Do you ever feel as though you were born in the wrong country? That your life in {insert country of residence here} just isn’t you? God, I wish I were French.
I’ve wished this for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I recall that my mother and I would have little conversations in French when she’d visit my bed before tucking me in. True, these “conversations” went mostly like this:
“Hello!”
“Hello!”
“Please!”
“Yes, Yes!”
“Goodnight!”
“Goodnight!”
Alas, my French hasn’t improved significantly since 1985.
I can’t put my finger on why I’ve fetishized the French so much. I guess I imagined that there was something haughty about being French, and maybe there is (though I don’t think I met many haughty people when I visited there in 2005). I mean haughtiness to be a compliment, of course.
Perhaps I’m feeling a bit envious, too, after seeing SICKO a few days ago. Perhaps I’m envious that good bread abounds over there, as does yogurt in every possible form. Perhaps it’s the fact that you can sit at a restaurant and not be harassed by waiters. Perhaps it’s just the restlessness of living in rural CT at the end of winter….
