La Vie en Transition

The day that we dropped our boys off for their first day of school was also the day that we moved into our new home.  It was a big day, full of excitement and jitters.  We were on the cusp. 

Bobby and I had some time to kill before we met the relocation team at our home.  Neither of us had paused to eat as we rushed to vacate our vacation rental, packed up backpacks, feed the boys and follow an insanely circuitous route through the countryside to Sophia Antipolis.  So, we went to one of our favorite cafés in Valbonne for “un thé vert” (green tea) and a croissant.  Look at us being so French!

As we walked into the center square, I found myself struck by just how incredible the transition was between dawn and day.  The light alone was breath-taking; spilling down the sides of colorful old stone buildings as the sun inched its way higher.  The breeze in the delicate leaves of the hackberry tree caused the light to dance gently on the tables of the café below.  French trees are just made for this moment.

People were also starting to emerge from their flats around the square – pulling back the shuttered windows and drifting out with their dogs or stretching with a cup of coffee.  I watched a man backed his large delivery truck down the impossibly narrow streets to bring fresh bottles of water and wine (it is France…water and wine are the same thing, you know!) and carry away the empties from the night before. 

It was already hot that morning, so most sought a little shade and the delivery man took off his shirt and tied it around his waist to cool off.  It was already hot that morning, so most sought a little shade and the delivery man took off his shirt and tied it around his waist to cool off.  Three mothers chatting at a table nearby were just coming from “La rentrée” (the celebrated day when the kids return to school…I love that this day has its own name!)  A group of older women gathered around a large table on the terrace for coffee and gossip, and to shuck beans from a large burlap bag.

It hit me just how much I love mornings.  So much promise, so much vulnerability – mornings are perfectly in process.  By 9am most of us have strapped on our daily armor.  We’ve cleaned our faces, cinched up our belts and straightened our backs.  We have fixed a firm gaze out onto the world.  But at 7:30 or 8, people are still somewhat bare, raw, undeveloped.  Tussled hair from a deep sleep, buttons left undone by groggy fingers.  We are messy.

And maybe that is what invites us all out into the gathering warmth of the sun.  These moments of transition where we are not fully formed. 

I reflect on my own experience here in France.  We are in a time of deep transition.  Change and unknowns make up a huge percentage of our existence – and the calm steady of knowing what to do seems to elude. 

To compound things, all my coping mechanisms (you know, the ones that I hide behind when life gets chaotic?) are stripped away.  My treadmill, my friends, the orderliness of my life, the container of control I put on everything to avoid surprises.  Even my ability to talk my way out of any situation (thanks to my gift of gab!) is diminished with this new language.  Instead of a professional Ivy-league educated woman, I sound like a 5 year-old child. 

So those fear voices – the ones I drown out with my productivity and perfectionism (hello, Hustle!) are alive, loud, and demanding to be heard.  It’s a field day in my head. 

Here’s a catalog of what is swirling in there:

• Fear that I can’t hack it here
• Fear that we made a huge mistake but can’t unwind it now
• Fear that I’m messing up my kids by plunking them in a French immersion school and taking them away everything they’ve known since infancy
• Fear that I’m making Bobby carry more of the weight than I can bear (wasn’t I going to be stronger than this?)
• Fear that I stick out like a sore thumb (pretty sure every French person rolls their eyes when the American with the toddler language walks away!)
• Fear that no one else may be to blame for all of my mistakes (now that’s a fun one!)
• Fear that I am not enough as I am. 

Yup there it is…it all comes down to my “not enough-ness”.  Hello again, old friend. 

My “not enough-ness” takes many forms.  It shows up in how I regard my own shape.  It shows up in the comparisons I make with others.  It shows up as impatience.  It shows up in how I evaluate my own family (I don’t see anyone else’s family standing in the middle of the village loudly bickering over which gourmet lunch we are going to eat…).  It shows up as writer’s block.  It shows up in how hard I push and criticize myself to say the right thing – or in this country say anything at all intelligible. 

And yet, however my not enough-ness shows up, it’s begging to be heard.  I know it’s time that me and not enough sit down for a good long chat. 

I think that is what is vexing about transitions.  They are stunning – butterflies emerging from the cocoon, sun rising over the mountains, the shape dough takes as it reaches its final crusty form.  Change and growth are beautiful, inspiring.  Who wouldn’t applaud it? 

But what people don’t like to talk about is the ugly side.  The slack lump of dough before the crust forms and it sits up straight.  The thick darkness before the sunrise.  The icky-gooey mess of a butterfly before she forms her wings.

I admit that even though I had prepared for this transition and its messiness, I didn’t fully appreciate how deep the change would dig.  Just how much rawness would be exposed.  How much it might hurt.  But pain like this is ok.  I can take it.

So this week I am going to celebrate my mess a little more – appreciate the pain and discomfort of the transition.  I am also going to patiently grieve the strong steady person I thought was going to be here, and accept the mistake-prone, tongue-tied, needy person that I am too. 

Because from that place – and not the illusion I had in my head – I might start to sprout wings. 

Bisous,
Hanna