03. 04. 2026
Mauvaise Bouche – La Râleuse
J’aime quand il fait soleil
Rigoler pour rien, aussi
Folks, I’ve been living in France a whole dad-gum year now!
Today is my anniversary.
People constantly ask me, “How do you like it? Are you planning on staying?”
… .. ……………………
YES.
It’s a pretty easy answer – even after all of the rain that drove most of the Bordelaise a bit mad this winter.
Why do I like it so much?
I could list off all of the things that I like about it here, but I would also have to acknowledge the imperfections – very slow moving bureaucracy and dog poop on every corner… It’s a daily battle I’d rather not talk about.
Per usual, I’m more interested in the vibes – the lessons – than the potentially interesting minutia that alternately make you feel envious or grateful that you’re not me.
So, let’s reflect…
“Pain pushes until the vision pulls.”
– Michael Beckwith –
I’ve been wanting to write about the above quote since well before starting this blog. The idea really resonates with me – I’ve lived it, and it’s something I revisit constantly.
The thing is, I’ve been struggling with how to express why this resonates with me, and what it really means for me.
I’ve been imagining it like magnets… You have one magnet (pain) pointed towards you turned so that the polarity naturally repels you in the opposite direction. That magnet keeps scooting you along, inch by inch, until you encounter another magnet (the vision) with a polarity that attracts.
I’ve written a few posts talking about what has compelled me to leave the US, what’s pushed me, so it felt like – a year in – the stage was finally set to tell you what’s pulled me in France.
This was supposed to be an estimation of all of the good things that sit opposite that which I left.
But it just hasn’t felt right…
And now, I realize why.
I’m starting to see that the positive isn’t a transaction that automatically encompasses the negative.
DOUBLE NEGATION
Stay with me…
The story I’d been trying to tell was focused on a pulling vision as counterpoint to a compelling pain.
I’ve been trying to create a positive by negating a negative.
It makes sense as it’s a habit that’s served me well throughout my life.
In the past, each time I achieved a big goal, I was fueled by a fight against something. The pain of feeling less than and unseen compelled me to throw myself into my studies and my work, to succeed with little support (at times outright obstruction)…
- I’ll show them I’m not dumb
- I’ll show them I don’t need help
- I’ll show them that I Can do the thing they think I can’t
It was never about just being smart, independent, capable, it was about proving that I wasn’t dumb, a burden, or incapable.
After years of this, I came to need the negative push to set my direction and propel me forward.
I had come to define my realm of achievement as not doing or being what “they” thought or said. I didn’t let myself claim my successes, they were only non-failures – my accomplishments were negatively rather than positively defined.
The true upshot, I wasn’t able to deeply enjoy what I’d achieved. I didn’t know how.
At some point a few years ago, it dawned on me that, while being motivated by pain had been extremely useful, I no longer needed to live that way. I didn’t need something to fight against or to be pushed forward.
And that messed me up.
One recent transplant put it best: “The American in me thinks everything that doesn’t come with a struggle is suspicious.”
I’ve said that moving to France has given me the space to be me, to define myself free of the limiting assumptions I faced in the US. Without those headwinds, my challenge has become how to positively set my own direction without the motivation of negating a negative.
VISION PULLS?
I’m realizing that the exercise of treating the good as merely not the bad means I’m losing something – in weighing the good against the bad it reduces what’s good about it.
As I’ve started to work through how I could live the life I want, a daily existence positively rather than negatively defined, I realize that I have to let go of the counterpoint. I have to loosen my stranglehold on the things fought against.
The life I’m stepping into requires being pulled by a vision of what I do want without having to also focus on what I don’t want.
⭗ ⭗ ⭗
And that is why I was having such a tough time writing this post in the way I’d initially intended – for something to be right in France, I needed to point out something lacking back in the US.
Even in looking toward the positive, I was still holding the negative in play.
I wanted to set up all of the things that didn’t sit right with me in the US and show how France doesn’t do those things… I’d been using the discomfort I experienced in the US to help me define what comfort in France is → that it’s not the US.
That’s simply too reductive, and, frankly, it made me feel crummy to keep looking back on unpleasant things.
What I feel here is good for its own sake.
⭗ ⭗ ⭗
What’s good for it’s own sake?
Well, you know how when you go on vacation somewhere and you step out of your routine for just a bit, you start to think, “This is So nice. I’m so relaxed. Why am I always running around so much?”
You don’t side-eye it and ask, “what’s the catch?,” you just take it in.
Well, being here I’m living the way it felt each time I visited – relaxed, no catch.
The French word dépaysement captures what’s happening for me.
There is no direct translation, but it essentially means an “un-countrying,” it signifies a change of surroundings that allows for a profound shift in perspective.
In leaning into the rhythms of French life – like not even considering anything more serious than eating oysters at the marché on Sundays, or never responding to business emails on the weekends – my perspective has changed.
In living differently, I now believe differently. Now, the thought of not living this way feels odd.
French-me knows how to relache (release), to treat letting go with the sense of duty that I used to give to efforting.
You don’t really ask “why?” here, you simply shrug and say, “that’s just the way it is.”
Essentially, now I don’t feel guilty about doing the thing that feels better (apéro? going to the park?) instead of sitting at home arm wrestling things outside of my control.
From where I now stand, I see that the point may just be to unapologetically enjoy ourselves.
Perhaps we don’t need to experience crappy to know what good feels like.
When’s the last time you just had a good time?
When’s the last time you just laughed til it hurt, giggled even?
I’ve been laughing a lot lately, and I find it odd that it’s been enough that I’ve noticed it… In fact, I was showing some new friends old pics of me as I argued for how much younger I looked back then… They insisted that I look younger today, that I look much happier now – even though I was smiling in those pictures.
They were not paid and one is French, so I know she’s telling the truth.
Side Note: The French aren’t rude, they’re honest.
There’s nothing like going to the pharmacie and telling them you want something for your dark circles to drive this point home… They don’t argue and say, “Noooo, whaaat??? You look great!” – they reply, “Oui, le cernes? Suivez moi.” They say it with real understanding and take you directly to the serums.
SOOO…
The pain I experienced back in the States did compel me in this direction, but I feel like talking about a vision for my life in reference to that discomfort cheapens the value inherent in this place and in this experience.
It’s like attributing the beauty of a flower to it being nicer than the pile of dirt it’s growing out of – it would be just as nice to look at without the dirt. Its beauty isn’t derived from it not being something ugly. In fact, pointing out the ugly actually lessens the experience.
So, Yes, pain can nudge us in the direction of something better, but we need to let that something better be much more than the mere absence of the pain we’re running from.
Once we get close enough to catch the vision, we’ve got to let it pull us – untethered.
Pain’s only purpose is to tell us something isn’t right… We don’t need to keep clinging to it once it gets us to where we can be pulled – it’s done its job, lâche prise!
As I’m working on doing just that, I’m beginning to see the outlines of the inevitable “something more” pulling on the other side. I’m starting to regain my childlike ability to appreciate where I am and what I’m doing without forcing it or comparing it to something I’d like less.
I realize now that I’m allowed to feel good without justifying it against the struggle I’d come to believe earns it.
We are all allowed this.
Pain serves an important purpose in our lives, but we don’t always have to be faced with what we don’t want to know what we do want.
There must come a point where we don’t need pain to push us for vision to pull.
Post Script: Spring comes early here!
I remember when we got here this time last year it felt like we’d landed in a different season. We left a Chicago thunderstorm, and landed in 75 and sunny. There were leaves on the trees, there were flowers. And, after some cold and a good deal of rain, it’s back again – everything has just woken up!
The parks are all filling up, and I’m starting to feel giddy thinking about the fêtes, the outdoor shows, folks doing the bachata down on the quai, oysters and rosé en terrasse!
I will share that, amidst all of this sun-induced optimism, I recently had practice choosing French-me as I waited for my visa renewal…
I put in for it a few months ago, and it was set to expire at the end of March – yikes!
By mid-March, they hadn’t so much as looked at it.
I reached out a few times to make sure everything was okay – this is not the time to be getting booted out of the country.
The response I received each time: Une attestation de prolongation sera disponible depuis votre compte ANEF uniquement lorsque le précédent titre sera arrivé à échéance… En attendant la mise à disposition de cette attestation de prolongation, nous vous invitons à patienter.
Translation? “We see it. No one has looked at it. You can get an extension after your current visa has expired. Until then, just be patient.”
American-me would have tried to enlist back door connections, gone to the office, used all of the swears…
French-me said thank you, went to the park, read, spent time with friends.
The French administration wasn’t worried, and no one who’s been here a few years seemed to think it was a big deal, so I figured I’d go with that.
I did end up getting a proactive letter of extension the week before my expiration date, and they approved my renewal shortly after. So, not getting kicked out on account of my papers!
At any rate, I’ve been enjoying time with new friends, and I also got to see some dear friends who’ve known me through several past lives now.
Below, a taste of early spring in and around BRDX!
3 Responses
I feel like a lot of therapy for me has historically been about “Figure out what you want, not just what you don’t want” so this is pretty compelling to me. Glad you’re figuring it out.
Yeah, and it can be tough because we can forget what we actually want amid all of the doing… We have to feel our way back to it.