Don’t shy away from a new life
Wednesday October 18th 2006
Mikki Spence?Home is where the heart is? . . . I have kept this well known saying in the back of my mind ever since moving to France two years ago. At the beginning, I turned to it to remind me that, despite choosing to cross an expanse of water to face a new job in a city I didn?t know, full of people I didn?t know, leading a life of traditions and daily practices I didn?t know, it was possible (impossible as it seemed) for all this one day to become my home. And now with the friends I have made, the fulfilment and colleagues I have found at work and the familiarity with French living I have fondly gained, I have come to realise that, cliché of all clichés, it?s actually true.
The single most significant impetus behind my decision to settle here has been the constant reminder to myself that this all takes time. And effort. To integrate into a new job, to be brave and go out and join clubs and meet people. But most of all, to face and rise to the linguistic and cultural challenge of just spending every day here.
At least I was already familiar with French, having studied it at university before coming here to try my hand at translating. But the daily exchanges to open a bank account, to buy a mobile phone, to ring the pool to see what time the public were allowed in and to attempt to make friends were a whole other ball game, not to mention the task of being the only English speaker in my company. I remember feeling it was challenging enough to make a good impression at the start of a job without worrying about every other word that you uttered being wrongly pronounced, the wrong register for the boss, or just wrong.
This was all notched up to a greater degree of difficulty by the hope that local people would automatically understand how I felt rapidly being dashed. After all, they were living in a city they knew with friends and family they knew and going about everyday practices and traditions they knew. So getting over this cultural hurdle ? of realising I couldn?t expect them to know how it felt not to know ? was an emotional struggle.
How I did it was firstly to realise the luck I had of being able to experience this different lifestyle. Rather than fearing and shying away from this New Life, I had to jump at the chance to grasp ? no, indeed why not master ? the language; seize every opportunity that arose to immerse myself in every facet of French life: bank holidays, culinary delights, protests and all.
And secondly not to forget the Old Life, by keeping in close touch with the people who know the English me, nor to lose sight of what?s going on back in the lives of my fellow Ros Bifs across the Channel.
I realised that it was possible, especially in this easy, rapid and still astoundingly cheap communication age, to combine the two; that just because I?d left one to discover another didn?t mean I had to forget the former to fully integrate myself.
If I really don?t get on, I know I could always go back home. But then . . . I think here is beginning to feel like home after all.
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