The Art of Pâque-ing*

When I was younger, Easter meant things appearing in front of me with no effort on my part: hidden baskets of chocolate goodies, cinnamon rolls slathered with almond frosting, plastic eggs stuffed with candy, and tucked into rhododendron bushes or behind the mailbox. At the appointed time (well, perhaps a little after), family members poured into the driveway in packed cars. We ate enormous amounts of food, ran wild around the garden, and played poker with our Easter candy. Then, at the appointed time (or perhaps a little after), said family members were packed back into their cars, waving frantically until they passed out of sight. The next year, it would all begin again. It was like clockwork, in the best sense of the word.

This year, I found myself sharing responsibility in cobbling together a French Easter. No clockwork. No pattern to follow. Needless to say, the level of respect I have for my mother and my aunts pulling this off every year hit stratospheric heights. Our dinner involved three people, all shorter than 5’4’’ (not that that entails small appetites), and I was plotting out menus three days in advance, running around the city buying ingredients, and bouncing out of bed at 6 a.m. to make the soup course.

It was a day of firsts, and a day of just hoping everything came together at the last minute. It all did, more or less. It didn’t feel fully like Easter, to be honest. But it did feel like something wonderful.

After a morning of whipping up soup, Carol and I squeezed into a packed Notre Dame for Easter mass, where a near-bloodbath was ensuing in the fight for seats. We had to watch the entire service on one of the giant video monitors provided for the side aisles. Still, the gothic-style acoustics and the cathedral’s female Gregorian choir came together for an hour of ethereal vocal beauty. And unlike my Easter in Italy six years ago, no one set any sheep’s wool on fire. I don’t think my family has recovered from that experience yet.

After mass came another first: the opera.

Now, I have been wanting to see a genuine, sing-the-roof-off-the-building opera for a very long time. At first, “the opera” was a concept of high culture I figured I should see at least once in my life, thus crossing something off my bucket list. Then, little by little, I started to enjoy certain songs and recognize certain singers.

And then my singing friend Suzanne proposed an Easter afternoon at the opera.

From what I’ve gathered, the opera in Paris entails extensive preparation. Tickets are expensive, and some opera-lovers hover in front of their computers the day they go on sale, snapping them up at record speed. But for the spontaneous (or for the poor student), rush tickets are a fantastic second option. We arrived at the Bastille ticket office at 11:30, and spent the next two and a half hours in an increasingly competitive line. But boy, was it worth it.

 Let the festivities begin!

Donna Elvira and Don Giovanni

To all those who think the opera is a relic of a past age with no relevance on modern life, I have to disagree. In the Opéra Bastille’s version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the Don Juan legend has been transformed into a modern tale by director Michael Haneke (Caché). The title character may cut a swath of death and suffering through the world, but he nevertheless emerges as a paradoxically sympathetic character in a tale of complicated morality. It’s been a long time since I saw a film or play depict a character as complex and believable as Don Giovanni. And, of course, there is some glorious music involved!

And finally, to cap off this culture-packed day, it was back to the apartment for a French-style feast: salade de chevre chaud, cabbage and leek soup with lemon garnish, asparagus in lemon and butter, grilled gigot d’agneau, coconut madeleines, and some adorable chocolate hens. We didn’t quite make it to the cheese course, after packing all this food away, but I suppose it’s the thought that counts.

Now, in lieu of an Easter egg hunt: can anyone count the number of times I used the word “pack” in this blog post?

*Pâques = Easter

All chocolate credit goes to Jeff de Bruges.

Conversing with the Natives

Astérix bats away a flying ball of fire!

In my Renaissance literature course, I just read this lovely little essay called “The Cannibals,” by Michel de Montaigne, which, after a long and impossibly stereotyped description of the so-called “noble savage,” makes the quite wise observation that in learning about the Other, we are really learning about ourselves.

To which I can respond, true, true, and true again.

Nearly everyone who studies abroad, regardless of how wonderful or terrible an experience they have, acquires a sudden desire to see more of their own country. Most Americans have visited a shamefully small section of the US, even given its rather vast proportions. New York is a destination. Florida is a destination. EUROPE is a destination. The rest of the America? Not so much. But all these countless train trips and plane rides taking us criss-crossing, willy-nilly, around Europe have had an impact. They make us suddenly ashamed of how little we previously cared about our own homeland.

It’s election season here. Another similarity, although in France’s case the liberal party is trying to unseat the conservative incumbent (for those new to the game, the former is a vague and nondescript fellow by the name of François Hollande; the latter, Nicolas Sarkozy, has certain Napoleonic tendencies, right down to the diminutive stature, foreign name, and delusions of grandeur). And yet in the midst of this pre-election craze, I find myself observing the American political scene instead. I like to think that I do so with a clearer, less-biased vision than in previous years.

But the real process of learning about myself has to do with that pesky little study abroad requirement, speaking.

Yes. Heaven forbid I should have to speak to the natives.

For someone who very, very carefully chooses her words (or tries to), it’s been an adventure to open my mouth everyday and have absolutely no idea what is going to come out. There are days with every part of me is thinking in French, and when my attempts to speak in English devolve into bilingual patchworks. I have yet to find a satisfactory translation of “bouleverser.” And do not try and tell me that “Ça me plait” and “Ça me touche” mean the same thing as “That pleases me” and “That moves me.” Not the same thing, no matter what WordReference.com says. French versions, I find, are always more passionate that their pallid translations make them out to be.

There are other, less pleasant days when neither French nor English seems to be coming out. These are the days I walk around shaking my head at my incompetence. These are the days when I couldn’t remember the word for “pepper” (poivron) or “batteries” (piles), despite having used them a thousand times, and when every new utterance emerged like a leap of faith and quickly plummeted to earth.

And yet, despite the failures, I push through it. And do you know what? I feel like a superhero.

When I recruit the Franprix workers on a quest for cheddar cheese, or when I ask my classmates the word for an extended metaphor, or when I whisper “À tes souhaits” to my sneezing neighbor, I am heroic.

I never end up regretting my leaps of faith, either. The Great Cheddar Cheese Quest of 2012? A simple misunderstanding of pronunciation (in France, “cheddar” is pronounced “Sheh-DAHR”) has now made me new best friends with the Franprix cashier. She teases me about my American pronunciation of cheese, asks me about my life, and then tells me I speak French very well. I certainly won’t try and persuade her otherwise. The “À tes souhaits?” girl? She now waves when I come into class, which had never happened to me before. The “extended metaphor” (metaphore filée) classmates? Well, they thought my roommate’s homemade tart smelled delicious.

So of course I am learning about France. But I am learning much, much more about me. And I have realized that, in my own small way, I am a superhero. How’s that for an epiphany?