Almost May, good lord. France has just exploded into bloom, the trees are exhaling flowers all over the grass that was finally brave enough to sortie. I have been spending far too many afternoons lying in the sun in the Parc Monceau, people-watching from behind the sunglasses I found on the Métro and trying to read a book by Casanova that I thought would be deliciously salacious but instead is disappointingly ponderous. C’est la vie. There are strawberries all over the place now, and even though I know it’s not strawberry season, why resist? Two weekends ago several of us cobbled together a picnic and lay on the banks of the Seine, struggling with wine bottles, licking the chicken grease off our fingers and watching four men do roller-blade tricks in berets. I got a lovely sunburn on one shoulder, and a reverse sock tan. And nowhere else. That’s how France should always be.
Almost May and laughing at lunch with my co-workers I feel like I’ve finally eased in here. I am never bored. I visit hospitals with Naoual and have the courage to talk to people now—last week I held a man’s hand as he cried because he was lonely and far from home and very scared, and though I know that I’m still not the ideal person to be visiting them, I’ll do in a pinch. My fingers that have finally adjusted to a French keyboard are faster than anyone else’s in the office (thanks, generational gaps), and so I spend my time helping Aissatou organize all the dossiers for the women’s prevention groups that she runs, and so I tap out the questions and fears and warnings that they had, and I learn a lot about prevention and a little bit about the complications of marriage, and how women who have been hurt talk to each other about it, which I already knew a lot about. In the ateliers I jump back and forth between French and English and confuse my verbs, and laugh, and hold pieces of cloth while I ask men that intimidated me a few weeks ago if they use protection every time and when was the last time they were tested. But apart from these, I’ve been carving out my own niche too. In the kitchen they call me Mimi, for some forgotten reason, and everyone thinks I don’t eat enough, and Tiguida thinks it’s high time I got married. I’ve become the go-to when people need help with their resumes or their email or really anything computer related, and though it can be frustrating to watch them slowly read through every notification (yes, you are certain you want to delete that email), it also feels like a decent contribution. Almost May, almost time for my mémoire du stage, that 30 page project on what I’ve done. Though I’m not looking forward to looking longingly out the window on page 17, I’m very pleased with my work—a study of why food and meals are such a central part of our association’s actions, and what it brings to people. When I know, I’ll update y’all.
Almost May, almost summer, almost over. We had hamburgers the other day, glorious ones that we had to wait an hour for but even with all their fancy French additions still tasted just like home. I think about the US a lot, especially with events in Boston, which I watched unfold on Reddit in the office with horror and intensity. But America’s reaction made me proud. I’m settling in here, not trying to be French, not trying to not be American, but just living and seeing what happens. Paris still exasperates me sometimes with its omnipresent clingy couples and judgmental looks from teenagers and old women. But at the same time, I was in the gay quartier of le Marais the night that France passed a law guaranteeing marriage to people who love each other and want to, and I have never spent a happier night in Paris. Celebrations in the streets, people sharing hugs and tequila, pictures with drag queens rocking heels I could never wear, and this is right kept running through my head. Anyone who sees that and sees something ugly is being blinded by their own prejudices. And although we did politely decline Marion and Chloe, who were very interested in continuing the celebration back at their place, it felt good to witness that moment where a future suddenly opened up that hadn’t been there before.
Almost May. When I go back to America and sit barefoot at the dinner table out on the patio, under the maple thick with leaves, and I eat a buttery corn on the cob and biscuits with homemade strawberry jam, I will undoubtedly miss the crookedness of Parisian alleys and the golden halo of freshly baked bread for under a euro, and leaning against the wall while Olivier makes a crêpe for me and telling him tu drague trop, mon cher. Sitting in a classroom with homework and papers again will probably make me long for African vowels and thiep, and I already know that the three bars in my college town will somehow not match up to the hodgepodge in the Bastille or Châtelet. I hope to stay here longer, and I hope to come back after I graduate, to grow and to learn and to pick up more swear words. But I also know that I could never come from anywhere but where I do, which is sun-warmed tomatoes fresh from the vine and a city with free museums and gridded streets, and my little old man car Leonard trundling down the highway while I sing along to Motown, and I wouldn’t trade it for all the Prada and scooters and cafés in the world.
Emily Wolfteich 