Rubbing Off

“Excuse Me?! You cut in front of me. While I was fetching my wallet in my bag, you cut right in front of me. ” My finger was still on her shoulder from tapping to get her attention. The twenty-something girl looked back up at me with a disconcerted expression. She stared at me as if no one had ever called her out on anything before. Huh, she's obviously never been to Paris! I continued, “There are three lines, one for each machine. You were on that line, and then when I wasn't looking... you walked right in front of me. Not nice.” I lifted my finger from her shoulder, and waved it in back & forth about a foot away from her face. Embarrassed, as a few rush-hour folk were observing our exchange, she apologized, saying she hadn't seen me. I made a protesting snorting sound, and then waved my hand as to say get out of my way now. She scuttled away. I got my LIRR ticket, and descended down to the track, back to Long Island. In retrospect, perhaps I was being a little harsh, but there were other emotions brewing underneath that very well made my temper reach it's hotspot a lot quicker.

New Yorkers get a bad rep, more than what they actually deserve... I think. Yes, we are impatient. We want everything fast, now! We are always in a hurry, pushing through, not really looking but knowing we have to get through the crowd. And we never ever bother with strangers on the street. But in all my life as an inhabitant, I never really observed people actually telling complete strangers what & how they actually felt about what said person just did, or what their child just did. Not the Parisian! God forbid your 1 ½ year old kid plucks a flower from the park's garden, or you are pushing your stroller on a narrow sidewalk, and Ms .Dior doesn't have enough room to strut through. Proper behavior is essential but yet they don't necessarily demonstrate either. Once at Galerie Lafayette, I went to grab a shoulder bag off the hook to get a better look at it. A tall slender woman just passed in between, hitting my arm, and didn't even apologize. A strange noise emanated from my lips, it was a pfff - growl. She glared back, I glared harder. She kept walking. What's wrong with me? I thought. I feel angrier now than I ever did in living in New York.

A year ago, I wouldn't have tapped the line-cutter at Penn Station, nor would I have growled at the rude woman in the department store (although if I could have known the right French words, I probably would've used them instead). I also probably wouldn't have told a woman she was rude after she didn't thank me for holding the first set of doors open, and then she didn't even reciprocate by holding the second set open for me. I went right up to her and tapped her on the shoulder. I better watch that finger, one day I am going to tap the wrong person. Well, I got nine more.

After three months in Paris, I am becoming more Parisian than I ever thought I would be. And it's the one thing, I least expected to adopt. The behavior is exclusive to this old pristine city. My husband once told me that “Parisians are crazy”, although he now denies he ever said any such thing. I would say they certainly are special, in all the wrong and right ways. Now, if only the language could be just as easily absorbed... wouldn't that be something!

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The station harbored a crowded rush hour. Something surged inside of me, an excitement unmatched by anything else. I zigzagged my way to the number one, the red line, the NYC subway. Moving around, transferring to the Times Square Shuttle, and then the Uptown 6, was all instinct. I didn't even bat an eyelash to get to my destination on the Upper East Side. Only years of living in one place, can things be done with such ease. It was a comfort I needed so much, a comfort I missed dearly.

Going back home, after such a short period in Paris, was full of ambivalence. Was it too soon? Should I postpone? I remember boarding the plane from Charles De Gaulle, the intro to P. Diddy's song “Coming Home” played in my head. Friends and Family were waiting for me. My daughter eager to see her grandmother, her BFF- Sophie, and all else she left back in her “other home far away”, as she puts it. Still, I was unsure.

The first night back, I had dinner with a friend, an outright All-American and a real blonde to boot. We laughed as we always did because that's mostly what we do when we are together, just laugh about anything & everything. As much fun as I was having, something still felt absent. Thereafter, all my subsequent reunions with friends I've missed so so much, felt pretty much the same, great but something amiss. Towards the end of my second week, I saw my All-American friend again along with our other good friend, the trio was reunited. We hung out, laughed, ate sushi, laughed, drank beer, laughed, and then I sadly left. At some point during our evening, one of them said to me, “Isn't it weird? You don't live here anymore.” I didn't live here anymore. New York was no longer my home. I no longer had a key to my front door. I no longer had the front door. I no longer lived in this place, meaning New York, a place that held so much of my identity, my life. When I thought of France, technically my new home, it didn't feel quite right either. I had a nice new apartment, made some wonderful new friends, and my husband was back in his homeland but where did that leave me...

After spending a final day in Manhattan before returning to Paris, I sat on the LIRR train ready to head back to my mom's in Great Neck. As I sat there listening to the noises of a bustling rush hour train at Penn Station, 9to5ers getting their alcoholic beverage on the platform before heading to their families, I felt pang in my chest. I knew that feeling all too well, only in times of great emotions did my heart feel that heavy. I tired to fight back tears by placing on my headphones and turning on my IPod. As I secluded myself listening to Mumford & Sons, I realized that I was still looking around at my old life. Although I had moved away from Long Island around the same time I got married, I looked at all the people who stilled called it home. So, I simply closed my eyes.

The music didn't help either. My mind raced, making it harder to fight back the urge to break. I did not do so when I left New York in February. I did not do so even in my most solemn states of homesickness in those first few weeks in Paris. I did not even break when I came back to NY almost two weeks ago. Why now? Why was it so hard to fight back those inevitable tears? I had enough, I had had my fair share of grief, and that is exactly what I had not wanted to admit to myself... I had held off the grieving long enough. I momentarily opened my eyes to see who took the adjacent seat to mine. A young Asian looking man, listening to his own IPod. He quickly smiled without making much eye contact, whipping out a newspaper. I turned to look out the window. The train was pulling out of the station with the platform speeding away, we entered the tunnel. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a tissue, turned my body towards the black window and wiped my tears.

Back in February, I read a book called, Almost French by Sarah Turnbull, an expat living in Paris. She recounts when tears took her by surprise as the plane left her native Australia, heading back to Paris. “But Australia is the home of homesickness and my history – a powerful whirlpool of family and friends, memories and daily trivia that I used to take for granted but now seem remarkable... I could drop my guard I didn’t even know I'd been carrying.” In that moment, I understood her words, felt their weight, and knew things were never going to be the same for me.

Now being back in France, seems harder than ever, monumental. Even hearing the word “Bonjour” sounds like an insult, a mockery on some days. It's more than being outside of my element, being the odd man out, that would not be a new role for me. Again as Ms Turnbull so well put it, “Living in Paris requires constant effort: effort to make myself understood, effort to understand & be alert for those cultural intricacies...” and at times it is downright exhausting!