After publishing my first contribution to Ma Vie Française, I proudly sent the piece out to friends and family to share with them a little piece of my French beginnings. My mother who remembers the special-Ed math crisis all too well and is the least articulate writer that I know, sent this e-mail: "Hi. The school..what assholes! Good story. I love you. Momma" Her text messages are even more painful, if you can believe it. And leave it to my French friends to point something out to me. They have spent the past two days making fun of the chambre de bonne caption I wrote under Fifi's gorgeous illustration of an apartment in the 7th. "Ella! What chambre de bonne do you know is on the first floor, has parquet floors, floral window dressings and a gorgeous view of the Eiffel Tower?" my friend Thomas mocked, "You're lucky if you can see the top of a tree in a chambre de bonne!" I should know this, I live in one.
I guess labeling this expensive piece of real estate in the chi-chi part of town, a chambre de bonne is not exactly accurate. I couldn't escape their playful ridicule but also couldn't go back and change it and just hoped that my story is entertaining enough that it would be overlooked.
Moving on, last night, I was invited to a dinner by my dear friend Jean (who has never called me by my name, to him I am Bijou Américaine) at our mutual friend Gautier's new apartment.
This is his view:
...from his chambre de bonne. Do you know how satisfied I was when I saw this? You bet I sent this photo out in a mass text with a smiley face.
Dinner was absolutely lovely. I have not seen Jean and Gautier in over a year and a half. Jean followed his dream and moved to Japan last year and Gautier whom I know through Jean has been overwhelmed with his last year of school and up until recently was commuting from the suburbs and as life is, we've all been doing our own thing. I was also in hiding after the MF catastrophe and wasn't reaching out to anyone during this dark period. Now that it has been almost a year since everything has happened, I am able to talk about it openly (and briefly) without my eyes watering up.
Catching up with old friends over bottles of red, saucisson and a hot bowl of creamy pasta on an icy, winter's night was just what I needed as a welcome back to my beloved city.
There was so much to talk about; Jean impressed me with his fluent Japanese and recounted his tales of being an expat in a foreign country, Gautier shared his exciting new job, showed me photos of his new girlfriend whom he clearly adores, and as I was launching into some of my news, they stopped me mid-sentence. Immediately, I assumed something was stuck in my teeth or I had red wine lips and hovered my hand over my mouth while looking back at them with wide eyes. "Bijou, you speak French," Jean said proudly with Gautier nodding his head in agreement. Oh yeah, I guess I was speaking French and it hadn't even occurred to me.
Back when I met them in 2009, they spoke English with me because my French wasn't fluent. I couldn't even "practice" with them because I was simply unable to convey a point or retell a story and it would put a strain on our social gathering. Fast forward almost three years later, I don't even realize that I'm speaking it. So for all of you who get frustrated or discouraged, please believe me when I say that it only gets better with practice and time. If a special-Ed math girl like me can do it, I trust that you can too.
As the meal progressed and the second bottle of wine was being popped open, Jean confessed that he was pleased that I let go of my former toxic friends whom he used to label "The Crisis Group". Looking back, he was right. My first batch of friends here were a bunch of hooligans who cared nothing about learning the language, made me feel like I was a show-off for trying to communicate in the country's official tongue, would talk horribly about one another - mostly me, and get drunk and start fights with people on the metro or at parties - in English. Not surprisingly, these were the people who turned their backs on me when I was in the merde. Who needs friends that want you to sparkle less in order to make them feel more comfortable? I did that a lot in my twenties, I downplayed my hard work and played stupid to make people feel better about themselves. How sick is that?
Like I had mentioned in previous posts, when you are new to a city, your standards are lowered as you search for your niche and core group of friends. Perhaps this isn't the case for everyone but it certainly was for me. I didn't want to be alone and accepted pure bullshit in exchange for some company, even if it meant insulting myself. These days I understand that quality trumps quantity and if you have a small group of true friends, then you have everything. It took four months of pure solitude to finally understand this.
The night was coming to an end as the clock struck 11 on the dot, the Eiffel Tower started its on-the-hour light show. Just like Séb got serenaded in New York by my cousins with Billy Joel's "The Piano Man", I got the French version when Serge Gainsbourg's "Initials BB" came on the radio. I couldn't have asked for anything more, I had two adorable French men, who incidentally where both wearing turtlenecks, smoking cigarettes, drinking wine singing to me with the glittering Eiffel Tower staring back at me through the window. I truly felt like a sparkling bijou américaine and I make no apologies for that.
