Bipolarity

17 juin 2010 jeudi

I suppose I’ll begin this blog with an analogy to cheese—it’s only appropriate, being in France and all. The context: on Tuesday night, Isabelle, my host mom from last year, invited my family and me to go see Thomas and Hugo, her two sons, play in the orchestra. I was looking forward to it—it had been over a year since I’d seen the kids, and I was sure my parents would enjoy going to the Opéra in Avignon Centre to see the boys play. However, my excitement to see the kids was matched (if not surpassed) by my anxiety to see Isabelle again. I realize that it is not normal for an international student to be utterly terrified of her host mother. In good cases, the host-family/host-student relationship is tolerable, if not passably amiable. However, Jonathan (my Swedish roommate), Natsu (my Japanese roommate), and Shawna (my American roommate) are all in agreement—Isabelle Lestrelin can be, well, frightening.

Back to my analogy about cheese: Isabelle is the cheese grater, I am the cheese. Perhaps a nice crumbly Parmesan that upon contact with the grater fragments into tiny pieces to garnish some nice man’s plate of spaghetti. Not 10 minutes after meeting up with Isabelle and Marie and Pauline (her two lovely daughters) outside of the Opéra, I was subjected to one of Isabelle’s epic (yet typical) reproachful tirades. Isabelle has a deteriorating effect on my strong will—in the face of her jet black hair and bony collarbones and rapid, fierce tone of voice, I absolutely crumble, like well-aged Parmesan. I will not go into the specifics (I don’t want to turn my blog into a space for angry rants about overly forceful French women), but at the end of Isabelle’s reprimand, I was on the verge of tears. And then she gave me a bar of violet infused artisan white chocolate, as though that would make it all better, and we all watched the orchestra.

The next day, Isabelle invited my family over to the house for lunch, and of course, she was syrupy sweet and gentle to my parents, welcoming me as though I was one of her own children. She served us a “quick” lunch of tabouli salad, pasta, fresh cherries, and lemon meringue pie, and had her Partridge Family children entertain us with violin and piano. However, it’s hard to enjoy meringue while a grating woman sits across the table, putting on a welcoming air in front of my parents.

I should clarify her that I do not hate Isabelle, and I do not think that she hates me. I’m mostly just afraid of her. She can be extraordinarily kind, and once in a while we can have pleasant, even meaningful conversations. However, it’s hard not to be tense around someone whose mood flip-flops like a light switch. I see now that I spent my three months in Avignon tiptoeing in bare feet around the shards of Isabelle’s bad moods. After this most recent experience with Isabelle, I understand more than ever why Shawna and I so often took refuge in the harbor of Place Pie, sitting in front of Red Sky. When you’re afraid to be at home, it’s simply necessary that you find a safe haven elsewhere. Hence, Red Sky, and my wonderful relationship with Xavier, the bartender.

But I digress. Every negative must have its opposite. In Avignon, the pavement on the rue de la république glitters under the streetlights at night. Last night, coming home from Red Sky (appropriately enough), Katie and I were discussing why exactly the streets in Avignon glitter. Is it broken glass, or is it gold? Having already discussed the broken glass of my time in Avignon thus far, I might as well pass on to the gold.

Wednesday, after lunch with Isabelle and the rest of the family (along with some other random children that were at Isabelle’s house, like usual), I drove with Katie and my parents out to Montfavet to meet the Delannoys, the family that I’m working for this summer. The first serendipitous discovery of the visit is that the Delannoys live on the same road as Adrien, just down the street from his apartment complex. I feel entirely less alone in the world knowing that he will live no more than 200m away from me this summer.

I’m not entirely sure how to describe the rest of my visit. I’m still not entirely convinced that it was real. In real life, I don’t give bisous to movie-star beautiful people. In real life, I don’t live in a 300+ year old house, with a horse and a donkey and a courtyard and an in ground pool and a private drive and a gate. In real life, I don’t have a jeep at my disposal, nor an entire wing of a house to myself. In real life, I don’t get paid to play with five lovely children, who like to swim and sing and ride scooters and paint.

Conclusion: this simply can’t be real. When I start work next week, I half expect the whole thing to dissolve like a vivid dream in the morning. I’ll open my eyes to soybean fields, not poppy fields, and the hazy humidity of Ohio will rise in the absence of the Provençal Mistral wind. Until then, I’ll revel this strange illusion of happiness.