This is an edited version of our live conversation.

Your Routine Is Your Quality of Life

Moving to another country changes a lot of big things first: country, language, paperwork (of course—and possibly some procedures you’ve never heard of…), the address.

with enough time, the smaller things start to change—the hours you keep, people you call, how you get something done, what an ordinary morning looks like, what you do most days. Maybe even a little about how you think.

Bref

Most of the good stuff is in the videos. A great conversation about life and adapting to a new country overt the long term. The full version is up top with some takeout clips below.

after the dust settles

Valerie Rivera and I both moved to France after already building our adult lives elsewhere. We have also both had to work out what comes after the move, once relocation stops being the main thing taking up most of your mental space.

We talked about making friends as adults, why a French rendez-vous is not the same thing as the New York version of “we should get together,” and the routines that make a place begin to feel like your actual life.

We also talked about becoming a student again (one of my favorite points of Valerie’s - and there were many)—not only of French, but of timing, bureaucracy, relationships, and all the systems you once moved through without thinking.

At one point, I said that getting an actual person involved often unlocks France. Valerie described her own learning to begin with relationships rather than assuming an impersonal system will solve the problem.

A bigger point is about time. Knowing how a place works is different from being able to live inside its rhythm. That part cannot be forced.

You cannot set a timeline for belonging.

Valerie writes Delightfully Disoriented in France, about creating a life in France while, as advertised, delightfully disoriented.

and for more Conversations, check out my talk with Betty Carlson !

Conversations: When France Stops Being the Main Story

Betty Carlson has lived in France for thirty-six years. I have been here for four. Somewhere between those two points is the moment when France stops feeling like the subject of your life and becomes the place where your life is happening.

We Live Here NowKeith Christiansen