Saturday, November 14, 2015

Incomprehensible

A post has been percolating in my over-taxed brain on the theme of comprehension for a few weeks now, and I almost set out to write it last night.  I'm glad I didn't.  Much more important things need to be discussed on that very same topic.

To me, in my quotidien life, comprehension has a very basic, uncomplicated meaning.  Essentially, do I comprehend the French language?  This has been my intellectual priority for the past year, and it's especially crucial now that I attend classes, read scholarly works, and write papers all in French.  My measure as a contributing member of society is conducted in French.  Rather than a constant ascent on a scale of completely lost to easily fluent, my experience of learning and living in a foreign language has been a range of valleys and climbs, dips and flights.  I've found that one of my great inner motivations is that I'm never satisfied with my level.  After every encounter, I think of ways I could have improved, areas in which I could have employed a better tense or structure to add clarity.  The music of the French language is enchanting, and I relish the guttural r's and the almost whistled quality of the [ɥ] sound, like in je suis.  All these rules I learned in college phonetics classes I now apply to my everyday communication.  

All of this seems somehow so far away in the face of last night's attacks in Paris. As with any violent attack in the West, my mind struggled to synthesize the place with the act. Paris is so close. France is my adopted country. The French are my neighbors, classmates, friends. With so much gun violence in the US lately, I've been happy to be residing in a country where the average citizen doesn't keep a gun "just for safety." The Charlie Hebdo attacks in January shattered the illusion that France is a peaceful paradise, and since then I've been coming to some alarming conclusions. Usually this blog is about my own personal experience living as an expatriate, and as such, is usually benign in content. I don't wish to be inflammatory, but I feel that my antipathy towards the rampant political correctness in the US (and even a little in France) is now urging me to write how I truly feel about certain things.
When people ask me what it's like to live abroad, there are always a few details I leave out.  One of those main details is my growing sense of mistrust of foreigners.  I feel very small admitting this, but we don't live in the cocoon of America where the immigrants are generally peaceful and hardworking.  I overgeneralize mostly out of ignorance as my American experience comes from a privileged East Coast upbringing.  In any case, because we live in the third largest city in France, we see many people of Middle Eastern and African descent who have not been Westernized.  This, in and of itself, is fine.  I'm not one to question the personal choices of those who may dress a little differently than me or speak a different language, but otherwise are peaceful, law-abiding humans.  However, as a foreigner myself, I also feel a bit defensive admitting my feelings.  The political right is not friendly to immigrants because of the violence they sometimes bring into French society.  This could directly affect me.  I asked the French government to allow me to live and study in France, and they have put their trust in me, as a foreigner, to respect the laws and culture of France.  I realize that as an American, it's much easier for me to be granted a visa (which, thankfully, I was), and this distinction would classify me as an expatriate rather than an immigrant.  A foreigner, however, I remain.

France has been the target of violence for a reason.  Another detail I often leave out of my personal recount of living abroad is my deep approval for la laïcité, which is the legal separation of church and state.  From this stems the ban of religious iconography in public spaces (like schools, courts, etc.), sometimes known as the "burka ban."  In the US, religion is a protected banner of personal definition, especially in the political media farce.  This absolutely confounds me.  The development of democratic society in both the US and France are closely linked, and neither is founded upon religion.  As an atheist, this fact gives me great comfort.  If I were to be judged in a court of law in either country, it would not be some popular fictional work that would determine my fate, but a carefully cultivated set of laws that I've agreed to follow as an American citizen and French visa-holder.  I have not agreed to abide by the laws of any religion, and that is my crucial right.  This fact is the dividing point on which much of the recent violence is based.

I often read flaming missives on the subject of Islamaphobia being racist.  This is simply illogical.  Islam is not a race, it is a religion.  In a civilized society, all religions, political views, philosophies, works of literature, art, music should be subject to criticism at any time.  This is also a protected right under both American and French law.  If you can choose to be something, I can choose to criticize it.  What I cannot criticize is the color of your skin or your gender.  Unfortunately, different races and genders are already at a great boiling point of division in our global society.  Why do we insist on adding labels that continue to deepen that divide?  Why do we so actively seek to bolster our own incomprehension of our fellow humans?  This is why I think la laïcité is so incredibly important.  In a public school, for example, those chosen labels are stripped away, and nothing is left to divide other than those attributes we can't change.  It's easy for me to comprehend that someone has a different skin color than I, and I see the value of that human being as being no more, no less than my own.  It's not easy for me to comprehend why a person would choose to adhere to any religion that has a history or contemporary practice of violence, intolerance, and oppression.

I don't feel small admitting my incomprehension of religion.  I think organized religion is dangerous, exploitative, immoral, and overall harmful to progressing in a civilized society.  What I don't like to admit is that every time I see someone in typical Middle Eastern attire, or hear Arabic being spoken, I feel a moment of fear.  Intellectually, I understand that a terrible, violent sect of a religion does not represent all adherents.  I know people of all religions who are good, peaceful, and fully respectful of others.  But I also know that many religious texts espouse violence, and that's where my comprehension halts.  When I see a woman in some variation of hijab, I fail to comprehend how she can celebrate a religion that oppresses her very rights as a human.  I felt the very same discomfort when I came to my own conclusions of atheism after being raised Catholic.  How could I respect myself as a woman if I practiced this religion that sought dogmatic clemency from the perceived feminine sin of my very conception?  I would also note that the 9/11 attacks occurred when I was at the incredibly impressionable age of 11, and it was that event that sealed my then rudimentary and simplistic decision that there is no higher being.

Until I lived in France, I would have immediately come to the conclusion that the striking apparel choices of someone are none of my business.  With the recent violence in France, however, I find it increasingly difficult to divorce religious stereotype from my personal views of average people on the street.  If it's politically correct not to criticize religion then I don't care to be PC.  Religion is man-made and thus subject to criticism.  However, I do not have the right to express my criticism violently.  I don't agree with or comprehend certain religious practices, but I most certainly comprehend the intrinsic value of human life.  

Now more than ever, I believe we should take to criticizing violent religious zealots and religion itself.  We should strive to create a society that is open to different interpretations of humanity and culture; a society that celebrates difference as the vehicle to comprehending various experiences of the human condition.  I don't need to believe in the same god - or any god - to appreciate the beauty of falling in love, listening to an exquisite piece of music, sharing a delicious meal with friends, listening to the stories of those from other cultures.  My personal beliefs are not a threat to what anyone else believes so long as we all agree to a degree of criticism and a degree of respect amongst ourselves.  I would almost argue that the French are more religious than Americans (countless Catholic holidays shutter French schools and businesses throughout the year), but discretion is far more important to the French than flaunting their beliefs.  

Every day, I better understand how the French think and conduct themselves.  My comprehension grows as I continue to learn the language and interact with the people.  I've been feeling more and more comfortable with my daily comprehension, but last night's attacks in Paris have reminded me that comprehension is a broad concept and perhaps not totally achievable.  If only we could take away divisive religious labels, maybe our intra-species comprehension would be that much more attainable.  The heartbroken idealist in me wishes for world peace, whatever that may mean, or at the very least never having the fear of being gunned down for what I believe.

Friday, October 9, 2015

The here and now.

Year two in France is well under way.  The novelty is gone, replaced by the chilly quotidien of fall, and France is no longer foreign to me.  We were in the US for a few days for Ben's brother's wedding, and I actually felt more at home when we got back to France.  Long ago when I visited Ben for the first time when he lived near Aix, everything about France looked bizarre, exotic, wrong, weird.  Now the small, turtle-like cars, the road signs that are just slightly off, the sing-song lilt of the language, even the diesel and cigarette stink are comforting to me.  I feel like these are my people now, and they've accepted me.  I go to class and understand all the French, I've started reading books in French for my thesis, I can speak in paragraphs without stopping to give thought to vocabulary and structure.  The intense anxiety from this same time last year has melted almost entirely away.  I don't feel like a visitor anymore.

Now that I'm fully ensconced in life here, there's something I need to address.  I got these questions a lot over the summer and earlier this week when in the US.  Living abroad is not vacation.  When you live abroad, it's just regular life - in a foreign language.  When I lived in DC, London, New York, and Boston, I went around to see the touristy sites pretty much only when people were visiting me... and it's no different here.  And more to the point, I'm a starving grad student, so shopping in chic French stores is a far-off dream, especially when we rarely turn on the heater because we're so worried about the gas bill.  My first instinct is to get really annoyed at this inquiry of shopping since going shopping is like fresh air in my lungs, but I've realized I need to get past it.  In fact, there are a lot of indelicate questions I get asked (and many that other people get asked, and I'm sure I've asked a few myself), so let's settle on this topic for a moment, because my subconscious needs some lecturing.

Recently, I've gotten so caught up in the green jaws of envy and desire that I've completely lost sight of what's right in front of me.  It's the easiest thing in the world to look at what someone else has and covet it for yourself.  How many times do we roll our eyes and mutter, "The grass is greener..." and grudgingly turn back to what we think is our sucky life?  Maybe the lawn over there is manicured and all the same lovely green color, but how do we know it's not fake turf?  What if the people who live in that house with the perfect lawn are miserable?  And money can't buy happiness either, if we want another awful cliché.  How do we be content and thankful for our own lot in life when everyone's faux joie de vivre is forced down our throat at every social media outlet?  Sometimes I want to throw my computer out the window I'm so sick of Facebook and Instagram and all the fake platitudes and over-filtered photos.  I'm just as guilty as the next gal of doing all this, but I'm having one of those days (ahem, weeks... ahem, years) when it's all just too much.

This sounds awfully bitchy, and I promise I don't mean it that way.  There are lots of people I'm genuinely happy for.  But after all the online exultations, being happy for someone in real life, face-to-face feels so much more real to me.  For the moment though, I need to be a little selfish.  I've stopped being happy for myself.  I think this is a problem of the human condition.  We get what we want, we're happy for a split second, but then it's on to wanting, needing the next thing.  For years, I wanted NOT to be in a long-distance relationship; for years, I wanted to be with Ben in the same country (much less the same city or household); for so long I've wanted to be able to speak French, and I yearned to get into grad school and further my education.  Suddenly, I have all of these things, but I'm like a spoiled kid after opening all her Christmas presents: WANT MORE *tantrum*  Honestly, it's exhausting, and it paints a pretty ugly self portrait.  I don't like myself this way.

So maybe life here isn't vacation, but it's not so bad either.  21-year-old me would have swooned at my life right now.  Dealing with these feelings has been especially difficult for me with all the back-and-forth to the US within the past few months, but it's probably because I feel so torn with a foot in each continent.  I would give up almost anything to be able to see my niece every single day.  I dream of being her cool auntie and having a close relationship with her one day, but that feels just so much farther away while I'm living in France.  And I feel like I can't really complain to anyone because the immediate reply is, "But how can you want x, y, z... YOU LIVE IN FRANCE!"  Sure there's good wine and bread here, but my family isn't here, my maternal language isn't here, and that little homesickness eats its way into my daily life with a sharp little edge.  Then it feels bizarre to be homesick for a place that brought me all sorts of topsy-turvy, uncomfortable emotions this summer and last week.  I don't know what I'm supposed to feel no matter where I am.  It's confusing and a little harder to deal with than I anticipated.

I should probably take another step back and realize these are all the good kinds of problems to be having.  Things could always be worse, but I think it's still important to check in with one's mental health.  After all the excitement of this summer and early fall, I feel a little deflated. "What now?" keeps rolling around in the back of my mind.  No more vacation, no more special events planned, so now it's just life.  Some of my daily struggles from living in the US are gone, some have remained (I still can't get up at a reasonable morning hour, and I HATE washing the dishes), and some are new.  There will always be a little something that is annoying or irksome, something that we try to improve about ourselves or our daily lives.  There isn't always something to look forward to in the near future.  Sometimes we just need to find it within ourselves to appreciate the dreams we have achieved rather than side-eyeing the accomplishments of others, or coveting material items we can't afford.  There is joy in the calm of the here and now, and that can't be bought.  But that is something that can be easily achieved.

Sunday, August 30, 2015

Fin d'été

It's been a busy summer.  Jetting to and fro, lots of planes, trains, cars, boats, and endless miles on foot.  It was a season I didn't give myself much time to anticipate with my anxious end-of-spring activities.  I don't think I had enough time to prepare myself for the fullness, the headiness of going home one way and coming back home again in the opposite direction.  Two places to call home.  My heart still feels a bit torn.

I meant to write when we got back from the US at the beginning of August.  I'm glad I ended up postponing that post because I was an emotional wreck when we returned to France.  I hadn't seen my parents in nearly a year, and it was my first opportunity to meet my beautiful, perfect little newborn niece.  When we finally got back to our apartment after two weeks in the US, I couldn't even think the word, "Mom" without bawling.  A little distance from that fragile state has been necessary, though perhaps not long enough as there are little droplets again threatening at my eyes...

I wish I had taken the time to prepare myself for this summer.  This was the first time in my life I've been in this situation.  There were times I needed to go on autopilot in order to deal with the burgeoning feeling in my heart, but I had no emotional muscle memory to fall back on.  It was raw and new and sometimes really uncomfortable.  Seeing my parents, brother and sister-in-law, and niece was all too brief.  If I could, I would install myself in the sunny nursery Sal and Courtney built for Penelope.  Either that or back in no-longer-my old room at my parents' house.  These people who are a home in my heart, it hurts to leave them.  I return over and over again to the theme of home in this blog, mostly because mine has been so radically upended within the past year, but writing this out helps me to deal with the inner turmoil generated by sharing my heart over two continents.  It's simply a reality of our interconnected world that we move farther and farther away from those we love.  New opportunities and adventures beckoned, and I blindly, naively answered that call a year ago.  I knew I would deal with some measure of homesickness for family, culture, and language, but I never gave thought to la rentrée américaine.  Ahead of me one year ago was an undefined, terrifying block of months, and I couldn't spare the energy to think about going back to where I came from.

Sweet niece Nuggs 
Summit selfie atop Mt. Mansfield, Stowe, VT

Wildflower heaven on Mt. Mansfield
Besides wrenching my heart in two after leaving my family, I found it very difficult to deal with some well-meaning but rather insensitive questions about my private life in Lyon.  I understand that people are curious or just want to make conversation, but there are certain questions you don't ask an unemployed (broke) girl in her nearly late twenties.  By August 3, I felt wholly overwhelmed, unable to cope, and the seams of my heart were in a tattered shape.  Truly, I hadn't had a moment to stabilize since before my conservatory rejection.  Up and down and up and down with little rest since May.

In any case, I've now had some time to process my feelings from our vacation in the US.  We spent a delightful ten days with Ben's parents in Aix-en-Provence and Lyon.  Though we walked several miles a day, it was a much calmer time than in the US.  I got to entertain in my own home, which I love, but we also had some parental TLC right here in France.  We then spent five days in Italy, where Ben had a conference in Padova.  We made a first stop in Venice, which is insanely overcrowded with tourists at this time of year.  Padova is much smaller and quieter, a charming and ancient university city.  If the botanical garden had been free, I would have spent all our four days parked on a bench amidst the verge.  We returned from Italy today, which was a bit of a relief after five days of feeling terribly embarrassed that we don't speak a word of Italian.  Whenever someone would speak to me in Italian, I would start to answer in French because that's my knee-jerk reaction when someone talks at me in a foreign language.  Despite the language barrier, the food and wine and blueberry liqueur inspired me to try some new things in the kitchen, namely pistachio pesto and creamed eggplant.  Mmmm...


The basilica of Saint Anthony as seen from the botanical gardens
in Padova, Italy

Gondola selfies in Venice.

Petit déjeuner français

Sunrise in Aix 
Venezia
As this summer comes to a close, and as I prepare to begin my first year of grad school, I need to take une petite pause and reflect on the last few weeks and months.  I have a solid year of expatriatism behind me.  I speak French well enough now to be accepted into a master's program at a French university.  I know my way easily around the city of Lyon, I got to know and adore some twin girls through babysitting.  I somehow managed to move in with my previously completely long-distance boyfriend.  We even put together an apartment's worth of Ikea furniture together with minimal swearing.  Not to mention the stress of finding that apartment, moving our entire lot of earthly possessions, and then bagging it all up again to deal with bed bugs.  We've made these walls into a home.  One more home to add to my ever-lengthening list.

The best pizza in the world, in Padova

Botanical garden, Padova
Sometimes I wonder at myself thinking that there is an end date to feeling so torn.  For eight years, since I began college in Boston, I've been torn from some portion of those whom I love.  During all that time, I've subconsciously imagined that that tear would be healed someday in a near or far ambiguous future.  But this isn't the kind of rip that gets repaired.  Once torn open, it can never be stitched back together quite the same.  Instead, different patches are sewn in to cover the rift.  Some seams are delicate and lovingly placed, while some leave a trail of anguish and hurt.  Each patch represents a time, a place, a person, a love, a sadness, an uncertainty, an adventure.  On and on this goes until we recognize the quilt sprouting from that initial tear.  It's at this moment that I've just clearly seen this quilt in my own heart.  Maybe now I'll stop looking for a perfectly repaired rip and start fully appreciating all the beautiful and somber colors I've sewn in without even realizing.

All the pretty flowers in the botanical garden.







At the close of August, with the hot wind blowing in our open windows, I feel like a pungent overripe fruit pulling heavily on its branch; waiting and wanting to be plucked, but also hoping for the strength to hang on for just a few more days.  My heart is brimming with delicious memory and quiet sadness at the end of this season, but it's also safely encased in a protective shell of gratitude and love.

Saturday, June 27, 2015

Confession time

There are a few reasons I haven't been writing my blog for the past few months.  Firstly, I've been babysitting for a French family with twin 8-year-old girls, and it's in my contract to keep discreet online, so most of my funny stories would have been too bland to write about.  Secondly, I've been keeping a huge secret that I intended to take with me to my grave if it didn't end well.  But I've decided it's too big a life lesson to keep shoved under a rug, so it's sharing time.

When I moved to France 10 months ago, I didn't have that much in terms of a big-picture direction.  "Moving to France" was the name of an admittedly poorly sketched next chapter in the Life of One E. Cania.  Our original plan wasn't even to be in this city, let alone for three years.  I had enough saved up to pass a planned year near Aix-en-Provence, and then we would come back to the States like responsible people and get Adult Jobs.  Then Lyon happened, and Ben got the crazy opportunity to pursue a funded doctoral program, so here we are in year one of three, a little farther away from the Mediterranean than initially planned.  Last July, a few days into the discovery of our change-of-location, I realized I would need to formulate a new outline for my future: grad school.  But not just any grad program.  I set my sights on auditioning for the master's program at the Conservatoire National Supérieure Musique et Danse de Lyon.  Any school with the word "supérieure" is the best of the best, so I thought, what the hell, why not?  The past six months have been spent dutifully practicing and preparing an audition program, writing a thesis proposal (in French), and nervously counting down the days until le concours d'entrée.  Which was yesterday.

Unclench your bated breath, because no, I didn't get in.  Up until the start of this week, I thought I had a decent shot of getting in.  My plan was to study the music of Lili Boulanger, for which I've had a passion since high school, thanks to my incredible first voice professor Deb Massell.  I thought I would be a shoe-in: an American who speaks French and wants specifically to study French music in France?  Bien sûr!  Pourquoi pas?  And besides, I don't think my innate vocal abilities are too shoddy, so I thought I had two pretty solid feet to stand on in the admissions process.  After enduring a freakishly difficult sight-reading test, an interview with two of the voice faculty, and a comically bad rehearsal with the pianist (all in French), I was fairly certain my two solid feet had been chopped at the ankles by yesterday morning.  I knew at that point my chances of getting in were about nil, but I had prepared to sing, and sing I did.  My pianist was the kindest woman, and did her absolute best at the fiendishly difficult Boulanger accompaniments.  I'm proud of my performance, and I don't regret trying to climb that nearly umountable mountain.  If the jury had just said, "thanks for coming in," and sent me on my way to discover the results on my own, I would have felt satisfied that I'd done my best, but it really wasn't meant to be.  Failure is a part of the process, and every musician - every person - gets rejection no matter how hard he or she may have worked.  Sadly, these judges felt it necessary to really cut me at the knees, and I left that conservatory feeling not just rejected but also humiliated.  As soon as I finished singing, the head of the voice department told me very bluntly that I'm simply not good enough to do a master's program at their conservatory.  She insinuated that it was unbelievable that I'd even attained a bachelor's degree in voice performance, and the rest of the jury smirked openly as I maintained a bland smile and tried to answer their questions without tearing up.  I left that room feeling more like the butt of a joke than simply a rejected candidate.  I still feel icky inside thinking that the laughter I heard after I exited was most likely at my expense.

Sadly, this kind of behavior is common in the music world.  We learn to deal with failure very quickly, but injury with a side of insult has become almost a hallmark in the stupidly competitive world of classically-trained singers.  For a "dying art" I find it insane how many people still audition for master's programs, opera institutes, summer festivals, companies, competitions, etc.  In any case, I had decided long ago that if I didn't get in, this little secret would die quietly and no one outside my close friends and family would be the wiser.  If I got in, I was going to plaster that fact all over social media in a super tacky attempt to show how freaking awesome I am to anyone who's ever doubted me.  Thankfully, I wasn't given the chance to be that petty, and I think the only person who has ever truly doubted me is me.

The thing is, despite the crash-and-burn rejection, I don't doubt me anymore.  I tried to break my way into an exclusive club, all on my own (which was pretty stupid, but private voice lessons are EXPENSIVE), and in a foreign language.  One year ago, even six months ago, I would not have been able to walk into any of the situations and speak about myself or my intentions in French.  The crippling fear of interaction I felt at the beginning of my séjour here in France has slowly faded into memory.  There are certain people I still struggle to understand, but apparently I fit in so well now that French people ask me for directions several times a week (and I can answer them!).  I speak French every day with the kids and the family I babysit for.  The kids still love to giggle and correct my mistakes, but if you want kids to obey you, you've got to at least fake confidence in those foreign commands.  Not only do they (usually) obey me, but they still fight over who gets to play with me.  Their parents don't treat me like a foreign oddity with a niveau faible de français, but as an another adult with equal value, intrinsically and linguistically.  The level of acceptance I've felt over the past six months has frankly astounded me, given that the French take quite a long time to warm up to les étrangers.  Both the parents speak English well enough that all our conversations could easily be in English, but rightly, neither of them has given me that out.  Even when I struggle to express myself, they give me the option to switch to English, but I try my best to stay in French.  To top it off, both parents texted me yesterday wishing me good luck on my audition, which felt all the more encouraging given that I had asked for yesterday off.

In short, what I thought would be a huge loss doesn't really feel that huge because my gains have been so much grander.  Rejection happens, humiliating rejection happens, but I refuse to stay down.  I think perhaps another degree in music performance isn't what I'm meant to be doing anyway.  When my parents asked me what I would do with that degree in two years, I could never see past the fog since I've never wanted a career in performing.  So I move on.  I'll be a Master in something else, TBD.

As a bit of a post-script, yesterday's rejection was significantly softened after learning the news that the Supreme Court has decreed marriage equality in the US.  I can't keep the smile off my face as a scroll through the stream of rainbows in my Facebook newsfeed, and the fact that now so many of my friends will have the same legal right to marry the person they love.  I won't remember June 26th as the day I got rejected, I'll remember it as the day love won.  Good job, 'Murica!

Saturday, March 7, 2015

191 Days

I'm officially homesick.

For six months, I've been blissfully passing the time in this French adventure.  Overcoming the obstacles of foreign-ness, adapting to a different culture and way of life, straining my brain to take on an entire new language.  For six months, I've been asked over and over, "are you homesick?  do you miss the US?"  Every time, I smiled triumphantly and replied in the negative.  My commitment to expatriatism is infallible, my resolve unbreakable.  I've dusted the little hardships off my shoulders, and I've gotten right back up after every falter.  Until tonight.

I should have seen this coming.  Yesterday, on the bus home from babysitting the girls, a group of American businessman got on.  I was sitting close enough to hear their quiet conversation.  Every single dear English word pronounced casually and comprehended instantly.  Every word felt like a punch to my heart.  It's not as though I haven't heard Americans around the city before, but there was something that seized me last night with that group of businessman.  I hung on to each word, soaking in the instinctive comprehension, wishing I had the kind of personality that would invade a group of unknowns purely on the context of mutual nationality.  There was none of the usual strain that has become a different kind of second nature to me when I participate in French conversations.  In that same bus ride I prided myself on understanding much of the French small talk floating around me.  When strangers talk to me, I can comprehend and answer immediately.  I can speak in full sentences and have meaningful conversations.  But it's nothing like the ease we take for granted with our mother tongue.  English isn't the prettiest language, but to me, on that bus, it was a golden light shining in dingy French public transportation.

Of course listening to English makes me think of America, my lovely homeland.  Uprooting from Washington, D.C. to anywhere else in the world is a special kind of detachment.  I lived a mile from the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery; several times a week I ran around the Mall, the White House, the Capitol, across and around the Potomac.  Red, white, and blue is caked on every surface, and I adored it.  Before living in DC, I was a tepid American.  After DC, I'm as zealous a patriot as any.  Obviously distance clouds the negative, and I realize America isn't perfect, and there were days I wanted to curse out every single Metro driver in the DMV.  But the shared experience of love of country is a powerful thing (as the last 2000+ years of human history can show us).

In the back of my mind, I've been wondering when the homesickness would hit me.  Would it be a slow smoldering or a breaking dam?  Would it be riding the tram all by myself, in the midst of friends, at dinner with Ben?  I've been slightly terrified of my own calm.  I'm a person prone to wild emotion, and my steadiness in the face of complete upheaval has been not a little unnerving.

But then it happened in the most obvious and least expected place.  We were invited to go see American Sniper with some friends tonight.  I wasn't too keen on going; I'm not a fan of going to the movies, and I would far rather spend the money on a pint of beer.  But we'd been putting off going, so I conceded.  I knew the story, I knew what happened.  On it's own, I thought the movie was terrifically well made, lots of kudos to Bradley Cooper's biceps and that fake baby.  I almost made it all the way through.  But then the unknown torrent inside of me finally broke the banks as the movie showed footage of Chris Kyle's funeral.  American flags, bugle calls, men in uniform.  It was too much, and I quietly sobbed my way to the credits until the lights came on and exposed me to the yawning French audience.  In that moment, the only place I could want to be was kissing the American soil in my parents' backyard.  I wanted to hop the next plane, buy the biggest cup of Dunkin' available, and wrap my arms around the nearest monument while enrobed in red, white, and blue.  I wanted to scream English words and be understood.  I wanted to shake my fist and wax poetic about how much I love my country.  I kept repeating America, America, AMERICA over and over in my mind like a kind soothing mantra.  I managed to keep some measure of composure while walking out of the theater, but once outside I sobbed like a little kid.  AMERICA.

191 days is how long it took for me to be homesick.  Heartsick for my country of origin.  I'm trying to come to terms with this new emotion, but at the moment, it still feels too raw in my chest.  My heart feels tight, and the tears are threatening to drown me again.  In my head, I know it's ok to feel homesick and also be happy where I am.  I really have nothing to complain about in France.  I mean, I literally have everything I've been dreaming of for the past four years.  But in my heart, I am, as ever, an American.
'MURICA 

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Rising above the suck

I really hate January.  I've always disliked this time of year, but the majority of my scorn is directed at the specific month of January.  Call it post-holiday depression, seasonal affective disorder (with which I fully believe I'm afflicted), or the crushing expectations of a new year, the month of January always makes me cringe.  College really cemented my disregard for this month - saying goodbye again to long-distance boyfriends and family, break-ups, soul-crushingly awful weather in Boston.  And even after college, January was generally the month I left Ben from my brief visits to France to return to the slightly less soul-crushing dimness of D.C.

January is the month when we all feel we must start anew.  The culmination of the previous year's efforts are capped at December 31, 11:59 pm.  You achieved so much last year!  But here comes another one, get started, kid.  I don't mean to sound so fatalistic, as every minute, day, year we have of life is precious, but this stupid month makes me wallow in the self-pitying morass of blarghhhhh.

Yet this January is very, very different for me.  Suddenly, I don't have to say goodbye to boyfriend.  I'm not dreading going back to school/work/monotonous routine.  I get to stay in France - I even had my visa validated today (at LONG last).  Still, this uneasy feeling of yuck remains as an icy coating to my soul.  At the end of vacation, I told Ben how much I hate January.  He gave me a stern pep talk, as he's wont to do.  I always forget that men like to solve things, whereas women will give unending sympathy.  But, as usual, his reaction was just what I needed.  In essence, "Stop whining.  This month will only be what you make of it.  Stop feeling sorry for yourself and start accomplishing!"  If I were still a little kid, I would have made a face and stuck out my tongue at him (there's no guarantee I didn't actually do that...).  But since I'm an adult now, I'm doing the adult thing and heeding the good advice.

As the days of this grudgingly ok month progress, I'm realizing the source of the uniquely 2015 stress.  Living abroad makes me feel like I.  SUCK.  AT.  EVERYTHING.  The combination of my historical feelings this time of year and the aforementioned suckage have produced quite the slippery slope to the Land of Sourpuss, but this year I'm jumping off the ride early.  I refuse to be defeated this January.  I'm not going to be biffles with this month, but I'll be cordial.  There is something to be said for the efficacy of resolutions, though I don't prescribe much to the now-or-never, do-or-die mentality.  It often seems to me that people forget that resolutions can be made at other times of year.  But of course there's something about the cutoff and renewal that makes us re-evaluate our goals and ourselves.  Here's another 365-day chance to make something of yourself, and please begin this daunting journey in the coldest, darkest, most miserable month of the year.  Hah!  Joke's on you!  Challenge accepted!

I digress and return to my previous point.  The theory of I Suck.  As has been previously documented, I quit my entire life, sold a good portion of my belongs, and sunk all my hard-earned money into a tenuous life in a foreign country.  All of the skills and qualities I possessed in America feel rarely used here.  I'm no longer earning an enviable salary (at least for a 25-year-old with a music degree), I'm decidedly not independent, and I can't even walk out my front door without the fear that one of the natives is going make me feel like an idiot with all their native babble (otherwise known as French).  While I feel extremely lucky to have found a job, and I would never deliberately demean those who do similarly, it feels as though I'm working under my ability as a babysitter.  I have immense plans for next year, but those plans hinge on dusting off a skill I haven't used in a few years, and that's terrifying enough in and of itself.  Top it off with a dash of self-diagnosed inferiority complex, and we have the perfect recipe for Emily Sucks at Everything soup.  Yum.

Again, I confessed all this to Ben, and his reaction was unsurprisingly similar to his previous advice.  Babysitting isn't my profession.  But the kids I babysit are adorable, smart, and fun.  The family is so kind, and my agency is super helpful.  It's steady, declared, legal work.  I have most of the day to myself before I start working.  The kids are even old enough to help me with my French... though not until they've had a good giggle at my mistakes.  This isn't my whole life, it's just a helpful boost up in the ladder I'm climbing towards a self-actualized Emily in France.  My free days allow me to practice and blissfully exercise a part of my brain I've let atrophy a bit since college.  I have time to run and go to the gym once I finally join.

So this year I'm not going let January ruin my happiness.  2014 was pretty good as far as accomplishments go, but I'm starting 2015 on an entirely new planet away from my 2014 comfort zone.  Besides, any year I ring in by constructing a puzzle of my Aunt Ro's delicious Christmas cookies is destined to be a good year.