Lessons to be Learned from the French By Kathleen Donovan

Written by Kathleen Donovan

The French people have brought the world some truly incredible things including but not limited to: fantastic bread, beautiful music, amazing paintings, sculptures, (and alarming amounts of xenophobia). During my junior year of university I spent 7 months living in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. As everyone who has ever studied abroad says, it completely changed my life. I can distinctly separate who I am as a person into a before France me and an after France me. There was so much I gained both academically and emotionally, moments that can never be replaced inside memories that will never be erased. 

A large portion of who I am was left in France on the sandy beaches of Marseille and the rays of sunlight streaming through Nice. In contrast I brought pieces of France back with me, in knowledge I learned both in the classroom and walking those cobblestone streets. As an American, the French way of life shocked me, alarmed me, but eventually grew to be something I fervently admired and wanted to bring into all things. Now, having moved back to Los Angeles

and being around three months back stateside, I wanted to compile a list of habits and life lessons I brought with me from France. I hope they teach you, as I was once myself taught. 

Always fill your home with light, air and music. 

My apartment in Aix-en-Provence was in what was called le centre-ville (or the center city). I was on the third floor overlooking a constantly busy street, with a very popular Italian restaurant downstairs. There was always always always noise, even if I closed the balcony windows. The windows also didn't have any blinds, just these small transparent pieces of fabric barely held up by a tiny bar above one window. In January when I moved in this used to frustrate me. It was always loud, the sunlight always hitting my eyes in the morning and too much wind would get in when I tried to lightly air the place out at night. 

I woke up at 9am one Saturday to the sound of a saxophone playing. I rubbed my eyes awake and sluggishly made my way to the window completely ready to be annoyed and irritated. But I opened the window to be welcomed by a tiny crowd of

locals, leaning on buildings with their farmers market tote bags watching as a tall man in a 

tiny hat played the saxophone near a fountain. I 

couldn’t help but sit down on my balcony and listen. 

That was the moment I learned to slow down and enjoy 

the noise because without it there wouldn’t be these 

beautiful moments of communal stillness. It felt like 

the noise was no longer there to wake me up, but was 

instead trying to invite me into a community of which I 

was an invader, or a welcome parade I had been blind 

to. More accurately the man was just playing the 

saxophone to earn a little money and bring a little joy 

but it struck me and I ended up sitting there for an 

entire morning just listening to him play. 

In my mornings now, there’s always jazz music in my 

ears and open blinds to let the sunlight in a little easier. 

You do not have to be great, you just have to do. 

My building was an old one. According to my landlady it had housed visiting royals during the time of the French monarchy, and the apartment below mine had even been the private apartments of Napoleon's bastard daughter. In the modern day, inside these apartments was an art studio, run in the summers and winters by a local art professor and his wife. This studio would be where I spent a considerable amount of my time. My history with art was a bit complicated, I’d

consider myself a creative person but I’d always been drawn 

to art forms like music and writing. Things I felt comfortable 

around and had been told I was good at. Painting was 

different. Painting wasn’t something I had ever felt 

comfortable doing, because I had always felt bad at it and 

therefore felt uncomfortable trying. Atelier Libre was 

different. 

The format was simple, you went in and picked out a well 

known painting to replicate on your own for four hours while 

professionals walked around and gave advice as necessary. In 

my first session I was terrified and spent the entire time trying 

to use technique and trick my way into looking like a good 

artist. It did not work and by the second session I was so 

exhausted, I just tried my best not to look like a fool. 

Somehow by the fourth or fifth session I didn't care about looking like a fool at all. Looking around I forced myself to accept that I was the worst artist there but that didn’t take away from the fun of just getting to plug in some earbuds and paint. I had been in France for an intensive language and culture program so a majority of my week was spent with hours sitting down in a classroom, learning in another language and feeling extremely out of place. That first month was so exhausting, it felt like I was so far in over my head I wouldn’t survive the next 6 months. 

Painting and Atelier Libre became a sanctuary for me, a solo activity for when my weeks felt too long and days too short. The couple that ran it was gentle and kind, two American expats who had been living in France since before I was even born. They became a kind, familiar presence who would help me when I tried to figure out which doctor to go to when I had a cold or which grocery store was the best for which specific items. The studio and them become synonymous with turning my brain off for a couple hours at a time and just getting to create regardless of language or understanding. 

By the time I left for America I had finished three paintings on my own and had started a series of watercolors. I still paint to this day, just with a lot less helpful professionals around. 

Do not ignore the trends, tailor them. 

One of the many stereotypes surrounding the French has to be their penchant for style, and seemingly universal amazing taste in clothing. Something that I would argue is actually under-rated and not spoken about nearly enough. Even just in the university atmosphere, the effort placed into looking good was incredible and seemed so very different to what “looking

good” means in the U.S. France seemed to celebrate and embrace individuality from a different perspective in comparison. The culture seemed to not be determined to ignore trends for the sake of maintaining a sense of individuality and a strange, almost condescending ‘holier-than-thou’ nature that some Americans have adopted when it comes to trends. Instead of condemning the seemingly constantly changing trend landscape that has been social media’s impact on fashion, the French seem to instead digest a trend and spit out something so personal you almost don’t notice you’ve been seeing it everywhere. 

The major example in my time there had been the black boot. A timeless piece that’s seen a massive resurgence in popularity since the rise of ‘90s minimalism and the ‘chic’ epidemic. France was no exception to this global phenomenon and when I first arrived I was seeing black boots everywhere. The longer I lived there and as my eyes got sharper I started noticing that while I was seeing black boots, it was never the same black boots. Taller women with legs lasting a mile long wore sharp, heeled boots that went up to the mid calf while shorter women wore flat chunkier boots that gave them more edge to their look. Girls in flowy dresses had black boots with fringe hanging from the side and women in cropped blazers and tight skirts had their heeled ankle boots. The entire thing was all so incredibly personalized, I felt like I never saw the same pair of boots twice. 

True individuality seemed to be found not in ignoring everything that could make you bear any similarities to the person next to you, but instead tailoring everything to your specific style and look. This mindset wasn’t limited to just clothes either but seemed to go for accessories, nails, hair, and makeup. Everything was polished to a miniscule detail to be the best fit for its respective person. 

I’m still figuring out what that looks like for me, but it’s a skill we all must eventually learn. Nothing is ever as serious as you think. 

My favorite phrase in French is a very simple one, both in meaning and pronunciation. C’est pas grave. If you have a decent understanding of the language, it’s difficult to mess up. The direct translation to English means “it’s not severe” but colloquially it means something more similar to “it doesn’t matter” or “it’s no big deal”. Very simple, right? 

Except French people would use this phrase all the time. Typically at least here in California, you say “it doesn’t matter” as a response to someone accidentally bumping into you, or your friend forgetting to return the pencil you lent them two weeks ago. Inconsequential things that truly have little to no impact on your life. In France though, the phrase could be heard when discussing big future plans gone astray, a forced relocation due to a job, even being separated from your friends and family for a long period of time. I once even heard a couple use it when

discussing how they would have to reschedule their wedding due to predicted bad weather on their original date. There’s such an innate blasé-ness to it all. The couple didn’t care about moving the date around because to them all that mattered was that they were getting married. In the end, this casual nature seemed to grow from the commonly held opinion that, typically, nothing did matter! 

Or more accurately, nothing matters enough to get truly upset or torn up about it. Everything that goes wrong will also have a solution and unless it is life threatening will solve itself in time. A both terrifying and humbling concept. Regardless, the entire country had clearly read Mel Robbin’s, “Let Them Theory” multiple times and taken it deep to the heart. Getting used to this attitude was very difficult for me as someone who struggles with at least a little generalized anxiety on the best of days. Attempting to take a step back from situations and convince myself that in the end it doesn’t matter was (and still is) one of the hardest things I’ve ever tried to do. 

In the end it all came down to looking beyond ones self and ones problems. Once again something that sounds so internal and easy that even mentioning it feels redundant, but it’s so so difficult to actualize. Months later and I still feel it slip through my grasp when a day goes particularly wrong or I miss a step walking too fast down a staircase. Messing up and telling yourself that it doesn’t matter is a long endeavor that requires consistency and effort that most of us simply don’t possess. 

But it should be, and without the French that lesson probably would’ve taken me a lot longer to learn. Hopefully for some of you, this speeds up that process exponentially.