In the classic French fable “Le Petit Prince,” the titular tiny prince talks of waking each morning and tending to his equally tiny planet.
It’s an iconic French image: avoiding the swirling chaos of the universe around you and focusing instead on the tiny, beautiful immediate. Among other things, Le Petit Prince reminds us to put aside our bigger problems in order to take care of more manageable things, like sheep and flowers and baobab seedlings.
Here in France, I wake up every morning and tend my own personal French planet. But my problems aren’t as simple as the Little Prince. Rather than subversively planting baobab seeds, I have to dig my way out of an ever-increasing pile of complicated bureaucratic paperwork.
And for me, it’s no use uprooting the plant seedlings in my apartment. One is already growing. In fact, I’m helping it grow. It’s in my rental agreement.
You see, I’m sharing my shower with a palm tree, and if it dies, I have to pay to replace it.
It has not been made clear to me why my landlord decided putting a palm tree in my shower would be a good idea. Like much here in France, things are never really certain.
I’m not really sure why I’m not allowed to smile on the street or hug my friend when I meet her on the metro. And no one has explained to me the exact specifications of my program of study here, or what things I’ll need to do to prepare for the coming term.
I can’t explain the palm tree — which I have named Gregoire — any more than I can explain why the landlord’s cat lives in our apartment and not his.
I don’t have any answers.
But really, neither does the French language. With its delicate subtlety of meaning, its flowing shift of words and its singsong-y intonation patterns, French is really good at sounding pretty without actually saying anything, which is probably why it is considered by many to be the international language of diplomacy.
In French, you can talk for hours about word definition and usage, without actually doing anything constructive. Turns out, the same thing holds true for France as a whole.
I’m not sure what else I expected.
As I wander through the streets of Paris, searching for both personal fulfillment and the next hidden university building, I get the sense that no one here really knows the whole picture. The important thing, I’ve been told, is to pretend like you know what you’re doing until you actually do, even if that day never actually comes.
It’s been frustrating. My French skills come into question on a daily basis, and I continue to fill out forms and pay fees for no readily apparent reason. I don’t know too many people here, and the French aren’t too quick to make friends with transient Americans here for the spring and gone by the summer.
But when things get really tough, I still have my plant. It doesn’t judge my French. It doesn’t ask for my visa application. It just wants some water, the occasionally dusting of sunshine from the skylight and its own personal space in my shower.
And as the next few confusing, Frenchified months go by, I’ll keep thinking of the methodical little prince.
Times may be hard, and the world may be coming to an end, but you still have to keep tending to your planet.
Or your palm tree.
Nick Andersen is a sophomore journalism and history major from Milford, MI., spending the semester in France.
Contact Nick at NkAndersen@gmail.com
