a good, good day

Today is the greatest day that I have ever known.
-Smashing Pumpkins, Today

Well, yesterday was. It started with the mail. Joe and I have been checking the mailbox an average of three times a day for the last three weeks, and we still hadn’t seen any sign of our bankcards. But on Tuesday, there were two cards in the mailbox—birthday cards! My family has an insane ability to find cards that are perfect for people, and they’re now hanging on my wall.

When I read the birthday messages, I knew that things were going to sort themselves out. I set myself to chopping up zucchini for lunch, a dish I’d been craving as I started to get more homesick. If you dip the zucchini slices in flour, then dip them into egg before dropping them into the hot oil or butter, they fry up with a taste that reminds me so much of my grandma’s fried pumpkin blossoms. I miss Ohio.

While I was dropping zucchini slices into the pan, Joe arrived with the bread for our lunch and a special surprise, our favorite pastry. I don’t want to give too much away, because we’re still trying to figure out what all is inside this guy. All I know for now is we’re eating for too many of them, and the green sprinkles on top make me feel like I’m five years old.

And it just kept going! After filling ourselves with pastries, we walked to the bank and found out that our cards were ready, had been ready for an unknown number of days. We activated them, walked out the bank doors and right into the discount stores: cleaning supplies, slippers (to stay off of the dusty hardwood floor finally), a clothes drying rack, a winter coat, ideas of cell phone plans. It felt glorious!

On the walk home (walking quickly so that the pizza we snagged wouldn’t get too cold in the surprisingly chilled evening air), I felt like we were finally living here. We’d tried it the American way: go to the bank everyday until you get what you want. Ask and keep asking. We tried it the French way: wait, then ask, then wait for something to happen. Now we just need to figure out what questions we should have been asking, what to ask next and how to keep our electricity on.

I led a discussion group for students that want English practice yesterday. The assigned topic was “stereotypes.” They told me that I should be obese, that I love fast food, that I make horrible movies that they love to watch, that I can’t find any other country on a map. They told me that they are smelly, rude and distant. I disagreed on all accounts. I’m learning how to find the warmth in French people. It’s all in the asking.

You are required to ask for help. They work on the assumption you know what you’re doing. But you also have to ask in the right way—in the end, what is it that you really need to happen? How can the person you’re talking to give it to you? Then you have to really listen—not just because it’s another language, but because there are tons of details in the way they say things that help you figure out (1) what you should absolutely do and (2) what you can get around and do your own way.

So we’re really living now. We’re learning the system, which I admit would take more than the year we have here to really understand. We’re getting reconnected to the world outside our apartment and the library room where we steal Internet. We’re navigating, floating now with more than just our chins above the water.