The company we keep
How I learnt French, musings on wellbeing and a meditation on the topic for subscribers.
We moved here on a whim, it was not a long term plan but I had always wanted to speak French fluently so fortunately prior to moving here I had taken 2 years of French lessons, which gave me the basics, I used apps and listened to music. Whilst my husband is French we have always spoken English to each other and he spoke English to the boys.
I think anglo-saxons (the French term for anyone who speaks English) believe the French are pretending they don’t speak English. They really don’t, if you, like me did three years of French from year 7 to year 9 and then never went near it again that’s the level most people speak. Hello, goodbye, please and thank you.
We arrived here at the end of 2016 and I can now speak and understand French fluently. My children will say otherwise, the 12 year olds are particularly harsh, fortunately I worked for 17 years in forensic psychiatry which makes their rude comments easy for me to brush off, and I know it’s not true. I think there was a moment about a year ago where I turned to my husband and announced, “If you died and I had to sort out all of the paperwork I think I’d be ok”. Obviously reader this is not what I want, what I’d do in the worst case scenario has been an obsession since my teens. He took it well.
Freedom linguistically has allowed me to make friends and understand the culture more easily, I can take my daughter to parties and chat and laugh with the parents. I live with less fear, a greater ease and a sense of belonging, this has transcended into all areas of my life, through learning another language I have given myself another way of viewing the world.
On a day to day level it means I am no longer scared to pick up the telephone, answer emails, fill in the endless paperwork, buy things online or go to the townhall to complete admin (the worst as the woman on the desk really hates talking to people, think drs receptionist whose having a bad day, everyone is scared of her…..she smokes in one of the side rooms, the whole place stinks of stale cigarette smoke which does bring back nostalgic memories of how glad I am that smoking indoors is band, but as I said everyone is too scared to say anything).
I was looking for a magic trick to learn quickly and easily, I tried apps and books and cds. I remember going to a bilingual baby group on a Thursday in the nearby village and pouncing upon the English speakers to ask how they had learnt the language. The majority said they didn’t. I rarely met any anglo-saxons who had a good grasp of the language and the majority of people spent their time within the English speaking community. Essentially reader there were no tricks. My goal was to speak French fluently and integrate into the community here.
Read on for some of the things that I did.
The easy things:
I watched English and French programmes with French subtitles so I could work out how things were written as well as said
Listening to short podcasts that were around my area of interests (if you like wellbeing related topics you might enjoy this one, 10 minutes per episode Change Ma Vie and Coffee break French)
Learning about the landscapes and fauna using French reference books, I’d collect, take photographs, draw and annotate (see above)
I joined an art class
I went to a weekly free French class at the townhall
The hard things:
I intentionally, without malice, isolated myself from the English speaking community. For example I went to the Tuesday baby class instead of the Thursday as that was the day the French went
I asked my only French, English speaking, friend to stop talking to me in English
I took responsibility for all the paperwork related to our daughter, which has been slow and steady, she was born here at the beginning of 2017 a mere 4 weeks after we arrived. My husband has done everything for our boys which was more of a punch in the face level of paperwork as they were 5/6 at the time.
I joined the parents council, briefly, it was a disaster that needs its own post
The biggest game changer of all was that I had to learn to drive. I lived in a village with 2 buses a day, a practical and theory test all in French
Learning to drive was the most tedious 18 months of my life, I cried many, many, many times. Fortunately I had the most wonderful driving school and instructors who were so kind and patient. It is the qualification I am most proud of, I passed at 40 years old, overcame my fears of driving and it shoe horned me into the French language in a way no other activity had done.
Readers, I lost my mind and found her again in the process, but I did it. I truly wanted to integrate into the French community and made some tough decisions around how I spent my time, the people, but the places and activities. There are many ways to learning French fluently, this was mine.
I don’t feel confident in my written French and need to reach a more formal level before I can work professionally in the language. I have managed one clinical report for an English client but this took days and days to perfect. I still have a way to go, but the hard part is over.
The Company We Keep
How we spend our moments is how we spend our days which in turn becomes how we live our lives.
What we do with our time, the places we go to, the people we interact with, the way we talk to ourselves, the objects that we use daily and their condition, the media we are consuming all can have a direct impact on our wellbeing.
Essentially the company we keep affects are health, putting ourselves at a higher or lower risk of wellness or illness . In terms of people we keep can more susceptible to certain conditions such as obesity, depression, we are more likely to get divorced if our friends do. On the plus side more likely to give up smoking or be content if we’re around people who don’t smoke or are happy. The same applies to music on our moods, the social media we’re consuming, the television series we’re watching can make us anxious.
It can be helpful from time to time to take a little inventory of how our days are spent, simply writing a list and then writing next to the activity whether it was nourishing, depleting or neutral. We’re looking for balance with a majority being neutral. This allows us to see if there is anything we can change or would like different, and points out areas of strength and need.
I recently ran a seven session meditation series on this topic which will be made available on a week by week basis via the subscription. We start this week with our bodies and how we keep company with ourselves.
Our senses are so over stimulated my hope is that you’ll take this and an invitation to drop into the present moment providing an opportunity to pause and recentre, to listen to your body and perhaps make wise decisions for your wellbeing from time to time. You can read more about me and my work here.