French Lessons
This past fall, in Paris, I surprised myself.
I left a small black bag on the train, next to my seat, I said, in perfect French—or, at least, comprehensible, confident.
We had been standing on the platform at Montparnasse, waiting for my friend who had been in a different car, when I noticed I didn’t have my bag on me. I hurried back on the train—empty at this point, aside from people already at work cleaning for the next trip—desperate to find it. (If you’re going to lose your stuff on the train, it’s good for it to be at the last stop.)
What car were you in? the man asked.
Two, I said, is this it? (But I was wrong, it was three.)
No, he said, next one.
But was not in the next one or anywhere.
Do you need something? another man, a conductor, asked.
Yes, yes, I left a small black bag on the train. It’s not here. Do you know where it could be?
He told me to go to lost and found, to follow the sign: OBJETS TROUVÉS.
It cost me ten euros to get my bag back (All my money is in the bag, I told the person at Objets Trouvés, and I’d need it to pay the fee), after which I felt a bit sheepish about how panicked I’d been. It was my wallet but, crucially, not my passport—an annoyance rather than an emergency.
Still, I talked to all those people in French! And they responded back—in French! My husband C. agreed: I did a good job. People may have been humbling me somewhat—It’s been a long time; I don’t have anyone to talk to, I told the woman at the vineyard. No, your French is good, we’re talking, she said—and once, someone asked, in English, Do you know what I meant?—but! This thing that I had always believed about myself—that I had taken French for many years, that I could read and understand a bit but couldn’t speak it? It wasn’t true.
Since we got back, I’ve been working on my French each day—on Duolingo or listening to the radio or, embarrassingly, closing my eyes during the scenes in Emily in Paris where someone speaks French and hearing what they say. I think I had been waiting for it to add up to something bigger—like a real-life owl would have given me a real-life trophy that says “Learned French.” But what actually happened is I left my shit on a train and urgently needed to tell someone about it. You know: Life stuff.
So, at the time of the year for starting new things and being different people, I am starting a new thing—this newsletter—which also happens to be an old thing made new again. The way I’m now thinking about learning French is also how I’m approaching Enthusiasms here in 2023: It’s not life-changing, nor is it bound to win me any accolades. But it’s good practice, and maybe it’ll come in handy someday.
À bientôt, mes amies.