pieces.

Sunday, October 14, on the way to the market.
A tour bus drives by our apartment as we head out the door. I live on an awkward forked corner, and the bus struggles to make the turn, and the bus filled with Asian tourists looks confused and somewhat concerned but mostly just happy to be in Paris. My HM waves to them and a bunch of them wave back.
“Remember?” She says. “Remember the first day you lived here, we walked along the Seine and crossed the bridge and we counted how many tourists we could get to wave back from the boats?”
“Oui, je souviens bien.”

Sunday, October 14, later that night.
A dinner party hosted by French family and me, their idea, their tradition, to host a dinner party (completely themed) for their student and their students’ friends. The Museums of Paris, a meal of a Rothko-esque appetizer, a plat principal in honor of the Musee d’Orsay, cheese in the shape of pyramids for the Louvre, and a dessert for the lovers of Monet – a wooden palette with balls of sorbet scooped out like paint, melting slowly onto the palette, resting perfectly, as if ready to be used to create. Everyone came dressed up – Ben came as the Musee de Cluny, a terribly boring museum, but he spiced it up by wearing a picture of George Clooney around his neck covering a portrait of the Mona Lisa (get it? Cluny sounds like Clooney?). He looked stellar, dressed in a suit the way Clooney dresses in all of his advertisements for whatever his latest movie is. Lisa came as a ballerina from any and every Degas painting, Iwan came as a tourist, Nana came as the Pompidou center (clad in bright colors and stripes), Dave was Picasso’s blue period, Elizabeth was the pyramids of the Louvre, my HF was the Louvre and my HM was the Musee Quai de Branly, and I, I came as the Picasso Museum, clad in a jolie robe I found in a vintage store for just 10 Euros, a dress that is somewhat cubist and somewhat ridiculous. We drank wine and laughed about our costumes, and my HM asked way too many questions and my friends all decided they wanted to move in.
“The Youth Hostel is full,” my HM says with a smile.
After the dinner, my HF turns to me and says quite honestly,
“You picked great friends. They’re so animated, they’re so smart and intelligent and vibrant. Really, it’s tough choosing friends, especially for dinner parties. You want a party to be vibrant, to be lively. You really chose well.”
I just chose the friends I like being with, not because I thought they’d make a great dinner party but because I knew they would have fun. It seems like a funny comment, but I think I know what he means.

Tuesday, October 16, dinner. Alana was here visiting for the week and we’re sitting at dinner and my family says that the cheese that I bought smells awful. I agree with them, but I tell them that I’m confused.
“It’s the exact same type of cheese from the exact same store, but this week the cheese is entirely different and it smells funny and it just doesn’t seem the same.”
My HM tells me it smells awful and thinks I should toss it. My HF thinks it’s delicious and helps himself to another portion.
“I just don’t get it. If it’s the same exact thing, how is it so different?”
My HF puts it quite simply, as if this comparison is obvious.
“Cheese is a living product, Katharine. It’s like with children. You can do the same act twice and come out with very, very different results.”
I’m a little shocked by this comparison. He just compared cheese to raising children. In English I think it sounds even more ridiculous but in French, it actually kind of makes sense.

Wednesday, October 17, on the metro.
“Have you been on the Metro yet with the guys who play accordion?”
“You’re kidding me,” Alana says. We’ve already seen people with portable karaoke machines singing songs like “Let It Be” and “I Just Called to Say I Love You” and sometimes songs that don’t seem to be in English or in French and the meaning is lost amongst the noise of the trains.
“No really, there are a lot of them. They carry their accordions onto the train and play them for money. They’re great. They feel so much more French than the karaoke machines, you know?”
“Uh…”
At the next stop, an accordion player gets onto the train, in our car, and begins to play.

Thursday, October 18, morning.
I had my first dream that took place in this apartment in Paris with my French family. Everyone is sitting around in the living room talking and my HM’s son is over and he begins to smoke. Everything is in French, fluent French, and I understand all the words and the French flows out of my mouth without thinking. My HF is laughing and explaining something to me delicately, precisely. He chooses his words perfectly. My HM is scolding her son for smoking inside. It’s all a dream, but when I wake up I tell my host family and even though they don’t seem to get how much it means to me, I think it’s great that they’re in my dreams now sometimes.

This week marked the exact halfway point of my stay in France. Not a bad first half, if you ask me. And every day now feels more like a routine, but not in a dull way, not in a way that makes me wish for something else. Just in a way that makes me feel like I have a place here.

Sunday, October 21
My HM knocks on my door and finds that I’ve gone back to sleep, even though I woke up to go with them to the market. She laughs and says, “Oh Kat-a-reen-a, you sleep still?” I say, “No, no, I’m getting up,” and she comes in and playfully pats my feet, a simple gesture but she’s playing with me like I live here and says, “Come on. We need you at the market!” And the second half of my stay here begins.