One way I like to think about community is as a series of links in a chain. You attach to a person, they hold you fast and one day you’re strong enough to turn and link to someone else who needs help.
You might not know every single person in your chain, but if even one of those links wasn’t forged, you wouldn’t have got to where you are today.
An important link in my chain came from my landlady turned friend, a 90-something-year-old eccentric French woman called Marcelle. I have more than a few stories about Marcelle, but without this one, none of the rest would have happened.
Marcelle grew up close to Avignon to Italian parents who taught her the cuisine but not the language. She got married, had two children and then got divorced all before the age of 24. From then on, she always worked, taking any job she found. Her last official job was in the 90s in an office, where she learned the secrets of computers and the Internet.
Retirement gave her the freedom to finally shape her own life and she decided to move to Nice by the sea. But even then, she worked as the care assistant to an older lady who would take her out for lunches in fancy restaurants and afternoons in the casino on the Promenade des Anglais.
When that lady died, Marcelle found another person to care for, an elderly man whose reduced mobility meant that he couldn’t leave his two-bedroom flat on the second floor.
By Marcelle’s account, her second charge was stubborn and cantankerous and she was the only one could stand him. When he died, as recompense, his family offered her first refusal on his flat at a bargain price. Her hard work finally gifted her what she always wanted: the safety net of a beautiful flat in a desirable area of Nice.
And, years later, that’s where I met her. The queen of her abode, allowing passersby to stay in her spare room which she let out on Airbnb through an account she managed on her tiny computer.
I had been in France for about 9 months. I finished au pairing and didn’t have anywhere to stay. I’d spent the previous night in a flat that my mum still refers to as ‘The Cockroach Palace’. If I didn’t find somewhere else to sleep that night, my prospects for a life in Nice looked bleak.
Marcelle saw me, tired and anxious, directionless but forced into motion, and she told me I could stay with her. She handed me the key then and there.
She added another link to the chain.
And here I am, still in Nice today.
~Sarah at CopyHop~
P.S. If you're interested in hearing more about Nice, my beautiful friend Patsi recently launched a new podcast called 'Tales From The Blue Coast'. She's a professional broadcaster and it shows. Catch it on Apple or Spotify now.
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