The Transition Artist

I’m currently sitting on my bed, eating my fourth popsicle of the day, listening to classical music as I prepare to do my reading for the class on impressionism that I’m taking here. It’s overcast and grayish outside, and I just woke up from a 2-hour nap. I started getting sick on Friday, and was not so pleasantly surprised by a fever and some really swollen tonsils yesterday. As a result, though, I’ve realized that taking some time off for a couple sick days leaves plenty of time for reflection. Just in having stayed home yesterday afternoon and evening and today, I’ve realized how different my life here is from back home. 

For one thing, all of the medicines sold at pharmacies here are over-the-counter, but I don’t know which one does what or even what I need. Not to mention they don’t teach much medical vocabulary in French class, so I didn’t know exactly how to describe my symptoms besides just saying, “My throat hurts. What would you recommend?” The pharmacists here are pretty knowledgable, so she asked me some questions and recommended a couple different things. However, when I came down with a fever yesterday and my tonsils got worse, I wanted to go back today and see if there might be something a little more potent that she could give me, since the first two things I had tried weren’t helping.

If there’s one thing that’s fairly common in France, it’s that a lot of stores close on Sundays. Grocery stores, bakeries, doctors offices, any sort of customer service organization, and, well, pharmacies are all often closed. Granted, some stores in various areas stay open, but you have about a 50-50 chance of the closest location being one of the ones that closes. With my luck of lucks, I walked to the pharmacy I went to yesterday and found it closed. And then it started raining.

At this point we could pause and go ahead and throw a pity party for the poor little sick girl caught in the rain, or I could tell you what really happened. I mentioned that not all stores close on Sundays, but forgot to mention that right across the street from the pharmacy is one of my favorite bakeries, and that bakery happens to also be open on Sundays. Praise. So when the pharmacy was closed and the rain started I ducked under an awning, quickly decided that my next best course of action was to go to the bakery (which doubles as a pastry shop), and bought myself a pistachio eclair. I may not have made it to the pharmacy, but never doubt the healing powers of an eclair. Especially here, they’re better than any medicine I could ever buy.

The strangest thing for me, though, is staying home. I love my little apartment, and actually spent the morning cleaning it (so I don’t leave my roommate living in some sort of germ-infested incubator), but I don’t typically spend much time here during the day. I usually get up in the morning, eat breakfast, get dressed, and go. Whether I’m going to class or a park or museum or meeting friends somewhere, I feel like I’m constantly in motion. I’m forever going from one place to the next, and the only extended period of time I spend at home is either to do homework, eat a meal, or sleep. Honestly, I feel sort of weird about staying home on the weekends, because Paris is such a magnificent city and I don’t want to waste a single second of my time here. There’s always something I could be seeing or doing, so more often than not, I try and figure out what that is, and go do it. When I’m home in the States, on the other hand, I don’t feel like I’m missing much and have no problem staying at home during the day..

In the time I’ve had to be here and reflect though, I’ve been able to see how incredibly fortunate I’ve been. Time has started moving so quickly, and the days go by in a blur, but each one holds something special. This past week has been the week of small victories. First of my small victories was moving French classes. Previously I was in level B.1.2, a high intermediate level. The class, though instructed solely in French, was largely a review for me, and I wasn’t feeling challenged enough. I had to push hard to move classes, but asked (for the second time) to move up a level on Monday, and was met with some opposition, but finally, after I became a little insistent, was told, “D’accord.. Si vous voulez.. Travail fort et bon chance!” (“Alright.. If you want… Work hard and good luck!”). It doesn’t sound like much, and, to be completely honest, it was a trivial victory, but I’m now feeling challenged and growing. Though I haven’t felt the changes happening, I know I’m growing in my ability to speak and understand French each day, and that, for me, is absolutely life changing. 

Secondly, I had a big project due for my global communications course this past week, and it ended up being incredibly difficult to prepare for. In two days, my partner and I read about 150 pages and somehow managed to formulate a concise way of presenting the buckets of information we had read. I’m proud to say the presentation went really well, and I managed to give the presentation on minimal sleep, as I had a paper due the same day. Small victory number two. I could ramble about my small victories for far too long, but the main point here is that I’m learning to appreciate them more. A new friend is a small victory. A new experience is a small victory. A new challenge, a new thought, a new area of growth; these are what make me stretch and bend, just enough to be sometimes uncomfortable, but so fulfilled. 

Although being sick while I’m here definitely isn’t ideal, the small victory that came out of it was that I’m home doing the homework I normally put off until the night before. I did my laundry, I cleaned, and I got a really awesome pastry out of the whole deal, so things could be much worse. Swollen tonsils and all, here’s to the fifth popsicle and new challenges!