Lingering jet lag nudges me awake at 6:00am, an hour before my alarm is due. I lay in bed and finish reading Veronica by Mary Gaitskill, which I had abandoned before my trip with only six pages left unread – too few to justify carrying it across the Atlantic Ocean. The story had begun with puissance, but ended with a tacit whimper, a lovely acquiescence in a book about vulnerability and death. I murmur the last line while in the shower: I will be full of gratitude and joy.
I head out the door feeling dainty in my lightweight office clothes and sneakers, my stomach nimbly digesting yogurt and fruit. I walk quickly on the bike path to the subway. How comforting to be back on the Red Line, catching up with world affairs in The New York Times, nestled in a crowd of grim-faced commuters while the conductor repeats at each stop “This is a Braintree train” in a fatalistic Bostonian drone.
Returning to work was easier than I anticipated. I forgot that no one else worked very hard last week, and therefore the mental images of entering the office to have my limbs ripped off by documentation-hungry jackals who have been laying in wait since I left never came to fruit. Instead, I spent a good hour going through emails, half of which were entitled “Working from Home.” I blinked when I came to one from a coworker that said “Working from Work.” “Hi, I’m working from work, and I’m the only one in the office, so I thought I’d say Hi” the message said.
Working from work. The day in the office flew by, and I glided along with it, buoyed by the restorative powers of my past week in France. “How was France?” people asked, and I grew shy. No matter what I say, I feel like I’m bleating: “Oh, you know, France was France. How I adore that certain je ne sais quoi, and how unfortunate that I have to be back here, in the United States, among all you cultural heathens.”
I am self-conscious when I talk about France or how I’m marrying a Frenchman. Americans associate France with sophistication and seduction, and French women with femininity and fashion, yet I’m this beast of practical shoes and comfortable pants. When I go to France, I sweat in the snow for 6 hours straight then gorge on peasant food. It would be more appropriate if I were marrying a Russian.
