Hello everyone, apologies for the pause in posting. It was the holidays! I think we all needed a break.
My family invited me home to Tennessee for the Christmas holidays. The train from Lyon to Paris was fine, no problems there, and I spent the night at the Charles de Gaulle airport hotel. The next day my flight from CDG to Atlanta was delayed juuuuust long enough for me to miss the red eye from ATL to Tri-Cities Regional Airport. I didn’t know this at the time, but I was flying during the first couple days of the massive blizzard that blanketed North America. I hadn’t heard about it on French news! I knew it was colder than France, but I was in the dark about the extent of the situation.
The overnight Atlantic flight was probably the worst of my life. A colicky Greek infant was directly behind me, and to my left were two women who managed to keep up a nonstop nine-hour hootin’ hollerin’ kind of conversation — the kind of conversation where you slap your knee and lean way back in your seat. I observed their happy interaction with the kind of loathing I imagine Vercingetorix felt for Caesar.
Luckily, travelling solo and with no checked bag made me a lean, mean, plane-hopping machine. I fared much better than the poor souls around, in front, and behind me in the lines. At one point in customs at ATL, I saw a man and a woman almost come to blows. The man was trying to skip the 400-person deep line, and it was close to midnight, and the woman in front of whom he was trying to skip was not having it. They got in each other’s faces and I pulled out my phone to record the fight, but a young man stepped in and cooled things down. The man had to go to the back of the line. We still had to wait another two hours.
The desk folks were really helpful despite it being midnight in an airport during a snowstorm. They put me up in the nicest hotel I have ever seen — and isn’t that just the way of things? I get to stay at the swankiest of swank hotels, but only for five hours and I can’t shower since I don’t have soap or shampoo. The bed was very comfortable.
They couldn’t put me on a flight to Tri-Cities, but they could drop me in on one to Knoxville in the morning. I returned to the airport to battle the ATL TSA system, a battleground for newcomers and veterans alike. I’d never done ATL TSA, since I always fly in from somewhere else. ATL TSA gets a wrap for being harsh and pushy, but it’s that very attitude that keeps the line moving, and I both understand and appreciate the need to sacrifice customer service for ACTUAL customer service.
The flight from ATL to Knoxville felt like the longest of my life — by the end of it, I had been travelling for 48 straight hours. I fell into my sister’s family’s arms at the exit and allowed myself to be whisked to their SoKno home.
But my journey was not yet done. Another two hours on the road from Knoxville to Limestone. The way I collapsed on my childhood bed was — well, reader, it was indescribable.
The winter storm bored down on us, as it did everyone, and over the next two days we watched the thermometer drop to the negatives. My dad kept the fire going in our wood stove while my mom followed updates on flight cancellations and intoned our luck that I hadn’t flown Southwest. I grumbled that Delta hadn’t done the best job in the world, but I got over it once I realized just how catastrophic things were for tens of thousands of people. I mean, I read about a guy who missed a heart transplant. (Keep your eyes peeled for that class action lawsuit.)
Christmas morning came quickly. I got a Kitchenaid (!!!), a Lego set of the Haunted Mansion, and weird snacks from Korea. After gifts and breakfast, we loaded up the car to (again) travel to Knoxville. We saw my sister’s family again, spent the night, and drove out to Nashville to see extended family. My dad wrangled us all a table at a super nice steak place called Jimmy Kelly’s, and we were all looking forward to it. I had a delicious salmon.
But things took a turn early the next morning. It was probably a multitude of factors that led to my illness; the near endless travel for almost a week straight, the new sleep schedule, the reintroduction of preservatives and dyes in my diet, etc. But I still believe that the factor that knocked over the Jenga tower that is my GI tract was food poisoning at that esteemed Nashvillian steakhouse.
I couldn’t move for stomach pain. Couldn’t speak, couldn’t stand upright, the works. We stopped at a Buc-ee’s and I couldn’t even enjoy it (well, except the bathroom). We had to cut the visit to my grandfather in Rockwood short because I was breaking a sweat sitting on his couch.
During the drive back to Limestone, I dreampt of the hot bath I would have, the unmitigated access to a bathroom, the miracle of modern plumbing. That is, until my mom shared with the car a bulletin that county officials had posted online. A one-two combo of extraordinary weather conditions and outdated equipment resulted in hundreds of estimated leaks throughout the county, with no timeline on repairs. So. No running water.
We get home. Defeated. Lost. Morose. Try the taps, more out of desperation than hope. One or two drops, then nothing.
Then Wednesday the internet went out.
From the time we got home from visiting family across the state to the time I left for my flight back to France, we never once had potable water. The night before my departure was when the water came back on, but with a boil notice due to “potential fecal matter.” So all we could do was flush toilets.
But it wasn’t all bad! On one of these internet and water free days, I got to see several friends that I hadn’t seen since I left and don’t live in town. So it was a miracle that we all happened to be in Johnson City at the same time. Seeing my friends, especially when it wasn’t a given that I would be able to, was a better gift than anything I got in my stocking (no offense, Mom, I love the socks).
On the drive to the gym to take showers one day, my mom commented that if I’d stayed in France for Christmas, we’d all be talking about how that was for the best, considering the endless string of disasters. But I don’t regret a moment of it. I saw home. I smelled the decaying leaves in the woods. I heard that robust, gorgeous accent, and got my own accent back. I squeezed my little niece so tight I thought I’d bruise her.
I sat by the stove fire. I slept in my own bed. I was swaddled in the forgiving arms of my mountains, and I would ford any river for that.
For you reading this, I hope you never take for granted the blessing of living immersed in your native language and culture. I know at least most of you are, probably all. I have been studying French for nearly a third of my life, and I still feel a trill of panic in new and unfamiliar French situations. I don’t know all the words or all the lingo and slang. I don’t grasp the transit system completely. There’s an impassible chasm between me and every citizen in this country, and it won’t matter how good I get at the language or how long I live there or how much I bring France into my heart — the chasm is there for forever. That’s just how things work.
Consider all of this, then consider that I am healthy, I have legal papers, and I’m living in France out of desire and personal fulfillment. I have many friends here from around the world, and we support each other. I am not running from violence, war, or disaster. I’m fluent in the language. I have work, a stable living situation, and the ability to blend into the populace. Consider how impossible this would be if any of that were different. Consider the fear, the frustration. Consider the loneliness.
I’ve spent a lot of time considering that.
Anyway, the flight back was the bomb dot com. My mom taught me this travel trick: a couple days before your flight, go to Dollar General and buy a bunch of little gift bags and candy to go in them. Ideally spend about four or five dollars per bag, max. As long as the candy is in its original containers, it can all go through TSA. Give out the gift bags to the flight attendants. Boom, instant good karma. My mom does this all the time, and I’ve made a habit of it, too. This time, handing out the little bags on AirFrance got me a free upgrade to premium seating and bottomless champagne. Different attendants kept coming up to me throughout the flight, giving me everything from free snacks to extra travel kits.
I was served before everyone else on the flight, got a seat upgrade that would have otherwise cost hundreds of dollars, and a crew of flight attendants got little treats on a holiday that they had to work. Everybody wins!
Anyway, sorry this is a long one. Consider it catch up from several weeks off. We’ll return to shorter and more frequent posts this week.
Bisous,
Allison
P.S.: I want to give thanks and a shout out to David and Pat Boshears for their generous donation to this project! David and Pat, your support means the world to me, especially around the holidays. I hope your season was merry and bright!
Flan in France 