Dreaming the feast

My name is Frances. I’ve never been to France. As an undergraduate I took up European studies. I’ve never been to Europe. I was moved by “A Moveable Feast,” a book by Ernest Hemingway. It was first mentioned by lawyer Ruben Balane during our class in succession. With my inclination to reading novels and the fact that it was about and by Hemingway, mostly set in France, I decided to read it. The travel and life stories inspired me and reminded me of my dream to someday have my own cliché photographs while posing outside the Louvre or touring Paris on a bicycle.

My “French dream” started five years ago, when, as a college sophomore, I struggled to pronounce the words of a Romance language that has always sounded like a hybrid of French and my provincial accents. The language captivated me. It was an amazing experience. I felt my tongue moving in ways it was not used to. I heard myself uttering phrases my ears were not used to listening to. The French vocabulary introduced me to syllables that ought to be nasal—a phenomenon seldom (if not never) used in English or Filipino. The language introduced me to a new world, to borrow a description often mentioned by my philosophy professor, who is now in France.

With my love for the language, I started exploring other French materials I could access. I watched French films and, up until now, count some French movies as some of my favorites (“Jeux d’Enfants,” “L’Appartement”). I am thrilled whenever I listen to different versions of “La Vie en Rose.” I read “The Little Prince” in French even if I didn’t really understand, though I memorized the line, “Il est très simple: on ne voit bien qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.” For a year, I visited lefigaro.fr and read at least an article a day. “It would help me gain fluency of the language,” I told myself.

Two years ago, I was awarded an exchange scholarship in a European university some two countries away from France. The stipend was good. Former scholars encouraged me to go and assured me that I would certainly be able to visit France. They even recommended cheap ways to travel.

The feeling was magical: I would be able to study in a foreign university, mingle with students who speak a different language, eat foreign food on a regular basis—and travel! Unfortunately, I had to decline, for three reasons. First, I was already in law school and would be delayed a year had I chosen to go to Europe. Second, I did not get my parents’ approval. It would have been the very first stamp on my passport. The thought excited me more than it scared me (if there was fear at all). Third, the processing of papers would have obliged me to advance funds, and I did not have the funds.

I had two weeks to decide. After a period of discernment, France was again half a world away when it could have been only two countries away. That decision turned me into a more diligent student, thinking that one way or another, “myself several years from now” would not regret that worst decision when I was in my 20s—saying “No” to Europe, saying “No” to France.

It pains me how France is not at most five years away. No one can predict tomorrow with precise accuracy, but I don’t think I’d be financially capable of travelling to Europe in the next five years. And the thought breaks my heart—that I’ll never have a profile picture with the Eiffel Tower as background, that I’ll never take walks along Parisian aisles in the near future. I heave an automatic sigh of disgust realizing that it’ll take “more” years for me to nibble on cheese and sip some wine in the place where the concept of “wine and cheese” originated—“more” years than my utmost desire for it could ever imagine.

While in law school, I hear of stories of good students being awarded educational scholarships and invitations to conferences abroad. Some lawyers who have been practicing for years would even say “No” to a trip if given the choice because consecutive business trips tire them. It gives me a sense of hope that while fulfilling my dream of serving the country as an advocate of justice, I would also be able to fulfill another dream I have cultivated for years: going to France, studying there, and meeting new people.

I have always aspired for meeting the world outside the Philippines. I want to personally experience the binary opposites of domestic and international. I want to know how a “white Christmas” feels like. I want to experience what a good friend experienced: They toured the Czech Republic and had to take a shower in one of the street fountains because the summer heat was terrible. I want to touch autumn-colored leaves and smell spring. I have always imagined that spring would smell like heaven, from my evaluation of pictures.

Visiting airplane sites to check on airfares to Europe discourages me. Calculating how much it costs to check into a European hotel sometimes makes me feel like it is a desperate dream and I should not even consider it in the next few years. But, when I was four, I thought going to grade school at seven meant several light years away. My seven-year-old self did not even believe I could go to college, seeing the pile of around six textbooks for Grade 1 students. Six textbooks felt like impossible to finish, but “impossible” things happen in time, with a courageous heart.

Will I ever be able to visit France? Yes. Pas encore mais je suis en train d’attendre. When that happens, I will surely take cliché pictures and put them in my car, in my room, inside my wallet, on my office desk, and every place significant to my heart. As Hemingway put it, “Paris is a moveable feast.”

Frances Lipnica Pabilane 23, is in her third year taking up Juris Doctor at Ateneo Law School.