Earlier this evening, while I was calmly eating my tomatoes drizzled with olive oil, my host mother told me that I seemed sad, and went on to lecture me about how la vie est belle and you have to enjoy every moment and nothing is so bad that it isn't fixable and you need to savor the little things and so on.
Out of nowhere, just like that. I think it was because I wasn't eating with enough appetite and gusto. Pff. The French!
Despite the fact that I knew what she was saying was uncalled for and not true, it still got to me a little bit. Was I sad? If I was giving that impression, it must mean something. I did have a weird day — Sundays in Europe are kind of surreal, since absolutely everything is closed — and I spent most of it in a daze that was most likely brought on by two consecutive nights of getting back to the apartment after 2 a.m. I thought it was just one odd day, but was it more than that?
After mulling it over, I realized that not only did this woman meet me a mere week ago and therefore didn't know much about my personality or character, but that, by nature, I am a calm, pensive, somewhat reserved person — traits that can easily be mistaken for sadness. My host mother, Nadia, absolutely adores talking and debating and conversing — a national quality, I've noticed — and a lot of the time I don't really have anything to say in response to her grand pronouncements on Sarkozy's politics at exactly what age adolescent boys might question their sexuality. I'm aware of the fact that she loves the sound of her own voice. Bitchy of me to say that, I know, but it's true. A lot of French people seem to enjoy putting their opinions out there but don't really care about what anyone says back. In my time spent in France, I had perfected the combined head-nod and neutral-yet-sympathetic "hmm." Works every time.
As far as la vie est belle, profitens-en! speech that Nadia gave me, it felt a bit ridiculous to be on the receiving end of it, since I was the one who had travelled across the Atlantic to spend four months in a foreign country and culture, speaking a language different from my own and making an entirely new set of friends and connections. As far as the little things go, I'm not doing too bad either. Here are little things that have given me a warm, fuzzy feeling in this past week I have spent in Aix:
1) The plane trees. They line le cours Mirabeau, they shade cafés, they dapple sun-colored buildings with shade from their fluttering leaves. Every square looks like an impressionist painting.
2) The stand by the Palais de Justice that sells candy for just five centimes per piece. You can individually choose each on from at least 50 different types and for a mere euro you have a delicious, portable treat.
3) The feeling of savagely spitting out dirty words. Putain bordel de merde! Va te faire enculer, grosse salope!
4) Drinking a Strongbow cider outside by fountain lined with candles.
5) Finding a tiny restaurant called Les Deux Soeurs, run by two Spanish sisters who do everything themselves, and eating some of the most delicious tapas.
6) Buying peaches with friends at the Tuesday morning market in la Place des Prêcheurs, and eating them for lunch in the garden of the school, juice dribbling down our chins and onto the ground.
7) Randomly discovering that I know the world for "chestnut."
8) Going to a 24-hour patîsserie at 2 in the morning and getting a still-warm Nutella cookie.
9) Finding a gorgeous autumn-colored dress at Zara and — yep — it fits perfectly.
10) Finding myself a) in France, b) in an Irish pub, and c) surrounded by French sailors yelling and singing along to "Sweet Home Alabama."
I've only been here for eight days. Tomorrow I start my classes — one of which I get to take at the Sciences Po university, since my French level qualified as high enough — on Tuesday my friends and I are going on a three-hour hike through a cedar forest in the Luberon valley. My language partner, Guillaume, wants to take me to the beach during the week. And I'll get to go to my friend Emily's house. And these are just things I have planned right now. Who knows what else will happen?
Sad, my ass.
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