It is almost Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year. I remember this time very well last year. As a foreigner in Paris who just spent three lovely months in an electrifying city of religions, I felt so alone.
The transition from living in Jerusalem to studying abroad in Paris was not easy. When I look at my past entries at that time or even my more personal entries of my life then, my uneasiness was unmistakable. Not only had I just lived a dream in Israel challenging what I thought was possible and impossible, but the normality in my life was also lost (including leaving the violin to play the viola). With Paris in my future, I could not compute the changes to be had. Was I ready for the whirlwind of change? Could I adapt easily? Would I accept the European lifestyle? The funniest question in my mind now that I think about it was: Am I even able to dress better than the seven year old Parisian boys?
Paris, the city of lights, the city of love. I fell into it all, willingly and unwillingly.
In a familiar, yet new city, I tried to mix my normal college activities at the University of Miami with Paris. I desperately searched for a Jewish community to be a part of (also a result of spending time in Israel) and found Kehilat Gesher, auditioned for the Sorbonne Orchestra, signed up for chamber music at a local conservatory, sought out gigs and performed in the metro, and found salsa dancing classes. I told myself that I would not become one of those study abroad students who forgot that school existed. As my friends always joke, "Shoshi can't survive without her schedule."
Though all was well, by early October with over two months left in my study abroad experience, all I could think of was America. To be more specific, my mind was in New York City. While my mind wandered the free streets of NYC that I had roamed before my big adventure, plans for the next semester back at UM and the next summer's plans were evolving. The upcoming 2008 Presidential Election did not make it any easier to focus on where I lived either, though I swear Obama was plastered all over Paris since the French love Obama as much as Americans.
The impression might be that I wanted to leave Paris, but truthfully that was my last wish. The act of leaving my country for 7 months with plans of my own for my life had to continue its course. I tried to soak in every moment from shopping for vegetables at my favorite street market where I joked with the Arab sellers with my minimal Arabic and snacking on baguettes from quaint boulangeries to passing by Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower on my way to school almost every day. My mind was naturally following what seemed normal: planning, planning, planning. Unfortunately for my mind, a person altered my life putting my thoughts back in Paris with me until he left for Israel, where my thoughts continually took trips there to be with him. The planning that I involved my time with that contributed to my journey came to a halt.
The last two months of my time in Paris, I lived the European life. Though busy, my schedule was far from the scribblings that usually sit on every day of the week. All slowed down and the times that I returned to Israel to visit him, my days were even longer. Each time I left Israel, I could not believe that I had left again; I could not believe that I had left him again. I embraced Paris for what it meant to me and for what it had given me, from insight, culture, family, friends, a home, and him. Never before had I allowed an outside factor steer my life so strongly and truthfully, my control felt minimal.
Forging my pathway to intern in Israel and study abroad in Paris was all in my hands, until this. I learned, by experience, that nothing is always in your hands. No matter how you live your life, no matter how you reach out to people, no matter how much you compromise, the end result will not always be yours. Despite all, everything happens for a reason.
It is the high holidays once again and though I am in Miami, my mind wanders away to the city of lights and the city of love: Paris.
