25 November 2009 Wednesday 3 pm
About an hour ago, as I was cutting into a perfect, vibrantly green avocado, firm and ripe and creamy like butter, I wondered to myself, why I am leaving this place? Granted, I can answer that question easily, come up with a grocery list of reasons why life here is really difficult and frustrating and often just sort of absurd. But there are moments when I wonder if I could live here- really live her. I am going to be honest and say that no, I don’t think I could. Maybe for a year or two but not my whole life. And that’s exactly what all the metropolitans (from mainland France) say. A few years but they can’t imagine staying here. It’s such an interesting paradox, living in a place where life is fun and good and beautiful and easy and yet so unbelievably frustrating and difficult and exhausting. Furthermore, I have to keep in mind that my life here is great because it is temporary and I’m making the most of as much of it as I can. But, thinking about it, I think if I had a car and no financial concerns, I could probably stay here for a while… but isn’t that the story everywhere?
I have it so easy here: my housing and food are paid for; I live with an amazing family yet have my own kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and privacy; I have a veggie vendor who gives me lots of free fruits and veggies- I fill my bag up and he won’t let me pay. I am friends with a few great French families who take me to the beach on the weekends and invite me to parties and pay me to hang out with their kids or use their internet while the kids sleep. Seb (Florence’s husband) lets me come to his exercise classes; thanks to the campus athletic department, I learned how to body board and even tried surfing last Friday. I’m learning both African dance and traditional Martiniquais bélé dance. Granted, I had to jump through a few hoops (like getting a doctor’s note to say I am healthy) and pay 45 Euros… for the entire year. Seriously. Sure, it’s hot and there are bus strikes and I don’t have internet access at home and there are these dogs that eat my clothing and gnaw on me in the morning and I have huge time final papers and projects coming up… but I’m content. Tranquille, we say. Tranquille le chat. Tout cool.
Please don’t misunderstand- I am not at all trying to brag. More, I’m just saying that for all the difficulty and aggravation and bureaucratic nonsense and how damn expensive life here and whatever else, life is beautiful. 3 ½ weeks left and I am going to bask in it while I can. And then when I get back to the US, I will make a conscious effort to keep this all in mind. Sometimes things are rough but no matter what, there are always things to appreciate.
I just realized the irony of the fact that I am going to post this tomorrow at school- on Thanksgiving. So if you’re wondering what I’m thankful for, it’s everything. Because even if the sun is hot and I’m sweating profusely and walking to school, I know that I would rather the sun rise in the morning and be hot than eternal nighttime. It’s a bummer getting a sunburn at the bus stop… but I know that Sunday I will be at the beach jumping into the ocean, hanging out with 4-11 year olds and their parents, speaking French and chatting about whatever, eating cheese sandwiches and orange juice and buttery rich cake. That’s right. I love French people.
This weekend was amazing and ridiculous. Friday afternoon, as I said, I tried surfing. And I assure you I was no good. It’s really exhausting and uses a lot of upper body strength- something I seem to be lacking. I came out of it with bruised hips and sternum, a lot of salt water in my sinus, tired and hungry but I was content. It was fun! Saturday I spent studying and working on things until about 4 and then went and saw a typical French film with Youma and Kristen- “Le Petit Nicholas.” It was cute and funny and French. Afterwards, Florence picked me up, and with the whole family, we went to the birthday party of a friend’s husband. It was absurd. We drank planteurs (the men drank beers- but not the women), ate pasta with shrimp and mussels and chicken (I found out afterwards they were all cooked together. Woo for being a vegetarian), danced and ate obscenely rich cake and I don’t even know what else. It was fun but we were definitely tired yet stayed super late. I slept over at Florence’s house for conveniences sake because Sunday was kayaking. 4 hours of sleep later, and I was up, eating a typical French breakfast and watching Lucas eat the most phenomenal breakfast I had never before imagined. I’m sitting there drinking coffee and eating bread with butter and jam and a super adorable 7 year old is sitting across from me, half asleep, eating white bread- crust cut off- folded in half with a fat slather of nutella and dipping this sandwich into a bowl of milk. He probably had 3 slices. It was amazing. I wish I could eat like that.
The funny thing is- picture an American child sitting next to him eating a fat bowl of lucky charms or capt’n crunch of whatever sugary cereal kids eat. The American child is significantly more likely to be obese later in life, if not already. I’ve been trying to understand this phenomenon for the past month or two. And we can say it’s because of the preservatives and crap we put in our food, but like I explained with the nutella label, the food their eating isn’t necessarily better. The white bread we were eating at Florence’s house was filled with words I don’t know (no high fructose, thankfully) aka shelf stabilizers, in their cupboards they have cookie packets and chocolatey breakfast cereals and they eat cheese and full cream yogurt and ham and salami and things like that. When I had dinner at Florence’s house, she made fish cooked in a creamy sauce. Then, there’s the chocolate. French people love chocolate (and who can blame them). I apologize if this is making you hungry- the point of what I’m getting at is that as far as I can tell, what the French have that we Americans don’t is the idea of where and when to stop. Sure, they might have crème fraiche (which is like yogurt but made with cream) and foie gras and other gross things but they don’t eat it everyday. Coca Cola is reserved for Sundays at the beach- same with the butter cake-and after eating three fat nutella sandwiches with milk, Lucas didn’t eat again until lunch time around 1 pm. Exercising and being active definitely help- most of the women in the group are in Seb’s exercise classes, and the men gendarmes (like state troopers?) but above all I think it’s just portion control. Which we American folk don’t have.
To finish with Sunday, we drove to Francois, about an hour away on the Atlantic coast and rented kayaks. Being the lone wolf, I got to kayak solo which was really exciting on 4 hours a sleep with tired arms from surfing through mean waves against the wind. But I did it and most of the time enjoyed it. I practiced my determination and stubbornness, things which I clearly need to work on (…). We kayaked out to a sandbar between these two islands off the coast- îllet Theirry and îllet Oscar. There, the person who runs the kayak rental service had driven his motor boat and we all hung out and drank juice for the kids and rum (juice optional) for the adults who chose to. One drink plus the previously mentioned circumstances and I was down for the count, sleeping in my kayak in the sunshine while everyone hung out and the kids played. Result: a nice sun burn on the tops of my legs, New Hampshire from Concord south is nice and red, and other random burnt patches where I missed with the sunscreen.
Paul, Florence’s 10 year old, super wanted to kayak by himself and since the wind was on our side going back, I let him take my kayak and caught a ride on the boat. After a relocation to a really nice grassy beach, we ate lunch together and I sort of tried to take a nap but ended up playing with Romane and Chloe, the children of Hélene and Luc, who I’ve babysat for a few times. They also had some American friends come visit last week and I cared for an 18 month year old all day last Monday- looks like I didn’t write about it and for good reason. It was a terror. It was the first time she had been left alone without her sisters and she didn’t know me and was in a totally foreign place and spent most of the morning either crying or cowering away from me in her crib because I obviously was the enemy. We eventually got along alright but it was still terrible. Plus, I was sick. Less than fun.
But I had a super awesome weekend and my week is going pretty well, too. I have a fat stack of work to do so I am going to get back to it but I hope Thanksgiving is delightful and filled with things to be thankful for. No matter what, there are always things to appreciate. Feel free to tell me that when I’m freezing cold playing Frisbee in the pouring rain at 8:30 on a Saturday morning on a muddy field somewhere in Oregon with the full knowledge I have 4 games to play in the rain all day and some sort of gigantic paper due on Monday. Because at that point, I will just realize I could be walking to the bus stop at 11 am in 35 degree Celsius sunshine with my sweat dripping down my spine and my laptop and a few schoolbooks in my bag with the full knowledge I have a lot of work to do and with absolutely no desire to do anything except go to the beach and sleep.
Perspective.
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