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.