Chapter 4

Chapter 4

May 18, 2016

 

     "You have to let it go, this idea that you have to be perfect," Dominique (my host father) informed quite clearly. It's a directness that I've noticed among the French that both delights and unnerves me. Today was spent doing homework and later in the day, preparing for the children's arrival home. I made apples into roses then baked them since it had been raining all day. Have I ever done apples in the shape of roses? No. I just felt like it, because the apples were about to turn and it seemed like a good idea at the time. They ended up much prettier than I expected so that was nice. After the usual bout of negotiation the kids were in bed and Rebecca (the mom) was at a meeting. I finished loading the dishwasher and was going to settle in to work on my grammar workbook (which I brought with me. 'Why did you bring French books to France?' one of the children asked. "Because my French is rusty and I want to get better," I replied) when Dominique came home. I let him know the kids were in bed and that Rebecca was at a meeting and dinner was on the stove.

     "It really is quite marvelous, the way you are with the children. It rather surprises me that you haven't any children because it seems you've been at this for a a good while," he stated with a smile. I felt myself blush and murmured a thank you as he was called by the children to tell them good night, and he pointed at me. "Unless you are too tired I'd love to have a beer and you tell me about your life," and with that he sprinted upstairs. After a while (which he apologized for) he grabbed dinner and a beer for each of us and we just talked.

     He asked about the differences between France and home. I mentioned the restaurants, the negotiating, the shops closing at lunch, and the general willingness to help someone if they are genuinely trying. Dominique is a storyteller. In addition to being quite intelligent he is very aware and practical about the duality of his German/ French heritage. "You will discover in all the things the French ultimately  love life," he goes on to tell me of how his mother instructed him how to get into museums for free. About how if you are trying to get a passport or the such in Germany and they say it will take 4 weeks that it will take precisely 4 weeks. The French, conversely, would also say 4 weeks, but if you truly need something, she told him, cry. If you tell them that you need it to visit your Mum and you haven't seen her in some time then they will tell you 'ah, you go over to this boss here, fill out a form, carry it to this office and you will have it in two days'. As we talked a bit more, he stopped abruptly, "What do you want to bring away from this? In terms of an experience or an object, what do you want to have after 3 months?" 

     It made me pause and I told him that he'd have to give me a minute. "Short term?" I began, "I would love to walk into a shop or a restaurant and communicate clearly what I want without the trepidation and nervousness I have now and receive it." I told him about the bookstore. "So what makes you nervous now?" he asked. "I speak French fairly well, but I get flustered easily and even though I am rusty I am still fluent, but I speak to a native speaker and I just forget my grammar and my vocabulary and I end up speaking like a 12 year old." As he looks pensively at me I feel the blush creep up my neck because I don't speak about my social anxieties to many people, anxieties that are exacerbated by the fact that everyone here is new, everything here is a strange situation. I haven't even been to Paris yet. Not because I am afraid of it per se, but because it's daunting and so far outside of my comfort zone. Also I am cripplingly afraid of getting hopelessly lost. "Why does it bother you if your French is not as good as you think it should be?" Dominique's question does not seem to come from a place of ridicule but rather a wish for comprehension. I take a deep breath before I answer. 

     "It's who I am. I am a procrastinating perfectionist. I want to speak well because I want to pass for French in terms of language. While everyone has been kind and helped me the best they can, I know my French is broken. I went into a sandwich shop and he didn't think I was a tourist or an American. It's in the eyes I've noticed. As soon as they hear an incorrect verb or the wrong vocabulary that marks me as a non-native speaker a glint comes into their eyes; they subtly treat you different after that." "So don't give a shit," Dominique shrugged, "You can go about nervous about being good at this or that, but it's better to experience I think. These people don't know you. That gives you a freedom, yeah? To be whatever you want to be. If you mess up, who cares? It's about the experience as it is in most of life. So you have to let it go, this idea that you have to be perfect." It stopped me cold and I had to take a deep breath because it was like a weight had been lifted from my chest. "Thank you," was all I could really say. Being given that sort of permission...well it's hard to describe unless you've experienced it.

     "I meant what I said about you and the kids. They've really taken to you," he states. "I feel you realize they don't really judge you so you are more yourself wit them; intelligent and sarcastic, but also very kind and I just want you to apply that idea to the rest of your interactions. Because I feel you're not always quite you with the grown-ups, with us. You can be, you know. It's like that in France too, so long as you don't hurt or offend people, people really don't care. So I sing in the supermarket, I could stop in the middle of the road to chat with a friend and they might beep me, throw their hands up but as soon as they understand that 'oh he is just talking to a friend' and it's like whatever." He finishes his dinner and beer and tells me he hopes I sleep well and I walk down to my room. I take a deep breath, sit on my bed and I write. It's good. It's good. It's good.

-Alicia
July 22, 2016

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

As you may have noticed I have not been updating this as frequently. I am working on getting better about that. I am finding myself less motivated to write at all. This frustrates me because I love to write and it is how I process things and I am just...going. Experiencing yes, but I don't know. So if you are reading this...thank you and any encouragement is greatly appreciated. 

May 15, 2016

     It has now been a full week. It doesn't feel like a whole week. Rather it feels substantially shorter and infinitely longer. This, while being a bit rough at times, has been a great weekend. The children are starting to behave better in pieces, and I am understanding things better...in pieces. You never realize your deficiencies in a language until you find yourself in a situation where you are desperately looking for the proper vocabulary to explain something you really need to a native speaker. However, and maybe it's because I haven't been to Paris yet, but the people here are not rude. Well, not if you're at least trying to speak the language. I am fairly fluent, but I struggle immensely. My vocabulary is not what it should be and my grammar is spotty.

     One example was Saturday, which was wonderful. After helping the kids with their homework until lunch I got to go to St. Germain for a few hours on my own. It was delightful. I just walked around (in my Stitch dress) and just explored. I needed a book for class so I actually stumbled upon the bookstore by accident. It was quite busy so it took a while for the man working there to be available. As soon as I started to explain what I needed I felt my face turn bright red because I was flustered. I tried repeating the name of the book, but sensing that I was struggling asked (in English) if it would be easier in English. Slightly defeated I said yes and even after I repeated it he didn't understand and quickly slid me a piece of paper and pen to me and asked if I could write it. As I did he stopped me after a few letters and (in French) apologized, saying that it was not my French, but simply that he thought that I was saying a different but very similar word and immediately said that he knew precisely the book and beckoned me to follow. That...that was incredibly encouraging.

     I was able to go to several stores and in somewhat broken French explain and obtain exactly what I was wanting. That felt good. I found a comic book store and drank a caffeinated milkshake on the steps of a beautiful church across from the chateau, I had a woman approach me randomly and then proceeded to tell me that she liked my dress and that summer would be soon, but not yet and that she hoped that it would be pleasant. I just...wandered around the city and it was pretty fantastic. The thing about France that takes a bit of getting used to is that the restaurants etc. only have certain times that they serve food. People typically eat out typically at the same time and dinner services is not until 7 in some places after their lunch ends at 2. So if you are hungry for dinner at 5 you are out of luck save for little sandwich shops. So instead I went to a pub for hot chocolate (because that's a thing here) hoping for a bit to eat, but I'd hit the in between time, so I enjoyed the hot chocolate, which was delicious, and returned to the house. It was a good day, such a good day.

     As I talked with my Apryl I told her that here I feel...right. Even though a part of me is in constant panic and I get flustered easily, but it's good. It's not real. Well, it doesn't feel real even though I know it is. Every day I stop and say to myself, "Je suis en France. Je suis en France. Je suis en France." I am in France. I am in France. I am in France. I feel that maybe if I repeat it enough times it will be more cemented in my head that I am really here. I am really doing it. Even in the small moments I freak out or a wave of missing my family hits me hard I have a simple mantra: "It's good. It's good. It's good." It is...good. Not easy. Not without its downfalls and moments of tiny terror, but it is good. C'est si bon.

-Alicia R. Farrar

June 13, 2016

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Monday May 9, 2016

     It's just a pastry...presumably. However, the iconography of its flaky deliciousness extends to a childhood filled with wonder at an animated depiction of a village where you could buy bread, still warm and fresh from the oven. I'm not expecting its inhabitants to burst into song (oh but wouldn't that be wonderful). So today the croissant was ordered for me alongside bread, titled 'Viking', that was for the family. "You always say 'bonjour' to everyone," my host mother, Rebecca, whispered to me. (Which of course made me think that maybe if I started the song they'd join in.) As they spoke, Rebecca and the shopkeeper I realize I am understanding more and more French. This does not change the fact that I have brought grammar books and dictionaries and struggle immensely whenever I have to speak to someone when it is their native language. I on the verge of panic, but I am getting better. It does not change the fact that I am taking a French class in "town" which for us is Saint Germain-En-Laye. There is a chateau in said town. It was when the Sun King wanted to live it down a little from Versailles and "slum" it a bit. 

     I look outside from the large window in my room. It is a window where I cannot bear to close the shutters because of both the natural light and the fact that the shutters are metal and the other bit is the view. My room looks out into "the garden". That it what they call it because the family I am staying with has an English mother and a German/ French father so a lot of very British vocabulary is slowly trickling into my vernacular. So it is not the backyard I see from my window, it is the garden and of course I have to giggle as I do so past the small Toothless figurines, Mjolnir, and the small "One Ring" I have on my windowsill. It's a backyard with trees and little flowers littering the grasses growing sporadically in tufts of white, yellow, and a glorious blue. However, it is not the backyard, it is the garden which we "pop into" and I am very grateful that their first language is English. Of course, we speak French with each other fairly frequently thus far. It was the highest praise when the twins' tennis instructor said that my French is very good, not even with the stipulation 'for an American' but simply 'very good'. Everything around here closes for lunch time in the village I am in. However, there are not many restaurants here, which actually really surprised me. Apparently, save for Paris, restaurants are not really something people frequent as they are quite expensive. Most people go home for lunch and cook a meal, so most businesses are closed for around two hours around lunch time.

     I saw my first chateau today in Saint Germain. It is so beautiful and the whole city is just incredible. People walk everywhere. Aside for the scarcity, parking is a logistical nightmare. All the streets are incredibly narrow, which makes me nervous about driving here. They are going to try to get me a new car to get the kids to school, but apparently driving a car is a ridiculous ordeal around here. There is so much that's so different, but it's good and I am so happy to be here. Today Benji (the oldest at 13) has informed me that I am the best Au Pair they have ever had by far.

I'll take it.

-Alicia R. Farrar
5/24/2016

Chapter One

May 8, 2016

Chapter One

*Note to the reader: The date at the top left is the date that the original journal entry was written, the date accompanied by name is the date that it is being typed in. I may play with the format, but that is simply to clarify confusion.*

     It doesn't feel real yet. It may never feel real to the point of breaching acceptance that I am genuinely here, now. I put pen to paper with a smirk as I write 'Chapter One' because a close friend told me that I would as a heroine putting quill to parchment which I suppose makes me the bard and the warrior or maybe the mage, but let's face it I'm a bit of a healer too...and a scribe. See, this is why I never got into those games because I wouldn't be able to choose. However, in any case I suppose (for me) choosing to go on the adventure in the first place was the hardest choice. In one of my last conversations in Tennessee she held a gift behind her back, took a deep breath and said, "From the moment I truly became your friend you have always reminded me of two of Shakespeare's women (then with a smirk)...and they are?" "Well Beatrice obviously," I replied because she is my favorite and I am far too snarky, ferocious, and willing to be challenged not to empathize with her, but there was another. The brave soul charting lands unknown and finding herself in her journey (I laughed because pay no mind to the fact that there was cross-dressing in the process). Viola. So as I sit in my uncharted lands feeling not quite so brave yet, it seemed only appropriate that the chronicles of my (mis)adventures be scribed within the pages giving her (me) homage.

     He was in the wrong building. I descended the escalator looking for the paper with my name on it, but there was no one. There was no one awaiting me at all. I accepted this, but paced with vigilance until I heard someone frantically shout my name. After fervent apologies on his part, we packed my things and drove. We talked about a great deal as he drove like I was simply meeting up with an old friend after a long time away. As I looked out the window I knew that the signs were foreign, the roads varied just enough to question protocol, but I didn't feel like I was in France, but simply another state I'd never had the chance to visit. Sure, there were the wall made out of porous rocks or the narrow streets made of cobblestone, or the quiet allusion to places I had dreamed of since I had learned of them as a girl that even nuanced to the fact that I was not in proverbial Kansas anymore.

     Even the children and I hit it off, they took to me immediately (though any time around each other and I've no doubts we'll drive each other crazy). As I sat at dinner I had the sensation that these were not strangers to me, nor was I in a strange place. I feel so...at peace here. It just feels...right. Oh it has, at times, been a shitstorm of one bad situation after another, but I know without the shadow of a doubt that all of it happened to bring me to this point. I am beyond words. This is a great adventure and while before I arrived I had a sense of happy panic, now I have a sense of what I can only describe as an anxious sense of belonging. Oh, of course all my anxieties are amped to 11 and the idea of speaking my broken French to a native speaker of the language sends my heart pounding, I made it here so the hard choice is over and I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings.

-Alicia R. Farrar

(5/17/2016)

Prologue

Prologue

     It's a story. It's always been a story. Not in the David Copperfield way...well maybe a bit like it in that I have never really felt like I've been my own protagonist, much less the hero. Well, not until recently and even that self-efficacy has its limits. There are days I feel a bit marooned or treading water with sharp inhales as the wave of circumstance (whether good or bad) wash over me. I have been through a few maelstroms to put it lightly. It has been a wretched decade in my life. I had always been fed this idea that my 20s were supposed to be the best years of my life. How did I spend them? Working with the same company, single, and going to school. I do not necessarily regret any of these attributes save for in pieces and certain details. That is perfectly fine. If my life and I didn't disagree at least a little bit then we wouldn't be in a very good relationship.

     A wise man once told me (and he is a whole different story) that if you have hit the bottom and feel like you have nothing, why not do the impossible. Of course I have never had nothing. I have never truly been without, but I definitely have had some hella low points. There were a specific two weeks after that job of my 20s was gone that I kind of...sank for a while. This is good too. When there is a death you are supposed to mourn. It has taken a long time and a lot of growing to allow myself things/ times like that, to realize that I need them. That I need people. I forget/ don't like admitting that sometimes. I have become very practical about myself and very honest with myself and it has been a struggle, but one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. 

     I have learned to listen to that still small voice inside. It's the voice that said, "10 years is enough. You just need to go. You'll be just fine, but go. Your time here is done." It's the voice that said, "These people are toxic. Stop giving people who are terrible and do nothing but drag you down so many chances. Sometimes that empathy needs to be quiet because it can hurt more than help you. Balance it with logic. Letting go is good sometimes." It's the voice that said, "You are going to make it through this. This is a speed bump and because you have gone through this you are going to be able to help and reach out to people nobody else really can." It's the voice that said, "Shhh. You don't have to listen to all the voices in your head. The thousand questions and what ifs don't always have to be answered. It's ok to be anxious, to feel afraid, to panic, to not be able to keep up with your mind, to have to take deep breaths when you feel overwhelmed. This does not make you deficient." Naturally, I haven't always listened so sometimes the still small voice has follow-ups. "Of course that person hurt you. You are strong. You are not alone. You will hurt, but you will heal." Then the one that brought me to my current circumstances: "Well if you're not going to leave willingly I am going to force you out. There is something else you are supposed to be doing" and after the two weeks where it was difficult to even get out of bed, "Alright, you have your period of mourning, which is appropriate because this was a death in your life, but now you have a choice; you can continue to wallow in your misery and self-pity, or you can do what you have been called to since you were 14."

     So I am writing this from my room in France. It's a part of my dream. Since I was 14 it has been my dream to teach English in France and I am currently an Au Pair (it was very important to me to do the Au Pair because I wanted to understand French culture through the context of a family, improve my French, and live in the country before believing myself capable of teaching their children). An Au Pair is, essentially, a nanny. I help the family in whatever way I can. I have made food, helped with the dishes etc. It has been a whirlwind thus far, a proverbial crash course in my first time being out of the US. However, like any adventure I will chronicle my stories. However it is important that my readers know, it has been a long and difficult journey to get here, but I am so grateful. So I could be cliché and tell you to follow your dreams and when you hit the bottom that the only way is up and cite these things, but I think instead I'll send a different message to someone I wish could have heard it: So I will probably post to both here and Facebook (Facebook will likely be easier with the pictures) 

Dear 14 year old me,

You are not alone, worthless, unloved, useless, or stupid. There’s more to live for than you have yet to realize. I know it feels terrible right now, I validate your feelings, but I tell you that your perspective is limited. I wish I could tell you that life will be all downhill from here, but I can’t. Yes, there are terrible things that are going to happen in your life; Dad loses his job (a couple of times actually), you get cancer, you lose best friend after best friend (it’s not your fault, they were only meant to be in your life for a little while), and after years of school you can’t get a job with your degree. You get fired from a job you had for 10 years. All of these things happen, but you grow because of them and they teach you that you’re stronger than your circumstances.

Put down the razor. It may get worse, but I swear to you it also gets better. You know that dream you have buried deep down that everyone keeps telling you is impossible? The dream that scares you to speak aloud because every time you have all you hear is the naysayers telling you it’s never going to happen? Sure it takes you a while, but it happens. Where I am now I got on a plane and I am in France (yes, France it's OK I am freaking out too) and I am learning so much. I am being smart (that doesn't change) enough to do this in a way that will best benefit me in the long run, but brave enough to do exactly what you always hoped but never believed would happen. You get to live your dream and it would never have happened if all these bad things didn’t happen, if they didn’t shape you into being brave enough and strong enough to move past the fear. If you feel like you have nothing, why not do the impossible? I love you. It takes a while to realize, to accept, but I love you. You love you. You are loved.

So this blog will be a reflection of myself and my experiences; it may be a bit messy, a bit honest, maybe a bit crass, a bit ridiculous at times, but this is my dream, my life and I can't tell you how happy I am to finally be living it.

-Alicia R. Farrar