“My isolation is a choice. It’s a luxury. And it’s always been my dream.”

One day or another, the ground becomes too low for the back. Inevitable aging of the body; whoever we are, whoever we have been. Brigitte confides to Monde not to think about his own old age. « Elle has flowed over me, day after day, without me caring. I don’t know if I’m old, and I don’t want to know. I continue to live as best I can. I can’t bend down, because my bones are cracking. That’s annoying, but it’s especially inconvenient. I don’t care, there are worse people than me. There are people who have terrible things. I’m lucky. Plus, I stand up straight.”

At the end of September, Brigitte, known as “BB”, will be 90 years old. Considering “have other problems”elle “does not pass [s]the life to [s]and look in the mirror to count [s]wrinkles or [s]“white hair”. However, when queried, the object reflects “few wrinkles”and this is due to the fact that “never smear anti-wrinkle cream”. As for the hair, BB knows and says his luck of “have them very long down to the buttocks”remained “essentially of [s]the original color, light brown, sprinkled with white streaks ». One meter fifty of “extraordinary hair” that she washes “all alone” in the sink. “It’s not painful, but it’s work!”

“I’ll tell you, I never complain. My bones play tricks on me and prevent me from moving around, except with my two crutches, but I cope very well with what they put me through. First, when you complain, it pisses everyone off, and then it doesn’t help the pain. So I never complain, and I live normally, like when I was younger, but with handicaps.”

BB says frankly that he kept “the same spirit as before, he remained very young”. “I haven’t changed, I’m very special in my judgments, in my way of seeing things. I’m very, very… I lose my words, well… there are some that I can’t get back, but it doesn’t matter, I have others.” She laughs.

“Lazy, I never stop working”

Before we heard her laugh, we read her round handwriting in a letter she sent us, after an initial exchange request. The capital letterhead set the tone: “DON’T PUSH GRANDMA INTO THE NETTLES.” After the epistolary came the voice, at the end of the telephone, the only possible place to meet Brigitte, who does not receive. There, the intonation, the breathing, the heart that speaks, the modesty that holds back, and then the laughter to punctuate.

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