14 January 2013 - Date written...
Here I am, writing from the fourth
floor (though in Europe, it is technically still the 3rd floor!) of
my chambre in Grenoble, specifically Saint Martin d’Heres. Yes, very exciting
news indeed, if you are one for adventure and that sort of thing. I’m still
trying to figure out if I’m made of that adventurous stuff or not. I guess I
have no choice, now that I’ve made the choice to be adventurous!
Anyway, it has been an emotionally
eventful few days, oh wait, I’ve only really been here in France for little
over 48 hours. Wow! I thought time was moving a bit more quickly than that, but
I guess I was mistaken. That’s okay, right? But back to the emotional business,
let’s just say it wasn’t pretty. I’m not saying that this is one of those dark
blog posts with words that twist your soul and break your spirit, definitely
not. But this was one of those few occasions in life where everything sensory
around you turns against you in the worst way, and then you can’t even try to
express what you are feeling because you realize that nobody around really
cares that much about you or who you are, not yet anyway. That’s a scary
feeling, the most alone feeling I have ever felt.
The first call back home was a sudden
release of all of those pent up emotions. A release of the stress and the
frustration and the overwhelming sense of loss, but also a great intake of
happiness and overwhelming connection to those who love me. I was at a loss for
words; some (or many) tears were shed, on both ends. I’m not sure I will ever
forget that moment, it was small and hardly noticeable: I sat at the far corner
table on the second floor of a small Subway (yes, the American sandwich shop
with wallpaper featuring a great map of New York City) and finally connected to
the wifi I had been searching for. I set out from my apartment with one goal in
mind: find the Internet, and find it I did.
If I had made this trip fifty years
ago, maybe I would have been made of tougher stuff. Or maybe I would have grown
up without such immediate connection and the loss wouldn’t have felt so great.
I guess we’ll never know because there’s no turning back Time now. Anyway,
needless to say, I was already a bit homesick (am a bit homesick [and by “bit”
I mean A WHOLE FREAKING LOT]). But that’s another thing altogether, isn’t it?
So, now that I have found myself in a
new city with minimal English (though I have run into my mother tongue a few
times, which gives me hope for the future). I know that I am supposed to be
learning the language, but I think the phrase “thrown into the frying pan”
really hurts more than it sounds. Well, I guess it sounds pretty painful.
Anyway, I think I’m much better at easing into a situation, slowly immersing
myself in the chaos. Like entering a lake when it is almost too cold to swim
in: some people like to jump in and get over the shock quick. I find that the
shock sticks with me, leaving me breathless and trying to keep my head above
water. When I slowly immerse myself in the icy liquid, I found that I could
keep my breathing even and work the temperature to a bearable level. This is
how I think I envisioned my initial experience in France, but lo and behold,
here I am trying to keep my head above water and losing my breath due to the
frigid temperatures.
Mind you, that long metaphor doesn’t
really apply to the people. I haven’t found anyone to be outright cold and
indifferent. There have been many friendly Bonjours!
and small smiles to show congenial behavior. No one has looked at me in
disgust [yet] when they learned that I was an Americain who possessed much less French than he though he did.
[The trouble isn’t usually expressing myself, though I have great trouble with
that, the trouble lies in understanding what the French speakers are
saying—simple things leap over my head because I wasn’t prepared to listen for
it.]
For example (a good example), today I
went to the supermarché to buy some cleaning supplies and slowly work on
building my food supply [when you have to carry everything you want out of the
store and then walk back to your apartment, you really can’t buy a cart load of
food at a time…]. Anyway, back to the supermarché, Casino géant, where I stood
looking at a wall of multi-purpose cleaning sprays. While trying to decipher
which one would kill the most bacterial residue left behind by the former
tenant, an older [not necessarily elderly] man came to stand by me. He looked
me in the eyes, smiled, and then spouted something about [I think] all of the choices in front of me. I distinctly remember
hearing the word merde [shit], yes, I
have learned a few of the more worrisome French words through my education.
Anyway the point of all of this was to show that there are really friendly
French people, but I can’t understand a word they are saying! I looked at him,
smiled and laughed, and then muttered something indistinct so that he didn’t
realize I didn’t understand him… C’est ma vie.
So, I think from now on, I will start
paying attention to little moments like these. Maybe the man said something
nasty, and smiled only because he thought his joke hilarious. Or maybe he was
off his rocker and actually only spouted gibberish to me, smiled and went on
his merry (if not exceedingly impaired) way. I’m sure neither of those are the
case, but it is a great time for my imagination to go wild since I couldn’t
actually interpret what he meant.
Oh! Another thing that I have started
noticing, though I’m not sure why: there are a lot more people in wheel chairs
here. High accident rates? High rates of birth defects…? Umm, yeah not sure.
Though I’m experiencing more people with more…abnormalities…than usual. Not
that this is a bad thing, I just wonder if it is just the city or maybe it is
just me…?
Again with the sirens! I have a great
view, but I can hear every siren that goes off in this place! Maybe I’m just
not good at blocking out those things here in the beautiful city in the valley
of the mountains [La ville dans le vallée des montagnes, as I have started
calling it]. Hopefully, sooner than
later, I will enjoy the quiet of a city once more. You know, when you have been
there long enough that all of the city sounds actual become part of the
silence!? Well, some of you know, but if you’re from Moab you probably think
I’m a bit crazy.
I think I’ll stop there. It has only
been two days, after all. If I keep up at this pace, I’ll have a novel length
blog by the end of the five months!
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