When I came home last summer, I think my biggest challenge was facing the reverse culture shock. That whole bit about how moronic people sound when you understand 100% of what they're saying. Then there was the gross food habits, the excessive driving, the colossal spaces between things, the lack of real chèvre. Men in ill-fitting pants.
This feels different. Perhaps because I recognize that come two weeks I will not be jumping on a plane to head back, the unhappy funk of readjusting has set in with a vengeance. I felt its dark embrace while I was still packing up my room, still trotting those uneven cobblestones. Never has it been so hard to leave a place for me, though I feel like I have more than enough experience.
So what is it? How did my life in Bordeaux, full of a thousand moments of extraordinary frustration and boiling self-doubt, become such a full and wonderful experience? When did my urge to shout "FUCK YOU, FRANCE" out the window become a gentle, indulgent smile of appreciation and good humor?
I have no idea. I would say it were the dirty work of lady nostalgia, but I don't think that's true exactly. My mind and memory are full of just as many unpleasant episodes and fun ones, though I do admit that swimming in a public fountain ranks higher on my list of "memorable" than being bitched out by a catty middle-aged English teacher with frizzy hair.
A funny glitch in my own brain took place a few days ago. My last night in Bordeaux, I arrived home with two Comtesse mojitos in my stomach and a heart full of pirate. Our internet had been preemptively cut, and I resorted to internet access codes and my iPod touch to get to my email. I got into an email conversation with my friend Josh, and he, knowing my departure from France was imminent, asked me this:
Josh: Does this mean you're back in LA? What ultra-American thing are you going to do that you missed while in France?
I can't truthfully blame the mojitos, however strong:
Anya: What I will miss: everything, and men in impossibly tight pants. Oh, and speaking without being understood.
Josh is too nice a person to point out my total misreading of his question (or comment on that ridiculous response), and it wasn't until at least a day later that I realized how incorrectly I had interpreted those sentences. If I hadn't been so anxious about leaving, I might've enjoyed writing "I'm going to drink a rootbeer float while watching TV on the TV!" or maybe "I'm going to walk out of the house wearing pajama pants and a hoodie" or "I'm going to drive to the grocery store!" Alas. Though fantastic activities, they all pale in comparison to "everything" and "men in impossibly tight pants." I stand by that.
They also pale to
and
and
(in truth far from the best I've ever had, but beautifully presented.)
and
but most of all, these babes
and these.
TO BE CONTINUED. WATCH OUT!
2 comments:
oh my god, the pants. i was there for three days, in one city, but jesus christ. the pants on the military guards at the airport were something to aspire to. the pants on the men who were obviously the trashiest of the trashy were completely legitimately "goal" pants. and then there are the actually fabulous men who have pants that were for me, until recently, something like an abstract mathematical ideal, the warp 10 of pants.
HOW DO THEY DO IT?
and, more importantly, how can i?
-aaron
Well, for better or worse, welcome back to the good ol' U.S. of A. You may yet grow to love it, albeit in a different way. (Hint: get out of LA. Come to Wonderland.)
Although it doesn't make the task of creating a new life on this side of the pond any easier, it may help to remember that you can always go back. Forever, if you like.
Georgia and I would love to see you, if you can spare a two-hour plane ride. ;)
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