In Pursuit of Joie de Vivre

OFF WE GO LEAVING MIAMI ON AIR FRANCE WITH 25 PASSENGERS ON BOARD, November 3, 2020 (Election Day)

How to really push yourself out of your comfort zone in your middle age when life is supposed to be a steady rhythm of predictable expectations? Move to another country. With your whole family. Not understanding the language or cultural norms. Well, at least in France they drive on the same side as Americans do.

That is what I did along with my husband and two young sons at the rightful age of 46. The year is 2020 and COVID-19 is running rampant across the globe. As countries shut their borders to control the pandemic and Europe experienced almost a full year with no American tourists, my family was getting ready to move across the Atlantic thanks to my husband’s “talent passport.” Yes, a special visa category reserved for those with unique expertise and in my husband’s case, a quantitative geneticist working in agriculture.

Before I start on how I fumbled my way into France with little communications while donning a face mask to make me even more incomprehensible, I will commence with what I initially thought of this fabled land, filled with glorious appetites for life’s simple pleasures.

France appears to have adopted an idyllic lifestyle. Shorter works days. Many more vacation days. Lots of time to picnic with a bottle of wine and gourmet cheeses in a peaceful setting. They constantly speak with their inside voices and have learned the craft of table manners from an absurdly young age. Making it seem that their American counterparts are anything but stressed out work alcoholics vying to cling to the top of their professions or at least maintain employment while hastily eating lunch at their desks within ten minutes. Not sure if this is all fantasy or reality, but I, an American abroad in Southern France will surely set out to find the truths. Just to clarify, technically I am a Cuban-American abroad with Miami roots with decades living in states along the I-95 corridor.

I want to know if the French really live balanced gourmet filled lives. If I as an American, an addict of the culture of consumption, can ultimately handle the less is more approach. How speedily will I adapt to learning a third language so that I confidentially make my conversations flow instead of stammer?

With these experiences I hope to provide my readers with what it is like to have your life completely change in pursuit of finding joie de vivre or in some other people’s perspective, complicate your existence for no good reason. Not even Covid stopped this family from this once in a lifetime experimentation.