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!