I am really not so easily assimilated

I confess: Every time I go into the kitchen in my French host family’s apartment to make lunch or dinner or to put away a couple groceries I bought at the Monoprix, I feel like I’m doing something wrong, something of which they are sure to disapprove.

As if putting my jar of Nutella in the cabinet next to the sugar is illegal and they are the kitchen police, secretly watching and waiting to jump out from around a corner to accuse me of irresponsible grocery-in-cupboard-placement.

And it’s not because the family I live with is mean – they are actually really nice and welcoming. This is just me creating unnecessary anxiety that I am always doing something wrong or my actions are frowned upon by the French.

Maybe I should call it my American guilt. I’m either too aware of how people in other countries and societies view Americans, or I am overly self-conscious of showing my “Americanisms” around people who don’t like Americans.

I have a feeling I’m a little too wound up.

It’s just because I want to be able to blend into the French or Parisian culture as well as I can while I’m here. But maybe that’s too much to ask.

I mean, most of the people living here have been a part of this culture for years, and yet I, some girl from Jersey (not that there’s anything wrong with New Jersey, I do live there after all) decides that in the next three months, she can blend completely into a foreign culture.

It definitely comes more easily to some than others.

I have no idea what all the little gadgets and trinkets in the kitchen do, or the proper way to clean up after myself. That’s why I’m so self conscious in the kitchen – a once-comforting place I loved to be in at home.

But, after a little bit of experimental testing and prodding while I was alone in the apartment, I am realizing the function of everything in my host family’s kitchen.

Maybe now I won’t rush around when I’m cleaning up after myself before anyone notices I’m there so they can’t be offended (or worse, upset with me) if I do something the wrong way. Maybe I won’t blurt out in my best panicked French, “don’t blame me, I’m just a product of a society that overuses paper towels and leaves the water running when cleaning dishes – this is not my fault!”

I think what it comes down to is letting go of my fears and having more confidence in myself. After all, isn’t that what people who are easily assimilated have in spades?

Who cares if you think you’re asking for a cucumber and instead get handed a zucchini? As long as you act like a zucchini is in fact exactly what you were expecting and you learn from your mistake, who will question you?

Certainly not the kitchen police.