Finding Home Elsewhere: Between Bureaucracy, Baguettes, and the Slow Burn of Belonging

Trying to settle in a place that both frustrates and fascinates, where paperwork is an endurance test and cheese can be existential.

We didn’t move to France expecting it to be easy. We knew what we were leaving behind, but we didn’t know exactly what we were moving toward. And that’s the thing about moving abroad—no matter how much you plan, you can’t fully prepare for what it will feel like to actually live in a new country. To wake up one day and realize that nothing around you is quite familiar, that the place you now call home is still a little bit foreign to you.

I was on the phone with a friend back in New York the other day, and she said, “So, is it home yet?”

I hesitated. “Well… it’s where we are.”

She laughed. “That’s not the same thing.”

No, it’s not.

The Pace of Everything, the Weight of Choices

The longer I live here, the more I realize that I’ve somehow become more American in France than I ever was back in the States. Maybe it’s because I’m constantly explaining myself—my accent, my preference for larger coffees, my nagging tendency to expect things to be open when I need them to be.

But it’s also in how I move through the world. I still walk quickly, still expect decisions to happen quickly, still get impatient in line at the supermarket when the person ahead of me spends five full minutes discussing the merits of one particular fromage de chèvre over another.

Or the weird disconnect about an almost innate understanding of cheeses as a whole. It’s an entirely other vocabulary, not just of cheeses, but their uses, flavorings, the dishes they’re in, etc.

It’s not even that I don’t appreciate the cheese—I do. I do. It’s that I have the deeply ingrained American expectation that certain decisions should be efficient, that not every single choice has to be existential.

But here? Sometimes, curious things get a bit existential, which is kind of nice sometimes. I think we all need a little philosophizing. But when someone in the supermarket aisle is debating between two Camemberts with the kind of focus that should be reserved for deciding whether or not to have children, not as much.

Could you just get out of the way a minute, guy? I am not here to debate the nuances of aging and mold cultures. Or fuck, is he talking out loud - to himself and anyone who can hear him - about how it spreads? Some days, I don’t want to understand the language. I am here to grab that lait cru with two folks on the label who look like they are On the Verge of Gettin’ It On.

Just a sec. Thanks?

And it also has that picture of itself in the picture, which is weird.

Parliament-Funkadelic – Standing On The Verge Of Getting It On

(Live, 1978, Capitol Theatre, NJ) | Tyrone Lampkin Drum Solo

Parliament in their prime were amazing beyond words. If you’re even a little into funk, this is everything. And the drum solo in the whole later half is amazing.

And why yes, that is a dildo bouncing around on the drummer’s high hats. Because of course it is.

Parliament-Funkadelic wasn’t just music—it was a spectacle, equal parts absurd and brilliant, built for the groove and the weird. If you haven’t yet, go down that rabbit hole. Maggot Brain is a personal favorite—Eddie Hazel’s title track solo is pure devastation, played, as George Clinton told him, “like your mother just died.”

But I digress…

Cheese!

Cheese labels in France are a bit of their own art form. Some folks collect them—because, well, some people collect everything. Vintage wine labels? Sure. Old postcards? Of course. Some people wriute down the numbers of planes and trains – a lot of them. But cheese labels? Absolutely. There’s even a name for it: tyrosémiophilie.

The Camembert Museum has an interactive label museum!

Designs range from rustic to surreal. Some are museum quality, others feel like fever dreams of rural French life. And if you’re staring at one long enough to notice the details, you should start a collection.

Get beauty where you can find it.

Atlas Obscura has a great piece on cheese label collecting. Just in case you need another reason to admire camembert before you eat it.

Becoming Less Fluent in My Own Language

I’ve started saying things in a weirdly French way when I talk to American friends.

“The weather, ça va,” I’ll say, without realizing it. Or I’ll ask someone, “Do you take a decision?” instead of make one.

I say, “c’est ça” with my nephews. They don’t even register it.

And I think I’m starting to confuse my English spelling more than I used to—nothing major, but little things. Double letters where they don’t belong. Second-guessing words I know are right. I used to be bombproof with English grammar and spelling, reflexive even, but the reflexes don’t feel like they used to.

I mentioned this to a French friend the other day, and she shrugged. “C’est normal,” she said. “You live here.”

The Fantasy vs. the Reality

A while back, I wrote about Searching for a Motive: Our Journey to France, grappling with why we left in the first place. We wanted out of the U.S., but that’s not the same as knowing exactly where we wanted to land.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately—how leaving is just one decision, but staying, adapting, and figuring out how to build a life after the move is an entirely different challenge.

It’s easy to romanticize a move like this.

To imagine long café afternoons, new friends, fresh bread every morning. But the reality is different. It’s a lot of paperwork, as everybody talks about on the internet. But really, god help you if you have to engage with it.

It’s like one side of France wants to lull you with good food, cheese, and, yes, mellow, interesting people—while the other is run by bored sadists who found their way into the bureaucracy. Or more likely, people who need to make up reasons that they’re busy at work.

It’s trying to explain to your bank that, no, you don’t have a French electricity bill yet, but yes, you do need an account to get one – something we’ll need to engage with soon as we’re looking for a new place to live.

It’s realizing that you will never fully shake your accent, that no matter how fluent you become, you will always be an American in France.

I have developed a look for it. It is rare. But when someone gets that expression—the slight head tilt, the flicker of amusement, the oh, how adorable, an American who thinks he speaks French—I know what I’m dealing with.

I worked in a middle school for 20 years. I have seen this behavior before. The smug little smirk, the indulgent patience, the unspoken go on, impress me energy.

And I have my own look ready for it: a blend of mild patronization, a kind of sad empathy (oh, ce n'est pas mon premier rodéo, chérie…), and just enough impatience to make them second-guess whether this is a game they actually want to play or just sell me the thing and keep it moving.

It works. Mostly.

I’d love to say this is just French people, but really, this is life dealing with other adults. Some people just cannot resist the little power trip of making you prove yourself. The setting changes, the language changes, but the dynamic? Eternal.

It’s also standing in a boulangerie, holding a baguette, and knowing that for all the things you miss, this is still one of the best decisions you’ve ever made.

Fuck you, Baguette Employee.

Ooh. This bread is warm…

What an odd mix of emotions this country is.

If I Had to Do It Again…

Would I do it again? Probably. But I’d do it differently. In Starting Over: From Burnout to Belonging (Sort Of), I wrote about how leaving wasn’t just about a new life—it was about trying to find a different rhythm, one that wasn’t dictated by overwork and exhaustion. It’s funny how the rhythm of it is still a thing that throws me.

The U.S. runs on hustle culture. France runs… differently. I mean, the months-long protests and riots in this city all seemed to take a break for lunch every day. Tire fires were extinguished near 5pm, mostly.

That shift in pace has been one of the biggest adjustments. It’s one of the things I love most about living here, and also one of the things that drives me absolutely insane. I still forget that some shops just… close in the middle of the day.

I still get impatient when a process takes longer than I think it should. But maybe that’s part of it—learning to let go of the constant need to optimize, to move faster, to do more.

What’s Next?

I went through a few older posts this week because, honestly, the current political shitshow—which is truly beyond politics alone at this point—is kind of messing with my publishing schedule. I’m at nearly 200 posts now. They add up.

Looking back at what I wrote in Home Elsewhere: 100 Posts and Nearly Two Years Later, I realize just how much this move has changed how I think about home, belonging, and how we choose where to be.

We’re still figuring it out. We still don’t have all the answers. But we’re getting closer.

Home isn’t a destination. It’s something you create, piece by piece. Some days, France feels like home. Other days, it feels like we’re still somewhere in between. Maybe that’s okay. Maybe we don’t need to have it all figured out yet.

For now, we’re here. And for now, that’s enough.

At a glance, there are some control issues in that relationship.

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