elisabeth, the woman who is housing me from the remainder of my stay in Paris, is an astrologer. today i handed her my chart which displays prominently a sun in aquarius, a moon in pisces, and a scorpio rising. she glanced it over, surveying it as one would a person’s outfit, trying to determine which elements complete the ensemble and which detract from it. she let out a small hum and said “it must be hard for you right now to be so far from home. yes?”
indeed, quite. “it is getting harder,” i reply. i sense an impending need to be with my dear ones and my loved one. i am examining and assessing my responsibilities and prioritizing my allegiances. i am reshuffling the paths i could take, the various chemins and where they might lead me, and i’m wrestling with this thought that i need to rely less on others to accomplish the things that i, in reality, hope to achieve. that is to say that i cannot expect that come fall, my piano teacher will enable overnight growth. only i can drive that sort of change.
today, i walked the streets near st. martin en route to meet Emilie, a former masters student at Paris 8 who is passionate about adopting a more american mentality. when i first took on this internship, i never could have envisioned that five weeks in, i would identify so strongly with my home institution and want with such intensity to emulate our long-established system. the comfort we’ve always taken in our extensive alumni networks and our commitment to progress. “France is so conservative,” she admits, somewhat disdainfully. “It really is a shame that we cannot develop links between schools and create dialogues between them. That’s what I love about American education: it’s so inter-disciplinary. You don’t get that here. Everybody is so narrow and each different department thinks only of themselves.”
i walk into a shop juste après whose doors have, since noon, opened. there are signs above each rack clearly denoting 5, 10 and 15 euro increments. the clothing is cheaply assembled but stylishly attractive and so i wade through the colorized sectors until i find a stunning pair of red Levi cut-offs, high-waisted with a set of five buttons. as i’m trying them on in the dressing stall—built of what appear to be PCB pipes—i hear defiant cries coming from the televised movie playing near the cash register. the audio of the movie sounds vaguely vintage american, but the characters are speaking in French. something about the dubbing strikes me as forced, the phrasing resembling a conversation more likely to take place in another era among Hollywood legends.
and indeed, when i approach the counter to ring up my purchase, the channel is none other than TLC. “c’est française?” i venture, gesturing toward the screen.
“non, je crois que c’est américaine.” i regard the film intently, watching for telltale signs. on screen, there is a blonde female kneeled on the floor, her shoulder-length perfectly curled bob hiding her face as she pleads with a shady figure, dressed in a suit, commanding that she calm herself and quiet down. he stands over her menacingly, the two of them eloquently positioned in a library study, a thousand books as their witness. she is sobbing in a very unconvincing manner, shoulders heaving. suddenly she leaps up and screams “no! no no no!” and pounds her fists into his chest, thrashing her head. the camera zooms to the space between the two figures as he, seemingly unmoved, grabs her arms and orders her to stop moving.
i look back to the cashier in acknowledgement of the scene that’s just transpired.
“ils sont malades, les américains,” she says. literally they’re sick but more they’re really messed up. “vingt cinq,” she pronounces, reading the price outloud as i hand her my debit card. she examines the plastic, telling me she doesn’t recognize the label.
“it’s american,” i say.
she smiles, recognizing her error, perhaps a bit guilty at accusing my country of ill-fated thinking. she asks why i’m here, if i’m studying, and what i’ve learned. she tells me i’m brave for traveling alone. and then she says a beautiful thing: “it’s important to travel, to learn and to experience other ways of living. but i always say that if you have family somewhere, you shouldn’t stray too far from the tree. there’s a reason your tree has its roots.”
i tell her about my background, my puerto rican mother and my japanese father. she nods and says “well then, you already understand. you will have to decide between your three identities, as puerto rican, as japanese, and as american. one must (il faut le faire). and it is always a beautiful thing to experience other cultures, but if you chose to stay abroad, it will be a very difficult road for you.”
then she says “you are young. you will see. you have time to figure these things out and make mistakes.”
et voila, comme ça: bon courage et bonne continuation. i thank her for our visit and she says “good luck to you.”
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