French texture…
After thirty-five years, married to a Frenchman, having children, doing business, and living in France, I have lived longer in France than in my native homeland California by five years.
I could ask myself: "How does it feel from when I first arrived?"
"How many changes in both places have I seen?"
While the French hear my accent and continue to ask, "Where are you from? How long have you lived in France? Do you miss the USA? What country do you prefer?"
Or will it ever be that the place I have called home all these years allows me to say,
"This is my home. I am French with an American accent."
I wonder about my four grandparents, who left their homeland very early and lived in the USA for the rest of their lives. Did their accent separate them, marking them as outsiders in their new land?
What makes us who we are?
How do those early years shape us beyond the later years of life? How do we measure home?
My Grandparents spoke to us with a thick accent, and now I talk to my Grandchildren with a thick accent.
If I had stayed in the USA, would I be any different than who I am today? My accent suggests not.
"Ah, you are an American. I thought you were English."
"Do you go back home often?"
"What do you miss most?"
"Is it difficult to be far away?"
"How did you come to live in France?"
"What do you do?"
Today, I was out walking when a woman in our village struck up a conversation with me. Eventually, she asked the standard questions I have heard since I arrived in France. But in the end, she threw me a curve ball that threw me into left field. She asked, "If your husband dies would you move back to the States?" You see, it is like an ex-pat is fair game to ask those deeply personal questions about what you are doing in their country and how much you like it. The journalist without a career comes out of them; their curiosity takes the reins leading them into a territory of conversation that they wouldn't strike up with someone who didn't have an accent.
My response was, "No, my home is here; why would I leave?"
For a moment, I was sure she would ask where I wanted to be buried.
Living in a foreign country is a constant bag of new tricks.
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