Last Sunday, I was watching a last sunset over Barra in Salvador, wondering how I was going to handle the transition from Brazil to France.

Last Sunday feels like years ago.

I slipped into my French life at one point between Salvador, Lisbon, Paris and Nantes, little by little, step by step—I put on a sweater and jeans at the airport in Salvador, entered Portugal with a French passport, inserted my French SIM card in Lisbon, started speaking French and using my French bank card in Paris, and I unpacked in Nantes.

By the time I woke up on Wednesday, I was French—a suspiciously tan French, sure, but undoubtedly a local because I know my way around.

I like being in France. Twenty years have passed, Nantes is no longer a conservative, bourgeois city and I no longer see myself as a kid or as a confused teen everywhere I go. It’s a different city, a different century, a different me, maybe.

I rediscovered my French life during the pandemic when I was stuck in France. And this is when I also realized my Canadian life had gotten ridiculously expensive and complicated—twenty years ago, it was the other way around, Canada was cheap and full of opportunities…

I’m a bit lost. I’m stuck in a city where I don’t want to live anymore, tired of trying to fit into a culture I no longer understand, meeting expectations I can’t meet and reaching material goals I’m not interested in. This isn’t something I can solve right now so I focus on what I can accomplish in the meantime, one step at a time—anything that teaches me something, makes me happy, makes life easier, gives me ideas.

This week, I accomplished a few missions. I picked up my new French bank card, got a haircut and went for my routine dental checkup.

For inspiration, I visited the Jules Verne Museum—okay, mostly because museums are free on the first Sunday of the month.

For fun, I went bargain-hunting with the rest of the city on Saturday since it was “braderie” day, a citywide street market for stores to get rid of excess inventory. I didn’t buy anything but it was fun and lively.

And for closure, I went to see Mamie at the cemetery—I tied some colourful fitas from Bahia, Papi and Mamie will know it’s me. My mum took pictures of Mamie’s last day for me, and more at the funeral chamber and on the day of the funerals. They were hard to look at but I’m glad we have them.

“Hey, you did the Chinese tomb cleaning!” Feng said when I told him about the cemetery visit.

There’s a tom-sweeping day in Chinese culture, 清明 . We looked up the day… turned out it’s the first week of April, so my timing was perfect. Funny coincidence.

Now I’m going to look for other missions for the week.