Life as a Postgrad Scholar

In case it hasn’t become clear by now, I’m somewhat of a romantic. One of my childhood fantasies (perhaps fueled by the books I read) was to live during the Victorian era or a similar time period that involved strict social mores and an even stricter dress code. As a result, when I visited a house that looked as if it belonged in an 18th-century novel, I was excited. Never mind the fact that it was located on the outskirts of Lyon, that only female tenants were allowed, and that the buses stopped after midnight – the minute I saw the little room at the end of the third-floor hall, complete with elegant furniture and matching yellow lamps and floor-length curtains, I had to have it. It took me another five days or so to move to the house, as the family who lived there was leaving town for the weekend, but I stumbled through the door on blustery Monday night convinced that I was there to stay for the rest of my visit in France.

That is not to say that I left the previous family without chagrin. We had exchanged gifts earlier that evening (a genuine saucisson brioché included in my bag of groceries), and Chantal, my host mother, teared up a little as I walked out the door, even while assuring me that it would not be the last time I would be at their house, and that I was always welcome to come back if my new living situation didn’t work. I sensed that she and her husband felt rather lonely in their house, with one daughter studying abroad in Sevilla, another just recently moved to her own house in Lyon, and their son recently re-departed after dealing with a death in his girlfriend’s family.

My new host family could not have been more different. Although they were certainly friendly people, and very welcoming to foreigners, they were much more fixated upon appearances, especially the mother, whom I will call Stéphanie. My first impression was of a young, blonde, type A sort, who went jogging, enjoyed playing with her cats, and wanted an English-speaking person in the house to help teach her children and do occasional babysitting. She showed an odd mixture of affection and strictness with her children, who were both adorable (a girl of 7 and a boy of 4), and didn’t even bother to introduce me to her husband at first, explaining that he worked very long hours at work and was never there during the day.

As I soon discovered, this was the normal setting for the house – empty, or at least filled with people who were always in a hurry. Upstairs in my room, tucked into my new bed, I felt as Mary Lennox (of The Secret Garden) must have felt in Mistlethwaite Manor, swallowed up by the vast loneliness of a house unloved and un-lived-in. Downstairs, on the impressively decorated main floor, there were few places where one could curl up comfortably with a book in the evenings, and the three cats were rarely to be seen during the day, only when shut in the kitchen at night after the family had retired to bed. The first evidence of children I saw in the house was of their names written on a small blackboard in the kitchen, followed by a list of tasks to be completed by each child (mainly of the “Clean your room” and “Finish your work” variety). The Portuguese housekeeper, whom I found to be very warm-hearted and friendly despite the fact that she spoke very little French, seemed to be slightly intimidated by her employer.

All of which combined to make me re-consider my childhood dream – did I really want to spend months on end in such a restrictive environment, however pleasing it was to my aesthetic and literary sensibilities? The reality was proving to be less romantic than the idea, especially with winter fast approaching and the heat in my room not in good working order. After two nights of uneasy sleep, I arrived at a decision to return to the previous house. It was not easy breaking the news to Stéphanie, but fortunately she came around and was gracious enough to let me go with no bad feelings. And fortunately Chantal was true to her word – she welcomed me back to her place with open arms, where, as she put it, “it may be a little chaotic, but at least it’s alive.” I couldn’t agree more.

So here I am again, back where I originally started, and all the happier for it. Winter has begun to set in for good, which means a warm fire in the living room and incessant cups of hot beverages. Saint Ex has begun to resemble an Arctic outpost, if somehow it happened that a colony of warmly-dressed French people were transplanted to the far north (oh wait, wouldn’t that be the French Canadians?). Classes have been going well for the most part, especially since I’ve figured out how to set up speakers in the classroom and play songs for the students. I never thought I would say it, but thank goodness for Ipods (even of the lowly Shuffle variety).