went to the public library where there's a puzzle workshop I love attending.  A free puzzle that everyone can help doing, usually it has at least 1000 pieces, it reminds me of my childhood when I used to "build" David Hamilton's puzzle alone or with dad, he helped me a lot do them.  I remember the biggest one we did was 3000 pieces, huge, but I've learnt there are some which make up 4000 pieces or even more.  Anyway, the one at the moment in the public library pictures an old Suchard's ad with 3 little girls wearing dresses and a bonnet.  I was struggling with the red pieces today, until the woman who is the head of the puzzle workshop told me why not try the white pieces which were much fewer, after 2 hours doing and having quite a hard time with the red pieces, I got on to trying to place the white pieces and indeed it was much easier, in about 10 minutes I had about 30 of them placed.  I get addicted to puzzles sometimes, I love doing them and it's funny for the more you do them, the better you get at doing them.  

I carry on reading short stories by Lucia Berlin, very good ones and so pleasant and fluid to read, she has a very fluid and genuine way of writing especially at describing people she meets with a lot of tact, a very sensitive writing.  Happy to have discovered her, by the way thanks to a Whsmith librarian who recommended me her book "A Manual for Cleaning Women" which is also the title of a short story I finished reading some time ago.