on the sliding scale of easy to difficult, my recent move -- inspired by events that took place almost exactly three years ago (i.e. when i was introduced to the person who has since become my spouse) and, as it turns out, just a few days after my last blog post -- has been easy breezy beautiful.
still, when you move to a new country, one of your (or at least my) inadvertent new obsessions becomes asking questions. some travel writer or migration studies scholar has surely already outlined a typology of them (via an article called "wondering wanderers: a typology of immigrants' questions" or some such), so i won't even attempt to cover all the bases here. but many of the questions are formulated along the lines of: is behaviour X considered 'normal' here? this is asked less judgmentally than it probably sounds there. it is also asked ad nauseam, since the task of teasing apart the particular (what a specific person does) from the general (what people in a community generally do) is an inherently lengthy process, and deserves as much energy and patience as one can afford to give it. (this being said, one related question i ask myself several times a day -- in purely rhetorical fashion now because i simply can't wrap my brain around the phenomenon -- is: why are so many women painting themselves orange? and why don't they at least rub the (orange) self-tanning product / bronzer in all the way? #orangeblossom #anklestreaks #kanklestreaks #walkingpumpkins. but that's a matter for another post...)
other routine questions sound more like: what does it mean when someone says Y? i'm surprised by how often i find myself asking this question, particularly when the linguistic landscape of my day-to-day has by and large remained the same (in other words: english continues its hegemonic rule, and i still get to speak french fairly regularly).
given the sheer volume of your questions, their often sensitive nature, and the fact that you'd really love it if your partner didn't file for divorce, ever, for any reason, but especially not during the first few months of marriage and on the grounds of "interminable intercultural querying," you try to keep the vast majority of the questions to yourself. in fact, you don't even want to hear them anymore! you keep trying to free yourself from their incessantness, as they follow you around when you're dropping your dirty clothes off at the laundrette, or taking out the garbage, or making your way to the coffee shop. but this morning, this -- the coffee shop -- is where i've finally found some relief on that front.
seated in plush leather armchairs next to me are two fortysomething women, whom i now realize i've seen here before. or at least heard here before. i recognize their crisp local accents. i recognize their friends-y chatter with one another (which is one weird, capitalism-infused step beyond, or beneath, friendly chatter). and then, most especially, i recognize their launch into how that eyeshadow really catches the light beautifully, doesn't it and oh my, it really does and you know, we have that coming out soon in shade Z!
avon calling! or maybe it's mary kay or arbonne...who's to know. but it's just like being back in ottawa (or toronto, montreal, barrie or charlottetown). amid this transatlantic shuffle and the ensuing Qs&A, here's a little friends-y reminder that plus ça change...
and now back to translating...
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