Mes souliers sont rouges, adieu mes amours...

I have been in America a week and a day. In a week and a half I have been in three different climates, two timezones, and four airports. The past two weeks have been a blur of studying, writing, exams, celebrations, passage (and its dull near relative, interminable waiting), security checkpoints, twinkling lights, and crinkling wrapping paper. I can't convince myself that I was in Paris at the beginning of this month, or that I was in Boston only four months ago. I feel stretched between continents, cultures, times, incarnations of myself. I am slowly unpacking the changes wrought by living in another culture and living alone without TV or internet (and without phone sometimes) from some bottomless suitcase that managed to make it through with my carry on luggage. I know now it will take me sometime to finish that task.

The dreaded reverse culture shock has not completely hit me yet, as I have been careful not to immerse myself too quickly into American culture or into its vast, loud public forums. I notice now that America is a much louder, flashier place than I remember. People don't stare as much here, and I must be careful to say excuse me and not the curt French pardon when I accidentally invade their much bigger personal space bubbles. I am relieved to not have to formulate complex French sentences for simple tasks such as mailing a package or asking for directions. As much as I enjoyed dressing nicely, I have reluctantly admitted to myself that it is kind of nice just lounging about in jeans and t-shirts.

In Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, the narrator remarks that in Paris he learned to see. I feel much the same. I have noticed that I observe differently, perhaps more deeply, than before. Faces, bodies, buildings, both familiar and unknown, have taken on new and different shapes and attributes. This is splendid, but also a tad alienating. I feel slightly mismatched for this place into which I have returned, suddenly surrounded by people. I never realized how much time I spent alone in Paris until now. This has had odd consequences for me - sometimes I don't know how to act or what to say. My conversation is littered with references to and stories about places, people, events that often the person to whom I am speaking has never known. Of course I saw people in Paris and had friends, but they knew me as the Peter in Paris - not the Peter recently returned from Paris. They were witness (whether they knew it or not) of one work in progress, so to say. The friends and family I have seen Stateside are witness to a different work; perhaps the revisionary stage of the previous state of myself, or its sequel.

At the same time that I feel out my reactions to this homecoming, I also feel more assured of myself. The circumstances and experiences of my time in Paris has allowed what I would call the sturdier, more finite elements of my personality and interests to surface in my mind. I simply know myself better - a statement I have rarely made.

Several people, French and American, have remarked to me that the United States and France have such a convoluted relationship of love and hate due to the fact that they are so similar. The cliche of two sides of the same coin is wholly appropriate here; with France being the intellectual, abstract face, America the epicurean, tangible face. I found in so many of facets of French culture what had been lacking for me in American culture, and immersion beneath those facets nourished my tastes and talents to an incredible degree. But, because I now like the very pedestrian French admiration for good wine, espresso, and mineral water(!), I could very well be a snob. Because I have learned the pleasure of passing time and not spending it, I could be intolerably not in a hurry. These are just some of the many bits of the French mindset that have smudged off on me, and which serve to delineate the boundary between America and France. Maybe some of these smudges are temporary, and will fade after a good, star spangled washing - but I am sure that others, like red wine on a white shirt, are there to stay.

On that note, this will be the last entry I make in this blog. No longer am I Another American in Paris. I'm just another American now. Obviously I will not forget nor soon stop talking about the time I spent across the pond. I have the feeling that I left a piece of my heart floating in the Seine, as much as Paris frustrated me at times. The grace of memory is that, aided by hindsight, it softens rough edges. Few periods of my life have been more enjoyable than the one coming to a close right now, and its sweetness in my mind will only grow with the years, until it is as sugary and delectable as all those French desserts I know I will be missing.