Holding On to You

My grandma says that meeting Jason Alexander was one of the highlights of her life.
I'm glad I was there with her. Two funny, short Jews.

           My grandmother’s memory has been slowly deteriorating for a few years now. But it has gone from forgetting a few things to so much worse. It went from forgetting a girl from high school she used to talk about every now and then, to having to be reminded of my cousins’ names. I think this sharp decline was brought on by my grandfather’s health taking a sudden turn for the worst.

There is one memory I have of her that makes me happy every time I think about it. It’s so small and random, but I think it’s because it was a small glimpse into a side of my grandma that most people don’t get to see.

Before I tell you this story, you must understand why it stands out amongst two decades of stories I have of my grandma. She is not a “silly” woman. She is very thoughtful and serious. I think my grandma would have made a great counselor because she is fascinated by people and considering what it is that makes them tick. She isn’t harsh, but she isn’t one to joke around. I can’t imagine her being young and goofing around, and I think it’s because she didn’t get to ever do that much.

            When I was a senior in high school, I was trying to pick the song which would be my last dance solo song before I graduated. My grandma kept insisting on “Bring on the Men” from the musical Jekyll & Hyde. My mom and I kept telling her I wouldn’t do it because it is sung by a prostitute talking about how much she loves sex, sometimes threesomes, at all times of the day. Not necessarily appropriate for an 18 year old at a dance competition surrounded by children.

            “But it’s so fun and catchy! It makes me want to dance every time. Here just listen to it.” She popped her CD into her kitchen radio.

            “Ma, I’ve heard it a million times,” I said. But she wouldn’t listen.

            So we sat around my grandma’s kitchen listening to “Bring on the Men”. She just stared at me, beaming one of her biggest smiles. “It just makes me want to dance!” she repeated. And she started bopping up and down. She swayed from side to side with jazz hands. It’s one of the only times I’ve seen my grandma act goofy.

            The other day, I brought up the song and she couldn’t recall it. I told her about her dancing to it, and she stared blankly at me. I played it for her. Not a sign of recognition. “It sounds fun, though.” She said. “Yeah,” I said. “It does.” I turned away so she couldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes.

            My grandma isn’t perfect. She has never claimed to be. She isn’t the funniest person I know or the most understanding. She is so loving. She is so kind. She is generous to a fault. I love her more than she’ll ever know. I try to tell her how much I love her, but it is overshadowed by her love for me.

            Right now she lives twenty miles away, and yet I don’t feel like I can reach her. I wish I could have the grandma back who listens to songs about a prostitute and tried to do everything for everyone. Instead, I am losing her a little every day. It’s like only having half of the person I love so dearly and I’m constantly searching for the other half.

            But I am grateful I have as much of her as I do. I am grateful for everyday she is with me, even if she isn’t the woman I have always known. 

Where your boyfriend at?

            Remember that video from about 10 years ago where a girl sits by herself in the movie theatre? Then a guy comes up from behind demanding to know where her boyfriend is. When he discovers she doesn’t have a boyfriend, he incessantly asks for her number. I have always loved this video. I thought it was hilarious and I am always happy when someone shares it on Facebook and I’m reminded of its existence.

            Last night I went to a party at an apartment. I spent the evening talking with my guy friends. While I was standing there, one of their friends kept standing too close, touching me and making me uncomfortable. Rather than confront him about this, I chose to remove myself from the situation and go out on the balcony.

While out on the balcony, a guy asked me if I had a boyfriend who would beat him up for hitting on me. I told him no and flirting ensued. When this guy, Hunter, started kissing me, I decided that wasn’t what I wanted. So I excused myself to go to the bathroom and rejoined my guy friends. Hunter soon found me though. He hovered around my group. He came up from behind and wrapped his arm around my hips to pull me closer. I moved to the other side of the kitchen. He stared at me. I began talking quietly to only one of my guy friends. He got the hint to leave.

Another guy joined our group and seemed nice and he talked about how he knew one of my friends. When he asked the group where the bathroom was, I offered to show him. We walked into the part of the bathroom that had the sinks and I told him someone was in the toilet area so he’d have to wait. I turned to leave and he asked me if I had a boyfriend. I said no. He shut the door. He grabbed me and suddenly his mouth was on mine, shoving his tongue down my throat. I tried to pull away. I reached behind him fumbling with the door handle. He moved his back against the door so I couldn’t leave. Fear flooded my body. I froze. Wondering if I should scream. Wondering if I should try to hurt him. No one would hear me or see me to come help. Out of nowhere, a spike of adrenaline rushed through my arms as I pushed him to the side and opened the door.

“I’m sorry,” he said grabbing my arm. “I’m just drunk.”

I walked out to the balcony to join my friends. The fear and adrenaline was making my hands shake. I listened to their conversation without hearing. I stared at the apartments occupied by sleeping or drinking students.

Is this to be the rest of my life? Do I always need to have a male friend to run to? Lie about having a boyfriend if I don’t have one at the time? Am I only to be respected as an autonomous human being based on the proximity and power of a male guardian?

He was just drunk. Another was just picking up the wrong signals. This one is just having fun and hoping to get lucky. What’s the harm?

The harm is I end up crying into my friend’s shoulder. The harm is I’m afraid to be in a room with a guy without a male or a couple of girlfriends. I will never be independent because I am left to resort to violence, lying, or running away.

“Is there a boyfriend who would beat me up for talking to you?” I don’t know. But I’d have more respect if you asked me for my name first. You couldn’t be bothered to ask what my interests are or why I’m at the party. That would be a waste of time for you. You're obviously here for one reason. You're only talking to me for one reason. Due to the lack of a male who controls my sexuality, I am a book, ready to be picked off a shelf and flipped through at your leisure. 

Learning a Second Language, Continued

 This is a continuation of the this blog post.

       The first day of class in France was hell. We had to do listening exercises to improve our oral comprehension. However, my classes in America hadn’t prepared me for this at all. I sat in the language lab in France rewinding the audio over and over only to pick out a word or two tops. My teachers tried to help me, but it is hard to be helped when you still can’t understand anything.
I remember staring out the window, looking over the red-tiled roofs of Clermont-Ferrand and wanting to cry. I suddenly wanted to give up the entire endeavor to learn French. I wanted to go back to my family and only hear English for the rest of my life. In America, no one cares if you can only speak one language.

My first of day of school in France.
If only I had known what I was getting into.

I wish I could tell you that one day, everything clicked for me; that those first few days of school were the low point before I took off and improved everyday. However, that was only one low point on the roller coaster of learning a second language in a foreign country. But with every roller coaster, there are also the high points.
My hearing improved gradually over time. It was so gradual that I hardly noticed it had improved. It was toward the end of the semester that I noticed I could make out the majority of what the videos were saying. My writing and grammar didn’t improve much at all. My speaking definitely improved, but not by leaps and bounds compared to my listening skills.
Being in France, some days felt like the best day ever. A highlight for me was when I was at the large grocery store in the city center that I only visited every once in a while. I was in that horrible universal situation of struggling with the automated self-checkout. Whether it is in your own language or not, when those things mess up, you’re screwed. A man working there came over to help me. When I was leaving and I had to sign for my American debit card, he asked incredulously in French “You’re American?” When I told him I indeed was, he complimented my French saying he had no idea I wasn’t a native. I’ve never walked out of a grocery store happier than I did that day. I think all the French people I passed were offended at my beaming smile.
But then there were days that completely demotivated me. It wasn’t as if once I achieved a level or was complimented by someone who said I sounded like a native, that things got better or only slightly worse. One day I could sound like a regular Frenchie, the next day, my teacher couldn’t understand me say “merci”. I remember one time in particular when I had to go to the doctor. When the receptionist asked for my name and I had to spell it, she couldn’t understand me say “U” no matter how many times I tried! Keep in mind, this was after the grocery store moment of glory.
So, as one can expect, when I returned to the U.S., I wasn’t “fluent” in French. No doubt I had improved incredibly, but when people asked the question “So, are you like fluent now?” I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.
This past semester, I had to take a course called “Second Language Acquisition”. I hated that class and definitely didn’t learn as much as I was supposed to (I admit at one point I wasn’t passing the class). But I did learn one thing in that class that is not only applicable to my life, it is what motivates me to continue studying languages:
Language learning isn’t like collecting certificates. You don’t master your native language, then master the second, then the third until you’re satisfied. You will never be a native speaker in your second language. You can come pretty damn close, but at the end of the day, it’s your second language. Also, your native language doesn’t remain pure. It is affected by you second language as much as it affects your second. That is why they developed the term “interlanguage”. Everyone has this one language that is completely unique to you. It is only a matter of what languages make up your interlanguage. Everyone’s is different as every language you learn affects each other and it is also a matter of how you speak and interact with language.
So no, I’m not fluent in french because fluency is a myth. If fluency is knowing every word in a language and understanding what people say to you the first time they say it, then none of us are fluent in any language.
Because of these realizations, my goal has changed drastically. I no longer aspire to speak like the president of France and be “fluent”.
I want to develop my skills so that one day I can speak like Jillian Buxton: English native, student of Latin and French. To understand and be understood, the ultimate goal of studying any language.

Paris Holds the Key to My Heart

Most of us probably share a similar problem: not being able to enjoy good things because it has built up so much in your mind. This was my biggest fear about going to Paris. Going to Paris is the only dream that has remained a constant throughout my entire life. I wanted to go  before I even knew it was a real place. When I was kid I wanted to be a doctor who went to Paris. As a teenager I wanted to be a professor who went to Paris. In college, I wanted to be a person with a job, no debt, and a healthy diet who went to Paris. As other dreams fell away, changed, or appeared, Paris became even more important. As it aged like a French red wine, my heart ached to finally open the bottle.
When I saw Notre Dame, my hope shattered and it felt irreparable. I was tired. It wasn’t as big as I had imagined. I was standing before the cathedral which inspired one of the greatest works of my favorite author, but my life wasn’t immediately changed. I began lamenting having allowed my expectations to surpass reality.

Note the disappointment in my eyes in front of Notre Dame

But this feeling of despair flew out the window when I saw the Eiffel Tower. It was more beautiful than I could have imagined. It blew my expectations out of the water. Words cannot describe the feeling of pure joy that began pouring out of my heart and flowed through my veins when I saw its magnificent structure towering above me.
Paris turned out to be everything I could imagine.
I could go on an on about the places I saw in Paris. The small moments that add up to such great love and admiration. Who knew it was possible to feel that way about a city? Paris had always been a beautiful idea, but it turned out to be an even more powerful reality. Crying in Victor Hugo’s house. Seeing the protesters in the Place de la Revolution. Stumbling upon the small plaque which marks the place of  Louis XVI’s execution.
With each visit, each day, each moment in Paris, my love grew. On my last day in Paris, I was left wandering the city all alone. I was tired and anxious about my long journey home. I tried to decide what I should do as my last activity in Paris and in Europe. I thought about returning to the Eiffel Tower though I had seen it several times since my first encounter with it. I seemed too cheesy, too cliché. But when I tried to think of the next time I could possibly get to see it again in person, I found myself hopping on the metro, heading for Trocadéro.
When I arrived, the place was a mess. I had forgotten about the fan zone for the Eurocup in the Champs Mars. Everywhere that one could usually sit and marvel at the structure was now fenced off for security purposes. It was overrun with families and drunk Irish football fans. There was a small revolt in the street over some outcome of a game earlier that day (I must admit I never found out exactly the purpose of this march). My feet hurt, I was tired, and I just wanted to have a beautiful moment as I saw the Eiffel Tower for the last time for a long time. But it was looking like this idealized final moment wasn’t in the cards.
I made my way to the opposite side of the tower and sat on the sidewalk. I was next to a large group of Irish fans and attempted to make conversation. I wished that my good Irish friend I had made that semester was with me as every fan gave me a cold shoulder. I looked around and thought about my time in Paris.
So many people think being in Paris means great adventures. I loved Paris. But I had to admit my time there was void of  any romantic gestures or suspense. I wondered if I had done something wrong. Was I missing out on something amazing? Or was this just a silly schoolgirl fantasy that was ruining my last day in my favorite city?
Suddenly it began to rain. Perfect.
Thankfully I had lugged around an umbrella all day. People began running for cover wherever they could find it. For most, it was under the trees along the walkway next to the tower. I began walking towards the bus stop in order to go back to my AirBnB. I cursed the weather and my ridiculous high expectations. I felt like I was missing some key piece to my adventure in Europe. I was going to go back to America without some terribly romantic tale.
And then there was a person under my umbrella. I assumed he came from the group of Irishmen I had just passed. Every moment of silence seemed like an eternity.
Try to miss a puddle. He ducks a little lower under my short umbrella. My soaked shoes begin making weird noises. He coughs. I steal a glance at him.
“Um hello…” I finally say.
“Hi there. How are you?”
“Fine. You?”
“Oh I’m alright. Terribly wet though.”
“So Northern Ireland or Republic Ireland?”
“Well I was born in Republic of Ireland but I’ve lived in the north for a while. I don’t have much of an alliance to either.”
“Cool.”
Silence.
“Where are you from?”
“The United States.”
“Oh you’re American! Good. I was afraid I was being rude for not speaking French. Which state?”
I laughed. “No I definitely speak English. I’m from Oklahoma.” I prepared to say my usual spiel when the European doesn’t recognize my state: It’s in the south, just north of Texas.
“Wow you’re from Oklahoma?  The Thunder  did pretty well in the playoffs. Too bad about Golden State.”
We walked along the length of the Eiffel Tower. It always seemed like such a long walk, but this time it felt too short. I couldn’t tell you what all we talked about. I remember laughing. I remember feeling proud because he laughed even more. He offered to hold the umbrella and he tried to make sure it covered more of me than him.
We made it to the end and were nearing the street.
“Well, I better get back to my friends. It was so nice to meet you, Jillian. You were lovely to share your umbrella with a stranger.”
I mumbled something about it being nice to meet him, too. But it was hard to think because he was kissing my cheek.
When he pulled away, he didn’t turn to walk back to his group. He was talking. I must have said something clever because he was laughing again.
“Alright. I would love to stay, but I need to go find my friends before the match.”
He was leaning down again and my cheek awaited its kiss. But instead, he was kissing me on my mouth. I could feel my face burning and I hoped he wouldn’t notice how red it was. He looked at me a moment and walked away.
I made my way to the bus stop. The rain was pouring even harder now. My light jacket was soaked and I was shivering as I waited for the bus which was delayed for 30 minutes due to Eurocup traffic. Only to find out that it would be another 30 minute wait and I began the trek to the metro.
But none of it bothered me. I was smiling as if I was walking through a sunny garden, smelling the roses.
It wasn’t a long passionate kiss. We didn’t exchange information besides our first names. I never spoke to him after or had any hope of doing so. I’ve now forgotten everything about how he looked other than that he was quite taller than me. I couldn’t pick him out of a line up if my life depended on it. And yet this moment changed my life. I’ve forgotten almost every detail of this encounter, but I could never forget the feeling it gave me.
I’ll forever be grateful to Irish guy at the Eiffel Tower on June 12. This short meeting gave me such hope. There are times  you think your life is simple, boring, or even unworthy of anything spectacular. Then. Then is when you see the great beauty of the world around you. You’re worthy of everything lovely and magical.
I went to the Eiffel Tower to say good-bye. Sure it was cheesy and maybe stupid. But that was where my heart was pulling me. I allowed some random guy to share my umbrella. Any parent would be horrified (as perhaps they should be), but I prioritized being open to the possibilities around me, for good or bad.
Beautiful moments are waiting for you, you just have to be ready for them. You might just end up getting kissed by a handsome stranger below the Eiffel Tower.

The always beautiful Eiffel Tower.
Can you see the ball for the Eurocup in the middle
and the big screen in the distance for the Fan Zone?