There and back again: A hiatus

Last Tuesday ~ In the circadian scramble of jet lag, I’m up earlier than usual on my first morning back in Grenoble. My windows are thrown open to the still-cool morning air and the waft of petrichor from the sunshower dampening the street. When I poke my head out I can see the sunbeams pouring from the clouds over the Belledonne, saturating the peaks with gold and soft shadow. Earlier there was molten pink over the mountains and pigeons cooing in the eaves. Below, someone dashes from the boulangerie with a baguette; someone else smooths her damp hair as she passes on one of the city’s ubiquitous yellow Métrovélo bikes. There’s little other traffic thanks to today being Assumption Day, un jour férié.

It's good to be back.

Yesterday, hauling in from the train after 24 hours of travel to an evening temperature of 90 F/32 C, contemplating the grittier aesthetics of the urban streets from the bus window, I felt less sentimental. I could already feel the energetic tax of the language barrier settling back in, not to mention work deadlines and other daily realities waiting. Nothing is entirely a fairy tale. But even then, with the gaze of novelty granted by three weeks away, I was conscious of the wonder and satisfaction of being here, this special somewhere else, this whole world of another country, and still time to keep learning it.

During my time in the US, I didn’t really feel the contrast from my French milieu until my week in Oregon for a scientific conference. Not because Idaho and Utah don’t provide a contrast; they certainly do. But the Intermountain West is so familiar—my home, my family’s home for generations—that I don’t have the distance to examine it at the level of a country. No one region in the US can represent the multitude of the country, but in this corridor, I’m sinking into the particularities of home, my people, rather than my country. (Plus, all of my mazel tov went to my sister, who got married while I was there!) And there are, after all, the Rocky Mountains to echo the Alps. I’ll have to write a post soon comparing my beloved Tetons to the Belledonne.

Home

In Portland, though, my eyes were open to strangers, and how they felt like friends. There, I was swimming in the American personality. Specifically, the Ecological Society of America. So admittedly, this was far from a representative sample; I was swimming among progressive, well-educated, science- and environment-minded (crunchy) Americans. But it was a sample from all over, nevertheless, and there was still something about the vibe that felt distinctly American.

The science is often very directly about America, for one thing, American geography and ecology and environmental challenges. Researchers are often seeing things from their vantage points in Colorado, Minnesota, Florida, California; and the America-buffered-blended space around them is so big that it’s far from the default to see over the horizon. Heck, it’s hard to see out of the region. Of course, many people are researching the tropics or New Zealand or Nepal, but it’s all too easy to abstract those places as map points or Your Study Site. Of course, many ecologists are very globally aware and invested. But as a collective, the consciousness is firmly centered in America. (It’s the same in Europe, really: the orientation of ecological research by European scientists is centered there, though it crosses some country boundaries as easily as state boundaries in the US.)

Then there’s the people: the familiarity of the language and ubiquity of the accent, the sunniness, the talkativeness, the openness, the self-assurance, the shared perceptions of government and pop culture and brands and consumer habits and cultural orientation. I wish I could be more specific; it’s more of a gestalt in my head. I’m sure this sense would be easily dismantled by really seeing inside people’s heads and their everydays to the sheer diversity of experience and influences. Maybe the American feeling, in a mixing pot like that conference, is the diversity itself, the geographical reach of what people are bringing with them, the miles and miles of unseen cities and countrysides, the millions of microcosms webbing out across the continent, and yet included vaguely in the familiarity of a shared consciousness and national identity. It’s quite amazing. May it continue.

Portland, Oregon

---

Now, over a week after I started writing this post, I’ve been easing back into the quiet August Grenoble life, when half the country is somewhere else en vacances. Recalling my French, eating bread and ice cream. Thinking and writing about modeling vegetation in the Alps. Finally receiving my government health insurance paperwork after six months. Hosting some friends over from Switzerland and realizing I haven’t spent nearly enough time in the city center, trying restaurants, wandering the narrow streets; and resolving to do so.

The sweltering heat hasn’t abated since I got back—thank heavens for my shady riverside commute and the AC unit in my office, however clunky and inefficient it is. The temperature is slated to drop 20 degrees C this weekend, and thinking ahead to cool days, while sweating in my kitchen, is like anticipating a trip to another country. I will apply a word I learned today: dépaysement, the experience of dislocation or culture shock in a new place. A new state of being.

Happily, a new place can be learned.