New Keys

Finding an inner resource in a new home

I need to find something familiar, anything that can help me create a feeling of “home” in this foreign land.

A good curly-hair shampoo. A bottle of 409 or Windex. Chicken that tastes like chicken. An IPA that tastes like an IPA. A multi-stream recycling bucket. Ice cube trays that make cubes bigger than an Altoid. An apartment. 

Everything here feels different, from just mildly off to unrecognizable. The sound of a magpie could almost be mistaken for a red-breasted Woodpecker, but not quite. The mattresses are just slightly different sizes. Keys and locks and doors and windows don’t work the same. 

The time is military. The numbers and letters are hieroglyphic. The weights and measures are metric. I’m constantly subtracting 12 and trying not to order a kilometer of olives at the market.

Whaaaa????

Don is convinced that navigating all of these changes is helping build new neural loops to keep our brains healthy. I’m convinced I’m losing brain cells every time I try to unlock the front door.  

Consider how much time I spent researching the cleaning products under the kitchen sink of our Airbnb. You have your Disinfectant/Degraissant, Savon de Marseille, Vinaigre Menager, Savon Noir, Alcool Menager. I tried using them, interchangeably, as I would 409: Spray, wipe. But no, some of these mysterious cleansers are for windows, some are for grease stains, some need to be rinsed off. Then there’s the chicken. Why are some–but not all–tough and gamey? Am I buying the wrong kind of bird (le chapon, poularde, poulet de Bresse, le poussin, Label Rouge)? Is it my cooking? Or is it my over-processed, antibiotic-tainted, sugar-infused taste buds? 

Even the wonderful differences–like the heavenly taste of the cherry tomatoes–can throw me off balance. 

I get frustrated and discouraged. Don’s like, Yay, we’re making brain cells!

As we try to navigate chickens and spray cleaner, we’re also actively seeking a permanent residence. We went to our first apartment viewing earlier this week but couldn’t see the place because the real estate agent didn’t have the right key. The keys she did have, which all fit the lock but didn’t turn, resembled the sort of torturous medical device used for bloodletting during the Middle Ages. 

We would have liked to see another apartment, but the receptionist at the real estate office said that seeing it, renting it, getting on a list to see it, having anyone call us back, getting on a list to be called back, leaving an email address, getting an email address, or having any hope of renting any apartment within a 25km radius of Rennes, “c’est impossible.”

We just delivered a thick folder–our rental “dossier”--to another real estate agency. Before we can even view that apartment (which, not for nothing, I’ve already fallen in love with), the owner must approve the private details of our personal and financial lives. I hope they don’t ask for my passwords.

To keep on top of the stress I meditate daily. I use an app called InsightTimer. I’m usually drawn to Yoga Nidra sessions. Yoga Nidra, or Yogic Sleep, is a deep meditation that guides me into intense rest. It often begins with finding an “Inner Resource,” a/k/a, the happy place: a room or vacation spot or memory that is calming and relaxing. Someplace your mind can return to again and again to feel safe. My Inner Resource used to be the side porch of our Roxborough home. It’s where Don and I (and for many years our huskies) spent hours relaxing, talking, sharing beers, listening to the birds and planning our move to France. We survived the pandemic in that room. 

I’ve tried using it now but it doesn’t work. Someone else lives there, so there’s a tinge of nostalgia attached to it.

I need a new safe place. And it can’t be the wine aisle of the local U-Express supermarket. I’ve already identified the new apartment’s double balconies as the new Inner Resource. I’m hoping the owner approves of my personal and financial details enough to let me carve out a little niche of calm among the rooftops of Rennes. 

Where we can listen to the magpies and enjoy another kilometer of olives.