One week and I will be there. Just one week and I will board a plane to Paris where I always feel at home because no matter how many times I hear the French are rude or any number of such comments, I’ve never found it to be so. Whether you speak the language or not, you can fit in in France and easily so. Sure, speaking is easier and after all, when in Paris... as in Rome... We certainly expect those to speak our language.
I was always amazed at the people I worked with who were or are from India. Those who grew up speaking Hindi and Telegoo and yet had better language skills than a lot of us English and Americans. Truly. It never ceased to amaze me and I knew that had I been in India, there was no way I could get by, though many explained to me that they had grown up learning English in school as a requirement.
We too have our requirements though language isn't really a big focus and seems to be dropped by many students after minimal requirements are met, if there are any. And as for translations, we rank almost if not the lowest in the world to carry books in translation.
Visit Paris and you'll find in any bookstore a section for books in German, French, and English etc etc. I visit most American shops and I can only find books in English, which troubles me somewhat because there are books I’d love to read in French that aren't available yet but the shipping alone is hardly worth the price of the book. How to get around this? To lug them all home in my suitcase? To have friends rush out and purchase them and send them to me? Certainly, that is looking more and more like a valid option though one hates to be an imposition. Or I do. Most of us don't like to be such.
So off I go to the place I call home, or once called home because I feel divided. It is my London, weary and wonderful after terrorist attacks; my America, of which I am deeply proud and honored to live, and my France, a childhood home of sorts and place of frequency to which I return again and again, telling myself each time how this time I’ll stay. This time will be different and we'll set it up and it won't be a thing said in the moment.
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