Three years at 10 rue de Logelbach

When October 9, the anniversary of my arrival in Paris as an about-to-be resident, rolled around this year, I was in Dakar working on the medicinal plants project for Senegal. But ever since I've been back, I've been reflecting on how I feel about living in Paris these three years. Perhaps it's the poignancy of autumn that has me musing about me and my adopted home.

Wait...make that home. Forget the adopted. Saying Paris is my adopted home makes me take a step back, putting a certain distance between me and it. And after three years of intensive adaptive behavior, I like to think most of the distance is now gone.

Any expatriate will relate to what I mean by "adaptive behavior." Moving to a different country is more "different" than you can ever imagine before you do it, no matter how many times you've been there as a traveler. There's just no way to imagine or account for all the ways you will have to adapt, right down to the tiniest and sometimes even intimate details of your daily life.

For instance, I've become used to being scolded for shaving my legs, instead of waxing them. Yes, every time I go to a salon to get even so much as a toenail painted, I am bound to get the Wax Lecture. It goes like this. After laying a hand on my leg or casting an appraising eye, the esthetician cringes delicately.
--"You shave the legs, Madame?"
"Yes, I know it isn't good, but..."
--"You all do...this (slight shudder) Over There, don't you..."
--(Sheesh, my accent is that obvious?...)

She listens wide-eyed to my humble explanation of how I actually tried, in my boundless enthusiasm for being a Correct French Woman, waxing my legs instead of shaving them, for several months (during the winter, to be sure), but it didn't work for me...(And here I launch into a clinical explanation that is interesting only to a French esthetician and would just gross you out.)

She is unfazed. I simply hadn't persevered, she intones. As for how to manage that uncomfortable in-between stage where my legs resemble those of a gorilla, she advises me that in time, I will only sprout a light, baby-fine down, which (she caresses her own silken shin) can be removed weekly during those difficult summer months. "Il faut patienter, Madame," she concludes, using that peculiarly French active form of this verb meaning "to be patient." "You must (be) patient."

Yes, one of the things you learn in France is that il faut patienter beaucoup. In fact, the art of how to patienter is one of the first and most important lessons to learn in order to survive your Life in France. Many things that require only a phone call to accomplish in the U.S. take unimaginably long here, especially if they involve at any step the dread French bureaucracy.

While no one loves the telephone more than the French, most of whom, in Paris anyway, have their cell phones grafted to their ears, the phone is paradoxically not considered appropriate for any transaction of real importance. To place an inquiry, lodge a complaint, etc., il faut écrire. "One must write." And if the content of the message is in any way negative or accusatory, you must write a lettre recommandé--a certified letter, and that preferably handwritten. (The French still harbor a distrust of typed or computer-printed letters; how to know they are authentic?)

Oh, how the registered letters flow among the hotheaded French. They are the very lifeblood of the country, the stuff of millions of trivial triumphs daily. Even the name--the accusé de reception-- for the slip you must sign acknowledging receipt of the poisoned missive makes you feel, a priori, guilty.

But I digress. Let's just say that for the first many months I spent in France, I would have been only too happy to communicate by letter. That's because telephone conversations terrified me. It was one thing to make myself understood during (and likewise, understand) a conversation face-to-face.

But over the phone, the French words coming out of the receiver seemed to dissolve into an indecipherable aural blur. And I was often as not tongue tied in my panic. It was not unusual for me to plan out exactly what I was going to say in advance, striving for the most natural, French phrasing possible. Of course, this never got me farther than my introductory phrase, as the response inevitably led off into uncharted territory which I had not rehearsed.

Pitiful, huh? I'm glad to say I got over that stage. Gradually, French telephone voices began to resolve themselves into discernable words. Now, if I don't understand, I'm not afraid to state that fact, point-blank. Sometimes, depending on the situation, I'll cannily flout my Americanism, rather than trying to disguise it. "I'm American," I'll demur. "There are some words I don't understand. In fact, I don't understand you at all--pas du tout, Madame!

A large part of my adaptation to life here has been to learn to accept the differences--a key part of experiencing any culture different from one's own. And many of these differences, I've come to cherish, although superficially, they drive me crazy.

For example, take the fact that it takes me a good hour and half to make my shopping rounds. This is due not only to the fact that I make them on foot--in spite of having a car now, this area is so congested that it takes more time in a vehicle--but to the fact that every transaction involves a lot of human interaction. And, I have to wait while everyone in line ahead of me has his or her own version of that interaction.

But all things considered, I wouldn't trade that interaction for all the efficiency in the world. The conversations I have had with my butcher about history, philosophy, and of course, food; the kind, patient and humorous way my caviste (wine merchant) guides me on my exploration of the enormously complicated world of French wines; the real kisses he gives me when he sees me (as opposed to the "air kisses" of certain disagreeably bourgeois types)--I wouldn't trade those for anything. And I realize that it is billions of transactions such as these that weave the fiber of life as a whole here.

The ways I've had to adapt to life in France are literally too numerous to count. I've certainly done my fair share of grousing along the way, but I hope I've learned to be amused rather than angry at the few differences that are really irreconcilable.

For me, this move to a different country--coming at a time of life when most people are settling inexorably into permanent routine--has been immensely stimulating and even therapeutic. Not only have my horizons been--literally--expanded, but the mental and emotional exercise of adaptation has renewed my flexibility, resilience, resourcefulness, and not least, my sense of wonder at being alive.

Recently, walking nearby here one late afternoon, with the last golden rays of the slanting autumn sun burnishing the lovely old building facades and the worn pavers beneath my feet, I felt engulfed by a wave of calm happiness. I was home!

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