Where Are You From?

Lucille Ball, Keith Thibodeaux, and Desi Arnaz as the Ricardos. [Online image] 1956.

Whether at home in Paris or back home in California, I get asked the same question. Where are you from? It's like I have "foreigner" stamped on my forehead no matter where I go. (Well, stamped on my tongue is more like it.) After 10+ years living in France, my English does have a bit of a lilt to it, and I end up "searching my words" (and, yes, translating French expressions directly into English). And as for my French: well, I never could pronounce "r," "ou," or "u." My French in-laws love trying to make me say words like "citrouille" just so they can hear the tortured syllables escape my American mouth, as my brain searches in vain for safe alternatives: "potiron"? There's only one thing I can do: swallow my pride and admit that the person asking me the question has the home advantage. . . though I do have the advantage of having two homes.

Bringing Back Home

When the initial shock of being back in Paris after a visit home--and all the soul-searching questions that follow ("Did my métro station always have this odor?")--clears, it's just a matter of time before you tell yourself, c'est la vie, and get back into the French swing of things.

But now that you're fully armed with your favorite peanut butter, three pairs of jeans that fit, and the entire gamme of Luna bars, are you really just supposed to go back to métro, boulot, dodo and like it? 

Or do you do what it takes to make sure that parts of the life you left behind live on?

Rachel Ward as Meggie Cleary. [Online image] 1983.

Home

There's no French equivalent to "home," except maybe, chez moi, but the sense of unconditional belonging is lost: chez moi is temporal.
In French, a homing pigeon is a pigeon voyageur, or traveling pigeon. The home base idea doesn't seem to be important.
Perhaps France is too small a country for people to feel disoriented enough to need an abosolute home. They can go chez les parents or chez les beaux-parents or chez les cousins whenever they like.
They don't have to subtract nine hours every time they dial "home" or fly twelve hours to get there.
But then they don't have the promise of "home" either.

Vivien Leigh as Katie Scarlett O'Hara. [Online image] 1939.