Il y a paroles...

There are certain words in French that I only know from a memory. Every time I say a certain word there's a memory attached to it. Like gentil, it means kind. People say "Ça, c'est gentil"."That's kind".         I'm sure I'd heard the word before, but every time I hear genial  I think of the last day I was in Brest over the summer. It was a rarely sunny day and I was excited to wear shorts for a change. I had spent all day shopping around Brest and trying to say goodbye to the city, thinking of all the things I hadn't had time to do, or all the places I would miss (Histoire du Chocolat, the Kebab place, La Mie Câline). Ainsi, I was sitting on the bench at the bus stop in the hot sun watching french cars drive by. These 3 girls came and sat next to me on the bench. They seemed to have gone for a chocolat and milk run at the grocery store, holding bunches of Kinder Bueno and a carton of milk. Usually when I had to wait for the bus I'd run off to explore a new shop or buy myself a pastry from La Mie Câline or sit in a café to wait. But this day I was supposed to be home by 6 because we were going to a fête of some kind. So i was sitting and waiting. Extremely patiently. Without a watch. Counting the minutes going by. And this older woman walked up to stand and wait for the bus. I was glad when she walked up because I thought that meant the bus would arrive soon hopefully. But I didn't want to get up because then I would stand there and want to sit and have more temptation to run from my waiting post and miss the bus. So I was being the rude lazy american teenager. Just as I was thinking of getting up for the woman, the littlest girl stood up and told the woman to take her seat. The lady tried to protest but the girl insisted and the woman smiled very big and said "oh, ça c'est gentil. Merci mademoiselle" and sat down. I just remember the tone of the woman's voice, very thankful and very surprised for the small kindness of a little girl on a hot sunny day. It's a pretty common phrase, but every time I hear the word gentil I hear that woman's voice and how she pronounced the word with such thankfulness.