What's My Age AGAIN?

There's no avoiding it--today is my birthday. And as the song goes...nobody likes you when you're 23. Or do they? I'd like to beg to differ. I offer up some observations on turning the big 2-3 in a foreign nation:

• I'm still seriously the luckiest girl on this planet, and I'm more convinced now than ever in the kindness and generosity of people than I was before. I've received more good wishes and thoughtful words than I feel like I deserve! Thank you all so so much.
  

• It's adorable when your little 8 and 9 year old French students come up to you and say "Appy Birfday!" Even though it sounds like "barfday" at first, it's knee crunchingly cute. The kind of cute that is a sock right to your estrogen levels, if you know what I mean ladies. It's even BETTER when they guess that you are turning 19. HAH!
  

• The French aren't big birthday people? Well...sort of. Yesterday was Charlotte's b-day too. For those of you who don't know, or don't remember, Charlotte is the oldest of the three children I keep track of, and she just turned 13 on the 30th. Subsequently, the family I live with had good friends and family over, and surprised us both with...king's cakes! Mmm, finger lickin' good! And I received the most beautiful orchid as a present! :)
  

• When the HELL did I turn 23!? And where did the last three years go? As Becca put it ever so eloquently: "Well...you went to Cal....and you went to Cal...and then you went to Cal some more..." I guess that about sums it up? But it's got me on this scary slippery slope of "well CRAP, I'm 23...and then I'll be 24. And then I'll be 25! Oh crap! That's halfway through the decade to THIRTY! Where are my 20s going!?" I don't know if that's universal, or if that's strictly a Lindsay thing, but DAMN. If time doesn't go by quickly, then I must be the Queen of Spain!
  

• Being 23 in France does not mean you are an adult. It just means you've finished your undergrad degrees and are trying to find work or...are living at home with your parents...or going to grad school. Oh wait, hey, that sounds a lot like America!
  

• Celebrations, once again, are never about where you are, they're always about who you are (virtually) with. I say virtually because even though many of you are at least 3,000 miles from me, I feel like I could be sitting right next to you having a great conversation. And what would turning another year older be without good friends to remind you just how many wrinkles are coming in and how flabby your triceps are getting?
  

So really, what's my age again? :)

Fluency.

This morning was a Friday like most other Fridays--except for the fact that instead of sleeping in, I woke my tush up at 7:30 (a whole hour later than my normal time!) to walk to the social security office in order to FINALLY get rid of this nagging task on my to-do list.

After sitting in a weird tile foyer complete with large, flashing red overhead heating lamps, and feeling much like I was a plant in a greenhouse, I was told I needed my birth certificate--something of which I was assured I did NOT need by my people, and by people I mean Francis B. and Beatrice C., the lovely individuals at the Inspection Academique de Val d'Oise, in charge of all assistant paperwork. I consequently scurried home and brought the original and a copy, and then was discharged and on my way.

On my way back home I stopped in at the Univers du Livre (the Universe of Books), one of the best bookstores ever, and picked up a practice manual for the DALF C1/C2, also known as the Diplome Approfondi de la Langue Francaise. What does that mean? Here we go: Advanced Diploma of the French Language. In other words, it's the silly little test I have to take very soon in order to prove to French universities that I'm competent enough in my second language to enroll as a student. Basically, in order to enter a masters program, I need to pass at least level C1. There are seven levels, the two highest being C1 and C2.

So I chucked out 20 euro on a prep manual and am sitting here working on it, and it's dawned on me that yes, I am mother-effing fluent in French.

I have to stop and pause and appreciate this moment, however trivial it may seem. I have to appreciate it because this is something I dreamed about nine years ago the very first day I ever set foot in a French class. No, in fact, I've dreamed about this for longer. I've dreamed about this since my parents read me the Madeleine series of books by Ludwig Bemelmans as bedtime stories when I was six. This has been a long, long coming dream of mine. I can hardly believe it's finally here, that I'm finally fluent.

And so it's rather surreal that days before I turn 23, I am sitting on the third floor of a beautiful house in a beautiful, ritzy suburb of Paris preparing for an exam that will hopefully allow me to study in Paris and stay here for another two years and speak all the beautiful fluent French I can and eat my heart out.

My thoughts can be summed up in five words: Good god, I'm fluent!!!!!!

The Imperialism of the English Language

On Saturday night I could be found in a gorgeous first floor Haussman-era apartment situated in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, complete with Latvian and French people. I'd been invited by The Latvian to a Latvian embassy party at the consulate's residence, and I was admittedly nervous to faires leurs connaissances. Upon arrival though, the first thing the consulate asked me was what language I preferred to speak in, English or French, since I'm obviously lacking in the Latvian department.

"Je peux parler les deux," I replied, as she bise'd me on the cheeks. She brushed her long train of blonde hair aside and nonchalantly let out " Ah c'est bon, nous parlons aussi français ici."

I perched on a chair in living room of Latvians, most of whom, as the consulate promised, were speaking in English or French. As per usual when I'm a bit nervous, I found the resident dog, Cayman, on whom to bestow my attention, and slowly ate a plate of appetizers. As the night went on, I relaxed and was eventually asked from where I come, which elicited oohs and aahss and California is such a dream! topped off with five different stories of trips to San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas. I was quite amused.

By two in the morning, we were all standing around the kitchen trying to decide to crash or to go dancing. This was preceded by long, Whiskey-infused debate over American and French stereotypes about one another, and me again being told by a Frenchman that I have no traceable accent. The discussion eventually parlayed into a discussion of language learning in general.

"But you're so lucky!," one Latvian woman pointed out. "I would LOVE to be a native English speaker."

Her utterance has been lingering in my mind since, and not exactly in a positive way. Though not the most beautiful of languages I can say I've ever heard, I loved hearing the Latvians speak Latvian all evening. I loved the accent and the rhythm and the force of it; I loved that the language is a part of who these people are and where they come from and their experience of the world. I loved hearing my Latvian speak Latvian, and I wish I could understand him, because I can gleam that he can't always get his point across entirely when we talk, and I wonder what he really wants to say.

To be told by the Latvian woman that she wishes she were a native English speaker saddened me. I say that it saddened me because it seems part and parcel of the same attitude that I've noticed among the French towards the English language, and it's a defeatist one. There's no qualms, no ifs-ands-or-buts-about-it for these folks: English is necessary and vital, and if you don't start learning it, or don't speak some of it, then you're screwed. No only that, but English is chic; the French sprinkle their conversations with English words like "super," "too much," "hyper," and "cool," the way a five year old let loose in an icecream shop puts sprinkles on top of his two scoop cone. English here is a status symbol, because it means you either have access to enough of the language to properly know it, or perhaps you work in a job that obliges you to use it, and those are the kinds of jobs that make serious money. To me, all of this screams volumes about what I'm beginning to consider the imperialism of English.

On the RER and on the Paris Metro, you can find adds from the Wall Street Institute of English advertising "cours d'anglais intensives," "cours d'anglais spécialisé," and even "cours d'anglais pour les lycéens." English is in high demand in Paris; the US head economic ambassador to France, with whom I train on weekends, told me once that French people in his neighborhood pay upwards of sixty euro an hour for their children to learn English from a American with a PhD in the subject. Another assistant coach in my marathon training group has made it a point to run with Americans so he can practice his English while he listens to English lessons on tape during his workouts. Hell, the French government recruited myriad other young people like me to import just to teach our native tongue.

In sum, the message is clear: business, politics, music, movies, and the rest of the seeming day to day functioning of this planet, at least according to these people, revolves around the high-and-mighty English language.

Even though I know I'm going to take advantage of this fact and earn as much as I possibly can as a grad student here teaching my own language, let's make something (frankly, I know, hypocritically ) clear: this is something that I do not enjoy. It makes me sad and borderline ticks me off that English seems to be reaching its tentacles into the rest of the world, and it makes me feel that way because it reeks of arrogance. Why should the rest of the world have to bend itself to English? Is it simply because English is the language of the United States? And if so, what the hell are Americans doing to bend themselves even an inch toward the rest of the world?

I understand that Americans largely have no need to learn a foreign language. We're bordered to the north by Canada, a 90 percent ( minus Quebec ) English speaking country, and the south by Mexico, a Spanish speaking country. If we know any foreign language, most of us know a poor smattering of Spanish because it's considered useful, a prejudice that made my stomach churn in high school. In fact, half the Latvians I met were in sheer awe that in a country as large as the United States, so many people speak the same language, reflective of the fact that for the rest of the world, it's a reality of every day life that your country is smaller than one single US state and that you might be exposed to multiple languages on a frequent basis.

But it's time for me to get off my soap-box.

What is evil or distressing is not the English language itself; it's the attitude of those who have succumbed to the idea that English is the world language and view it as a superior one, because to me, a language will always be more than just the mere summation of grammar structures and a treasury of words. Languages import far more than that, and their evolution bears the traces of years of change, cultural markers, and the imprint of the hundreds of thousands of voices and pens who have whittled their mother tongues into the form those languages have taken on today. To subordinate one's mother tongue to English because it's "superior," seems a subordination of one's own culture and identity, but alas, lord knows I read too much into everything...

Even so, here's to the beauty of all languages, from those with ten speakers to those with ten million.

Pinch Me

I am living every girls dream right now...or so I tell myself.

In other words, I spent my Saturday evening and much of Sunday with The Latvian and his Latvian Embassy friends, and before I thought it wasn't possible for him to get any more adorable than he already is, he went and got more adorable.

Somebody pinch me so I know I'm not dreaming.

The Spirit of the Marathon

In my five short years as a runner, I've been lucky enough to experience a wide variety of milestones, no pun intended:

I ran my first 8 miles the morning of my senior prom.

I friction burned my legs through my first half-marathon.

I cried for half an hour upon hitting the finish line of my first marathon, complete with
sparkling cider and trying to hide my tears.

I surged the peak of Hurricane Point at the Big Sur Marathon.

I've crewed runners at the Western States 100 and the Rio del Lago 100.

I've run through Nevada and California hopping in and out of a van reeking with the effort of
12 other runners while surviving on coffee and adrenaline. And yes, I LOVED it.

I've had a severe allergic reaction to an unknown substance while doing a 12 person, 212 mile
relay in BFE Oregon.

I've run a 50 mile ultra twice and asked myself each time while the hell I agreed to run it.

I've known defeat in the Marin Headlands twice, once at the 100 mile distance, once at the
100k distance, and yet I still want to go back for more.

I have felt closer than I've ever felt to the Earth and nature cruising along Mount Bachelor in Oregon, Folsom in California, and the Sierra Nevada mountains from the hours of three to seven a.m.


Throughout all of these experiences, I have grown angry at my own ignorance, but I have learned patience beyond measure. I have grown to be understanding of my own body, to know when and how to push my limits and when to gracefully submit to the demands of the day. I know the fine line between insanity and I can tell you that doing something as insane as running the long distances I do actually keeps me sane. I can also tell you that running reassures me, on a daily basis, that I am strong and that I can endure, in all realms of life. These are the many, many things I have learned and done in my short career as a runner...

But...I have not yet been a coach. Cue Paris Marathon training group.

When I arrived in France, coming off an injury, and not having raced in nearly a year, I knew I wanted to train for the Paris Marathon. I also knew training in a foreign country posed some serious problems--the most serious being that I had no awareness of the lay out of roads and potential running routes for long runs, the second most serious problem being the weather. I'm a California girl and the harshest cold I've run in during the winter is the low fifties, and France decided to through low twenties at me. I'm a disciplined person, and a disciplined runner, but if there were ever one thing that could keep me from logging my twenty-milers, you had better believe it would be snow and cold.

These issues lead me to get involved with a marathon training group in Paris. Even though I am easily one of the youngest people involved with the group, I'm also easily among the most experienced. This lead our organizer to ask me to coach one of the pace groups, so I've suddenly been thrust into the role of coach.

Being a coach and helping rookie half and full marathoners train is such a rewarding experience. I feel like I'm able to pass on a lot of my knowledge of the sport and to share the benefits of running with others. I'm able to help newer runners on the road to hard earned self-confidence. However, I think the best part is that their worries, their enthusiasm, and their spirit reminds me so much of why I started running in the first place. It reminds me just how much I LOVE this sport and how much running connects me to people and to nature, to my own sense of inner calm, to my ability to triumph over adversity.

And that, friends, is the spirit of the marathon.

Wilderness Cravings

In 1859, English Naturalist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of the Species, a work in which he expounded his (still?) controversial theory of evolution. While I'm no scientist, I often think about Darwin, about how distinctly animal I feel, when I crave the wilderness and the urge to wander beckons.

The urge to wander is not only beckoning, it's singing my siren song. I realized this morning that it's been nearly two years since I've trained for the trail, let alone set foot on it for more than two hours. The wilderness pissed me off, you see. Two year ago, I'd DNF'd (Did Not Finish'ed) at my first 100 mile attempt; the Marin headlands ate me alive. I'd pompously thought I was sufficiently trained. The same occured the following spring at the Miwok 100k; I'd properly trained this time, but the weather got the best of me: I was pulled for hypothermia 35 miles in to the wettest, stormiest edition of the race in its history. Even though my rookie status got the better of me for these two races, I saw portions of the California coast line and wilderness that others will never see, and I felt more alive than I've ever felt.

In fact, several years ago, I had a conversation with my good friend Robert atop Nevada Falls in Yosemite National Park, about this very topic. He'd invited me to hike for a day trip, and I agreed to go. This hike is one of my favorite memories of our friendship.

At the top of the falls, we talked about anything. Robert is one of those people who I can always count on to ask the hard questions--to ask the existential questions that force me to think more deeply about who I am and what it is I'm doing with my time on this planet. In this particular instance, we had both just finished our freshman year of college, and I'd run my first two marathons. Naturally, he asked me about running. I distinctly remember telling him that when I run, when I feel pain from running, when I push myself towards the thin edge that separates the civilized from the primal, and when I suffer, I know I am alive.

The Wilderness Craving I have is a craving for the feeling of being alive--out in the fresh air among the trail and in the deep silence of solitude that every distance runner seeks. And no runner can deny that part of their love for running is the ability to tap into this primal loneliness. When I run I do more than I think; it's one of the only ways I have found to release myself from my own mind, which is always buzzing at the speed of light.

So perhaps my wilderness craving is also a craving for some sort of release from modernity, from the cement and metal playground that is civilization, back toward our shared primal ancestry.

All I know is that I miss the trail, I miss the smell of the trees, and I will be burning up some California coastline when I come back.

The Moment I Knew

At the beginning of my collegiate career, I was in awe and simultaneously terrified of my professors. Onto the pedestal of academic superiority I placed them, and there they remained. How did one, in fact, decide to become a professor? And how did one actually go about becoming one? I craved answers to these questions, but remained scared. In fact, I remained so intimidated for the first two years that going to office hours required serious courage. Eventually, I kicked this habit, but I had to come out of my shell first.

As a freshman, I took a 2-unit freshman seminar on Jane Austen with an English Professor Emeritus named Morton Paley. As one might imagine, it was a seminar of 15 girls and one man, and to top it off, he looked like an adorable, ancient Santa Clause. I loved the seminar so much it was my favorite class of my first semester at Berkeley and I anticipated its arrival every Wednesday afternoon.

During the course of the semester, each student was obliged to give one presentation on a given topic surrounding Austen or the era in which she wrote, but alas, being the natural overachiever, when Professor Paley asked for a volunteer to give the final presentation, as there was an even number of students and an odd number of topics, I raised my hand. This meant I went to his office twice to discuss matters with him, and needless to say, it scared the living day lights out of me. I wondered why a lauded dinosaur of a professor would want to speak to a peon.

My initiative caught Professor Paley's eye, I assume, because I received an e-mail invitation in December of 2006 to work for him the following Spring semester as a research assistant. At the time, he'd been at work on a book tracing the relationship between the English Romantic poets and their artist contemporaries, which was to be published by Oxford University Press. Knowing very little about what I was signing up for, I agreed. We met that January in his office on the third floor of Wheeler Hall. He explained the project, filled out paper work to get me a Library proxy card to check out books in his name, as well as a copy card so I could successfully copy articles and microfilm. Every week we'd either meet in his office or he would e-mail his requests to me. He eventually gave me a key to his office so I could deposit my findings for him.

I remember lucidly the first time I entered his office with my own key. It was a late afternoon, and the sun was dipping below the thatch of pine trees near Sather Gate, whose tips I could see from his office window. Curtains of dust hung in the air, made visibly by the sunlight, and there was a thick sent of must. I inhaled the smell, but felt like an intruder. I placed a stack of materials on Professor Paley's already overloaded desk, saw his notes in ultra fine and impeccable cursive, and laid my backpack on his chair. I closed the door.

Alone in Professor Paley's office in 335 Wheeler Hall, I stood across from shelves and shelves of books. As I moved closer, I noticed titles with his name on them, old books with wearing covers that, as I perused them, I realized had been published nearly thirty years prior. I let my fingers wander the book spines, and inexplicably, I began to cry.

I began to cry because at that moment, I understood that this man had dedicated his entire life to one small, small portion of English literature. I understood that for him it was an intense, burning love worthy of a lifetime of devotion. I comprehended the amount of energy and the years he had spent doing so. And I cried because I thought it was beautiful.

I think in that moment, I knew I too wanted to join academia, wanted to devote myself to something I loved as much as I understood that Professor Paley had given his life to the Romanticists, to the written word. I think right then and there I knew I wanted to be a professor, but was too scared to admit it. After all, it took me two more years and two unsatisfying law internships to relinquish the thought of going to law school.

And I suppose that is the moment I knew. It was the moment I reaffirmed forever that my life is to be a life of words, of their consummation, and of their pleasure, as both an academic and in my own way, whether published or not, as an artist.

I've known all along.

Darcy

I love words. This is a simple but true fact of my existence.

I love words so much I was compelled as an undergraduate to study not one, but two literary traditions, and although I was afraid it would nearly kill my love for reading because of the sheer volume of material I was made to consume, I've found that such a passionate love is hard to extinguish in so avid a gourmand of language.

For every avid reader though, for every connoisseur of books, there are those solid few titles that come alive and with which we shall never become bored, because they speak a universal truth to us, whether we encounter them at 15 or at 75. And although I have a penchant for the French literary tradition, my heart has a huge soft spot for the English one as well, specifically Jane Austen.

Austen is admittedly the author at which all the boys in high school groan when they are obliged to read Pride and Prejudice, to swallow whole Mansfield Park, or heaven forbid, Sense and Sensibility. But there is something so simply lovely and timeless in Austen's writing that even as a modern young woman, I cannot help but hold her work dear. In a day and age when male-female relations are complicated by e-mail, Facebook, text messaging, and the ever nerve-wracking First Date, I cling to what Austen shows us through the art of personal conversation,
to the gap between what is said and what is left unsaid, to the universal desire to love and be loved. I love Austen because she allows me to dream, while allowing me to keep my feet on the ground. I may have romantic sensibilities (oh, believe me, they exist) but at the end of it all, I am still a pragmatist.

This is why my favorite male character ever has got to be Darcy. I thought of this while lesson planning on Sunday night amid listening to the soundtrack to the Keira Knightly movie version of Pride and Prejudice--which, although I do enjoy it, does a good job of butchering and compressing such a comic novel for the screen. Needless to say, what girl doesn't want a Darcy?

There is no Darcy equivalent that I have found in the canon of French literature. He is uniquely English. And yes, he is a complete jerk. But this is what I love about his character--he's not entirely the White Knight, and he has a dark side. He finds it hard to trust. He's hard to open up, shy even. He doesn't get along right away with Elizabeth. She's independent, witty, and sharp tongued, and I get the impression she intimidates him at first. While she'd be open to marriage, she won't go down the road just for the sake of saying she walked it. In the end, there are enough differences between Darcy and Elizabeth to keep the relationship interesting, but enough similarities to create true complicity. And that, my friends, is timeless.

I won't sit here and lament about how I wish Darcy really existed, nor will I sit here and tell you I'm waiting for my "Darcy" to appear. But what I will say is that I think he is one of the most brilliantly written male characters I've encountered, and that I hope one day I'll be lucky enough to find the sort of complicity of mind in real life that exists in fiction. Maybe I will, maybe I won't.

A girl can dream for now.

Language Mix Up Epic Fail

Last night I put Emma to bed. We went upstairs to do our usual teeth brushing routine; I sit on a stool, she sits on my lap, I brush her teeth and sing her the silly brushing teeth songs I've made up for her, like this one to the tune of Beethoven's Fur Eliese. It goes:

Je brosse les dents, d'Em-Em-Em-ma, d'Em-Em-Em-ma
Elle va-a-a-a crasher dans le bain, dans le bain, dans le bain,
Ce soir elle a rigolé, a rigolé, a rigolé...

( I'm brushing Emma's teeth: shes's going to spit in the bathtub/ this evening she laughed)

I've also made up another teeth brushing song to the tune of B.O.B's 'Airplane' that goes:

Ce soir Emma s'est brossé les dents,
pendant que je chantais, chantais, chantais
elle n'a pas du tout mangé
elle préfère rigoler
ce soir elle a beaucoup peté...

(Tonight Emma brushed her teeth/ while I was singing/ she didn't eat at all/ she
prefers laughing/ tonight she's farted a lot*)

*Nanny solution: bathroom and potty humor always pleases the kid crowd.

Ok, so sorry for the tangent there, but yeah. You get the picture. Put the kiddo to bed after a story, and as per custom, went down stairs to tell her dad she wanted a goodnight kiss. The word for kiss is bisous.

But what did I learn the word for kiss was in school? BAISER. So what did I say to her dad? I said "Quand tu peux, Emma veut bien un baiser."

What does BAISER mean in modern French? A FUCK. Charlotte reminded me of this on my way upstairs seconds after I thought I had told her Dad to kiss Emma goodnight.

SO I BASICALLY SAID TO JL: "When you can, Emma really wants a fuck."

GAH I AM SO EMBARRASED RIGHT NOW!!

Lesson learned: children, never, ever, ever trust your outdated high school foreign language text books, or your memory of them.

The Swan

There must be something in the water this week. I say this because there has been an inordinate amount of male attention paid to Lindsay this week, and this is highly ABNORMAL.

Things with The Latvian are light and casual--coffee went very well, we were supposed to hang out on Friday, but he ended up driving down to the Alps to help a friend out. He then lamented that he was alone, and that he wished he'd asked me to come. Sigh. I'm waiting for this one to explode and go horrifically wrong like everything else in my love life so Eros can roll around on the floor laughing like he usually does. "Cosmic HAHA" where ARE you!? And what did I do to deserve an adorable, extremely polite Latvian!?

To add some irony to this, on Thursday I went for a run during my lunch (two) hour like I normally do. You know--with running tights, a loose wicking shirt, my signature white hat. Nothing glamorous, and in fact, I never intend to look glamorous. I go run to beat the crap out of some pavement, not to look pretty, and certainly not to find a date.

Nonetheless, heading back to school, an *ahem* older gentleman on a motorcycle saw me and gave me the double take. I stared back because I thought he was a weirdo. I guess he thought this was an invitation to talk, because he turned around, pulled over, and asked me si j'avais besoin d'un coach sportif. No, bucko. I do not need a friggin' sports coach. I'm female, not inept. You were slightly potbellied and my veteran of seven-marathons ass could run circles around you. I responded with a "Non, merci," and took off. That was a first.

The weird universe continued that afternoon. Once again, on the train home from work, a middle aged (not so attractive...) gentleman got on the train and gave me the double take. I was listening to music and pretended to ignore him. He then asked me a few stops later if "par hasard," I lived in Nanterre. I said no. That was the end of that.

And last night, Whitney, Sam, and I invaded Roseanne's studio in the 6th with wine, bread, cheese, and fixings for a homemade Fillipino dinner courtesy of Sam. Flirtatious texting with The Latvian ensued--always fun. When we left, Roseanne told me to have fun with The Latvian.

It was then that I began to wonder if I've become that girl. You know, the girl who walks into a room and turns heads. I can't imagine myself like that, and I don't WANT to imagine myself like that, because I don't conceive of myself that way. I'm not horrible looking, but I'm not the prettiest person alive either, and I'm ok with that. I've always been painfully shy in the dating realm and (admittedly) haven't had much confidence about it, but alas. Have I become that girl? Is the Ugly Duckling now The Swan?

No idea. But whatever is going on, it's weird. 'Cosmic HAHA,' I'm waiting and ready for you to have a good laugh at my expense. Just don't make it so bad this time, ok?

America

As I sit here at my computer on what is an American three-day weekend, I can't help but reflect on my homeland. This has been spurred as well by a slight touch of homesickness, but I'll repeat again that homesickness for me is more of a 'people' sickness and my desire to be near those I hold dear than it is a longing for a certain territory.

At the beginning of my time here in France, I got coffee with a French friend who expressed to me that he never felt more French than when he spent time in the states for a Fulbright grant. Four months later, I understand what he meant. Being in France has made me realize how truly American I am, because the French culture has thrown my American propensities into sharp relief.

This realization was a stark moment of what Hegel calls 'reciprocal otherness,' meaning that this friend is as much of an 'other' to me as I am an 'other' to him. But as Hegel says, this 'otherness' must be overcome...which is why I am a huge proponent of travel. Though I can't say I've done much of it yet, travel is allowing me to overcome the 'reciprocal otherness' of being American and to appreciate other ways of life. More on that later, I suppose.

My feeling of utter American-ity surfaced on Saturday on my train ride home from the Bois de Boulogne, a large park on the western edge of Paris near La Defense, where I've been training with a group for the Paris marathon. Content but damp from the 13 mile run, I listened to my music play list on shuffle when Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" popped into my ears.

I adore Journey, but with this band's music come layers and layers of memories. There's of course "Faithfully," and "Wheel in the Sky," which I will always remember my dad singing in his truck when I was little...there's "Lights," which reminds me not only of San Francisco, but singing with high school friends...there's "Don't Stop Believin'," which is at once my running anthem, the official song of Cal football, and I could go on. But I won't.

What matters is that at the particular moment I heard this song on Saturday, I missed the bay and Marin and the sun. And I missed my friends. I also knew that no one on the train with me at the moment would either recognize nor appreciate the song if I had starting humming it. It was a true moment of entirely bittersweet 'otherness.'

My reflections on America are rather pertinent, as the French President Nicolas Sarkozy paid visit to President Obama this past week in Washington, D.C., so my reflections on myself are almost microcosmic of the relations between the two countries. I am a curious, curious hybrid animal, to the point that The Latvian called this week called me his "American French girl." I find it curious that he did not say "American-French," as if to signal that I am a creature of dual nature, but no. He left it at "American French," which seems to say rather that I am both American and French and that these are two separate pieces of me housed in one casing. But I digress...

Sarkozy went to talk monetary matters with Obama, specifically involving the International Monetary Fund, as France also hosts the G-20 and G-8 summits this year. This somehow urged Obama to call the France one of the best friends and allies the states have. I find this mightily ironic, as Sarkozy is far from popular here, and many French people accuse him of trying to "Americanize" France. Needless to say, America and France have shared a storied and tenuous history together.

Nonetheless, while the French do not want France to become America, they sure do like to imitate a lot of American things. Half the music on the radio and on television shows is American, American letter man style jackets are all the rage, and you can even find Friends dubbed into French for your viewing pleasure. If you're a teenager, you want desperately to own Abercrombie and Fitch clothing, because it's a status symbol: it means your mom or pops has actually BEEN to America and has bought it there for you.

So in other words, there is a HUGE amount of ambivalence in this country toward my home country: we'll imitate you, but we don't want to be you is the message.

Curiously enough, while listening to "Don't Stop Believin'" on the train home Saturday, three young men, all wearing letterman style jackets and Converse sneakers, got on the train at Nanterre. And all I could do again was miss my home, but also know that even though I felt like a complete 'other,' I understood why and how and what the cultural implications of a letter man jacket are, and how the culture that furnished those jackets has never existed in this country.

I may not entirely agree with everything my country has ever done, is doing, or will ever do. But this does not mean I do not miss certain aspects of America. In the moment that I saw the young men in their letter man jackets, I smiled. I was proud to be an American girl, because an American girl I'll always be.

The Call of the Wild

This morning, sunrise broke across Saint-Germain, speckled by a thin patch of clouds and punctuated with a balmy 54 degrees. Naturally, I could not resist my instinct to run, hopped out of bed, laced up, and headed out to the terrace.

If home is where the heart is, running will always be one of my 'homes,' no matter where or when I run, and it's this nomadic 'home' that has made France as much a home to me as California. If there is one thing I am missing here though, it's trail running. Trail runners here are distinguished as les traillers, rather than your basic coureur. As I've embarrassingly discovered, however, coureur does not simply mean runner; it also connotes someone who chases after members of the opposite sex, which isn't really me, so I suppose the serious runner side of me is somewhat lost in translation. Instead, it's easier to say that I fait la course à pied or that I am a marathonienne. And as much as I love the marathon and I love the thrill of road racing, there is something deeply innate within that trails bring to the surface that hard pavement cannot.

The trail and I have been separated for a while. Prior to my departure, I itched to get across the bay from Berkeley to Marin to run some of the coastal trails, but my work schedule made this difficult. To complicate matters, I had picked up running again only in May; I'd spent 9 months injured with a serious bout of plantar fasciitis, which is an overuse injury caused by inflammation of the plantar fascia, the muscle that supports the arch. In other words, saying that the trail and I are long over due for a date is like saying peanut butter is long over due for a date with jelly.

But alas, I miss the trail. The trail is organic in a way that cement is not, allows one to unite with the surrounding environment and to let loose the inner animal. It's the raw energy of one's heart pumping blood and salt on one's skin beneath a canopy of tree leaves for an endless suite of hours.

I adore Paris, but the Alps are calling. I've been reading about the Ultra-Trail du Mont Blanc, which is an ultra run around the base of Mont Blanc sponsored by The North Face. Runners traverse three countries: Italy, France, and Switzerland. I confess I am in no way trained enough nor at the level I'd need to be to compete in this race, but watching footage of the quest set before those who undertake the challenge is like a call of the wild: go to the Alps. And I'd give anything just to get down there for a few hours when most of the snow has disappeared to wander the earth for a while. The call of the wild coursing through my blood is only a manifestation of my intense need to adventure, of my curiosity about the world.

So I toast to bravery, to courage, to adventure, and to embracing the inner animal.

Equilibrium

As the daughter of a practicing, licensed psychologist, I could not dodge free therapy growing up. My childhood memory bears blotches like Rorschach cards of plopping into the passenger seat of my mom's car and casually chatting, which eventually meandered to the inescapable "well, how do you feel about that?" or "how does that make you feel?." I dubbed these sessions "car therapy," about which my mother and I still joke today.

The upside of having a psychologist-mother is that I've been raised without any social stigma towards therapy. In fact, as a kid, I thought of therapy as a sort of 'mental' tune up the same way a car needs a tune up and an oil change every couple thousand miles or so. Granted, I'm no car, but I praise my mother and her ability to keep my head on straight. I'm a far more well-adjusted person than I should be, life considered.

The 'car tune-up' mentality towards therapy came in handy when (alert: confession of a twenty something) at twelve, I struggled adjusting to early adolescence and my own brutal sense of perfectionism--with which I admit I still battle--and consequently spent a few sessions chatting it out with a psychologist named Isabel who specialized in working with gifted children. To this day, I carry with me as a tenant the only thing I ever remember her saying:

Keep a foot in both worlds.

What did Isabel mean when she said those words ten years ago to little kid Lindsay? In retrospect, I believe she was hinting at none other than the fine art of equilbrium, the task of balancing one's separate pieces in order to become entirely self-actualized, and a fine art it is.

But I consider myself lucky. I've always had a strong sense of who I am, and it's this sense of self that's guided me through thick and thin. And I'll again admit to you all wholeheartedly that last year, Lindsay was far, far away from equilibrium, and that place was a dark place.

The funniest part, though, is that in September, unbeknown to me, I came to live in The Land of Equilibrium. Over the past four months, I have discovered that the art of Equilibrium is part of French culture, and before you knock me, let me explain how and why the crazies who chopped off their own king's head, overdid the gold on the Château de Versailles, and seem to protest everything have got the art of Equilibrium down to a science.

At first, France seems like the nation of crazies. They're obsessed with their language and keeping it as pure as possible. They strike because they don't want retirement raised from (gasp) 60 to 62 years of age. And good lord, I don't even know how many lights they strung on the Eiffel Tower, but it's a lot. But underneath the veneer of excess lies a profound respect for equilibrium, and one of the ways this manifests itself is with their eating habits.

One of the things I love about this country is the attitude toward eating. In fact, it's probably one of the most sensible, balanced things this country possesses. Yeah, eat some chocolate--but have one or two pieces and really savor the flavor rather than gorge yourself on two bars. Want some cake, ladies? Have your cake. Eat it too. But maybe make yourself a lighter dinner to balance things out. And heck, go for a walk and catch up with a friend; it keeps the scale even. With food, portions are human sized (amazing) and nothing is forbidden (yes, eat carbs. Yes, drink wine. YES, good lord, have dessert! It is FRANCE after all!) it's simply all a balancing act. In other words: everything in moderation. Including moderation--which must explain the crazies....

But equilibrium isn't just an attitude toward food. It's an attitude toward work, toward life itself. On weekends, shops are open half days on Saturday and Sunday, and in order to make up for those weekend business hours imposing on much needed repose, businesses are closed on Mondays until around 2 in the afternoon at the earliest. There's no sense of rush, no implacable urgency. T

This translates well toward the French attitude towards athletics, which can be summarized with one word: meh. In fact, when I ask the French why they don't like running, the response is nearly always the same: "it's so tiring." In other words, the expenditure of energy involved in athletic endeavors does not balance with the return received from those endeavors. Why run when you can walk just as far but more leisurely? Perhaps this explains why the French aren't spectacular at a lot of sports. It definitely explains the attitude toward running, which is too much, the key phrase you will find wise French mothers telling French children. "C'est too much," is a hybrid phrase with a stolen English back-half that succinctly, I suppose, sums up a lack of equilibrium in a way the adjective trop cannot.

So, how to account for the crazy, and the excess? The retirement protests are, as I interpret them, a cultural reaction to keep the equilibrium of NOT over working. Retirement is precious, because it means no longer having to work, and allowing oneself to have hard earned repose to balance out those years of travail. What about the guillotine and Marie-Antoinette? Well, Louis XVI over did it, and couldn't balance his politics with keeping bread on his people's plates. So equilibrium got out of whack, and to paraphrase science: for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, and there you have it.

All in all, I envy this country's respect for equilibrium, because it's a fine art the United States of America has yet to understand. Americans over work themselves and burn out. Rather than balancing sweet treats here and there with skipping dessert another evening or having fruit or yogurt instead, we supersize the burger, the fries, and yet have the audacity to order a diet coke. I realize I am making large generalizations here, but I never claimed these generalizations were scientific: they are rather, observations.

What has this sense of equilibrium done for me? It's taught me how to, as Isabel said, keep a foot in both worlds. And I've never felt better, happier, or more comfortable in my own skin. When I get on a plane to come home, I hope I'll be bringing equilibrium with me.

American Boys

Had better step their game up because they are getting their asses handed to them on a silver platter of Latvian chivalry.

Euro boys could teach American boys a thing or two, that's for sure.

Coffee

Holy effing mother of pearl, I am going to coffee with The Latvian.

Excuse me for two seconds while I go and have a girly freakout and try to contain myself!

Carbohydrates-1, Lindsay-0

It is a truth universally acknowledged that France is THE country of the carbohydrate. Within a one mile radius of the center of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, there are at least 10 boulangeries brimming over with baguettes in all shapes and sizes, pastries, tartes and tartelettes, and enough butter to give a whale a heart attack. All I can say is: well no damn wonder they up and revolted and chopped off their king's head when they ran out of BREAD! It makes so MUCH sense now!

It is also a truth universally acknowledged that I, Lindsay Marie, adore carbs. In fact, I adore carbs so much that my favorite week of marathon training (and I've been through at LEAST ten race cycles) is what is known as carbo-load week, aka, the ungodly week where I gorge myself on pasta, bread, and any other form of CHO I can get my hands on to stock up on glucose for the impending race.

The three days a week I teach, I eat at what's called the cantine, or basically the school cafeteria, not only because it's insanely cheap, but it's actually legitimately good food that puts American school lunch fare to extreme shame. And each and every time the cantine food rolls into the staff room accompanied with plates, utensils, and yogurt, there are inevitably two enormous trays of freshly cut bread. Thank GOD I run on my lunch hour.

When I left the states, I loved carbs so much I didn't ever think it was humanly possible for me to get sick of them. In fact, I didn't even realize how much bread I'd been eating until Becca arrived for a whirlwind ten day visit. We'd been scurrying about Paris all day, starting the morning splitting a baguette and a pain au chocolat purchased steaming hot on the way to the train. At one point she said, "Oh. my. god. we've eaten so much bread this week." I looked across the table at her and pointedly said "Really?" I guess I've become 'normalized' to eating bread ALL THE TIME, and I quickly forgot what she said.

Today Sam, Whitney, and I grabbed lunch in the 13th at a famous Pho restaurant simply known as Pho Cuon 14, about a block from metro Tolbiac, in France's version of a "Chinatown," which is definitely more Vietnamese than Chinese (thank you former French colonies!). We sipped delicious pho with chicken and beef, and I expressed how happy I was to have a break from French food (boo hoo hoo, I know, my life is just SO horrible...). Sam replied that she was too, especially, she emphasized, from the big-bad-C-a-r-b. It was at that point that I really did pause, and thought to myself "yeah. I guess we do eat a lot of carbs here. huh.'

In short, I am 4.5 months into France and HOLY CRAP I am being DEFEATED by carbohydrates. I'm ACTUALLY getting sick of bread. Me thinking that I couldn't get tired of carbs was, in retrospect, like Napoleon thinking he could successfully wage a land war on Russia in winter: IT WAS ALL WRONG. My ass is being handed to me on a floured platter of baguette, but thankfully that ass isn't getting bigger, and that's a divine miracle straight from Jesus. Come the week of the Paris marathon carb load, you might find me rolling on the floor in the kitchen screaming "NO MORE!!" And that's a first.

Carbs 1, King 0.

Bonne Année

In France, the nouvel an, or New Year, is a big deal. The French greet it with a massive smile, say good-bye to whatever has happened in the past twelve months, and open the door big and wide to the possibility of tomorrow. It's traditional to faire la fête with friends and family at home. If you are a 30 or 40 something with kids, like my host parents are, this certainly means you invite other couples with kids the same age to come eat dinner and get smashed, have everyone spend the night, and sit on the couch hungover the next day eating a beyond late brunch and watching movies until 6 p.m. Not a bad adult life, if you ask me, and the bonus is that the kids entertain themselves so you can kickback some more fine French wine. I'm taking notes already.

That aside, at the new year, the French give out chocolates to one another, and it's near mandatory to tell everyone you greet "bonne année!" (happy new year) or "meilleurs voeux!" (best wishes, with the insinuation of 'best wishes for the new year'). There's something beautifully optimistic about this considering France is a country where, as host dad's family pointed out to me when they came over to celebrate Christmas family style with all of his siblings and all of their children for a grand total of 25 individuals, people say a movie "wasn't too bad," when Americans say "that movie was KICK ASS!" In other words, we're a VERY expressive people, us Americans.

Naturally, all this talk of the new year has gotten me thinking about where I've been and where I'm going, which I guess you could say is the overlying theme of this blog anyway. What is the new year going to hold for Lindsay Marie? Here's a short list of the things I'm already aware of, but I can't account for anything fate, destiny, Father Time, any-unlisted-deities, entities, and or forces might have in store for me:

1) Application and possibly acceptance to a French university for a Masters in French Lit. Though, fair enough, a Berk professor I'm in contact with said to possibly reconsider as he'd be "remis" not to warn me that the humanities "are dismal" right now due to funding. So let's be over-educated and under-employed!

2) A latvian?: Still sort of processing this one, though I do REALLY enjoy his broken English text messages. My favorite one so far involved a comparison of skiing and sex and how skiing was better. I replied "Oh really?" His response: "Ok, maybe skiing as good as sex." This is going to be entertaining.

3) Re-patriation: and it's going to have to involve In-and-Out. And possibly some Wild Turkey 101. Thanks Kristen and Bec.

4) Fourth of July Pyro: four words: let's blow shit up.

5) Four weddings and a funeral: Ok, no, I kid. But it does involve one of my best friends getting married in July. Not to mention I'm in the wedding, and her future hubbie, who is a bit older, has some HOT groomies, as we bridesmaids have dubbed the groomsmen. Older groomies with MBA's, and I'll get to be the sweet young 20-something who can speak sexy, sexy, did I say SEXY, fluent French? I might be taking advantage of that....

6) Possible Parisian apartment hunting: this is going to suck royally. BEYOND ROYALLY. But if I have to, in the end, it will be SO worth it. I'll officially be a parisienne. New zip code: 75000! Bring it, beetches!

And who knows what else will come. Bonne année quand même!

The Latvian

In my never ending quest to make absolutely certain that I need to end up with an American in the long run, I have suddenly hit it off with one FINE Latvian.

Five hours of hilarious broken language text flirting later and now I can say I have dated American, French, Russian, and might be adding Latvian to that list.

This could be fun.... ;)

New Years

I woke up today at 1 in the afternoon. And all I can say is that NYE was so epic that it nears The Hangover status.

Holy. COW.

Going to go pop some aspirin now....