Being, In Paris

There's a reason for the comma.

It's all well and good to be a tourist in one's adopted home. There's a courtship ritual. I'm glad I got to have so many fantastic dates.

Now, Paris and I are in a relationship. And as such things go, we're starting to settle down.

I've got my permanent Métro pass. I no longer travel: I commute.

My weeks are programmed. I have activities (i.e. my mémoire, which requires me to read a lot of Proust and academic research in very dense French), classes (all in French, bien sûr), and bureaucratic activities that require a taxing level of my new language, using jargon I have to learn as I go along.

But it is structure, ultimately, that allows us to flourish. Academic, bureaucratic, even culinary (my friends and I made cookies last week, which required the mastery of unfamiliar verbs): practice makes--well, if not perfection, at least improved proficiency.

My former task was Being, in Paris. Now, I am being in Paris.

In a way, it's exactly what I was hoping for. I know my boulanger and my épicier; they recognize me on the street and say bonjour. So does the security guard on my block. I'm a staple of the neighborhood: a cog in the wheel of my petit quartier within the 15e.

I can even make a bit of small talk now.

But the principle remains: the more competent one is in reality, the less competent one feels. The ignorant feel invincible with a phrasebook; the scholar feels dreadfully unequipped with the Petit Robert in hand.

My new teacher--actually, my now belovèd camarade de classe--impresses upon me that this is normal. She speaks what sounds to me like beautiful, nearly impeccable idiomatic French, and she tells me that she still apologizes to native speakers. 

I used to tell my students constantly that to learn a language is to learn a way of thinking. Now it's time for me to follow my own advice.

And to try, as much as I can, to get used to--defying the urge to be in Paris--simply Being: In Paris. 

On the upside, I've accomplished mountains of Novel.