I have often wondered how much of who we are comes from inside of us, and how much is a product of our environment.  As I count the days until my departure from Paris, this question has become especially poignant.  Just last week, I walked into an American food store, and grew wide-eyed upon discovering shelves laden with Oreo cookies, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, and Pop Tarts.  This little taste of home, filled with items utterly banal in the Unites States, seemed splendidly exotic.  "Tootsie Rolls!"  I cooed, turning over a specimen between my thumb and forefinger, "I’d forgotten all about these."  And whereas the refrigerated packages of Philadelphia cream cheese reminded me of Saturday bagel brunches at home, I was struck by my intense pleasure at their "foreignness."  Standing there before this magnificent import, all I could think was, "It’s so American!" – in much the same way U.S. tourists are delighted when they arrive on French soil, and see actual Parisians walking down the street with actual baguettes under their arms.

It’s funny how quickly perspective changes when you live in a new place, how fast you incorporate what once seemed so unfamiliar into your daily life.  The first time I lived in France, one of these "typical" scenes that reminded me I was abroad was la bise – the peck on both cheeks with which the French greet each other and bid one another farewell.  Whenever I met new people, I dreaded the moment I would have to pretend I’d been kissing complete strangers my whole life, that I found nothing awkward about the whole affair.  Among the worries that plagued me were: which one of us should initiate the greeting; with which cheek I should start (the right one); and whether it would really be two pecks or actually four (each region has its custom, and whereas Parisians use the standard two-cheek-peck, many suburbanites do the double).

The bise would eventually become less foreign and not so daunting to me.  After a year of study in Paris, it felt completely normal to greet my friends at the university with two little pecks.  Perhaps it was a sign of assimilation that the bise had become second nature by my second stay in Paris.  In fact, not greeting people this way came to feel strange.  When my family visited, I smiled at the awkward gusto with which my father and brother greeted the women I introduced to them.  (Men shake hands rather than give one another la bise, unless they are family or particularly close).  Dad and Jeremy would take hold of the woman’s shoulders, and bring her in to plant an actual kiss on her cheek; I pulled them aside to gently to instruct them that their lips should touch only the air, although the kissing noise was essential.

It was during his visit that my brother would, in return, laugh at me for the funny words, influenced by the French, that I sometimes used in conversation – like when I mentioned the omnipresence of "conservatives" in American food, when I really meant preservatives.  Jeremy was the only one to notice these oddities, because such mistakes are, for other internationals in Paris, entirely commonplace.  Here, even conversations between Americans are frequently peppered with French expressions, and I have noticed a gradual deterioration of my English grammar.

All of us living here – the Americans, the Germans, even the French who have lived in South America or elsewhere abroad – have become a part of a subculture, a melange between the places we were born, and our present home.  We live a chameleonic existence, belonging entirely nowhere, but capable of living almost like natives anywhere.  For this reason, I do not fret about the holes in my English vocabulary, or the quirks in my speech.  I do not worry that I have lost touch with my American roots, or that I will lose my bearings upon my return to U.S. soil.  Rather, I am sure to be amazed at how quickly I fall back into my old New York rhythms, going for fancy-sounding coffees with my high school friends, and finishing dinner well before eight.

Perhaps it is because of this knowledge that I am not overwhelmed by sadness at the thought of leaving – though I know that when I wake up Friday morning on Roosevelt Island I will wonder if Paris wasn’t a dream, and I will mourn this life which will never again be a reality.  Still, I know that, in more ways that I can enumerate, in more ways than I am even aware, Paris has become a part of me.  I may be thousands of miles away from the City of Lights, but it will always remain the place where I grew up.

When I graduated from college, I wanted only to stay someplace and plant roots.  Yet it is over these past three years that my address has changed the most frequently – and all this shows no signs of slowing.  And yet, I feel more grounded than ever.  My permanent "address," I have come to realize, is carried inside me – a conglomeration of all my past experiences and future aspirations.

It used to trouble me that I could not predict my future, but I have begun to learn to embrace life’s uncertainties.  The weather channel, when I consulted last week, announced sun for Wednesday, but tonight the forecast was more threatening.  I do not know if rain will dampen the plans for my goodbye picnic – on the Pont des Arts connecting the left bank with the Louvre – but I know we will all celebrate together just the same.  My friends will inevitably ask me where I see myself five years from now.  And I know that, gazing for what will be the the last time in many months at the centuries-old buildings crowning the Seine, I will only be able to shrug and answer, "Who knows?"  The mystery is the only thing that’s sure.  And that is, after all, precisely the fun of it.

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