FIELD NOTE 3.14 - Free samples.

Every weekend we go to E. Leclerc and every weekend I wander the same aisles over and over again looking for things that may have changed in price or position.
On Saturdays there are women who give out free samples of products on sale - pistachios, cookies, tea. Today in the tea and coffee and coffee aisle there was a stand for instant cappuccinos because there was a promotion offering 1 euro off to people who bought 2 packages. After about 2 minutes of looking at the cappuccino products, the woman whose job it was to offer samples came back from talking at the end of the aisle with a coworker and said "Bonjour."
At first I didn't think this was directed at me after having been to E. Leclerc for the past 5 weekends and never having once been approached by a saleswoman but I looked up anyway and made eye contact. Realizing I was the object of the welcome, I said "bonjour" back and soon was being handed a sample of instant cappuccino in a cute plastic cup as Darryl's was being prepared. The woman moved past the cappuccino and asked me why we were visiting Nantes, taking care not to speak too fast or use difficult words. I was touched and told her we were international students and wanted to learn French. I've learned that this phrase carries a lot of meaning for the French and can immediately make them more welcoming - it worked with the woman. She smiled and began telling us to buy 2 smaller packages of instant cappuccino because it was more economical than buying 2 bigger boxes and would give us the same amount of servings. She also gave us 2 more of the plastic glasses and 2 more samples to take with us, telling us to hide them in our personal bags and giving us a wink before we went on our way.

* * *

During our conversation the woman asked us whether Darryl and I were English, Irish, Scottish, or German. I've gotten asked if I'm English a lot while I've been here but hardly ever American. This always makes me smile and at the same time makes me sad.
I love feeling like I'm not a stereotypical American in their eyes but at the same time never being given this label makes me feel as if I am walking around without a country. It's bittersweet.

FIELD NOTE 3.13 - Tramline realizations.

This is the pattern: the tram stops at every arrêt and people get on and off, sometimes sitting next to you and sometimes choosing to stand.
This afternoon the pattern was the same. At Bossière two older women got on the tram and elected to sit in the vacant seats next to myself and Darryl. All during the ride from Bossière to Orvault Grand Val, I looked out the window to my left while listening intently to the five-minute conversation going on to my right and breathing in the scent of perfume cloying with muscle ointment.
The conversation was short and light, but the subject matter broke my heart. I didn't know all the words or who the people in the conversation were, but I picked up enough to know that the woman beside me knew people in Senegal who had just arrived there after a visit with her and that the woman beside Darryl's had a daughter also in Africa who hadn't called in over 6 months. This, apparently, is the norm. Both women talked about how their children don't call as much as they would both like and how the visits are becoming fewer and fewer.
Sitting there just to their left I thought about my own parents. We've grown distant with these continents between us. I don't call as much as I could or should. I tell myself that this is my push for independence before I come back and graduate from college and venture forth into the real world - but is this the truth? Or have I perhaps started to become like the children of these women?
I should call more. My cell phone has grown a layer of dust since I last used it.

FIELD NOTE 3.12 - Breaking the habits.

This morning Darryl and I abandoned our habits and did not venture down to Marché Gloriette to buy eggrolls and cheap scarves. Instead we wandered around Commerce, walking into a beautiful bookstore and touching all the covers of the Edward Gorey books. Afterward we walked to les Galleries Lafayette where I had to talk myself out of buying 15euro scarves and a 200euro briefcase - both of which I will probably end up going back for before I leave Nantes.
But even so it was so much fun to just abandon all plans and see where we ended up. I should do this more often...

FIELD NOTE 3.11 - Niche?

Fées Maison has now become a bi-weekly event. I go there to meet Ge and Ben and practice my French and their English and I go there with Darryl and Mel to just relax in the calm ambiance of the bar.

I normally just nurse a demi-pint of a blond beer for the entire time I am there. But this week I decided to change and go for the dark beer la Bête - and I'll even admit that I chose to change because I liked the color and the name. It ended up being a lot stronger than I expected but somehow I ended up drinking 2 demi-pints last night and found myself giggling a little more than was absolutely necessary.
While I always enjoy going out with friends, last night I found it almost impossible to speak correctly in either French or English. I was always choosing the wrong words, always conjugating incorrectly. But such is life and there are no judgments between friends so I kept going.
Midway through our visit to Fées one of the owners, Maurice, came over with a knife and sausage and sat it down on our table. We must have looked confused, but he told Ge that it was for us and that it was on the house. We hastily said thank you as he walked off.
I only ate one slice of the sausage because I found it a little too potent for my palate, but I was touched by the gesture. It was simple: a 4 euro sausage on the house. It may not have meant much to him to have given it to us, but to me it meant a great deal. I've been to Fées 5 times in the past 3 weeks and always felt comfortable there, exchanging nods and smiles with Maurice and Ione and sipping my beer. This always felt somewhat one-sided. But last night I finally felt that I was welcomed there - that sausage on the table was a gesture, a sign that perhaps I've finally found my place in Nantes.

FIELD NOTE 3.10 - Here it comes, my second wind.

This entire week I've been in a funk. I blame it on the fact that last week was vacation and that breaking back into the schedule of classes is just entirely too hard a task. Add to that a small bought of nostalgia and the mantra "I understand nothing, I don't know what I'm doing, why am I even here again" and you will have the headspace I've been in all week.
So that being said, I wasn't really looking forward to my Friday classes: phonetics and French history. In the former I never be able to say a single sentence without making some huge error in pronunciation and in the latter I am always shocked by just how much my knowledge of history has managed to entropy since high school.
But this week when my phonetics professor asked if anyone would like to redo an exercise from last week to get more pointers, I was shocked to feel my hand rise. So, too, was the professor from her facial expression. I chose a read a simple passage from an old French poem:

Et la mer et l'amour ont l'amer pour partage,
Et la mer est amère et l'amour est amer,
L'on s'abîme en l'amour aussi bien qu'en la mer,
Car la mer et l'amour ne sont point sans orage.

It's a beautiful excerpt about the bitterness and dangers of both the sea and love, but apparently when I said it "amour" became "mort" because the inflection upon my "ou" came out more of an "o" than anything else. The teacher tried to help me correct this even though my mouth seemed to be incapable of forming the sound. I assured her that the poem worked better being about the sea and death. So not a triumph, but a learning experience.
In history this week the topic was "les années folles" entre deux guerres and featured a very long tangent about the origins of French feminism and first-wave feminism. I just sat back enthralled as the professor talked about all the things women began doing in France during WWI and in the years between the two world wars.
So I left the université Friday afternoon not completely in a different headspace, but Nantes did seem a little better, a little brighter.

FIELD NOTE 3.9 - Extrait du jour.

La honte n'est pas un sentiment qu'on ressent uniquement dans les grandes humiliations de la vie ; elle surgit souvent, cuisante, oppressante, dans des moments plutôt sans conséquence, imprévus, alors que votre vulnérabilité, désarmée, est la plus sensible et votre combativité à son point zéro. Elle vous paralyse alors, vous laisse sans voix, sans pensée, vide et malheureux.

I am beginning to think that we are more alike than I had originally thought, this narrator and I...

FIELD NOTE 3.8 - Ache.

Today there was no picture, no thought. Just the dull ache beneath my ribcage where it hangs heavy - the same ache I can always place but never name.