Language Barrier

To be honest, though my Parisian life feels crowded with my daily errands and meetings and events, the vast majority of my time revolves around trying to learn this Godforsaken language. It is...challenging, to say the very least. I told someone today that "I don't think any single activity has induced as much self doubt as learning French." Which is probably true, but I'm actually not sure that it's fair to classify this immersive project as one singular activity. It kind of feels like I've taken ever aspect of my life and rotated it 90 to 180 degrees, which is a dizzying prospect to consider. So on top of spending hours a day in class and hours after class writing compositions or reading free newspapers or listing conjugations, I attempt to take advantage of every opportunity to practice my "French." I say "French" because even after 6 months of intense study and for no lack of effort on my part, I think that when I speak, even with a generous estimate, it only comes out as intelligible French about a quarter of the time. Sometimes it's franglish. Sometimes it's nonsense. But I'm trying. 25% of 1000 phrases a week is a lot more than 25% of 100.

So here I am, running full speed towards an illusive barrier. And this is still the grammar/vocab/conjugation/word order barrier. The thing that makes it so much harder (and it sounded so easy to start with, right?) Is that beyond this 5 story high steel force field is not, in fact, an open French meadow of lavender and bottomless onion soup. It is a 1.5 foot wide trap, enclosed on the other side by a bullet proof glass barrier that is so clear it appears to not even be there. This is the language barrier of which I will write today. The cultural language barrier. The wall that I fear I will not, or even more depressingly, potentially cannot be crossed.

I had a very good childhood friend visiting me this past week, and i was surprised to find that despite the fact that we could have both medaled in the sarcasm Olympics in our earlier days, nearly everything she said, nearly every joke she made, went completely over my head. Like I'm not talking I lunged and it was beyond my grasp by an inch. I'm talking I was in the nosebleeds behind home plate and she hit a homer out of left field. Like no register. No connection. How could something that once came so naturally be so completely foreign now? (And I'd like to take an opportunity to issue a formal apology to all of those whom I have upset or made uncomfortable with my sarcasm. Trust me. I get it now.)

And then, catching up with a friend on fb chat, she made an allusion which completely eluded me, which she explained only by saying that "oh, how funny, you don't get it because you're not here!" Which did not sit too well with some bubbling homesickness.

This is all just to say that as I walk down the infinitely long road towards French fluency, I walk farther and farther from the cultural component of English. It's kind of infuriating, but mostly because I know that I'm in no place to be compensating with French cultural fluency. Will I ever understand a french joke without a 5 minute explanation?

And I feel like I have enough of those anecdotes to fill a book, much less a blog post. But I'll treat you with an overarching and positive one: when I first met my now-landlady, she was a little cold (by American, not French standards). This is back when I could only say "bonjour" et "chic" et "un petit chien," all of which you can imagine are very useful in everyday Parisian life. Jokes. Anyway, fast forward three months, I can string a sentence together, however tenuously, and she gives me crème brûlée on a regular basis and we share our coffee and she talks to me about her country home and teaches me the word for wheelbarrow...in short, she likes me. She told me to tell the French bureaucrats that I am her American cousin if they gave me any trouble. 

Umm, what? We're family? We went from you not saying hello to me to being family? And while the French are notoriously moody, I think there's a bit more to this swing. I speak French, now! And despite the fact that I know that it's not very good, Liz complements and encourages me. She switches to English if she thinks I haven't understood. She teaches me phrases that I never would have learned in class. All because I can conjugate in the present tense! C'est un miracle, vraiment.

In reality, there is much more to the cultural language barrier, especially in French where the written and spoken forms are practically two languages. Slang and tone and double entendres can still elude me. But this idea, that we change, that we open up, depending on what language we are using, is fascinating, and also lasting. It's an "in," so to speak. It's a shared hobby or interest, a favorite film that you have in common. But it's also so much more, because it's not tangential or fleeting, but rather...your whole life. I don't know how else to describe it besides saying that it's the light at the end of this tunnel, and also the bane of my existence. 

Mais, c'est pas grave. 

Joyeux Thanksgiving!

There's obviously no standard french thanksgiving greeting, so I went with that. If you disagree, I don't really care.

Hi! I had the intention of posting something much sooner after the fact, but my Parisian Thanksgiving was so lovely and lasting that I feel as though I've only just recovered. Thanks for understanding. It was an adventure for sure. Something between an elaborate scavenger hunt, a chic soiree, and a money bonfire. Seriously, draw a triangle between those three points with convex, zig-zagging lines, and you'll get a pretty good idea. I did not buy a 100 euro Turkey complete with gobbling neck and tail feathers. I did buy a 29 euro pumpkin pie. This is just to give you a general sense of how Turkey day goes down here, which is to say with great cost.

So I'm very lucky. I have a lovely/brilliant/social Canadian/Chinese/American classmate who volunteered to host a few us at her host family's home for a very close approximation of American Thanksgiving. I'm going to say that the only missing components were unlikable relatives and an early start time. We are in Paris, after all. So, I spent La Fete du dinde with a few classmates, and my host's other awesome American friend and awesome host sister...did I use awesome enough?

I fear that you'll think someone else wrote this. It all sounds a bit too upbeat to be me. But I swear, It's me! Thanksgiving has never been the most meaningful holiday on my Calendar. I don't have a large extended family, and what I know I don't necessarily like (aaaand she's back) and the Thanksgivings of my childhood were spent/are remembered as pin-balling between my mom's relatives year to year, where they demonstrated their hospitality in ways varying from having us child gremlins eat in the basement so as to avoid soiling the white carpet ranging to refusing to prepare to make a kosher Turkey for my family. In short, the alleged sense of cooperation and familial love were notably lacking.

The food also didn't do much for me. Until well in to my teens I hated all sauces: dressing, ketchup, thick soup...it was all terrible. And the dry base of thanksgiving is really only made edible by the various gravies and goos. And I think we can all agree that Turkey is just the worst. When do you ever go to a 5 star restaurant and see Turkey on the menu? Oh, what's that? Never? Right, because it's completely devoid of any redeeming culinary qualities.

So this is all to say that by the time we made our family friends' meal our annual tradition, there was little sentimental significance to be gleaned. And then college came, and I went 3000 miles away, and having no idea how home sick I'd be we all decided that I didn't need to come home for Thanksgiving. Which was no big deal. I went to the home of a family friend whom I'd never met before. And it was actually really nice. She served cornbread (my favorite!) in terracotta pots. 10 for plating. And I met new people who I liked to varying degrees and had a lovely day. And then every other year brought some entertainingly new and non traditional solution. The change and surprise became a tradition unto itself, and I'll admit it was infinitely more enjoyable than my sister criticizing what I was wearing while trying to chew through the driest poultry known to man.

And, in that way, this Thanksgiving was no different. It was an opportunity to celebrate this Parisian moment in my life and these new people that I have the opportunity to get to know and eat the classiest potluck of food my palette has ever come in contact with. In short, it was a real opportunity to give thanks. It was easy to be aware of my situation (the contrast to last year could not be more clear) and it was so...pleasant, truly delightful, to spend upwards of 7 hours with a group of people who I really only have two things in common with:

1. We're in Paris
2. We celebrate Thanksgiving

And with a holiday that can so easily be corrupted by parades and Disney and football and Walmart, how wonderful is it that I got this opportunity to acknowledge what I share with these other people. It really should be a holiday that celebrates what we have in common, and nothing makes this more clear than being so far from home. A sense of belonging is definitely something to be thankful for, and french red isn't too bad either.

A Great Miracle Happened Here

Hi. I've kind of been a mess these past few weeks (in that I'm doing more social things and I'm still adjusting to being in class until 6:30 two nights a week, NOT that I'm in any kind of dangerous head space) so this post is going to be about thoughts that have been stewing for a few weeks, maybe even months? Maybe even my whole life, who's to say.

So the first outdated piece of the puzzle comes from a few weeks back when I had a French breakthrough. The final installment in our first round of presentations, in which we had to present our passion, was a topic right up my alley: a discussion of the history of Asian immigration to the U.S. and a discussion of contemporary Asian-American culture. (I am very interested in immigration and, more specifically, the Venn diagram of identity presented to immigrants and their children.) Anyway, not the point. An "often-wrong-never-in-doubt" type in my class (I guess in an effort to show how aware he was of current events in France?) broke our discussion of Asian-American acceptance in the U.S. to ask our professor about antisemitism in France, which quickly devolved into chaos by means of a few powerfully mal-chosen mots. He has a tendency to confuse dissimilar things, like when he confounded Arabs and Muslims. This time he called antisemitism racism, and then tried to save himself be shouting at us that he has Jewish blood. And, by some veritable miracle, my bubbling fury at the Nazi era classification was funneled into patient, coherent, thoughtful French...it's several weeks later and I can still hardly believe it happened.

"No, your blood is the same as her blood is the same as her blood. In Eastern Europe they may use the word race to describe a part of your heritage that you don't otherwise have a word for, because it no longer functions as your religion, but it's incredibly offensive, and loaded, to call Judaism a race. Because it's not." (because race is a social construction, but even working from that point, Judaism wouldn't be a race) It was a bizarre moment, both because I suddenly had the ability to express my fury in French and because I couldn't believe that someone would take offense to something as scientifically empirical as the fact that Jews are not a race. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT I AM!" he shouted irrationally in English...fair. But also, I can. Because you can call yourself anything you want, but that doesn't make it true.

For kristallnacht a few weekends back I spent Sunday afternoon at the Shoah museum here with a mixed group and a free guided tour which I would have happily paid for. He was excellent, particularly in that he was clearly impassioned by his work. I'll skip the first 2.5 hours to when the American couple left. They were the only anglophones on the tour (besides me) and they gave me a very clear sense of what it means to be an American tourist. They were New Yorkers with a certain audacity, not that they thought the world belonged to them, but they seemed to have a sense that they only had to ask, which is so markedly different from the social isolationism of France that I can't even get in to it. Anyway, they were VERY interested in our French guide's perspective on current anti-semitism in France, which he was willing to give in private but reluctant to give in front of the group, primarily because it's not at all the purview of a  holocaust historian and (as he revealed to the group after the New Yorkers left) because there is such an irreconcilable difference between the Anglophone and Continental concepts of religious freedom and religious tolerance.

In the U.S. it's all about being free to openly practice whatever religion you choose. In France it's about having the freedom to practice whatever religion you choose without it being anyone else's business. The French census doe not ask about your religion. It is illegal for employers, real estate agents, schools to demand this information. Religion, like so much else in France, is private. And, if you want to wave your Jewish/Muslim/Protestant flag, that's on you.

The guide had dozens of anecdotes from WWII about the ineffectiveness of German antisemitic propaganda on French citizens. There were elementary school boys who made fake yellow stars for themselves so their Jewish friend wouldn't stand out. Then and now, it's not about Judaism. There's no problem there. The problem is with zealous observance of any kind, displays of faith if you will. Which is still a problem, it's just a different one than the NYT conceives.

And this has all kind of been reeling through my mind as Noel approaches. It's beautiful here, lots of tinsel and boughs of ivy dusted with snow, Christmas markets with wooden stalls, understated but merry. And I love this time of year: any reason for people to consciously be kinder to each other is just fine by me. But, I also feel transplanted back to third grade. Let me explain. It is VERY difficult for an 8 year old who waits all year for Santa to understand that somebody doesn't celebrate Christmas, and even once they wrap their head around that bombshell, it's inconceivable that this poor Jew wouldn't be devastated. And I would just respond the same way I did in middle school when people asked incredulously how I could have lived without eating a bacon cheeseburger: "It's never been a part of my life, so I don't miss it. It's no big thing." And then they console themselves by saying Well, at least she has Hanukkah, and I think at some point I gave up trying to explain the lack of importance of the festival of lights.

So here I am, in Paris, without any Jewish friends and I suspect there are several people in my class who, whether they realize it or not, have never met a Jew before. And I'm happy to spread awareness on 80 year old misconceptions about race, or about the laws of kashrut, or about the holidays...but something about it feels off. It's not true, but it feels like I'm the Last Jew standing, and there's something in recounting these vibrant through-lines of my life for the cultural education of others that feels a little too much like recalling a lost civilization, which especially in Europe hits a bit close to home. And the good news is that it's not true. The bad news is that that's not necessarily the way I'm living, and I'm not sure what to do with that just yet. But, Hanukkah is just around the corner, and since according to my classmates it's an important moment, maybe there's another miracle, or even a moment of clarity, just around the corner.

C'est la vie? C'est MA vie

GAWD I hate this whiny bitch. I mean, it could be because the writing isn't that good (let's call it repetitive in an uninspired way and uninspired in a repetitive way) or it could be because technically I haven't been 23 for 27 days or it could be that I very actively made life choices to avoid living my way into these cliches. (Fear is an excellent motivator.) But the part that really gets me is the cheesiness at the end. Seriously? Neither you nor your audience deserve this coddling, and you haven't for nearly two decades. Get your shit together. Or at least take on your shit with a fresh approach.

Speaking of dealing with metaphysical angst in new and exciting ways, the Picasso Museum reopened here in Paris after an (unexpectedly long) five year renovation. (Now that's what I call a transition.) Picasso,"the insider who was always an outsider," lived in Paris for most of his adult life and though I've never seen a curator call him Parisian, he was certainly in conversation with these enclaves of otherness that populated the city of lights (all the way from gas to electric) in the 20th century. And it's kind of funny that we associate artists like Picasso and Hemingway and Stein with this City when their experience was probably closer to an occupation than an immersion. They hung out with other expats and did expaty things and sure, they patronized local businesses, but cafe creme and vin rouge do not a Parisian make.

And I'm really no different. There is a constant struggle...struggle is the wrong word, it implies that my life is hard...a constant tug between blending in and embracing the aspects of my otherness that make Paris all the more exciting. When I see a picturesque alley curving into a softly lit corner, can I take a picture? Do I want a picture? Should I pretend that this is normal, or feed my own aesthetic delight? At the end of the day there are no wrong answers, and the choice is really mine to make what I want of the experience.

And here's the secret: that is not a condition particular to Parisian photo ops. As a member of the universe's most coddled generation I feel like, much to my disappointment, it might be necessary to remind my peers that 23 (and 22 and 24 and all the way up, as high as you care to go) is not an incurable disease. Your early 20s are not an illness or temporary psychosis or punishment. This epoch of our lives is a boundless realm of opportunities, which can either be squandered whining and watching netflix or experienced at the hands of the world that exists beyond the triple locked doors of our tiny apartments. (Note: there is in fact room for both, it may even be a necessity, I'm not ruling it out)

Well you make it sound so easy...like I have complete control over my own destiny, like I'm the only one to blame if shit's not going the way I want it to...Well...yea! A little extreme, but hate to break it to you sunshine, all the excuses people have been making for you are now being showered upon the next generation of over/under achievers. So put on some Sara Bareilles, and then some Beyonce, dust yourself off, and be honest with yourself about your life. Acknowledge the things that make you happy. Revel in them. Change the things that don't. Yes, CHANGE! You can do it. Relatively young dogs learn new tricks all the time. ALL the time. And once you accept this challenge the frightening yet empowering truth comes out, which is that your life is not a circumstance of the universe or voo doo or your neighbors who have really loud sex while you're trying to sleep. It's just you. So make the most of it.

Netflix in moderation. Responsibility in gross. It's called growing up.

Save Room for Apple Pie

So...how's it been? I know, I know, I just kind of disappeared there. But I've got excuses and then some. Like my phone got stolen from a poorly made hostel bed while I ducked into the bathroom. Rude. And I usually write weekly at my Shut Up and Write gatherings, but I was busy and away and then busy writing about being away...so here we are.

A month and OH SO MUCH has happened. For serious, I finished my trop intensive beginner french class and consequently jumped to intermediate, which has indeed felt like I skipped elementary, which is what I did. I guess part of that is the adjustment to the new professor, and part of that is the level, and part of that is my classmates who like to shout out answers because apparently they want to prove to us struggling plebs that they know more than us? We get it buddy. You're not coming off as intelligent now, just as an ass-hole. Is that hyphenated? Oh English grammar, where have you gone...

I can feel my brain making room for the genders of nouns and irregular verb endings and cultural laws and the olfactory identification of cheese. But what am I forgetting? What is being repressed or pushed irretrievably into the oblivion? It's easy to know some of the things that I'm losing: names of elementary school classmates, celebrity factoids, triscuit flavors. But I sense there is a larger body of information that I'm losing unknowingly, perhaps frames of reference that have just completely shifted. How bizarre are traffic signs going to look if/when I return stateside? Will I still be able to operate a coffee maker 87% asleep? How much do a half dozen eggs cost in U.S. Dollars? I have no idea...

So, you see cher reader, it's kind of bizarre. I have a passion for Manhattan, but now I'm infinitely more familiar with the streets and metros of Paris. And I've always loved bread, but damn, I fear the day that I won't be able to choose from 3 equally but distinctly fantastic baguettes. And though I'm convinced that eclairs are the DL nectar of the gods, my Parisian sensibilities curb my appetite to a maximum of one a week.

This is all a colorful and very food centric way of saying that I've changed, and after 4 short months it feels like Paris is a part of me that I won't ever be able to get rid of. And I guess I'm just not exactly sure how that happens. How do novelties turn in to routines? How do things you've done a bajillion times still feel fresh? Not just pleasant, but genuinely thrilling?

I...don't really know. I guess just chock it up to the magic of Paris. Because the most surprising thing that has somehow been pushed aside by an encyclopedic categorization of Parisian pastries and the mostly illogical streets of the Latin quartier is a longing for the good 'ol US of A. I'm not saying that I could stay here forever, but I am saying that if the people (whom I miss dearly) came to visit me, I don't know that I'd have a compelling reason to go back...which is kind of scary and liberating and...i don't know, I guess exciting.

Here's to one way tickets and clear head space.
(and to the very unclear head space of one way tickets)

Les Étrangers

The week of September 7 to 13 is one that renews annually my fascination with the stories of immigration, identity construction, and American multiculturalism. Not exactly "how to pack for your weekend in Milan in 7 easy steps!" Or "but really, can I wear shorts in Paris?" but nonetheless a series of questions that define and encourage my passion for exploring the corners near and far of this planet we call home.

This past Friday I had to go to OFII, the French immigration office, for a long awaited appointment to say "hey France, I'm here!" And for them to say "yea, yea, we know, but first you have to have a medical exam." Most of my anxiety for the exchange was based on my series of horrible experiences at the French embassy in NY where I mostly felt like I was in a YouTube web series that was steryotyping the French or realizing a series of nightmares. Let's just say it wasn't exactly pleasant. But despite its windowless waiting rooms and topless x-rays and impatient employees, the whole OFII process was surprisingly efficient and organized. That may be because everyone was waiting, stewing in their own anxiety about when the frenchness of it all would come to bite them in the ass. But it could also be because we were just a group of étrangers who wanted to take care of this formality and continue living in France.

I couldn't help but think of Ellis Island. Huge halls bursting with immigrants. After my eye exam I probably would have received my pink chalk x on my coat and been sent back to die alone in Poland. But that wasn't the only difference. Because when I think of Ellis Island I think of my great grandparents, not because they necessarily came through Ellis island, but because they immigrated to the U.S. and had my grandparents, who worked hard and lived well, and they had my parents, who were the first in their families to graduate from 4 year college, who have also worked hard so that I can get somewhere they haven't been. And I chose back to Europe, where they have literally been, but I think figuratively you see what I'm getting at. And I am the first to admit that this linear American dream excludes millions of Americans, for millions of well researched and documented reasons ranging from housing laws to hiring practices to lending policies, but to me it feels like a very real and personal part of my history. Which was particularly strange as I sat in this waiting room that made me think I might be in a holding port on an alien planet 1000 years in the future, that kindly took on the remaining humans after we had used up all of our resources and our hosts were now evaluating the refugees for the extent of their radiation poisoning.

Despite its innacuracy, the divide for me has been past v. future, racist v. multicultural, my parents' world v. my world, suspicion v. understanding. And I think this is probably an appropriately idealistic division of realms for a 23 year old living in Paris off of 4 years in California off of a childhood in a liberal household in NJ. I want to believe that the worst is over and the best is yet to come, for me but also for the world.

I had my book club this past Monday, and in a stroke of fateful coincidence we had read "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close," which naturally gave way to a discussion of 9/11 and the detail that I was the only person present who had been in the U.S. at the time. I grew up in New Jersey, a neighbor of New York but I never would or could claim to be a New Yorker. But my mom was working at South Street Seaport September 11, 2001. She took the PATH to the trade center from Jersey city every morning and took it home every night. I was in fifth grade at the time and was deemed too young (as was my entire school) to be told what had happened by someone who wasn't my guardian. So I have three very distinct memories of that day:
1. My teacher being pulled out mid morning and coming back in pretty upset due to unknown causes which later became very clear
2. Running into my house after school and finding both of my parents home, but more specifically my Mom. This was bizarre. I can count the number of times my mom was home when I got home from school on a seal's fingers. Something was clearly wrong.
3. And amid the endless news coverage, replaying the same videos and pictures and clips I remember seeing a line of nurses and physicians waiting at ER entrances for victims who would never come.

These are unoriginal, but specific enough to satisfy me. What I found far more interesting were the perspectives of the other 20 people in my book group who hadn't been there, who had watched from afar. And what was remarkable to me (as I think I may overcorrect the issue of American arrogance to a fault) is that they cared. They told me that the world had perceived America as being untouchable. That it was horrible. And in my response to the book's connection between Dresden, Hiroshima, and Manhattan (my concern being that perhaps this was the author's way of saying you can only kill so many civilians before it gets back to you) a particularly insightful reader and woman responded "no." "No, that's not right. They were all just civilians. And that's never right. That's never deserved. That's never 'what's coming to you.'" Which, in the divide between past and future, I hope we can hold more steadfastly to going forward. But, in not sure that we did. Immediately following 9/11 there was so much hatred, fueled by xenophobia and aimless fear, towards Arab Americans. It didn't really matter what their religion was or where their family came from or how many generations of their families had been natural born citizens of the United States of America, only that they were different and dangerous. It was the most thorough racism that I think I'll ever see. And take note that in my immediate response, my clearest memories, and I suspect this is true of many many people, it was the shock of the event, trauma on a human level, that grabbed us. It was only injected with venomous politics in the after math.

And now, in some basic, minimal way, the tables have turned. I am the stranger in a strange land, one without any history of hospitality towards outsiders, or even towards insiders. I am in the place of my great grandparents, but with an escape hatch. I am in the place of so many citizens after 9/11, confined to a box because of my loaded nationality, with the obvious improvement of aggression towards me being slighted and more subtle. And yet, I don't find myself craving home.

Last Sunday I went to see Le Magicien d'OZ at a revival movie theatre and was surprised by the message that eluded me as a child. Before heading home to wake up from her fever dream Dorothy proves to Glinda she has learned her lesson by saying, "Well, I - I think that it - it wasn't enough to just want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em - and it's that - if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?" And with a release date of August 25, 1939 I suppose this opinion make sense. What could be better than the good 'ol US of A? Why would anyone want to leave? But to stretch this deeply isolationist dictum 75 years into the future would be a great disservice, to the individual and to the world. First of all, Dorothy never would have learned her meaningful lesson and just generally gotten her shit together sitting on the couch in Kansas. And second of all, by heading to OZ with her earthly knowledge bordering on magical, she is able to rid them of their public enemy #1. So I can't help but be pleased with my choice to head to the emerald city in search of a way home, not as much to return, because my friends at United could help with that, but to understand it better. And I'm keeping an eye out for buckets of water.

Back to my Roots

This week has brought a heap of reminders of why I started this blog. It is called Quarter for your Thoughts, because I like English language idioms and word play and my senior year of college I signed up for a creativity workshop and found myself craving an outlet for all my fear and anxiety. All of a sudden I was graduating and I didn't know what to do and I really wanted to believe it was going to be ok, but as my peers know and my elders remember it isn't so easy when you're seemingly surrounded by success ad infinitum. People with dream jobs and dream apartments and even dream weddings abound.

And then it got harder. Because the plan that I did have failed, and then not only was my day to day life unpleasant but I had nothing to look forward to. It felt like I had missed the last train and I was stuck in the unfriendly land of underachievement and underemployment. And it was from this sense of rock bottom that I rallied and harnessed my inner Dana and made Paris happen.

But this all a preface to saying that I feel I've been doing a disservice to my 3 readers. Perhaps you read this as an escape, but I can't in good conscience continue without a word of caution. In the world of Facebook, Twitter, and instagram I fill in gaps of communication with friends with their social media social lives, which consistently look incredible. My friends are moving in to cities and getting real jobs and drinking bottomless mimosas at brunch. They're living the American dream set forth by Rachel Green and Lena Dunham, and when emails and postcards and Facebook messages go unanswered I assume it's because they're too busy tweeting clever things as they people watch while getting a drink before an outdoor concert. Because that's what their lives look like through the  filter of the internet.

But then I do hear back from them. And when there's #nofilter I realize that they aren't doing that well. And while they're smiling for the camera there is plenty going wrong that they haven't told me. Jobs are bad, roommates are terrible, relationships are on the rocks: and yet omelettes appear on instagram every Sunday and profile pics are updated to reflect the most recent cultural outing or booze fest or relationship, even if they weren't that great.

And it upsets me, but if I'm being honest I've been doing the same thing. I learned early on in my Athens blog that if you really write the full range of emotion you
1) lose all sense of privacy;
2) make people think you're manic, if not suicidal;
3) abandon creative license over your own story.
People remember not as you do, but as they remember your blog. And the benefit of human memory is that it allows us to remember and edit our past in a way that makes sense for our present. But putting that in someone else's hands is dangerous. So this blog is much more skewed towards the positive. Or at least the sane. It's also worth mentioning that being 3 years older, I'm just generally a slightly more stable person.

Which is all great for me, but I don't want the people out there who are using this as source material (whether to understand how I am or to compare to their own experience) to think that I have it all figured out or that this is all easy and relaxing and simple and pleasant. I'm alone in a city where I just barely speak the language, which is thrilling for all the same reasons that it's terrifying. And while the experience is intense, in a good way, that also means that everything else is happening at an intensified rate: people are leaving, people are arriving, my brain is kicking out old stuff to make room for French, and to be alone in a city so enveloped in its own identity of romance and intimacy is exhausting.

And on top of all of that, I still have no idea what I'm doing next. Which is to say that I'm more or less where I was 18 months ago, but with a better view. And no, I'm not really in the same spot. But my experience isn't that helpful and I'm still struggling with essentially the same questions.
So, I am happier then I can remember being in years. I feel more centered and more calm and more ready to make those life choices, but I'm not there yet, so just for the record, don't compare. Take it for what it is: a highlights reel, a series of pleasant musings, me figuring shit out on an ongoing basis. I hope y'all can say the same.

The Idea of Paris

Paris is a city that universally excites. I don't mean that everyone loves it (all you have to do is stop a Parisian in the street to know this isn't true) but it evokes all kinds of associations and implications from history and literature and contemporary culture. It is a charged city. And while to a large extent these ideas are individual, a projection of what matters to us personally, there seem to be some generally accepted Parisian truths. There's the romance of the architecture and the airiness of the atmosphere and the swaying branches that line boulevards where women in turtlenecks and men in boat necks sip cafe with poodles in their laps. So...not so far from the truth. But definitely not a snapshot.

For me, it's hard to think about the American love affair with Paris without Hemingway. His portraits are what drew me to the city of lights, his blurred and intense version of reality. It was like an oversaturated watercolor sinking slowly beneath the surface of the Seinne. And to be honest, when I first came here in 2011, I don't know whether I enjoyed the present Paris as much as that version: which one was I actually seeing when I chatted both the book stall vendors or regarded water lillies or saw women in perfectly tailored trousers walking their dogs with baguettes under arm. Was I seeing Paris, or was I reading a real time Hemingway synopsis? Who cares?!? Said 2011 Dana.
The land of starving artists and perfect café...it's like the west village on crack, what's not love?

The answer to that question is both simple and complicated. The simple response is that it's not real, that I'm in love with a hologram. The more complicated response follows from there: Paris is a real 21st century city with absurd rents and a growing homeless population and a self imposed need to freeze a moment 150 years old and peddle it as authentic and current. It's an illusion that is safeguarded by laws and popularity: Mr. and Mrs. Johnson from Nebraska didnt come to Paris to see skyscrapers or even art deco, they came to see Paris, the constantly changing city that refuses to change. I'm definitely biased against the Parisian brand of preservation. For any number of modern reasons (efficiency, heating, lighting, safety) and because my reference point for urban life has always been and will always be NY, the world capital of upheaval and renewal, something feels insincere about the Parisian snowglobe.

But, I can't help but love it too. So many people that I know say they feel inspired by Paris. They paint every day even though they've never picked up a brush before; it's never been so easy to write, it comes out of them with a will of its own; by my own observation people even speak more poetically; and if the tourists' cameras mean anything then on any given day there are 3000 budding Ansel Addams in the street. And I feel it too. You feel the effects of the preservation and the aesthetic preoccupation with almost no awareness of what it took to create this magnificent ship in a bottle. How funny that something which is dead, or cryogenicly frozen, can make artists feel so alive.

Maybe that's the secret: frozen but not dead. Paris functions as a blank canvas, a very well crafted, high quality, aesthetically pleasing, perfectly proportioned blank canvas that maybe young post grads don't really deserve, but a blank canvas none the less. And the fun or the magic is that we each bring our own ideas. And by never changing, Paris offerts us opportunities for new cities each time we return. Eaxh time we leave our apartments, as a matter of fact. And it's not just us laypersons that have this experience. Give Monet a brush or hemmingway a pen or Jackie a fitting and, voila, we're in love, not just with the city and our ideas, but with the idea of someone else, the sense that the magic we feel is both personal and universal.

Female in France

As the ground around my Paris roots hardens there are beaucoup interrelated topics I'd like to work through, dissect, understand. Most of them are in the nebulous of identity, like what is it like to be a French woman? Why am I a target for French men? Why is it easier to be yourself with other foreigners whom you objectively have less in common with than the French? In short, the mysteries of a temporary life abroad...

Let me start with the most unpleasant aspect of Paris for me. It has slowed down, but too often for my liking, men stop me or approach me and ask me something or say something in French, to which I respond "je ne comprends pas..." To which they respond with apparent delight : Oh! What do you speak, English? Where are you from?!? Let me clarify that this is, by Parisian standards, incredibly strange. The man that passed me by the Sorbonne caught my suspicion when he smiled at me, which now seems as strange as bowing to a stranger on the street, doing a rain dance around them, and then running off singing Tina Turner. It's strange. He confirmed my suspicion by then turning around, following me, and catching up with me to...I honestly don't even know where he can see this going. But he's gunning for it. Then there are the men who invent places to ask me directions to. Then there are the men that seem harmless, but seem to revel in the opportunity to teach me French or yell at me for not knowing it. And then just to keep things exciting, there are the homeless men who demand kisses when I deny them quarters.

And I don't want you to misunderstand this as harmless flirting, because on the rare occassions that I've allowed conversatIon to progress it inevitably ends with being asked if they can touch my hair... or if I'm interested in going back to their apartment. The universe does not just throw good men at you, that's not really the way it works.

And if it weren't for my natural response to this, it wouldn't really be a problem. There's no threat of physical attack and these strange encounters usually occur during daylight hours. But they're uncomfortable and unpleasant and sometimes upsetting and I have, without even noticing it at first, switched into aversion mode. I don't make eye contact with anyone on the street. I don't look up at posters or billboards for more than a few seconds. I don't crane my neck. I don't smile. I essentially pretend that I'm deaf: I reject all aural data. And while I don't think that this behavior has significantly lessened my fascination with the Alien planet that is Paris, it's not a particularly pleasant or open way to go through life.

My point isn't really oh, I shouldn't have to change my behavior patriarchy feminism sex objects blah blah blah. That's just not particularly useful. It's nice to think about the kind of world we could live in, but it's not the world that we actually live in, so those suppositions and hypotheticals aren't particularly helpful in coping with my reality. There are certain realities that we have to adjust to, and refusing to change our behavior is perhaps the least useful way to combat it. I'm not suggesting that pretending unwanted male attention is normal or giving in is the way to go, but only that progress is achieved in the way respond. Pretending that we don't have to respond is an easy way to change nothing. This is all a very theoretical way of saying that I'm looking for a way to shut it down without shutting myself off, and that that solution, when I find it, will be a big thing.

I had the great pleasure of hitting a wine bar with some of my classmates after school on Friday, and I enjoyed hours of conversation on any number of things, but as may be expected in a quartet of expats a lot of our discussions ran through and returned to identity: gender equality in Australia, Hong Kong v. Mainland China, Taiwanese interest in ABCs, the four types of Americans (for the record, it's apparently Americans, Jewish Americans, African americans, and...I can't remember the fourth category). But I guess that it takes a particular type of person to leave their life for half a year and move to Paris so despite the seemingly infinite list of cultural differences, big and small, there is an essential similarity in world view. Namely, that there's something of value and interest in every culture, but more specifically in every person. And, most importantly, that the two aren't interchangeable: generalizations aren't steadfast and while it's useful to make rules, we must admit to breaking them by virtue of our circumstance. Obviously I'm not your average American. If I were, I'd be in Paris, TX, not Paris, FR. But in that round table we each became an authority on and a stand in for our respective national cultures.

So maybe there's something there: managing awareness of the individual and the whole, while somehow being aware of how you come across...the great expat balancing act. And I guess there's something to be said for staying curious, asking the questions, trying to understand what upsets you as opposed to writing it off. Wish me luck.

Well, obviously, she's American...

In my French class on Thursday we were reading one of Festival's (my French book) lovely dialogues, this one revolving around two roommates who went to lunch together, which gave way to a long debate: who pays? Yukiko and Chris were enjoying a lovely lunch for two and when it came time Chris was assigned the task of asking for the bill.

"But of course!" Exclaimed my classmates from Hong Kong and India. He is the man, he will pay. My professor, partly because she was ready for her vacation and not anxious to teach us more grammar and partly because she was curious, started an international debate, which was really just me verses the rest of my class. It ended with a Portuguese man in his late 40s saying that he believed in equality, which to him meant Chris paying, then
Yukiko paying, and then Yukiko preparing all subsequent meals at home. The immediate response of my professor was to turn to me "and Donna, what do you think of that?" I think he's a fucking moron, that's what I think of that. Of course I only know about two of those words, so I said something else, but that's what my tone said. This went on for no less than half an hour.

Then the next day, the Colombian girl who had been absent was confused by references to our discussion. She was upset by the mere supposition that the girl would pay. Aghast. Madame Gsell explained that in many places it was standard for the man to pay, but that Donna had not agreed. To which she responded "But of course! She's American!"

As if this explained everything. As if all my peculiarities and preferences were explained by one adjective. Maybe not so much explained as excused by. I could be forgiven my stupidity, for what else was I supposed to think growing up in that hotbed of needless liberalism? I responded with a laugh, as that's what the rest of the class did, and proudly proclaimed "Oui, Oui! Je suis américaine. Je suis féministe. Je suis libéral." My bubbling fury and confusion got the better of my articles.

It was such a strange moment, but not at all uncommon. Catching up with a friend a few weeks ago he commented on an earlier post about the professional/private distinction in the French personality saying that he found it to be true in the U.S. as well. He found my observations reductive. I was stereotyping. And I was. He was 100% right. Because when you're exposed to so much new at once, your response is to divide and condense it in to more easily digestable packets. It's exhausting to sincerely consider each individual and each action as a unique entity. Imagine trying to explain all of the behaviors of just one person for a day. An hour. Why was the cashier nice to her and mean to me? Because she spoke French? Because I look like a mean Nanny he had when he was little? Because in between ringing us up he remembered that he forgot to feed his goldfish this morning and his mind went elsewhere? It's impossible to say. And exhausting to try. Which doesn't mean that we shouldn't, it just means that it might be unreasonable to do it 24/7.

I'm not a scientist, but from personal experience I think that it's the way of the human brain to observe, find patterns, make rules, and behave accordingly. It definitely works in our favor when we're doing things like learning object permanance of learning to walk. But, when we're learning about the big things, the things that put the mechanics to use, like new cultures for example, maybe it does more harm than good. Because it's nice that my classmate could find such an airtight explanation for my opinion, but really, what did she get from it? Besides proof for a generalization that wasn't really true?

So is that what I've been doing? Reducing the French to their simplest terms? Their most convenient definitions? Ignoring the details for the illusion of understanding? Well...yes. Obviously. I'm human. What do you want from me? BUT, maybe it's an important first step. How could an alien new to our planet understand what a lion is without understanding what animals are? Well the lion could attack him, that would help him out. But then he's only getting one aspect, and I think that's what experiencing France is like as a foreigner in Paris. I'm being attacked by a lion. I don't understand the language that well. I look different. I smile. So I only get one side of the lion. I don't see the lions hunting or playing or sleeping, only attacking me. But maybe as I change, as I learn French and adjust and become less strange, I will have the benefit of seeing their other habits.

A Forgotten Post

I find being miserable exhausting. I spent most of the day in a fitful stupor. After a long weekend full of near misses, I desperately wanted today to be good, but approached it with the expectation that it would be good all on its own, that the world is self correcting, that my bad mood would be rectified by affirmations and explanations...what a joke. However well things may be going in this city there is absolutely no one who is more interested in my well being than I am. So why give myself such a disadvantage, to start a week with cartoon wavy rays of anger emanating from my furrowed brow, crossed arms, hunched shoulders. I don't even want to talk to that person, why would anyone else

It's one thing to not need to be friends with everyone, but quite another to not be friends with anyone. You might need to re-read that. Lots of double negatives.

And often it's just a small change of perspective, most often sparked by the smallest of victories, and sometimes just the absence of failure.

Like not being confused by the clerk at the check out for the first time. And while looks from pâtissiers when I mispronounce éclairé are scalding, they are also just a reminder that to be successful you can't just try hard when you're happy, you have to try hard when it's the last thing you feel like doing.

I find that homesickness comes in waves. It's not so much that it ebbs and flows. By waves I mean that it sucks you under, breathless, drowning, a faint light your only indication of the surface. And even then, as you kick and flutter and flip in an effort to save yourself, another wave crashes, blinding you with white foam. It all feels counter intuitive, like maybe it would be easier to just sink to the bottom and find your way out the other end.
And then in some unseen tumult you are thrust towards the surface and in a spasm of energy, coming from some store kept hidden from even you, you burst out like Ariel, thrilled to live on a planet with breathable oxygen and full of confused joy that you've made it. And you celebrate the victory by yourself. That's how homesickness is like waves. It's like the last week in August on the east coast, when the tides promise hurricane season.
Plus tard...

So I found this draft when I sat down today to offer a new post. A delightful, uplifting piece to be certain. Self-indulgent and temporary and incompatible with any discernable creative arc. But I thought it was worth sharing.

When I started telling everyone that I was moving to Paris for a few months to learn French I remember being surprised, or at least slightly jarred by the most common response I received:

"Wow, you're so brave! That's so brave...etc etc."

When I read these messages and emails and texts I remember thinking "well...not really." I mean, I'm my mind, the financial risk was minimal, I wasn't spending money I didn't have; the geographic risk was non existent, Paris is a major metropolitan area with all the presumed comforts of modernity; the language barrier was kind of the point, I wanted to learn French; and the social risk could be no worse than returning to suburgatory for a year after college, at the very least there would be other people my age.

It became clear that very few people registered those changes the way I did, and in recent weeks it has become clear that these well-wishers seemed to understand something that I didn't. Risk doesn't have to be irreversible to be real. Investing emotionally in a path or a particular version of the future is just as potentially devastating as an emptied bank account or being alone.

And what a lovely way to think of myself, as being brave. Because its not all that easy to wake up every day with the resolve to give 110% to something that I don't really know how it's going to work out. So bravery then just becomes the choice, the decision. I'll take this risk. I'll miss friends and family and peanut butter in a healthy way. I'll walk towards an end that I can't see.

Smiles All Around

I don't think I have ever been as aware of the intentions and effects of my American smile as I am in Paris.

My very first day in the city of lights I headed over to my school to pay my arm, leg, and first born child among other similarly delightful formalities. The final step was taking my picture for my super duper official Sorbonne ID card. The lovely woman who herded me through the process kindly notified me that I could smile, an important reminder since throughout my entire visa and entry process it seemed to be a universal rule that smiling was forbidden is such official matters. Partly out of relief and partly out of overcompensation for a hot summer day and jetlag I have her a big grin. "Ahh there's that American smile!" She observed astutely. "Americans really know how to smile." Kind of in an unintentionally offensive tone that we don't know how to do much else. I left a little confused by my oral oddity and generally thankful for her help.

But she was the first clue in a long trail. My thousand watt American smile is a peculiarity. It's also an instinct. I make eye contact with people on the street, because we're all staring at each other, and I automatically smile, saying "hi! I'm not an axe murderer!" Or I'm racing down the metro steps because I "hear my train coming" (jokes, it's the other direction you fool) and I smile at the figure stooped at the foot of the stairs, shaking his measley 47 cents at me, saying "I'm sorry, but my poverty level is too dangerously close to yours for me to help you." Or I'm walking through le jardin de Luxembourg and I see an adorable spaniel running around with a stick, whose owner is using a rectractable leash to give him the illusion of freedom, and I smile at the dog saying "damn your life is good! How did you get so adorable?"

But generally I think these are read as "she's going to attack me! Why is this joker rip off staring at me?!?" And "she's going to give me money!" And then "cruel cruel world..." And "stick! Dirt! Tree! Owner pulling me away from weird foreigner!"

And it's not like I'm a smiley person by nature. I have to consciously make an effort to smile more often when I meet people because my resting face looks manically bitchy or suicidal. But it's an American instinct. "Stay calm parisians, I come in peace" I mean to say, but instead I apparently express my interest for men to approach me with all varying degrees of flimsy excuses. Sir, there is no way that I, an obvious foreigner, know the metro better than you. Leave me alone.

And how could this be? Is a smile not a universal symbol? A natural human express in? I guess now that you mention it the French do seem to all walk around with this neural grimace, the facial tick of a perpetual observer I suppose...is that the French equivalent to a disarming grin? Seems unlikely...

And yet, new friends smile when they greet me (and kiss me on both cheeks, how Parisian am I ?!?), my landlord smiles hello, our professeur is bubbling with energy and laughter, so maybe it's a personal divide. Another pleasure relegated to the private realm of France, reserved for those deemed worthy of the residual wrinkles. An interesting solution, but not one I have any confidence in adapting myself. Even in foreign language, the gratitude of Merci commands a small upward pull on the corners of my mouth. How could everyone not feel the same?

They just don't. A smile means something slightly different. I have yet to test if coke has maintained its correlative relationship. But, regardless of the implications, a smile is still contagious. Not in all cases, maybe more like a yawn than an airborne illness. But buying my dessert at the bakery, trying so hard on my French accent, the lovely boulanger hands me my change and I give her the whole nine yards: the full cheeks, the tilted head, the slightly lifted soldiers, as if to say "I understand how annoying I am but I am so grateful for your patience in both baking and language" and she smiles back, eyes twinkling, as if to say "d'accord."

Contagious and controllable. Last night I went to a picnic armed awkwardly with deux baguettes and a Bordeaux, none of which were touched. C'est là vie. Si i returned awkwardly armed with a full baguettes and 7/8 of a baguette. And then I passed a man on the stairs at my metro line shift pleading for change. I paused for about a billionth of a second, my only second thought being what if he is offended. You see French bread is incredible fresh, but it's fresh for about two hours. So there's no way I could eat that much, nor should I. So I said, with a humble smile, slightly bending, "Bon soir, monsieur." Pulling the baguette from its crinkly sheath "vous..." And using the formal, respectful you and an lifted brow I handed this man the bread. He nodded almost imperceptibly, not because it was a slight movement but because his smile, the relief, the joy, the gratitude, was blinding. Including the home video where I got puzzle place pajamas for my 5th birthday, I have never seen anyone in my entire life look that happy.

So they do smile in Paris after all. Maybe it's reserved for those big little things, like warm bread on an empty stomach. Not like weird foreigners on Rue des Écoles.

Who needs the World Cup?

I am trying to get by spending as little as possible here in the universe's most expensive city, which is more challenging at some times than at others. For example, when I get the majority of my weeks 's worth of groceries for 8 Euro? Easy. When I pay 2 Euro for water because I forgot my bottle at home? Hard. When I read enough Hemingway that I feel full? Easy. When I pass the billionth pâtisserie in a row? Hard. You get the idea.

But something that makes it very easy is all the free entertainment. I suppose that most parks are like this in most real cities, especially in the summer, but indulge my suburban bias. I could sit in the Jardin de Luxembourg for hours and hours, and if, miraculously, I tired of it, I could go sit in another park for a few hours more. It's not just people watching, it's everything watching. The children running away from their nannies. The traveling families having budget picnics on the benches. The ducks! They're so colorful when they flap the water out of their wings and Bob their beaks under water. The purple and green. Gorgeous! Who knew? Probably everyone, but they still delight me. There are the flowers and the fountains and the innumerable statues. The old men reading their newspapers and the children shouting on the playground. But my absolute favorite thing to watch and the world's most generous offering of free entertainment are the sports.

There's everything. Tennis and squash courts.  Basketball. Soccer anywhere that two stationary objects lie close enough together to resemble a goal. And I feel that I'm constantly discovering new corners of trodden down greenery where completely unfamiliar or entirely made up games are being played. The act of discovery is an adventure unto itself, without even mentioning the delightful pleasure of watching. Perhaps this is a bit voyeuristic, but I choose to embrace it as one of the many luxuries afforded the solo traveler, and free luxuries are not something I pass on quickly.

Today I sat for some time and watched a game whose name I do not know. I want to call it bocce, but that's a largely unfounded temptation. There's a set of...plots, I'll call them plots, under the shade of the trees by one of the western entrances to the jardin de Luxembourg. Its divided in two and surounded by a 9 inch high wooden wall. The whole space is roughly the size of an elongated basketball court and it's split in two by some coat racks, because, I suppose, the French men are nothing if not gentlemen. The winner of the previous round flicks a small neon sphere of plastic across the gravel, and from what I could gather there are two teams and each man has the challenge of getting his brass balls as close to the speck as possible, throwing these (pretty heavy, if I were to guess from the thud they made when they landed) balls from a prescribed circle. That's the basic premise.

Beyond that there are two ways to throw and two ways to play. There is the high arching, tip toe climbing, beautiful toss of the get-it-as-close-as-possible. It looks like a man releasing a bird he has personally nursed back to health only for it to turn to splatter paint at the moment of release. Why does no one make statues of this? Then there is the low to the ground, straight shooting, aggressive, full of targeted precision. The men cycle through their superstitions, grind their teeth and aim with confidence, knocking enemy brass out of their territory. An upsetting if not useful truism for life: there are two ways to live: lightly, concerning yourself with your own success, or heavily, ensuring your accomplishments by cutting down those who threaten you. At least in this there is an obvious winner.

But there is a third option, which brings me to my other favorite spectacle. Across the street from my apartment there is a croissant shaped park that hugs the corner. On the right side of the smile are benches and flowers and small looping footpaths, big enough for a children's bicycle race. On the left side of the smile is a playground in the corner and a large staircase, sweeping might be apt, that curves down from a building I have not been able to identify with four walls of trelices and finishes in the park with a fou rain marking the mid point between four well defined goal posts.

Every day there are games: Boys v girls, brother v brother, older siblings v younger siblings with the youngest toddling around in their elders' shadows. A few days ago there was a great game between  a group of 7 ten or eleven year olds. They picked teams by putting their arms around each other. They rotated goalie when the goal tender got bored. The younger sister who watchmen from the fourth step up within one of the goals was not abused or reprimanded. When a goal was scored everyone smiled at the play well made. No threats were made against the goalie. No gloating was to be had. And the game was ended not with a score or an injury, but with a call from home to watch the masters perform in the world cup game. And so we have the third option, the best of all. Live in such a way that others' joys are your joys, that individual happiness becomes group happiness, and you will be both light and successful.

Passively Social

I think that Paris is the most intensely and yet passively social place I have ever experienced. The city is essentially designed for people watching and the culinary and cultural experiences are structured in a way that everyone can watch each other. Walking down the street is like walking down a runway, partly because these women and men are dressed to the nines, flawlessly outfitted, and partly because you feel (justifiably) that you are being watched and judged in the same criteria. I half expect there to be a judges' table waiting at my front door. Well your outfit was good, not great, we give you an 8.3, but your air of mild disinterest and nonchalance is much improved, we give you a 9.1. If the pressure were not so unavoidably present it might start to weigh on you.

That's Paris. Dress the part. Act the part. Enjoy it, but be annoyed by tourists enjoying it. A lifestyle, but not a life. For that, I need some active social contact. A friend turned me on to the website meet up, which is basically like clubs for real people (indulge me in pretending that I am a real person). I have now been to three, and I have to say, they're awesome. Predictably, the social component is the hardest adjustment. Maybe it's not that predictable. But you learn how to act, you figure out the word for blueberry, you adapt to local grocery store behavior. There isn't a quick fix for "I don't know anyone within 1500 miles of me..." Maybe it would help if I used the local standard for measurement. C'Est la vie.

And this isn't a quick fix. I don't instantly have new best friends. But it is a solution. You get to hang out with good people who are passionate about something you're passionate about for a few hours. And whether it's just a band aid for the isolation or the first dose of a long term cure, it's a pretty solid way to spend an afternoon or evening.

Thursday, to celebrate the end of my first day of school, I joined a drawing Meet up on Ile st. Louis. I brought wine and madeleines and tried all manner of other French nosh as we enjoyed a picnic on the Seinne, sketching as the sun painted everything orange. I got to do something I enjoy (draw), in a way that I almost never get to do it (live action figure drawing), with a group of brand new supportive people. We ended by standing in a circle, passing to the left, and saying what we liked about the work we were holding. It was fabulous. Creative, fun, and affirming. And then I strolled home, eyeing the burnt Notre Dame, and studied French for 3 hours.

Today I went to another creative meet up, this time for writing. The group is called Shut Up and write, which sounds pretty antisocial, but it's this pretty cool concept where you work alone, but with people, for 30 minutes or so, and then you take a short break and eat and drink and gab. It's great. You get to hear about all these really cool projects and people and their thrilling lives and then you get to channel that creativity into your work. And it was in a shop called Anti Cafe, which is kind of what it sounds like. You pay by the hour, and then everything you want is free. Cookies, veggies, peanuts, teas, juices, cappuccinos, cafe cremes. That was basically my menu, and I only paid 7 Euro, which is less than I would have paid for two coffees at a cafe. And I got to eat fresh raw veggies! I feel so good.

A friend asked me what my least favorite part of Paris was so far, and I was proud that I didn't really have an answer. After a year of the hell of freelance life and part time work and suburban isolation, Paris really is a dream. And the hard stuff, the language and the social life and the rain, are all just part of the romantic adventure.

Shopping On Mars

Whenever my mom goes to a new country, or even sometimes just an out of the way place, she always finds a grocery store. Sometimes she will invent a need (aloe! Corn chips! Obviously together...) But more often it is just a kind of wander by and pop in kind of thing. It's her litmus test. Restaurants with translated menues and American media steryotypes can feed me all the lies they want, but this grocery store is going to be honest with me. How do you people live? Seriously. How does this all work?

And she finds out. How many American brands they stock. What kind of deals they have. What do they try to get you to impulse buy at checkout. How much does a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread, a gallon of milk cost. And we all leave a little bit better informed about the way the world beyond us works.

A noble pursuit, to be certain. But an exploratory mission that photographs a planet's atmosphere is not the same as landing on the surface.

And Houston, we have our problem. I'm going to say that over the past 8 days I have picked up 2 dozen or so, maybe more, French words and phrases. Unfortunately none of these words were butter, or blueberry, or milk. When do you don't speak French, how do you tell the difference between milk and creme?!? In short, you don't. You just go for it and hope for the best.

I moved in to my apartment (technically a rented room within someone else's apartment) on Wednesday just after noon. In addition to being a huge burden released, it was also an invitation to do my absolute favorite chore: shop. I needed a blow dryer. I wanted a thick graphite pencil for sketching. My key is completely naked and desperate for something adorable to cling to to prevent it getting lost in my bag. Bag. Singular. I want a new bag! How could I come to the fashion capital of the universe with one purse? Man plans; God laughs. Ammiright? Not quite. But you see what I'm getting at.

Ever since I committed to France I have had something else to live for besides the adrenaline surge of newly acquired clothing, so I've been very good. Everything I brought with me is something I already owned. No splurges. No extravagances. I was a good girl. But now, in Paris with literally nothing to do except breathe until school starts, how can you expect me not to wander in and out of the stores on Raspaille and St Michel and Bd St. Germaine as street jazz quartets belt Amy Whinehouse and Frank Sinatra at me. I am only so strong!

And for the most part I have been good. I really want a pair of shoes, but I've resisted, despite having visiting no fewer than 3 dozen shoes stores. I have been spending wisely and frugally and the success of that goal is a kind of reward unto itself. But as a standalone activity, as an exercise in orienting myself with a new culture and its standards, this shopping without buying may be the most fun I have had shopping...Ever.

Bon jour! Bon nuit! They say, welcoming me to the store. Bon jour! Bon nuit! I say back, in my terrible accent, thankful to them for letting me play along. I browse. I listen to snippets of French conversation. I try to pull apart the words. I fail. I move back to the street. Someone asks me what time it is. They could be asking me where I bought my face, for all I know, but they thought I was French! Magnifique!

It all feels very familiar, except for the part that I don't know what anyone is saying and there are all these unwritten rules that I don't know. It's solde, which is a semi annual sale that's like black Friday on crack but for a month and all the stores, especially the more popular ones, just look like diagrams of the circulatory system: everyone moving around in these big loops and then breaking off in to tangential loops for better access to shoes, coats, skirts, dogs, etc. But that's one thing. You pick up on it. But how close do I stand to the person in front of me in line? How friendly am I to the cashier. How close am I allowed to get to someone whose monopolizing a whole section of the wall? (Hint hint move over buddy)

I have no idea! And there's really no field guide to the thickets of Parisian retail grounds. But the whole thing feels remarkably like playing dress up. I was never particularly enamored with this exercise, but this feels like a more positive, thrilling version of that. I get to pretend that I live here. That I know what's going on. That this is the mango I always go to and I just can't bare the h&m on the champs Élysées. And the REALLY fun thing about this is that I do actually live here. And this is actually my neighborhood shopping. And I actually don't have an interest in submitting myself to the plebs on the champs Élysées. So all this browsing and exploring and discovering is actually way cooler than playing make believe, because it's actually true. My fantasy has come to life. The Kilo Shop is my first stop for anything apparel based. Rogier and Ple is my favorite and unparalleled art store. Market is my supermarket. And what a cleverly named super market it is.

So even though I have no idea what anyone is ever saying to me, I'm not even faking it until i make it, I'm just making it work. Bienvenue à moi chez.

Home Sweet Home

Because a picture's worth 1000 words. I don't think I've ever had a room with so few pictures. I totally buy into the native American belief that a photograph steals a part of your soul, but I think of it as an infinitesimal piece that allows me to have all of those I love close by. So, in conclusion, it's incredibly strange to have my two dozen photos in a drawer.

Putting the Reality Back into Reality Show

The past three days have been like a real life house hunters international episode. And let me assure you, the whole thing is less fun from the other side of the fourth wall. It all started on Friday when I went to the housing office at the Sorbonne, immediately after registration, and tried to find an apartment.  She was helpful and understanding, and, not really knowing how any of it worked, I was happy to have a single appointment on  Monday.
I slept very poorly and It was a disorienting morning as my hostess had to go to her summer cottage in Normandy to address a leak and I was left with her kind and patient but not-a-word of English speaking neighbor who asked me a series of questions which I had to use Spanish and Latin and logic to understand. Exhausting. But well deserved.

Anyway, apt #1:
Within walking distance of school
Private entrance
Private bedroom and bath (note en suite)
Kitchenette, with a coffeemaker! (That I don't really know how to use yet and that I share with the owner)

Sounds perfect, right? Well as I said, I was in a weird mood. And you know how I said that French people have a face for business and a face for life? Well I think she was giving me her business face. It all seemed cold and not quite right and, frankly, inhospitable. Not a place I'd love to live. And I just didn't have anything to compare it to.

So I went back to the office and found #2 and #3. And for a passing moment there was a #4 but it was a 7 floor walk up maids room, which I'll explain in a moment, and the owner would only rent for a minimum of a year. Wasn't really ready to make that commitment since as of right now my visa is only for 7 months.

#2
A maids room in the 16th, just across the sienne from the Eiffel tower. You take an alley off a beautiful sloping boulevard to a lift which takes you up 7 stories and then you walk up the last flight and find yourself in a yellowed hallway with a million doors and you open it up and, oh look, there's the Eiffel tower filling my window. It's like a joke. I'm sure that this is where Pixar looked for inspiration for the chef's apartment. But it's basically half the size. It's roughly the size of my mom's walk in closet, probably a little smaller, and going clockwise from the door, let's call that 5 o'clock, you have cot, shower at 9, jutting into the room, table, plastic stool, window with view of Eiffel tower at 12, sink that's roughly the size of a little tykes sink, glorified hot plate, cabinet at 3, back to the door. I was so shocked by the size that I didn't have time for colorful experimentation, but I don't think that there would have been room for me to do a snow angel on the floor. Maybe with the cot at my feet and the window at my head I could have laid out with my arms stretched up into a straight line, which now sounds like it's not a line but an arrow imploring me to jump. Jump out of the window. I think it would have taken very little time for me to go very crazy in that hovel. But what a view.

#3
an interesting option. I would have paid $650 for the summer basically to look after her house. But I wasn't really allowed to use the kitchen. And my "bedroom" was more of an office or studio. No closet. And she spoke about as much English as I spoke French, which is a problem mostly because she would have had trouble giving me instructions. She said it would not work. I said "d'accord." Which may have been perfect or may have just confirmed her wary opinion of me.

So in the end there was really no choice. And thanks to my science of happiness course I knew that that was an easy route to contentedness. Not a word. But anyway, I knew this was my best, and to some extent, only option. The office had helped me. My goddess of a b&b host had helped me. And it seemed that there was no solution better than the one at hand. Voilà. Happy.

That of course isn't how it really went down. Instead, despite knowing the above, I freaked out and looked for all these other places, which in turn confirmed my choice. And the biggest surprise of all came when I dropped off the deposit. Remember the two faces? Well this time I definitely got the social one. She was friendly and loving and welcoming and kind. Total 180. It was so strange and, honestly, such a delightful cosmic gift that I left her home, now my temporary home, so light that I felt as if I could float away.
You know when something weighs in you so heavily but so slowly that you don't even realize it's been crushing you until it is gone? That's finding an apartment in Paris.

Rough Day

Today, as an end of day treat, I sat in jardin de Luxembourg on my way home and enjoyed a few chapters of Peter Heller's new book to the tune of a fountain, crunching gravel, and idle chatter.

I am interrupted by a man chattering at me in French. Sorry, sir, I don't speak French. The implication being, I'm not interested. Not how he took it.

He tried again in English. "I am a student at the college of medicine. I want to practice my special skill. Can I give you a free foot massage?"

Umm...what? "Please I need to practice can I practice on you" swivel for candid camera. Not there.

Embarrassed. Confused. But polite: oh...no...sorry, no thank you.

Strange man with plastic bag trots away disappointed.

And that pretty much sums up the mood of my day. I'm hoping that all of today's big problems will be resolved tomorrow and I can fill you in then.

The City of Paradoxes

Today I went for an ice cream with a family friend whom I was meeting for the first time (I'll refrain from boring you with the actual definition of our relationship) and I got a much desired earful on everything Parisian and French. Two recurring, helixed themes of the chat were the sacred life/work balance for the French and the public/private persona of the French.

These ideas don't require much explanation, but in the name of due dilligence, there is an ongoing debate about working on Sundays here. Is it an infringement on worker's rights to ask them to spend their Sundays in the service of others? There is tension between the socialist ideals and the capitalist reality. "If you want worker's rights, don't complain for lack of business," says logic. Following from this worker oriented train of thought, the service, in general, is less consumer oriented. Why should a fully grown man smile and nod and coddle you for an extra fifty cents? This is just a job. And while he may be the most affectionate, doting uncle to his darling g niece and nephew, you do not call upon that part of his identity as an American with an aggressively bad french accent.

An interesting group of thoughts, but definitely not the only paradoxes that capture the contrast of the idea of Paris and it's reality (which is the biggest paradox of all). Much of the romance of Paris, for me and I'm sure for many others, is all of the art that has been forged here. Whether it was dancing or painting or writing or pretending to be s statue until someone drops a Euro into your hat, it is a city that conceptually embraces the creative. And the city seems to embrace that legacy as part of its appeal. But in reality, institutionally at least, it rejects the outsider. The student visa was the most trying travel experience I have ever had. Imagine trying to actually move her...start a life. The city, at least, operates on the premise of permanancy. You can not rent unless you have a French bank account, a history of residency, a wealthy guarantor. How do you get those things without renting? I can't even get a monthly metro pass without a letter, national identity card copy, and electric bill from my landlady. 

I can't imagine that it was always this hard to get going. Otherwise,  why would all of those creative types from fin de siècle settles here? The only remaining explanation that I have is that Paris is a city that rewards the struggling. You bumble through but ultimately find yourself lifted by a view of Notre Dame at sunset or the elegance of a side street artistically spaced with patisseries and pedestrians and mopeds. It is the sense I get in most cities: If I'm going to miserable no matter what, why not be miserable here? There is a comfort in the constant rumbling of cars and buses,  the rattling of the metro under foot, the chirping of birds outside 4th floor walk up windows. But perhaps the smell of fresh bread, the wafting aural aroma of that guttural Parisian "R," the wrought iron balconies and flowerboxes and craftsmanship at ever turn, perhaps they all combine to allow Paris greater success than most cities at making urban anonymity feel like a club house, one where only the cool kids are allowed to hang out and, look at that, you made the cut.

Enchanté Paris

As romantic as sending bits of my journey to friends and family one line at a time sounds, I do not think that I'm presently capable of such inefficiency. So...comment se dice en français quarter for your thoughts? Don't expect epic soliloquoys or life affirming lessons. Think more along the lines of anecdotes and misadventures.

But to kick off the reboot, I have arrived in Paris. I've been here for just over 36 hours. With the help of every form of transportation known to man and 3 kindly strangers I made it my b&b. I have spent the past almost 36 hours registering for my French classes, scheduling an appointment to view a potential apartment, and walking everywhere within walking distance of where I'm staying. I do have a local SIM card, but I don't have a blow dryer. Some errands will just have to wait. I made it through the day in a white dress with zero stains and only 2 marilynn Monroe moments (by which I obviously mean that subway grates blew my dress up and potentially exposed my underwear to the throngs of plebs on the sidewalk, NOT that I had a sexy, flirty, charming moment on the streets of Paris).

I've basically been hitting up the gardens of Paris. I still have a week until classes start, so I'm trying to save the big museums that I didn't get to hit last time until I run out of free things to do. The weather is beautiful, so it's not all that demanding to walk around the city for hours on end.

It is almost eleven and there is still some day light in the sky. What a strange place I've come to.

Why I hate New Year's

Please take note that I didn't say NYE. If you have the same issues with capitalist opportunism and senseless indulgence that every blogger and buzz feed "writer" seem to, then deal yourself out. Don't bitch and moan my ear off. Solutionism is the new optimism. Am I right Justin?

So the thing that gets me about this whole 48 hour period is the one-trick-ponyness of it all. Like this is the only time of year you can get all your friends together and have a big night out. Or this is your only opportunity to start a diet. Or this is the only calendar flip that permits self improvement.

News Flash: the new year starts whenever you start counting. So whether you realized today or february 32 that there's something you want to change, all it takes is you. This is both empowering and horrifying, because it means that the most wonderful time of the year is a farse and puts the emphasis back on the "self" in self improvement. But I call em like I see em.

Perhaps this comment offers an explanation as to why NYE is a glorified Friday night(a night out followed by a day off) and why it's the secular (read capitalistic) holiday we hate to love. And perhaps my frustration with its bands of allegiant followers explains why I felt emotionally compelled to blog for the first time in 4 months, but some things ust have to be said.

So whether it started last night, 7 months ago, or hits you 4 months from now, may your life be one of perpetual improvement that flourishes outside the confines of provides opportunity. Write your own happy endings.

Xoxo gossip squirrel