Fallen Leaves

When time folds in on itself—in a narrative studies classroom or the fourth bite of an apple cider donut—I become aware of things left behind.

Over the past two weeks, I've been trying not to dwell too much on "how tired I am"—with varying degrees of success. Balancing work and school is no easy feat, and although I feel optimistic that things will become more manageable once I settle into a routine, until then, I’m in a generally frazzled state. The thought of scribbles (all of you) has helped me get past the fog of fatigue to shape these thoughts into something intelligible. Even when it’s hard, writing is good. (Maybe especially when it’s hard.)

I’ve been thinking about New England fall, so much more marked than this season in Paris, its drizzly edges drawn by gray skies and the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau. Rather than basking in the general glow of fall from September through November, we lovers of the season have to actively create and uphold beloved traditions ourselves; this is harder when you're also propping up a whole new life far from where you grew up. It makes the non-transferable things all the more obvious, including: the fact that you can't buy canned pumpkin anywhere in France; the utter lack of red and golden foliage; the nonexistence of apple picking, corn mazes, and apple cider donuts; the disdain the French have for Halloween, not much more than a capitalist import designed to sell candy or an excuse to wear a slutty costume to a party.

Four bites of an apple cider donut brought tears to my eyes. The other week, my colleague Meredith went to a wedding in the U.S. She was in Massachusetts for only three days but made time to visit an orchard, bringing back a paper bag full of donuts. There were only enough for each of us to have half a donut as a treat after lunch. It’s been five years since I last spent fall in the U.S.

During my senior year of college, I went apple picking with friends and, les yeux plus gros que le ventre, picked so many apples I didn’t know what to do with them. I made apple pies and apple jam and apple candy, I put apples in soups and salads, I ate the apples raw (which must’ve kept many doctors at bay). I had no idea what was in store at the bottom of that bag of apples.

Five years later, I find myself in a different city, in a different country, across the ocean. This fall, I’ve met a wave of new people at school, and with them, I’ve been refining the “life story” that explains how I ended up at l'ENS, among students who, at least superficially, seem to have followed similar parcours. I recount that, rather than doing prépa, I earned a bachelor’s degree; I explain why I’m dong a master’s, and what brought me to France. And inevitably, often fascinated by New York City, they all ask the same question: Do I miss the US?

At first I brushed off the question, which to me, seemed “besides the point.” I have no plans to move back, was my immediate thought, which obscured something quietly cinnamon-flavored in the background.

I could buy two bushels of apples in Paris and make pies and candies and soups and salads, and (no mean feat) have plenty of people here onto which I could hoist my apple goods with glee. And to be fair, there are plenty of rituals that mark the start of fall in Paris, from a wine festival celebrated up and down the hill in Montmartre to week-long school holidays the first week of November.

But there’s a texture of place and time that’s missing, even if I don’t actively miss the US. The richness of here comes with the absence of there; the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but the equation requires subtraction.

Apple cider donuts stand so firmly on New England soil that one flown across the ocean pulled me back—to the fall of 2019, to an apple frenzy, to the last days of college in the first days of a master’s—to home from home—(Suis-je une 'revenante,' détentrice d’un passeport n’ayant jamais vécu en France plus de trois mois avant 2020 ; est-ce revenir, ou être hantée ; ou me réapproprier quelque chose, ou hanter ?)—to where I am from, from where I am from. (Paris may be a moveable feast, but tables heaving with apples and pumpkins and corn might be more difficult to transport.)

In a single day this fall, I go from working at a school (the one I attended) to studying at another (the one my dad attended), and Columbia is no longer what it was when I was a student there, and I am no longer the same person I was, though I am a student again. Every moment reaches through time to tap me on the shoulder. Do I miss the US?

When time folds in on itself—in a narrative studies classroom or the fourth bite of an apple cider donut—I become aware of things left behind: immovable things, feelings, textures, tastes, humors, and relationships, all tied to a place and time outside of France, this decade, and the life I’ve chosen. I don’t miss the US as such, though I should clarify: there are many people in the U.S. whom I miss dearly. But of that place, there are parts I love that are missing. A choice, or perhaps consequence of a choice, made by everyone who transplants themselves: to not search for—or to delay searching for—the things they’ve left behind.

The answer, I suppose, must be to continue making choices: to be here, to create new traditions, to reminisce, and to visit, eventually.