What's In A Name?
I think that even as adults, we all have moments where we might question our worth, ourselves and who we are. I know this feeling well, because it is something that I have done for pretty much most of my life.
Frenchify is a word that I would use to make light of everything that I was not, and that life in France was not. When ever I used to struggle with something and it would get me down, I used to wish that I could make myself fit in and as time passed with each new journal entry, I eventually started referring to it as Frenchifying myself.
My blog, Frenchify Me, is something that I had been wanting to do and make work for a long time. Starting a new life here, in France, was a huge decision and one that I didn't entirely think through. I came here with my head in a bubble and very unrealistic ideas of what I thought life would be like. That bubble was about to explode!
Before I lived in France, I thought of it as a small, croissant-shaped country somewhere in Europe with the Eiffel Tower as it's only claim to fame. The France that existed in my mind, was a very special place.
I think that even as adults, we all have moments where we might question our worth, ourselves and who we are. I know this feeling well, because it is something that I have done for pretty much most of my life.
Frenchify is a word that I would use to make light of everything that I was not, and that life in France was not. When ever I used to struggle with something and it would get me down, I used to wish that I could make myself fit in and as time passed with each new journal entry, I eventually started referring to it as Frenchifying myself.
My blog, Frenchify Me, is something that I had been wanting to do and make work for a long time. Starting a new life here, in France, was a huge decision and one that I didn't entirely think through. I came here with my head in a bubble and very unrealistic ideas of what I thought life would be like. That bubble was about to explode!
Before I lived in France, I thought of it as a small, croissant-shaped country somewhere in Europe with the Eiffel Tower as it's only claim to fame. The France that existed in my mind, was a very special place.
In my France, women wore nothing but Chanel and walked white, fluffy poodles along old streets lined with Cherry Blossoms. The men - all sporting Salvador Dali moustaches - wore blue & white striped tops, berets and carried baguettes and journals under their arms.
The younger crowd shared blissful moments sipping coffee in quaint, hidden cafés that overlooked some glorious, French monument. There were accordian players on every corner and people were in love everywhere or having passionate affairs in the rain that changed them forever.
This lovely image that I had painted for myself, may still be true about Paris... but not where I ended up.
When Mathieu pulled up in front the farm all those years ago and yelled out, 'We're here'... my montage of glistening, whimsical images shattered on the dirt in front of me, leaving nothing but a dirt cloud and dusty shoes. I stared at the huge mountain of metal scraps next to a line of tractors and old car parts wondering where all the pretty poodles had gone. Instead of accordians playing, all I could hear were goats and sheep... which explained the smell. Chanel was a French fairytale, berets a myth and no one took romantic strolls in the rain.
I didn't realise at that moment just how hard reality was going to crash down around me. I could never have imagined some of the forces that I was going to come up against and it didn't occur to me that I would question things that I had never even given a second thought about. Communication would be one of my greatest problems. I would struggle with everything; the language, the culture - accepting it and
being accepted by it; I felt very alone and as though I had gone from having everything to having nothing. I started to leave behind the person that I used to be and the problem was, I didn't know who to be, or how to be.
I wanted a little space where I could figure things out. A space that I could call my own and where it did not matter that I didn't speak French or have brown hair and brown eyes. I wanted a space where I could not only combine my love of writing and photography, along with anything else that took my fancy but where I could vent all of my anger and frustrations about France, the French and all of the quirks that came hand in hand with them. With that, the idea for a blog was born... but what to call it?!
I stood out more than ever and for the first time in my life, hated it. I wished more than anything, that I could just blend into the crowd. But, at 183cm tall with blonde hair and blue eyes, I towered over every crowd and did anything but blend in. I considered changing my hair colour so many times, but whenever I fled to the pharmacy to buy a hair dye, my superficial-self would rear her ugly head and my vision would become impaired by creams, solutions and tablets for wrinkles, cellulite, belly-flab, weight loss, muscle tone, and skin colour. I would leave there doubting myself even more, but in other ways.
I never would have expected in my most horrific nightmares that my looks, or my voice would slip me into an unspoken catergory that is only barely tolerated. I was a foreigner in the south of France and there was nothing Francaise about me. I wanted a magic wand that I could wave and make all of those problems disappear; I wanted to Frenchify myself.
Frenchify Me didn't become a real blog until much later but, the name always stuck with me. Eventually, I grew to love France and all of it's quirks and wanted to include them in my blog, so the idea for the blog has evolved over time, as have I. Living here is a huge part of the person that I have become. I have done a lot of growing up, although, most of the time, I still feel like I am 25 - and, I still have a lot of growing to do... but, I'm ok with that.
When I read back over my journal entries from those early years, I wish so much that I could just go back and tell myself to just be 'me' and to be proud of it. I wish that I had celebrated all of those things that made me stand out; my hair & eye colour, my height, my accent, my voice, the fact that I smile too much, hum too much. Who wants to be like everybody else? Who wants to blend into a crowd and become a facelss shadow? Not me. Not now. These days, I do everything to make sure that I DO stand out and I dont make apologies for that. I still care what people think {to a certain degree}, I'm not strong in that sense, but I wont apologise for being myself anymore. I dont think anyone should. I hope my son grows up knowing that too.
I wanted a little space where I could figure things out. A space that I could call my own and where it did not matter that I didn't speak French or have brown hair and brown eyes. I wanted a space where I could not only combine my love of writing and photography, along with anything else that took my fancy but where I could vent all of my anger and frustrations about France, the French and all of the quirks that came hand in hand with them. With that, the idea for a blog was born... but what to call it?!
I stood out more than ever and for the first time in my life, hated it. I wished more than anything, that I could just blend into the crowd. But, at 183cm tall with blonde hair and blue eyes, I towered over every crowd and did anything but blend in. I considered changing my hair colour so many times, but whenever I fled to the pharmacy to buy a hair dye, my superficial-self would rear her ugly head and my vision would become impaired by creams, solutions and tablets for wrinkles, cellulite, belly-flab, weight loss, muscle tone, and skin colour. I would leave there doubting myself even more, but in other ways.
I never would have expected in my most horrific nightmares that my looks, or my voice would slip me into an unspoken catergory that is only barely tolerated. I was a foreigner in the south of France and there was nothing Francaise about me. I wanted a magic wand that I could wave and make all of those problems disappear; I wanted to Frenchify myself.
Frenchify Me didn't become a real blog until much later but, the name always stuck with me. Eventually, I grew to love France and all of it's quirks and wanted to include them in my blog, so the idea for the blog has evolved over time, as have I. Living here is a huge part of the person that I have become. I have done a lot of growing up, although, most of the time, I still feel like I am 25 - and, I still have a lot of growing to do... but, I'm ok with that.
When I read back over my journal entries from those early years, I wish so much that I could just go back and tell myself to just be 'me' and to be proud of it. I wish that I had celebrated all of those things that made me stand out; my hair & eye colour, my height, my accent, my voice, the fact that I smile too much, hum too much. Who wants to be like everybody else? Who wants to blend into a crowd and become a facelss shadow? Not me. Not now. These days, I do everything to make sure that I DO stand out and I dont make apologies for that. I still care what people think {to a certain degree}, I'm not strong in that sense, but I wont apologise for being myself anymore. I dont think anyone should. I hope my son grows up knowing that too.
* All images for this post were found on Pinterest. Search, Paris illustrations.
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