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How true, really, is the expression, 'c'est la vie'?
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My dear French friend, Esther, with me at a "soirée" this weekend in Penestin.*
A dear friend of mine just "skyped" me the following statement which I find to be pretty profound:
"It's like there's this sorta train on its way and when I stop to think about it, my stomach hurts a bit."
Yes, ladies and gents, that's a direct quote.
This stomach-hurting reference is about leaving France. A fellow American in Nantes since September who also lived with a French family, my friend Alex also "connaît bien la chanson," as the French say, or, as we say in English, "knows the story."
Instead of repeating the time-old cliché that "It seems like just yesterday that I arrived," I prefer to just share what I'm feeling in this present moment.
Sadness. Nostalgia. Fear. Excitement. Relief. Stress. Anxiety. Joy.
In other words, I'm a royal mess.
And funnily enough, a song by the renowned French artist Patrick Bruel just began to drift into my ears from my iTunes, entitled "Pour la vie." There are a number of times in the chorus he says, "C'est la vie, c'est la vie..." and he talks about the different ways we go in life. There is one line in particular:
"On se dit, 'Biensûr, je m'en souviens,' mais on rappelle de moins en moins..."
This roughly translates to:
"We say, "Of course, I remember that!" but, in fact, we remember less and less..."
My time in France will, of course, always remain a part of me. There is no way it could not. I have grown and changed, but I have also discovered the things about myself that stay always the same. Tried and true, there are qualities, I believe, that we discover about ourselves and our mother culture only when confronted with those different from our own. And yes, as I prepare to leave this beautiful, rich, confusing, difficult, strike-making, cheese-producing, passionate country in just a week, sure, "C'est la vie..." Life goes on, I will return, though I be sad to leave, "c'est la vie, c'est la vie..."
But there's a little more to it for me.
I will keep with me, always, without much effort, a reverence for my time in France. In French, there is a word that I love that encapsulates voyage, trip, and time spent in a given place all in one: "séjour." It wasn't just a vacation, it wasn't just "study abroad." I arrived feeling small and misunderstood, lost and even lonely, isolated by the language barrier and the cultural differences. But what's even more difficult is to leave, especially knowing that I have been understood by those so different from myself, that I have cultivated relationships, that others have taught me and challenged me beyond what I thought possible.
So yes, Monsieur Bruel, "c'est la vie," and the chapter closes, but the book is forever altered by the pages forged in France.
*Friends I've made here...*sigh* I'll miss almost the most.
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