This post is about peanut butter.

When we're children, there is little to no distinction between "wants" and "needs."  Slowly, as we mature, the delineation appears, (not without a little help from our parents) and thus are born the skills of moderation, budgeting, and practicality.  Crucial attributes to a healthy and productive adult life.  I moderate my luxury spending so I have enough money to pay rent and bills.  I don't drink too much because I know that a hangover feels awful.  I know it isn't practical to go out to dinner every night because restaurants are expensive.  The art of being an adult is essentially how confidently we can say "no" to temptation.

Then there are things that are neither wants nor needs, but exist somewhere in the middle.  Like peanut butter.  I don't need peanut butter to survive, but I don't break the bank to buy a jar.  It's a nice-to-have.  It's tasty, goes well with jelly and Nutella, and I make some mean PB and chocolate chip cookies.  I always stocked my cupboards with at least one jar of peanut butter, and when I ran out, I would jog over to the grocery store and buy another one without a second thought.  Delicious stuff, peanut butter, but not really up in the specialty, highly-desired category.

After living in Europe for four months, peanut butter has moved into the want/need bracket.  Peanut butter is virtually non-existent in Europe.  There are no peanut butter/chocolate candies, the grocery stores aren't stocked with five different brands and a million varieties of smooth and chunky.  PB&J is literally a foreign concept.  In the US, peanut butter was among my favorite foods, but now it's practically deified in my mind.  That smooth, savory taste, melting in the mouth like nutty, salty gold.  Just thinking about it makes me homesick.

I was allowed a brief respite from this desire in October when my aunt sent me a package of goodies, including a jar of peanut butter.  But being the foolish youngster I was two months ago, I gobbled the whole thing up in maybe a week.  Since then, I've passed by the "foreign food" aisle in the grocery store, and pouted at the 7€ minuscule jars of the good stuff.  At the rate I dig through one jar, 7€ a pop would probably break the bank.

Then, a Christmas miracle.  Or probably not a miracle given the rate I complain about missing American food.  Both my parents and my brother and sister-in-law sent me packages containing peanut butter.  Smooth from my parents, chunky from Sal and Courtney.  My cupboard is once again stocked, and my wants have been met.  I'm going to be very careful about rationing out how much I eat, as though it were fine gourmet chocolate imported from some fancy European country.  In fact, fancy gourmet European chocolate is now easier to come by...

Emily + anticipation + sharp knife...

PEANUT BUTTER.  Also, read salad dressing, which
they don't have here either...

The absence of peanut butter is just a small example of how illuminating the expat experience is.  It's hard to understand just how much you appreciate the little things until they lose their ubiquity.  My wants and needs have gone through a bit of a makeover since August.  For the past few years, it would have been nice (read: I wanted) to be able to speak French.  Now, it's become a necessity.  When I used to visit Ben, I would try to speak a little here and there, and everyone thought it was cute.  Now, I need to be able to converse if I want to exist independently (I do).  Our wants and needs elucidate a sense of equilibrium in our lives.  Adjusting to a totally new set of desires and requisites is awkward, and it takes time to understand how we best exist in any given situation.  But through that experience of adjustment comes a fresh understanding of self and strength, as well as a re-evaluation of where to expend energy.  When it might have reduced me to tears before, I now have the ability to laugh off rude or impatient insular administrators.  I know now not to waste energy getting upset in these annoying situations - energy that is better conserved for remembering how to say a correct verb tense.

Or at least when I have to deal with those petty paper-pushers, I have a morsel of peanut butter to look forward to at home.

Life, lights, TBD

I haven't been inspired to write for a few weeks.  This really annoys me, but it also strangely comforts me.  It annoys me because I actually enjoy writing this blog, and writers block is such a bitter staleness.  I'm comforted though because I realize nothing too out of the ordinary has happened recently.  That's to say, nothing absurd, frustrating, agonizing, depressing, or overtly français has occurred since I last wrote.  Which means I haven't had cause for any minor or major panic attacks in French grocery stores.  I count this as a small victory.  But it's no great fodder for blog posts.

I have had collective inspiration not from recent events but from recent scenic memories.  Specifically les Fêtes des Lumières and the magnificent fog that rolled over Lyon this past week.  These two visual displays, combined with the nearing end of the year, have turned me rather (more) introspective.

Les Fêtes des Lumières is a festival of light exhibitions and shows all throughout the city of Lyon.  It was originally intended as a festival of thanks for the Virgin Mary when the city was spared from the plague hundreds of years ago.  The Lyonnais place little candles on their windowsills every December 8th in thanks, and the city of Lyon puts on a grand festival that attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world.  The festival lasts four days, with the grandest displays on the 8th.  After class on Monday the 8th, Ben and I went down to the ancient Cathédrale St. Jean for a rather epic show.

There is something about the glittering intimacy of holiday lights that sparks a childlike wonder in me.  I remember every Christmastime when I was young, I would lay under the Christmas tree and stare up at the twinkling lights through the branches of our trusty fake pine.  It smelled of moth balls, old, loved ornaments, and the peppermint of candy canes.  Contraband  tinsel always wound up stuck to my clothes and hair, and errant pine needles scattered around me on the rug my mom had just vacuumed.  But I loved every first time I got to hide away under that tree in the dark living room, illuminated only by the string of lights my dad had carefully untwined hours before.  It's a memory of such a happy childhood when nothing was uncertain, and I always felt safe and secure.  Something of the twinkling holiday lights evokes that feeling again in me.  It's a feeling that is rather harder to come by now, and I felt it once again in the crush of the crowd in front of the Cathédrale St. Jean.  Safe and secure, childlike revelry illuminated only by dancing lights on an ancient cathedral.

Not every memory from this time of the year is a good one.  I struggled with a lot of bullying when I was in middle school, and the very worst of it was when I was around 12.  Right after Christmas, the dread of returning to torment at school started to set in, and that New Year's Eve was a miserable one.  The total opposite of safety and security; rather a veil of despair, anxiety, and uncertainty.  Not a fond memory, but a memory nonetheless of one of the first times I summoned the inner courage to go forth in the face of so much fragility and vulnerability.  The pain of anxiety is manifested in many ways, and when I was 12, it manifest very physically in some very unpleasant anxiety attacks.  With help from my patient parents, I was able to conquer those inner feelings of despair and cease the anxiety attacks.  It came to a point that I told myself to stop, just stop.  An anxiety attack doesn't improve any kind of uncertain situation, I told myself, it only adds to the hurt.

Some 13 years later, the uncertain introspection of the holiday season has returned.  This year, thankfully, there's no bullying to deal with.  But if anything, the future is more veiled than it has ever been.  Bullies are terrifying to a 12-year-old; the near future is terrifying to a 25-year-old.  This week, I had the chance to mull this over, appropriately, in the midst of a great fog on the hill of la Basilique de Fourvière.  The entire city was shrouded in a thick, unforgiving sheet.  I could hardly see past the Rhône on the far side of la presqu'île.  While up there, I thought about the coming new year and the inevitable march of time.  I realize that the older I get, the less sure I am of anything in my life.  I'm less sure that I want to commit to anything, I'm less assured that I've made the right choices, and I'm certainly losing certainty on what I want to do with my life.  At 17, I had my life planned out, step by step.  Now, I feel lucky if I can get the next 6 months locked down.  I see friends and acquaintances advancing with such certainty, and it makes me wonder if there's something wrong with me.  Sometimes I feel as though everyone my age is in such a rush to get married, settle down, have kids, buy houses.  With such a great fog over my future, it doesn't seem possible that I'll ever feel in the right place to do any of the above.  Why is everyone in such a hurry anyway?  At the top of the hill, I retreated in from the oppressive fog, and sat in peace inside the Basilique de Fourvière.  Inside the quiet church, I sat still for 20 minutes and admired the ornate stained-glass windows and marble mosaic frescoes.  No demand on my time, no need to commit or settle, just a silent appreciation for the present.  When the fog surrounds me, I retreat into myself and meditate in the moment.  If I can learn how to commit to myself, maybe someday I'll learn how to commit to the bigger things.  Maybe that metaphorical fog will burn off with time, and maybe I'll learn to summon that inner courage to break through the uncertainty on my own.  In the meantime, I'm happy to have ancient French churches in which to sit and ponder these mysteries of life.

Happy holidays, joyeuses fêtes to all.  May your lives be filled with shimmering, glimmering lights.

International diplomacy

This weekend, Lyon is hosting the Fêtes des Lumières.  As it sounds, this is a grand festival of lights that attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world.  The city is lit up with colorful, fanciful exhibitions, and the streets and metros are packed with all manner of foreigners.  Lyon has decked herself in glittering splendor to warmly welcome those from abroad.  She is a colorful window into French hospitality and creativity.

Ferris wheel with animations 

Hanging cherry lights

Bamboo lights

Last night, Ben and I welcomed friends into our home for our crémaillère (housewarming party).  Eight of our new friends braved the busy metros and bitter cold for a soirée in our new home.  It felt like a bit of a microcosmic representation of the Fêtes des Lumières happening in the streets around us.  We two Americans welcomed a small world into our home: Italy, China, Botswana, Taiwan, Mali, France, and one more American.  Not only were we hosting this fête, but we became ambassadors of our culture to this small, diverse group.  Just as the city of Lyon itself is a great ambassador of the French culture during this weekend of lights.

I made quiche for the first time! 

My adorable friends 

Full house, lots of wine.

But what happens when ambassadorship fails?  I believe this is a task we must all carry wherever we go, whether we like it or not.  I'm not just a foreigner in a foreign land, but the way I comport myself is a representation of America itself.  America can do all she likes to win the opinion of foreigners through media, but the longest links in the chain of ambassadorship are the citizens themselves.  Unfortunately, as the saying goes, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  

I recently had a perfectly dreadful experience with a French person.  I've been living here long enough at this point to stop generalizing about French people, but my interaction with this person was incredibly detrimental to my opinion of the French.  Overall, I'd like to claim that the French are very warm and kind, and can be very welcoming in their own way.  It's not a culture that's as open as America, but when a French person decides to like you, he is indeed chaleureux.  

My interaction was with a woman who works at BNP, where I went on Friday by myself to try to open a bank account.  I don't know if it's because I'm a foreigner, a student, or because I'm young, but this woman was rude, condescending, impatient, and downright mean.  Every two minutes, she took phone calls that lasted 10 minutes or more.  No apologies for wasting my time after.  When she finally got around to deigning to help me, she discovered (apparently for the first time) that the new rules in France state that Americans must fill out a W9 in order to procure a French bank account (a W9 consists of your name, address, and SSN.  That's it.)  She had to print out the form and give it to me to fill out, but she kept repeating, c'est compliqué, c'est compliqué, as though she were the one who had to read the English form and fill it out.  Then she didn't understand that the W9 is what will serve as the justification for my SSN.  She kept demanding I show her a separate justification.  I tried to explain that the W9 is the justification and that I don't have any card or paper proving my SSN.  At that point, she got really excited because it seemed as though she would get to deny me an account.  But she called a colleague, and sure enough, he told her the W9 would suffice.  Annoyed, she continued.  She asked my why I needed a bank account in France.  I told her I have a job here, and I'll be paid directly through my account.  Unconvinced, she asked me if my parents would be using it to transfer money to me.  I said no.  She asked me again, as though I were lying.  Again, I said no.  Flustered, she asked me how I was paying for university.  I told her I'm paying my own university fees.  She looked at me like I had three heads.  But she continued.  When she typed the wrong university into her online form, I corrected her, and again she looked at me like she wanted to pluck out my eyeballs.  Next, she got to a page that asked for justification of identity (whether or not I had filled out a W9).  Since she still didn't understand, she thought it meant whether I had separate proof of my SSN.  The only options on the online for were "yes" or "waiting for it."  She muttered something about there being no option for "no," as in, "no, this stupid American didn't fork over her social security card, so I'd better call up the United Nations and report her for identity fraud."  She called in a colleague again to complain.  This time he came into her office, surveyed my completed W9, and asked her what the problem was.  He had to explain to her that my W9 is the justification.  So we moved on.  Next, I needed to show proof of residence.  I don't pay any of the bills for our apartment, but the lease is in both of our names.  So I gave her a copy of our lease.  Gleefully, she informed me that unless I have a gas or electric or some kind of bill, she would proceed no further.  I told her none of the bills are in my name.  She repeated herself as though in those two intervening seconds I had magically acquired a new bill in my name.  She started mumbling something at me that I honestly just couldn't understand.  So I said, I'm sorry, I don't understand.  She mumbled it again. Frustrated, I asked her if we could please suspend the process.  More indistinct mumbling (I'm pretty sure she was talking in Swahili at this point, I couldn't catch a single word).  So I asked her if she had a paper that explained all of the forms one needs for opening an account.  She actually laughed at me when she said no.  I asked her if there was anything online that I could consult.  She said if I wanted something online, I should just open an account online, as though I were the only idiot ever to come into a bank in person to open an account.  Finally, when I was nearly in tears, I told her to quit the process.  I was getting nowhere (she wasn't letting me get anywhere), so I didn't see the point in continuing to be humiliated.  When she sensed my frustration, she actually said, I don't know how they do it in America, if you get your new credit cards right away, but here in France it takes time to make the cards.  It wasn't a joke.  

As I retreated from her office, I turned with as forced a smile as I could muster and said, "Merci quand même."  She cackled and bared her teeth at me in triumph.  On a very obvious level, this woman is a representative of BNP.  I chose to bring my business to this bank, and this woman's terrible attitude has left me with a really awful impression of BNP.  But on a much grander scale, this woman is a representation of her culture.  She chose to belittle me and make me feel very uncomfortable.  She doesn't understand that in that tiny bubble of a situation, she is the face of France.  She contributes to my collections of experiences in this country.  Sadly, negative impressions often hold a larger chunk of memory than positive.  

6 months ago, I would have bemoaned this unfortunate little event as proof that the French hate me.  It would have ruined my courage to try again and deeply fouled my opinion of the people here.  Now, though, I just feel sorry for this woman.  She's clearly deeply unhappy and felt it necessary to take it out on a foreigner.  I tried my very best to speak French and act graciously.  I gave her no ammunition to dislike me other than the fact that I was born a few thousand miles away.  

We're all little ambassadors of our origins, and this woman failed miserably.  But this reinforced a valuable lesson that's been percolating in my mind for years.  When I worked at City Sports in DC, we had flocks of foreign tourists in the store all the time.  I started to realize that every interaction with a foreigner was an act of diplomacy.  I was a representative of the American culture.  I truly appreciated those tourists who made a valiant effort to speak any English they knew, even if it was only hello or thank you.  In the absence of English, a warm smile was just as welcome.  Even if a foreign tourist was rude or oblivious, how I conducted myself would still be some portion of that person's opinion of America.

Lyon is doing a delightful job of welcoming foreigners and tourists into the city for the Fêtes des Lumières, just as I hope Ben and I hosted a welcoming crémaillère last night.  One person's lousy behavior won't ruin this beautiful city and country for me, but it definitely wouldn't have hurt if she'd been kind or at least neutral.

A warm welcome in lights. 

Christmas markets!

As American as tarte aux pommes.

Yesterday was the second Thanksgiving I've spent outside the US.  When I was a junior in college, I studied abroad in London, where I lived in a student residence with friends from Boston University and other American universities.  The week preceding Thanksgiving, my parents traveled to Europe, and I met them in Paris to pass the weekend there; they spent the rest of the week with me in London.  That week, we music students presented a recital, and then we gathered on Thursday in one of our residence's kitchens to cook a grand and very traditional meal.  It was about as American as Thanksgiving can be abroad.  The Brits think Thanksgiving is just quaint, and they quite indulged us in our celebration.

In France, yesterday was Thursday.

Yesterday was the first Thanksgiving I've spent with Ben, but as it's just another work day here, we couldn't spend the day together.  I don't have class on Thursdays, but I babysit in the afternoons.  I tried to convey the importance of the day to the French kids, but they just laughed when I tried to teach them to draw hand turkeys.  Earlier in the day, I stopped by the grocery store to hunt for pie ingredients.  I was determined to fabricate at least a small essence of the holiday... because at least in the US, I make a mean pie.  Ben was hoping for pumpkin pie, but I had a feeling the store wasn't going to stock puréed pumpkin.  I was right, no surprise.  So an apple pie it was.  I thought it would be quick and easy to pick up flour, sugar, apples, a few spices.  The French love their baked goods, so I anticipated a breezy search.

At this point, I need to stop and take a good long think about my life choices.  How have I not accepted that the default is that everything here is way more difficult than it should be?  My can-do American mentality just feels pathetic and naive lately.  But in the thankful spirit of the day, I set forth into Casino, scribbled list in hand.  The broken roller cart should have been my first clue that all would not be well.

I made my way to the baking aisle and found no puréed pumpkin.  Not to worry.  Move on to apple pie ingredients.  Flour.  White flour?  Bread flour?  Liquid flour?  Seriously.  I picked up the cheapest white flour, non liquid.  Sugar.  There was no sugar in the baking ingredients aisle.  Slight panic setting in.  How about shortening for the dough?  No?  They must not use shortening in France.  Ok, let's backtrack and get some apples.  I know the giant store has apples.  Alors, spirits restored.  Bon.  Let's take a second pass at the baking ingredients aisle for sugar, I must have just missed it.  No, still not there.  Why.  What.  WHERE.  Ok, calming down.  Need a substitute for shortening.  Applesauce could work.  There's the applesauce, next to the confiture.  Now the spices.  Cannelle is cinnamon, got that.  Nutmeg.  I have no idea what the word for nutmeg is in French.  Let's text Ben and see if he can google translate for me.  Oh, look at that, no service in the store.  FINE, we'll settle for ginger instead, even though this stupid recipe doesn't call for it.  Deep breath, it's ok, no one will really miss the nutmeg.  Ok, maybe take a quick dip down the other aisles for the sugar?  No.  No.  No.  NO.  NO.  WHERE IS THE SUGAR.  WHY IS THERE NO SUGAR IN THIS STORE.  MY THANKSGIVING IS GOING TO BE RUINED.

And there, in the midst of the baking ingredients aisle, I allowed myself a brief I'm-a-foreigner-and-everything-is-terrible meltdown.  For five seconds, I let the tears well up, and my face grew hot with anxiety and heart-wrenching homesickness.  Thanksgiving is supposed to be about spending the day in warm cozy house, surrounded by family and the scent of delicious cooking turkey and pies.  It's a day reserved for comfortably surveying all the good and wonderful in one's life.   And a day we give thanks for how greatly fortunate we are for all the love and friendship we have.  It is not a day meant to be spent fighting off judgmental French leers of cigarette-stinking Frenchmen in French stores and French public transportation.  But damned if I was going to let a depressing French grocery store ruin my beloved holiday.  So I gave myself a mental kick in the pants, and headed in search of some eggs.  And there, next to the eggs, was all the sugar.

Finding all the ingredients was only half the battle in the War of the Apple Pie.  There are no pie tins in France, only tart pans.  They also don't measure things in cups and ounces over here, sillies.  So armed with my heavy new ceramic tart pan and my bizarrely marked metric measuring cup, I ventured forth into the final battle.  I would yet win this war.  When I finally put the beast in my ill-tempered oven (set to approximately, maybe around 425°F ish), I had an astounding moment of clarity: I'm getting really, really good at muddling through.  In fact, en fait, in the past three months, I have become the master of muddling through.  The instructions are never clear enough in a foreign language, but it just won't do to hide away all day with the curtains drawn.  The point is to attempt.  Living abroad is essentially a study in making a fool of oneself.  You will make an apple pie not with the ingredients you desire, but with the ingredients that are available.

I've spent a good portion of my life subconsciously refusing to try new things due to a crippling fear of failure.  I super don't like being either wrong or bad at something.  So I just won't try it if it doesn't seem like it would suit me.  In the context of living abroad, my true wants and desires are clarifying with an intensity I've never known otherwise.  Literally everything is about 50% more difficult here just for the language barrier alone.  So if I want it, then I must really want it.  There's no point in expending energy doing something I'm not keen on when nearly everything takes double the energy it would normally in my home country.  And those things I am keen on?  Well, I muddle pretty damn well at this point.  Take that, French-Apple-Pie-in-a-Tart-Pan.

PIE.

Talk to me.

Everyone does it.  You can't live without it.  It's second nature.  You feel like you might die if you can't do it.  Breathing, right?  Admittedly.  But more pertinently: communicating.

Living in America, I never gave much thought to the act of communication.  I learned to speak English as any normal young kid.  I never learned the rules of grammar all that well in primary school (sorry Mom and my teacher aunts), but nonetheless I figured out how to express myself coherently, even at times, elegantly.  English is my maternal language, my mother tongue.  I believe it's no accident that it's named as such.  Who is a mother other than someone who makes you feel safe, comforted, strong, confident?  Just as kids and teens take their moms for granted, we take our mother tongue for granted when living in our home country.  English is a bear of a language to learn (rules are for the WEAK), but I just happened to be born in a household where it was spoken.

There are moments, days, weeks here that I wish I could go back in time 25 years and telepathically urge my parents to move a few hours north so I could have grown up in a Francophone region.  What I wouldn't give to be able to speak French fluently.  In every interaction, I'm painfully aware that I struggle with what is otherwise second nature.  When I attempt to speak French, I feel anything but safe, comforted, strong, or confident.

Communication goes beyond the simplicity of ordering bread in a boulangerie or asking "ça va?" to a friend.  Communicating isn't small talk.  "Tu as passé un bon weekend?"  "Oui, je suis restée chez moi, j'ai fait du bla bla bla avec bla bla bla.  Qu'est-ce que tu vas faire ce weekend?"  Good for you, you can make small talk.  No, communication is expressing one's opinions, explaining abstract thoughts, describing an emotional state, inquiring about unknown or confusing matters.  When none of this is possible, or at least feels mostly impossible, the doors of the world are closed.  The people on the street are by default all judgmental and condescending.  Every time I walk out my door, I put on my armor and fear that someone will start talking at me.  Give me time to prepare, and I can express myself fairly well in French.  But that isn't practical!  If only every single life situation came with a five minute preparation period.  As such, I'm in a constant state of agitation.

With lack of communicative skill comes a real inferiority complex.  I don't want to rip on the French in general, but because French is the only foreign language I've attempted to really speak to natives, I only have this experience to go on.  Very few times, when I speak in French, I receive encouraging nods, smiles, little suggestions or corrections.  In these situations, I feel at ease, and the foreign language begins to flow smoother.  More often than not, however, I get the deer-in-the-headlights reaction.  See also: the squinty eyes, the impatient sighing, the looking around for an exit, or the blatant judgement/walk away.  Note to tout le monde: the latter reactions are NOT GOOD.  The person speaking the foreign language is already terrified of judgment for being in a different country/culture.  No one wants to actively be identified as a foreigner.  We're all just trying to fit in and not be negatively noticed.  Add to that unease the judgement of a native while communicating and we've landed squarely on the recipe for rejection.

Not being able to express myself breeds the worst of rejection.  This is the kind of really personal rejection that cuts deeply and lasts all night.  My opinions and expressions represent who I am as a person.  I'm just a vanilla, human-shaped cutout if I can never open my mouth and give some definition to my existence.  Maybe actions speak louder than words, but that stupid cliché only gets you so far.  You can't register for classes or defend a master's thesis on action alone.  Unless you both know sign language, you can't become friends with a new person with only actions.  This kind of rejection isn't necessarily spawned from other people either.  Responding to an email or perusing an article becomes a labor of translation.  Reading is no longer a pleasurable enjoyment, but a test of vocabulary and a furtive dig for verb conjugations.  There is no such thing as a quickly dashed note in a foreign tongue.  Each word and phrase is considered with the utmost care, and one just hopes the recipient feels generous with his standard of comprehension.  

I yearn for a time when I'll be able to express myself in French in complete phrases and thoughtful opinions.  At the moment, I have this monumental weight of self-consciousness that drags me back to feeling like a shy 13-year-old.  Yet, I have an enormous appreciation for those who communicate every day in a foreign language.  It makes me want to shake the American education system and demand foreign language classes be taught from kindergarten.  Beginning a foreign language in 8th grade, as I did, is inexcusable in a world as interconnected as it is now.

Until fluency, I'm stuck giving myself little pep talks before going out into public.  I suck up my pride and venture forth with simple sentences and myriad hand gestures.  I smile and try my hardest.  I must comfort myself with the thought that those who judge have never been in a foreign situation themselves.  Maybe they have no appreciation for how difficult it is for Americans to make that guttural r sound, or the half whisper, half spit noise one has to make when saying oui, je suis, bonne nuit...  ([ɥ] for the IPA junkies out there).  Mostly, I enjoy how beautiful the French language is and try to be patient with myself while I'm still learning.  One day, I will be able to communicate; when that day comes, I'm going to smash down all those closed doors with my powerful language.  Until then, je vous souhaite une bonne nuit.

Une vraie lyonnaise

Routine.  A word that drudges up feelings of monotony and boredom.  Never a change of pace.  When we have a routine, we're told to get out of the rut, shake things up, do something that scares us at least once a day.  Routine is a bad word to people my age.  This is the time in our lives that we're supposed to do exciting things like quit our jobs and move to France!

So what happens when you've done exactly that, but you find yourself once again in a routine?  This is what happens: you get down on your knees and thank the universe that you're lucky enough to feel safe and secure within this giant risk you've just taken.

Even something as exciting and exotic as moving to a foreign country can become ordinary over time.  But don't fret!  This just means you've been successful in setting up your life.  Anything that's new and different is exciting until it's no longer new and different.  This is the trap we fall in.  This is why routine is a bad word, and this is why humans seek out ever-increasing highs to pull us from the flat plane of the usual.

Good friends are always a good diversion.

As is chocolat chaud!

Routine is an integral component of life.  Without the constant of routine, how does anything else ever feel special?  Without routine, how do we appreciate the splendor of diversion?  If we stared up at the Sistine Chapel every single day, we would get bored of craning our necks to look at the same painted ceiling minute after dreadful minute.  Since most of us don't, in fact, spend every moment in the Sistine Chapel, we can truly appreciate a diversion from the plain white ceilings in our lives.

It's not the Sistine Chapel, but Notre Dame de Fourvière
is sure pretty to look at.

We also tend to forget the beauty within routine.  I wake up, I get ready, I go to class, I come home, I make dinner, I go to bed.  Variations on a theme every day, but it's mostly within the same opus.  It's possible for me to view my life as such, to get dragged down by the tedium of living, the routine of my days, but why?  How do I manage to maintain vivacity within sameness?  I appreciate the security within my routine so that the thrill of diverging fulfills me.  Secondly, I make peace with my routine. I don't allow routine to be a bad word because I've been waiting for four years for precisely this routine.

Waited four years to do things like paint the kitchen table and chairs
with boyfriend.

For four years, I hated weekend couples.  I hated how they held hands and walked lazily down M St. in Georgetown, contentedly shopping for luxury food goods at Dean and DeLuca.  I hated how they wore matching running or cycling gear with matching Starbucks cups and matching secret smiles.  I especially hated how couples would moon over each other while paying for purchases when I was at the register at City Sports.  I hated how alone I felt, that I couldn't share my smile with the person who makes me smile the most.  

Look at those obnoxious weekend smiles

For three of the past four years, I didn't feel as though my routine were my choice.  I did what I thought I was supposed to do after graduating from college.  Get a job, pay rent, be independent.  I suppose I especially appreciated the divergences from this routine, but it was essentially lacking.  But now, finally, I can be one of those obnoxious weekend couples and share my secret smile in person.  This is the routine I've been longing for, and I hold it closely to my heart, reveling in the sacred tedium and extraordinary comfort.

When we lack the things we love most dearly, it only serves as a reminder of just how much we truly love those things when we once again have them.  I already wrote about my changing personal definition of home; I think appreciation for routine could be filed in a sub-folder of the "Home" tab.  I can also add this to my post about stupid clichés, namely: absence makes the heart grow fonder.  I suppose at the core, this could be true, but it's another over-simplified one-liner that could never possibly take into account the complex spectrum of human emotion.  Four years of being fed that one-liner really start to take a toll on the spirit.

Now that I have my long-sought routine, I feel free to fully enjoy the act of living in Lyon.  The past few weeks have been filled with getting to know my new city and nesting in my new home.  Lyon is superbly underrated.  Before I moved here, many people assumed I would be moving to Paris when I said I was moving to France.  Paris is great and everything (touristy...), but Lyon is just so français.  The food, the architecture, the attitude.  The city is sprawling, but it's also quite intimate.  It's easy to walk from neighborhood to neighborhood; the public transportation is surprisingly abundant and
functional.

Place Bellecour 

Le Saône 

Vieux Lyon

During our breaks between classes, Emily and I have started wandering around the city.  11am on a Monday morning is a prime time to walk through the touristy section of Vieux Lyon.  It's deserted.  But that doesn't mean the traditional bouchons aren't in the midst of cooking for the midday meal.  The aroma of cooking is heavenly.  One time, we literally followed our noses up a steep outdoor staircase that lead us to the basilica of Notre Dame de Fourvière.  This cathedral sits at the top of a hill overlooking the entire city; on a clear day, you can see the Alps in the distance.

Twilight atop the hill

Lyon

We're learning how to enjoy a good conversation at a café on a rainy day.  The Lyonnais gods laugh at our plans, and divert us to random brass bands playing near Place Bellecour.  We had a store in mind in Vieux Lyon, but of course we had to stop and enjoy the man playing the didgeridoo.  We climbed to the top of the hill to see Notre Dame de Fourvière, but took a trek down a grassy side-path to see all the abandoned candelabras.

French selfies.

We want to steal one for a Christmas "tree"

This was the second didgeridoo I saw that day. 

Brass band, sans clothes

We're drawn to the beauty and richness of this city, a city that now feels like home.  Walking across a bridge over the Rhȏne at night, with the sparkling spectacle of lights shimmering all around.  Ancient cathedrals dot the old quarter, and the regal, old Haussmann buildings stand like statuesque testaments to a grander age.  From atop the hill at Notre Dame de Fourvière, a sea of red tiled roofs blends indistinctly with the crepuscular atmosphere.  A cotton candy twilight washes through the city, until a twinkling canvas reflects back from the river.  Lyon is beautiful.

Le Saône

Notre Dame de Fourvière

I love my routine here.  I'm still so new to this city, this country, this language, but the security of my routine gives me such hope that I'm becoming une vraie lyonnaise.  The little excursions we take on our breaks, the life with long-missed love, the satisfying crunch of a fresh baguette, the ubiquitous and aesthetically-pleasing Haussmann buildings, the scent of bouchons doing what they do best, the music of la langue française all give more meaning to the quotidien of days.

And of course, nothing is better than make crêpes with friends on a chilly November night.

At the end of a truly delightful day.

Home sweet finally feels like home

This week is vacation for all the students in France.  It could not be any more timely: we finally put together our apartment, post-bugpocalypse.  Also, I pulled a muscle in my back yesterday while cleaning, so I have double the excuse to laze on our couch.  We spent a very frenzied weekend making trips to the hardware store, Ikea (again), the marché, the grocery store.  We put up the drapes (aka: an excuse for Ben to use his favorite new play thing, the drill), we mopped the floors, put together even more furniture, and started some decorating.  At long last, I no longer feel like a guest in my own home.

Bedroom, now with drapes!

The French apparently don't believe in hanging clothes, so
we both bought clothes racks for the anti-wrinkle campaign.

There's always a period of time when you move into a new place when you wake up in the morning and can't quite remember where you are or what you're doing there.  I had that feeling on a more global scale when I first moved to France, but any remnant in any capacity is receding until it almost feels average that I'm here in this apartment in this country.  I had an out-of-body moment of panic last night when I remembered that I quit my job and sold all my belongings to move to a foreign country, but I managed to zero back in on my reality before the hyperventilating hit.  The foreign language doesn't seem so foreign any more.  I understand my professors at the university with no problem.  On Friday, I was able to carry on a conversation with one of Ben's new colleagues with minimal help.  The ability to express myself in French is becoming more fluid, although I still wish I could just acquire French by osmosis.  

Kitchen!  With appliances and mopped floor!

Alcove, with both desks, and a little decor.

All of these things take time.  That's one thing no one really warns you about when you undertake a new venture.  It's going to be so exciting!  You're going to learn so much!  You'll become a totally different person in the face of new challenges!  Oh, and it's going to take MONTHS to feel any sense of normality!  At the heart of it, I'm still an English-speaking American with 25 years of red, white, and blue conditioning.  Slowly, slowly comes the melting to blue, white, and red.  I don't know why I'm surprised that it feels like it's taking so long to feel normal here.  I'm used to doing things that take time to perfect.  I didn't train for a marathon in a few weeks (some people can, I most definitely needed months for my first, and months after to recover...), it took a culmination of four years of training and practice to present 45 minutes of music for a degree recital in college.  It took me three years to settle and learn independence in DC.  

My favorite.  The living room.

DRAPES.

But I guess it's hard to impress this upon the now, now, NOW generation.  Despite my appreciation for the importance of practicing and training, I'm still eager for imminent pay-offs.  When we moved in a month ago, we thought we could build all our furniture in one night.  Silly.  I keep asking myself why I'm not fluent in French yet... silly!  It's the bigger things too: why don't I have a career doing something I love yet?  Why am I not a settled, married, child-rearing, mortgage-paying, retirement-saving established woman yet?  We're always so keen to move on to the next phase of life, to be older, wiser, more mature.  But where does that leave room to savor the present?  How often do we stop in our tracks and gaze around at what's in front of us, the fruits of our dedicated labor?  With our furniture fresh out of the packaging, and our language just on the verge of true comprehension.  How often do we appreciate all the hard work and struggle we've just endured to get to the current moment?  And can we readily admit to ourselves that maybe we're just not ready for that next phase of life, that maybe we require more practice to find some higher level of satisfaction in our present state?

Satisfaction in the shape of a baguette.

So this week of vacation, I plan to retreat and recover and emerge ready to continue the journey.  The frustrating, exhilarating, exhausting, and inspiring journey to discover what it means to be a citizen of the world, and not just a resident of a limited reality.  I hope to recoup my vitality for the continued trek to the depths of unmitigated panic and anxiety and for the flights of soaring highs of confidence.  I'll move forward with the acknowledged expectation that the living of life takes time, but that time is fleeting and should be savored.  And I'll immerse myself in the rich simplicity of sitting back and enjoying the new home that's taken a required toll on mind, body, and spirit.

I want to eat ALL THE CHEESE.

Only Lyon!