You see, I’ve lived too many miraculous “coincidences” to believe they’re just that…coincidence… I’m going to tell you a story that starts with a drawing, a simple sketch of a girl in a hat with hearts circling her head, made one spring morning all the way in a little town in southern central France, called Foix.
Il était une fois à Foix, a man awoke with a vision and without a single hesitation drew it on paper. You should know that “foi” (fwah) pronounced the same but without the x at the end, means faith in French. Faith, in oneself, in one’s own human power is the moral of the story I share with you.
Now this piece of standard printer paper adorned with this young lady traveled with the man in a plastic sleeve, in a red folder all the way to Paris, near Les Halles, where I was meeting my friend Julie at a café “Le Bon Pêcheur” (the good fisherman). Julie is Parisian but we have been friends for 18 years, having met at tennis camp in Malibu with her older brother Arthur. (Who happens to have inspired the lyrics for my song Ça C’est L’Amour, but that story is for another time.)
Towards the end of the terrace the man dramatically rolls his cigarettes attempting to catch my eye. He wants to make himself known, huffing and puffing, looking around frantically for something, and at one point he catches me, we lock eyes. He blurts out:
“Vous êtes un performer!” (You’re a performer!)
To which I reply, “Mais non, monsieur c’est bien vous le performer.” (Oh no, sir, you are the performer.)
I wasn’t the one performatively rolling cigarettes in the café. He stands, abandoning his rolling station,
“Vous voulez voir mes dessins?” (Do you want to see my drawings?)
He wants me to see his drawings, how random, and yet I accept graciously. Julie’s eyes widen as she lowers her head, laughing to herself.
“Seulement avec toi, Madeline, c’est pas possible” (Only with you, Madeline, impossible…)
Yes, I guess this kind of thing only happens to me? I’m sure there are others who accept for peculiar strangers to show them their art…no? Just me?
He approaches our table with his red folder full of drawings, in which sits the piece of paper. I sift through them, all rather uninteresting and abstract, not quite the world of Da Vinci or Raphaël, but I stop on one drawing with a girl wearing a hat on the back of her head and hearts fly around her; at the top of the page is written “La Ruée Vers L’Or! Los Angeles, USA 2017 … signed Marc, then Marc with a heart around the name Nora.
I ask if this is Nora.
He replies in a slurred French that no, his girl is in the other less-defined drawings. He has no idea who that is. I look at him, back at the drawing, at a speechless Julie, back at the drawing…
“What made you draw this?” I ask him intently in French.
He slurs back that he woke up one morning in Foix with his “nana” and saw this girl in a vision so he didn’t think twice and drew her, writing “La Ruée Vers L’Or…” (Road to the Gold) he continues by reciting the words on the page. Julie looks at me, I look back at her equally flabbergasted.
“On dirait que c’est toi Madeline!”
Yes, I could say the girl looked like me. Hat on the back of her head, looking to the future, to the road of gold? I look at the date on the drawing, it looks like a 09/09/17 à Foix, but the line of his pen is thick, so I ask Marc when he drew this image. He takes the drawing into his hands, and looks at the date closely, then thinks, and says
“C’était le neuf mars, c’était le printemps que j’étais à Foix”.
(It was the 9th of March, it was spring when I was in Foix)
The ninth of March, this date rang a bell to me. I immediately pick up my phone and search in my emails for March 9th, 2017… Sure enough, it was the day I purchased my tickets to return to France for the first time in five years. Woah. In some parallel universe, could this be me who this man saw and then drew one morning? How? I share my train of thought with Marc. He pauses as Julie shakes her head again, saying this only happens to me. He looks at me. He smiles. I ask him if he would give me the drawing for the only 5 Euros I can spare. He obliges, after writing his phone number and address on the paper that he pops out of the red folder and hands me in its original plastic sleeve.
Fast forward three months later, I’ve officially transferred the lease to my dream LA apartment, the one I didn’t even spend 9 months in, and I’m back in France left with ten days in between apartments in Rennes, the town in Brittany where I had spent my year abroad at 16. I get the idea to go on a backpacking trip, alone, something I’d never done before and always dreamed of doing.
As I’m looking for destinations in France, a voice in my head begs me to search for Foix, likely because I had come across the drawing collecting my belongings during the move. I search and come across a night train for Foix. Two birds, one stone. A night train! To Foix! It was meant to be. I book a cabin for women traveling alone, knowing I have absolutely no plans for those ten days, nor any accommodations planned in Foix; I was jumping blindly into the unknown, half following the drawing of a stranger I had met three months earlier. What could I say? This is my life. I follow the wind.
Once in the night train, sporting my “Make It Happen” beanie, I realize quickly that I am not in a cabin for women traveling alone, and the vibe of the two elder gentlemen in the cabin was just not making me comfortable. I leave and begin to weave through the aisle of the cabins asking where the cabins for women traveling alone were, a tall woman in a fur hat and coat turns to me:
“Il y a des cabines pour des femmes qui voyagent seules?” (There are cabins for women traveling alone?)
I affirm but that I am not placed in the one I requested, so I disembark the train to wait on the quais and find the contrôleurs.
On the quais, a man approaches me, lingers for a moment and then asks, if I am traveling alone. Great, I think to myself. This question. I stand firmly and look him in the eyes and say yes, I am. He looks me up and down, my big blue backpack on my back, my fancy but comfortable shoes, certainly not meant for backpacking, my purple U Express bag full of snacks and food, I look…French I’d say? He asks me where I am heading, and I quickly reply
“Toulouse,” knowing it’s the first stop on the night train once we reach the south of France.
He looks me up and down again, taking a puff of his cigarette he spits out “Toulouse c’est hardcore!”
Toulouse is hardcore? Good to know. I snap back in my best street french,
“Moi, chui hardcore”.
He takes a step back. That’s right, I’m hardcore. He then asks if I’ve been drinking,
“Non,”
No worries, because he wants to tell me that he’s been drinking since 11am, rum and cokes, all day, because he was celebrating.
“Celebrating what?”
As it turns out, my new friend had just gotten out of prison.
I step towards him, extending my hand:
“Tu t’appelles comment?” (What’s your name?)
“Fred Thomas”.
I need to know his name, in case, but I do tell him mine. I ask him if he has family, if he is going to see them, what he’s going to do with his newfound freedom.
Still no contrôleurs to be found, and it’s time to leave, so I move to get on the train, Fred follows closely behind, lighting a new cigarette as we get in the train car. He casually smokes his cigarette between the wagons. I can’t believe my eyes. Here I was concerned about traveling in a cabin with two old guys, and now I find myself with a chain-smoking ex-convict on a night train. I ask if he maybe wants to put out the cigarette; but this falls upon deaf ears. So we continue to talk as the train departs Gare d’Austerlitz, and he doesn’t get weird with me, if anything, more comfortable because he leans in a little just to ask if I want to smoke a joint with him…
“Dans le train?!” (In the train?!)
In the train? Who is this guy? Out of jail all of one day and he wants to light up a joint IN the train?
He proceeds to hand me ALL his belongings from his pockets. Everything: from his passport, to his loose change, his wallet,, multiple SIM cards and flip phones and… this man was searching for a tiny piece of hashish in his coat, and (luckily) to no avail. Once I had returned his belongings, the contrôleurs arrived.
“Ah vous encore monsieur, pourquoi vous êtes pas vers votre cabine.”
(Ah, you again, sir, why are you not near your cabin?)
Of course they already knew this guy. He apparently wasn’t in the right place according to his ticket. They turn to me and ask if I’m with him. I explain to them my current situation looking for a cabin for young women traveling alone, so one man leads me to an empty cabin and says it’s all mine.
Fred hollers out to me that he’ll come to find me later. Fantastique. The contrôleur gives me a look, and shows me how to lock the door of my cabin. I settle in, three bunk beds on both sides, I take the top right and record videos for Instagram telling stories of my encounter before falling asleep.
I am awoken about an hour or two later by the smell of smoke and a faint whisper-scream of “mon amie!” from the hallway… definitely “my friend” Fred. I ignore and return to sleep, to be awoken by the sound of an announcement: we must disembark in Toulouse and change trains for the future destinations due to a security issue. Fred?
On the quais in Toulouse I see the woman in fur, she steps onto the train across the quais and asks if it’s the train for Foix: it is. I follow her to ask why she is going to Foix. She finds my question funny, but I tell her I don’t really know why I’m going and that my story is rather long, so I wanted to know why people go in general. She laughs to herself and tells me she was going to see the mountains and a friend. We made small talk during the trip, and then I decided to ask for her name.
“Nora.”
Wait…what? Nora?
“Nora?!” I whisper-scream back.
Now I have to tell her my story, after which she whisper-screams back to me:
“Mais non! Moi je vais rejoindre un Marc!” (No way! I’m going to meet a Marc!)
No. I mean? What. Are. The. Odds. I am speechless, we both are.
Obvious Spoiler: it’s not the same Marc, hers is a dancer, so I know this is not THE Nora… unless maybe it is and she has a thing for artsy Marcs. Anyways.
Shortly after we arrive in Foix, both of us disembark and I see her join her friend. They do not embrace, they do not kiss or do bisous, no, they hold each other’s shoulders and look intently in each other’s eyes. The energy is palpable. I even journal about it outside the train station, because I have nothing to do in particular but here I am, in Foix, alone, and possibly just maybe delivered by some guardian angel? Who knows? Who cares? I am out here, in the unknown, in a town that sounds like the French word for faith…while testing my own.
As you may imagine, this entire backpacking trip was quite the adventure if those were the first 12 hours. I’m going to fastforward to the last stop on this trip, again in the central southern parts of France in another town called Lourdes, where there are healing waters.
It is reported that miracles have happened in Lourdes, the sick instantly healed by the hand of God, or the water, or who knows what? My friend’s mom is actually one of the 11 recorded miracle healings of Lourdes. But before I knew that, I knew was that this place was calling to me, so I went.
Using the application Couchsurfing I found a host, Fred, who happened to be the Chief Nature Police in Lourdes. He greeted me at the train station, gave me his room to sleep and set down my things (like a gentleman) and then dropped me off at the sanctuaries. I really didn’t know what to expect. I try not to overindulge in information about a place before I experience it myself, only then will I deep dive into the history and context.
I learned that the Saint Bernadette had claimed to witness a “Lady” coming to her eighteen times in the year 1858 - 160 years from the time of my visit in March 2018. This lady wore a white veil and a blue girdle, a golden rose on each foot and carried in her hands a rosary made of pearls. In a beautiful exterior chapel in the heart of the sanctuaries, a statue of The Lady of Lourdes appears amidst a gold with blue accents, where all the dates of these apparitions appeared in a mosaic. I take in the chapel and notice that two of these apparitions fall on the birthdays of my mom (February 18) and my sister, Isabelle (February 25). It is recorded that the third apparition took place on the 18th of February 1858, officially the first time the lady spoke to Saint Bernadette, asking her to come to Lourdes for a fortnight. Then on the 25th of February 1858, she appears a ninth time, this time in the presence of 300 people, and Bernadette is told to go drink from the grotto’s spring and eat bitter herbs found nearby. No water ever came from this spring until the following day. These are the miracle waters meant to hold healing properties.
Well. I was already in Lourdes, so I text my mom, who reminds me that she mentioned Lourdes and its healing waters in her book “Soupelina’s Soup Cleanse”, and now I had to drink from the spring.
I proceeded to the grotto where it is suggested one leave a prayer with Notre Dame de Lourdes, for she grants miracles. At this time in my life, I would say I was learning what I call the very French “Art du Recul” or The Art of Taking a Step Back. I realized I spent so much time feeling unheard, when I needed to really start listening to myself. I was just beginning the deep healing that comes after we decide to act upon our visions and share them with the world with an open heart. After writing out my prayer, I remembered my own perspective on prayer, that it’s our divinity we ignite with intention, followed by action, because we know “God rewards hard work.” So I decided to rewrite my prayer as an intention, a promise, for myself, for my peace of mind, and for what I hope to bring to the world. I have to fully practice what I preach, don’t I? Wedged between the cracks in the grotto’s wall, dripping with fresh, healing, holy water, my personal notebook paper read:
May the people who need my spirit find me.
May I meet them on my journey through life.
May I light the fire that has been extinguished inside them.
May I help them dream and find a way.
May I help them find peace and happiness with themselves.
And may these people find each other so as to not feel so alone.
May they feel the love they deserve.
May the bad find their humanity.
May the people who can do something do it with vigor and passion.
May all these people see me as a light in their lives, a source of life and energy.
May I be protected on my journey and empowered to believe in the unknown.
May I help those I can if they are truly in need.
May you give me strength, mother, for I believe and believe this is my path in life.
Love,
Madeline
I left the sanctuaries slowly and at the gate came across a young man who greeted me in perfect English. Thomas was there by pure coincidence. Originally from Utah, an American Mormon in Lourdes for three months volunteering in the sanctuaries. Fascinating. We shared visions of the world, stories of our different educations, perspectives on the Bible, Jesus, religion, humanity, purpose and destiny. We walked through the city and eventually parted ways when Fred came to pick me up to go see the snow on the top of the mountains. The next day I received a text message from Thomas:
“I’m really glad I ran into you. I’ve been in a battle in my head about destiny and my free will that has possibly led me astray about what I’m called to do. But you definitely helped me reconfirm my personal thoughts of the plan God has for my life. So thank you. And it was awesome to meet you!”
It only occurs to me as I tell this story that there was my ex-convict friend Fred Thomas at the beginning my travels and then a protector of nature, Fred, and a servant of God, Thomas, at the end of my journey. What a trip. Literally.
It’s these surreal and cosmic experiences that give me the strength to persevere and continue down my path to the beat of my own drum. This road can be lonely at times, but I’ve learned the value of that solitude to heal and step into my power, my evolution, to observe my humanity. Whenever I travel alone I feel my senses are on overdrive. I’m extra observant of everything that’s around me, the people, the vibes…because of this I have had my fair share of interesting interactions and encounters with people on my travels. It’s opened my eyes much wider to the beauty in the world around us. The world is my classroom, people my teachers, and I am a willing student. I’m learning to choose to be my most authentic self in every moment, not just most of the time. With that I believe that everything happens for a reason - each person whose path I’ve crossed has taught me something. Whether it’s a smile from a stranger or a chance encounter with an ex-convict on a night train.
Now, I can’t promise to give you some secret knowledge that unlocks this humanity and love for life in all our souls, but I will do what I can to share what I’ve asked myself, observed and learned along my way; fully aware that I’m still learning and that will never stop, the cycles will continue infinitely, and I will share them all with you as we move along together.
My dream is that in using my voice and my gifts to share my story and in allowing myself to step into the light and be seen, that you recognize that same strength and awareness in you. That you feel brave enough to leap into your life, listen to yourself, hone your voice, and share your heart with the world, all in your own unique way.
You are never alone because I believe in you.
Let's start the journey with a song!
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