“Mon Chemin”: An American’s Guide to France (Part 3)

Author’s note: In Part 1 of this series, I discussed some motivations of going to France. In Part 3, I discuss what it means to approach the end of a very long tunnel. Does ‘reaching a goal’ mean the ‘end of the road’ or just a new road?

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I am officially between residences. I am officially between residences and life feels like staring down the business end of a shotgun. I am officially between residences which, technically, makes me “officially” unofficial?

Last Tuesday at around 7pm I was in Manhattan at a book reading when received a text message: “your FedeX delivery has shipped from our Washington D.C. hub — delivered by 12pm Wednesday, September 13. Must be signed for receipt”; this was a text message that represented a pivotal moment.

You see, if you’ve ever applied for any kind of visa, you know that you must leave your passport (single tear) with the consulate of whatever country you are applying to for an indeterminate amount of time — in my case, I was told to estimate “about 3–4 weeks” from the time of the appointment to receive my passport — whether approved or not. Then, at the actual visa appointment, I was told “anywhere from 2–3 weeks”; this seemed more promising, but I was still anticipating some amount of stomach-churning wait, at least two weeks of “wait and see”, mind games.

On the one hand, I was somewhat relieved — as long as I didn’t have the passport, I couldn’t move on with anything; as long as I didn’t have the visa, I couldn’t begin the first step down this monumental path I had been so long imagining that it started to seem more realistic to get to Middle Earth than to France — a real place with real people where real foreigners settle all the time.

Yes, on the one hand, as long as I didn’t have a response, I wasn’t under the gun to do anything. Then the text message came.

The text message came and it might as well have said, “your entire future is going to arrive by noon tomorrow and there is nothing you can do to stop it — please sign upon delivery”

So I waited. I waited for the door to buzz — with eager anticipation and not the usual, “who is it outside in NYC this time” — the minutes crawled by, the city slowly blinked open its eyes, meanwhile I had been wide awake since 7. 9 O’Clock comes. “Your package has arrived at our local distribution center in Maspeth. *Frantically google maps searching “Maspeth”* “Oh, it’s in Queens!” Then 10. “Out for delivery” God, who invented remote tracking anyway?! 11. 11:09, “Ok, now it’s only 50 minutes until noon”, 11:10, the door buzzes. Before I can think for even a second, I leap out of bed as if the speed of my reaction would change what was in the contents of the mail carrier, I grab my shoes and go to the door. The mailperson has already come up the two flights of stairs by the time I reach the top of the first set to go meet him. I sign, say a quick, “thank you”, and rip into the package.

The contents are small — just the passport, it feels like — within a paper mailer about twice its size, that within a waterproof plastic bag. I rip into the bag, tear open the mailer and there it is, my passport, almost as I had left it. There was no letter, just an innocuous-looking little paperclip in between some of the pages. I notice a little piece of white printer paper, imperfectly cutdown to fit within the passport. “Is that it? Is this little piece of paper meant to inform me of the consulat’s decision to reject my application? After so much awaited anticipation, after so many little decisions to change my life with no backup, am I going to have to start all over again, based on this little scrap of paper?”

My hands are shaking as I turn the little blue book over in my hands, feeling its familiar covering, the binding of the most important (and one of the smallest) codeces I will ever possess. As if on its own, the passport flutters open. I see my ID page, and then the little piece of white paper held in by the tiny paperclip comes to my vision, “Welcome to France” it says.

On the opposite page lies my new most favorite document: my visa for residing legally in France. The seemingly arbitrary dates of validity (from September 11, 2023 to September 10, 2024) are marked in small print — the comment near visa type (étudiant), “MULT” for “multiple entry”, basically meaning that I would be allowed to come and go from the E.U. so long as my resident card has been properly verified upon arrival. In short: ultimate freedom.

No longer will I have to worry if I’ll make my plane for October 1. No longer will I have to worry that, once I make that plane and arrive in France, I won’t be able to exist without working legally. No longer will I have to worry that, once I take that plane, that I will have to plan a next move by the New Year or simply overstay a tourist visa if nothing else. Receiving this visa felt less like “multiple entry” than it did “multiple options” — the ultimate freedom to exist, make memories, and reside in my favorite place in the world. Even though my flight was still 2 weeks away, I was almost “home”.

Just a few days later, I was packing up the last of my things. My best friend in the city, from whose apartment I am writing this, generously offered for me to come live with her a couple of weeks before my flight. I have been here for only 24 hours, but it somehow feels both shorter and longer. I am officially “official” in certain capacities; I have the legal right to be in France tomorrow if I wish (and I probably would be if there weren’t a certain feline passenger requiring a certain amount of protocol prior to immigration), but I currently have no official place of residence. I have all the belongings that ever mattered to me in the first place (the cat, enough clothes to get through the fall season, a smattering of letters collected over the years), but I have no drawers to put them in for longer than two weeks, no walls to hang the few picture frames I’m bringing, no “spot” for Seymour to perch and watch the world goby for the next year or so. Overnight, things can become so upended, so real.

Don’t get me wrong: I will not be homeless in France — far from it. I have meticulously planned my stay, at least from the residential aspect, and will be greatly relieved once Seymour and I are finally in our new home with a dear friend who is allowing us to rent a room. No, it’s not the “before” of what we’re leaving behind or even the uncertainty of the “after” of what lies ahead, it’s the existing in between things that feels so unfamiliar, almost unnatural.

It would be one thing if we closed the apartment door and called an Uber for JFK the same afternoon, but it’s entirely different, almost otherworldly in a way, to say goodbye to my apartment, for better or for worse, and move only a few blocks away, never to lie my head in the same bed in the same room where I’ve done so almost every night for the past two years.

I’m not scared of what the future holds, nor am I mournful to leave what life I have here behind — I’m incredibly grateful for all the opportunity I have, for all the friends and family I have who have supported me and often been integral to inspiring me to make this change — but it’s being in this stage in which every aspect of my life has taken on a slightly different hue, but isn’t totally changed in form, that feels almost like a dissociative fugue.

When I was a kid I loved rollercoasters. At the time, I never understood why adults seemed so wary of them; there was some risk like anything, but ultimately the restraints were there, the ride had been stress-tested, what was there to anticipate except the euphoric thrill of hurtling down a steel track at a hundred miles an hour?

I can’t recall the last time I went on a roller coaster. Was I a teen? I don’t know. As we grow out of childish wonder, we become more wary of the world around us — yes the ride is stress tested, but so are cars, people still get into fatal accidents all the time. Yes there are restraints, measures to keep us safe, but people fall off of balconies all the time.

So what’s the difference? Why do people willing risk their lives twice a day to commute to a job or go out on a terrace to have a smoke if either of these activities (okay, three if you count the cigarette) have such high rates of death?

I think it must be the anticipation. There is something so eery about willingly getting on to a contraption that is designed to safely whisk you around in loops taller than most buildings in Nebraska and not first considering shitting yourself so you won’t have to ride. Before the plummet there is hill, the catalyst for the kinetic motion that sets the rest up for success. Before the hill, there is the long, slow mechanical tugging system that advances with all the somber, rhythmic determination of an executioner sharpening his blade. Before the track, the cars are loaded, seatbelts fastened. Before the cars, the line — watching from a distance as disoriented adults and thrilled kids and tweens empty out of the exit side.

This logic goes on and on until the very idea of willingly boarding a rollercoaster seems repugnant to most adults — what on earth could merit all that anticipation for a momentary thrill?

People don’t (often) die from the act of getting on planes and going to France isn’t, in itself, a death sentence. So why do I have this uneasy feeling of anticipation? I suppose I have to think of it as my own personal rollercoaster: I’m determined to stand in line. I’ll face the grueling, slow creep to the top. All the safety measures have been accounted for — just one brief moment of stillness at the top; the sky is clear, the noise from earth below softens as crowds turn into swarms of black dots. There is a stillness that takes over and then: release.