Across the Channel

Notes from a trip to London in October 2021, originally published to my website.

When I moved to Paris my mother told me to pack my sweaters. It gets cold earlier there, she said. It's a northern city, compared to New York. The latter, city of my birth, is shown with snow in more movies than I can count, and yet the snow never sticks there longer than a day, if it even sticks at all. Everything is relative, I guess, because people think of New York in the snow, and yet Paris is further north; and London is a truer northern city, though less-so than Oslo, which in turn is tropical compared to Tromsø.

But this weekend I peeled away my layers as my train pulled in to London. Meteorological phenomena made it such that it was a bit warmer in the North; I have been wearing my over coat for two weeks in Paris, and I did not bring it to London. I brought a hat, just in case, and never needed it except for when I was walking back at night around one in the morning. It was otherwise warm, apparently unseasonably; I saw the sun more than it rained. I was able to walk everywhere.

And I did not walk alone. Kelly pointed out how nice it was to know, when we left for the day, or were planning on going out wherever in the evening, that since we left together and would go home together, that we would never be walking unaccompanied; a condition far more comfortable, obviously, than the lonesome late night walk that threatens all women. It protects the heart though, too, to walk with a friend; to come and go with someone who knows you. For now, this is not a comfort I have in Paris, a city new to me as resident rather than tourist, which feels like home, but in which I don't have any good friends. (Yet!)During my first semester of college, I wrote a column for the Columbia Spectator. One of my first pieces, "Befriending a honey bee," recounted an unlikely interaction one weekend, when my friend Sam came to visit me from Massachusetts, sleeping on the floor of my John Jay single on my collection of throw pillows. We were visited that weekend by a honey bee, who landed on Sam's sweater as we were chatting on Low Library steps. The bee stayed placidly on her shoulder for a good long ten minutes. It was easier to befriend this bee, I opined, than the average Columbia student.

A short few months after that, I joined the ski team and very quickly made many friends. A frantic, three-and-a-half year period of socialization followed: late nights at 1020 dive bar, meet-ups in local restaurants, excursions to West Coast ski destinations. I very rarely thought about those early months during which I had such trouble making friends; those days when I struggled to make meaningful connections, and to find a rhythm that worked for me. (To be fair to the very dear friends I made at the time, I was by no means alone in those early days; but still, I was dissatisfied, enough to write about it.)

Recently, I have been thinking more often about that period. An ocean and pandemic away from my college friends, I have not seen most of them in over a year. I have made the decision to be displaced so many times since I graduated college; not in order to isolate myself (far from it), but compromising comfort for the sake of something (hopefully) more important…

Kelly and I met on the internet but I have spoken with every week for the past few months. We are in "similar places," so to speak: we were both applying for jobs over the summer, don't write enough, have younger brothers, and like to cook. She is very generous, and to finally meet her in person this week was such a blessing. If I had stayed in Paris (the most-visited city in the world!) this weekend I might have seen a show at a museum, but mostly, I would have cleaned the bathroom and fridge in my apartment. Maybe I would have been invited to a party or on a date… But probably I would have mostly just bought new sponges.

But in London, there was Kelly, with whom I could walk. And there was Emma, and Jaimie, and another Emma, and Theodora, and Carla; characters from my life and Kelly's. What a blessing to have a person I met on the internet, a ghost, welcome me into her home, out of a generosity and openness so natural to her that it felt natural to me. Soon I hope I won't have to cross the Channel to be able to have a friend-filled weekend, but what a blessing to be able to have one at all.

And though life in Paris is still a work-in-progress, I do think that ultimately, I have learned and grown much more than I would have if I had stayed in New York: far from New York in the Basque countryside, different from the locals, words wearing my secondary mother tongue that still never quite fits right.

I've been confronted with cultural differences a lot since I left New York, both as move from place to place, and also as I reconcile the different cultures that are my own, that I grew up with. It is one thing to be French in New York; it is another thing to be French, in France, having grown up in America (not to mention the Basque culture and country in the mix).

The other day, my mother -- a fellow chronic franglais-speaker and perpetual celebrator of biculturalism -- sent me this quote from an Adam Gopnik article: "We are not captives of our tongues, but we are citizens of our languages." Gopnik waxes poetic in a classic New Yorker-style review of the thirteen-hundred page “Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon.” He says, "Obviously, immigrants have sociolinguistic habits among themselves that are different from the social habits by acquired by speaking their new language. We don’t speak French or Italian if we don't know the way to speak French and Italian." This tension, I have come to realize, is my culture. (Never better articulated than in this stand-up show by comedian Paul Taylor.) I will never uncritically inhabit any one culture or language, because as I was born into (at least) two, I bear the inevitable burden (and gift) of comparison. I benefit from the richness of perspective, of being able to translate, and pick and choose aspects of my cultures that I "agree" with; but I will also always be aware of my shortcomings, of the fact that I will never have grown up in France, and that the more my French improves, the more awkward I become in English.

Even the way I dress has changed since I moved to France; I know the mix of blues, greens, and neutrals is not just me finding my personal style, but me trying to blend in. Do I, though? And if I do in Paris, will I ever in the Basque country?

In Paris, timeless cuts and classic colors feel much more appropriate than the many-textured multi-colored confections of New York street style. I think I have gotten acclimated to French culture, because I was struck in London by peoples' going out outfits: flashy sequined dresses, 70s-style patterns, mod and grunge and leather and maximalism. People in London were louder than in Paris, too; groups of young professionals walking from the tube to the club on a Friday night (already hammered) could be heard from two streets away. This does not exist in Paris, where people never (or rarely) make a scene. They also drink after work, but sitting at a café for hours; and they'll go to bars or dance until 5am, even on a weekday, but it isn't clubbing. Paris is all cotton, satin, suede; here, I choose between mascara, eyeshadow, or lipstick. In London, I add an extra necklace, and rhinestones to the corners of my eyes.

I play this blending-in game, not as self-erasure, but to see if I can "win." Maybe if I get good enough at adapting, feeling out these cultural differences, no one will see that sometimes it can be really uncomfortable to occupy these spaces simultaneously. I never take any of my cultures or languages off, wearing them always so they shrink and stretch with time and use. English, my thick college-educated overcoat of confidence and eloquence, is sometimes stuffed under my French cardigan, awkward because it does not feel like it should be worn over like this, exposed; it snags when I forget a word, or don't understand an expression. I pack my sweaters when I move to chilly Paris, and I take them off when I go to warm London, though I always carry the unworn or hidden layers in my bag.

I think one day, maybe soon, these things will matter less. Already, I have been surprised many times over with how much my cultural and linguistic comfort zones can expand; maybe people have no limit beyond which they can adapt. And anyway, cultural differences or nuances feel less important when you are dealing with individual people, friends, rather than when you are faced with a seemingly monolithic Society.

Nota bene

This is what I have been taking note of lately...

Books.

In London last weekend, Kelly took me to the city's very own book barge, Word on the Water! These are the books I got, which the clerk told me was a "great selection!" :

A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf.

Circe, by Madeline Miller.

Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke.

Fireworks, by Angela Carter.

Music.

This is my "spookiest" October playlist, for when I am trying to channel witchy vibes, which is one of the (relatively few?) things in which Paris is lacking. Halloween isn't really a thing here... P.S. "sorgina" means witch in Basque!

I have also been enjoying Italian indie music... I have no answers, only questions as to why Spotify thought that would be what I wanted to listen to this fall, and how they were so right? (This one is almost all Italian though it is in theory a "vibe" playlist...)