10 Life Lessons Learned During Our 10 Months in France

Nuggets of knowledge learned the hard way, so you don't have to!

After being back in the U.S. for two weeks now, I wanted to reflect a bit on the lessons learned. These lessons don’t necessarily require you to have to uproot your life and make a bold and insane move to another country to learn them because, I’m laying them out for you here! Saving you tens of thousands of dollars! Multiply that by what you would have also had to spend on therapy and/or self-help books to gain this wisdom, not to mention the time you’re saving. Basically, this list is compensating for what will be, is currently, or was, the monetary equivalent of your first-born child’s college tuition. You’re welcome.

If you like this post, please do ❤️ it as it allows for further visibility on Substack, which allows me to continue doing my thang. xx

1. The “Hello”: “Hello” isn’t just a great song by Lionel Ritchie or Adele. It’s an important pleasantry that sometimes accompanies opening doors, elevator entrances, and the occasional anecdote of sarcasm when said with a question mark. In France, it is a necessary part of daily existence. You can’t even SPEAK to someone you are not familiar with without saying “bonjour” first. Even if they are annoying the shit out of you by standing outside your apartment door speaking to a friend loudly on the phone for ten minutes straight and you open the door and say, “Do you mind? I’m trying to work here?!” and they immediately respond with the sarcastic version of “Bonjour??”, then get to remedying the problem they are creating by nonchalantly walking down the winding staircase of their Haussmann apartment building. Yes, this happened. Originally, we believed, and deep down, still believe, that the daily “hello-goodbye” formality is a passive-aggressive courtesy that masks a deep-seated resentment for the power they don’t have in a day-to-day socialist society with glass ceilings over everyone’s heads. And it’s not just “bonjour” you need to say, it’s “bonne journée” when you leave them during the day, which turns into “bonsoir/bonne soirée” in the evening.
   

   
   The thing is, whether it’s passive aggressive or nice, or a platitude, it has stuck with me upon returning to the States. I can’t fucking help myself. I’m “hello’ing” everyone in every situation. I even try making eye contact with a, get this, smile. And you know what’s been happening? I get smiles back. Love is exchanged. Openness. Because of this one little word, we see each other. Maybe the French intention behind the word may have gotten lost along the way, what with all of their wars and dictators and heads rolling over the years, but this one’s a keeper. The mandatory-ness of saying it makes you remember to say it and it doesn’t matter WHY you say it, its outcome is well worth the effort.
   

2. The Art of Arguing: I don’t know about you, but I learned to fight dirty. Growing up, my family was opinionated with a capital “O” and we would fight to the death. I watched my aunts in knock-down-drag-outs, throwing each other out the front door, fists clenching each others’ hair over who was using grandma’s car that night. I watched my mother get iced by the entire family for an entire year for letting her mentally ill sister live with us vs. going into a state-run mental institution. Wait. This sort of thing didn’t happen in YOUR family? It didn’t even need to be a fight and we wouldn’t let one thing get past us. Once, my mom confessed that she walked into the kitchen and heard me having sex with my boyfriend (apparently the bed was banging against the wall between my bedroom and the kitchen). Embarrassed, I threw my own dagger back with, “Well, I found the sex tape you made with your boyfriend, so…” (Why she taped over one of my dance recitals I’ll ever know.) I don’t know if amateur arguing is an American thing, or just a dysfunctional family thing, but the French have mastered the art of arguing.
   
   Sitting outside a cafe, watching people scream at each other at the top of their lungs for 5 minutes, then completely drop it and wave goodbye to each other was jaw-drooping. Drivers cutting each other off, yelling at the top of their lungs and then singing their favorite song at the top of their lungs moments later in the car is Zen-level arguing my friends. I encourage everyone to implement this over-the-top, stop it, and drop it attitude when you have your next twitter/Facebook war with someone from high school you haven’t seen in thirty years.

3. The Power of Negative Thinking: (The secret weapon of the French.) Aside from “C’est pas ma faute” (“It’s not my fault”) being, maybe the most repeated phrase among the French, “C’est pas possible” (“It’s not possible.”) comes in in a hair-splitting second place. You want to ask someone at the counter to run an open-faced croissant topped with cheese and ham through the toaster oven they got for their paninis? “C’est pas possible.” You want to understand why you can’t throw your poopy toilet paper in the sanibroyeur toilet that can macerate your poop but not the water-soluble toilet paper you were forced to buy because of France’s eco-conscious DNA? “C’est pas possible.” Maybe it’s due to their socialist mindset that’s engrained in them since birth, but the idea that what can go wrong, will go wrong and the only wait to make it go right is by expecting it to go wrong. Which brings me to my next life lesson…
   

4. Zero Expectations: Don’t expect people to do what you would do in any given situation. Even if it makes logical sense. This one is self-explanatory. The sooner you accept this, the better off you will be in life because, as French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people.” Let them, and yourself, off the hook and trust that we are all idiots doing idiotic things. Everyday. All the time. When you expect nothing, any morsel of getting what you want is a joy bomb.
   

5. Letting Go of Magical Thinking: In the realm of psychology (and a psychologist I am NOT), the term “magical thinking” is the belief that your thoughts or actions can cause real-life consequences, with no direct logical connection between them. Made mainstream by Sigmund Freud and famed child psychologist, Jean Piaget (French name, Swiss origin), magical thinking, such as wearing the same shirt to continue a winning streak, (or in the case of Rafael Nadal, picking your butt-shoulder-shoulder-nose-ear-nose-ear every time you serve a tennis ball) is considered to be a symptom of OCD, GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) and even delusional disorders. I am pointing out the above to emphasize that no matter how much better you think your life is going to be in France vs. where you are right now, and no matter what superstition you have or God you pray to, nothing is going to make this magical idea come true. It is absolutely, unequivocally NOT going to be the experience you think it will be.

   (Dude can’t help himself. It’s like, if he does this, he will ace. It’s crazy pants but also, dontcha kinda believe in it? Such conviction.)

   
   Let’s take the Paris Syndrome for example. Paris Syndrome is a real phenomenon primarily affecting Japanese tourists characterized by severe disappointment and culture shock when they encounter the reality of Paris, which often contrasts with their idealized expectations due to the romanticized versions of the City of Light in Japanese media and culture. This contrast can trigger acute delusional states, hallucinations, anxiety, and other psychological and psychosomatic symptoms. We felt this. We lived this (and are now writing a play about it!) We had visited Paris many times, sometimes for up to six weeks at a time, and no pretend-expatting could have prepared us for what was the real deal living there. Which brings me to my next life lesson…
   

6. You Are Not, And Never Will Be, Prepared: I will up the ante and say, you are not prepared for anything in life, but especially life in France. Whatever you think you have done to prepare, you have not done enough. Here’s the good news: it doesn’t matter. Just like life there is no playbook or how-to in France. You will get advice (solicited and unsolicited) from people you trust, and from people you don’t; with that information you’re going to make an educated guess on what’s best for you or just plain ‘ole go with your friggin’ gut and laugh at getting fully slapped in the face with what you never saw coming. The real kicker, no matter what anyone says, you are still gonna do what you want to do anyway. The heart wants what the heart wants.
   

7. Live Small: Before we left for France we downsized. A LOT. Even though I rented my house “furnished”, we are going to be going back to a house that needs two beds for my kids to sleep in and a desk for my high school senior to write those tricky, annoying, heartfelt, sets-him-apart from the herd essays for college applications. We found that life feels bigger when you live smaller and we intend to keep our space (physical and emotional) clutter-free after living out of two suitcases for almost a year. France really gets this. America? Still working on it.
   

8. Air Conditioning Is the Breath of Jesus: I sayeth unto you, be glad that you are in a country that believes the only way to combat global warming is to run that AC at 65 during these unbearable heat waves. France believes that “la clim(atisation)”, aka air conditioning, is using a fan and spritzing your face with Evian water. Bonne chance France. May the force be with you because God has deserted all y’all who take the breath of Jesus for granted.

   

   Actual French woman using actual French air conditioning.

9. “Suffering is grace.” - Ram Dass: I have listened to, or read, every single Ram Dass talk, video, podcast, and book the man was able to vomit-out in his lifetime. It’s a prolific amount of teachings and meditations and the one thing that stuck with me the stickiest is the phrase, “Suffering is grace.” He doesn’t take credit for it, it’s from both Eastern and Western thoughts/religions. But I will tell you this, our family has never been tighter after what we experienced over the last ten months together and apart. As per our two sons who began their college journeys on the East and West coasts, we suffered missing each other terribly. We suffered missing milestone jazz concerts and debates and being there for them or providing a home for them to retreat to during the holidays. We suffered missing the comforts of home like the coffee we love and the creamer we love and the Amazon packages on demand (which is a disgusting habit and we are happy to use it much less for the sake of the planet and local biz. But we didn’t use it one single time in France because packages take two weeks to come instead of two hours.) My youngest suffered the most being in a school that did NOT provide teachers that were proficient in their course subjects (not France’s fault, but the fault of this sorry excuse for a high school), butting heads with the head mistress who loved saying, “Eaauhhhh, c’est pas possible to change this thing for you, even though it makes sense and is in your best interest, because that would mean we would have to change this for everyone.” Like a Band of Brothers, we’d gone through our own type of war and come out the other side closer, more compassionate, bonded…like that guy from the Krazy Glue commercial in the 1980s hanging by a hardhat off of a beam. I gladly look France in the eyes and thank her for all the suffering.

   10. Suck It Up Buttercup (but if you don’t like it, leave!) In order to function at all in a new place, there are many things you must suck-up hard in order to live day-to-day and there are many benefits from living outside of your comfort zone. But some things are deal breakers and for us, that something was the fact that we’d never been to Paris during the fall or winter months therefore, we didn’t know that during the months of October through March when there’s nary a ray of sunshine to be had. (I wrote extensively about the Parisian Grisaille, my most popular post on Substack!) To combat our winter grays we decided to travel as many places as possible given our close proximity to the rest of Europe and beyond. I coined it our “Fuck It” List and we checked off as many places time would allow and we could barely afford: Sicily (fave), Israel (2nd fave), Ireland (3rd fave), Rome, Venice, Florence, Morocco (Marrakech, least fave, but Essaouira was beautiful) and England. On our last weekend in France, we ended our adventure with one last destination we’d been longing to visit since seeing a postcard of a place that looked so incredibly magical, you can’t NOT see it with your own damn eyes: Le Mont St. Michel.

   

   From my iPhone. This…is real.

   I leave you with how we rose at the crack of ass to the surprisingly loud and funny sheep that pass to graze un front of Mont St. Michel at 7 a.m. sharp and return home at 7 p.m. sharp. As much as I adored listening to the humanlike wails from animals who are notorious for posing as surrogate vaginas for lonely sheepherders, they come with a LOT of poop which creates a LOT of flies. The boys and I made a game of killing them, hundreds of them over the course of two days. Nothing is more satisfying than splatting a fly on a white ceiling and it sticking there, hanging by a thread of its sticky, bloody guts, just moments away from the fall…on your little brother’s head.

In Laughter,
LStL