HOW TO NAG/TRIP IN FRENCH

"You always do that!" is one of the first things I learned to say in French upon my arrival in France. We were in the heady, hot south of France with long summer evenings, dinners stretching to ten or eleven at night; everyone gathered around the large table on the patio having several conversations at once in French in what sent my brain whirling into a mix of being lost, terrified, and fascinated. After dinner all the adults would clear everything up, wash the dishes, wipe down the table and then would come tea, dessert, and quieter conversations that would last until I don't know when. It was during one of these evenings while I was taking a turn at the dishes. My boss's brother-in-law kept interrupting my workflow to dampen the cloth he was using to wipe down the table. "My wife would say, 'Tu fait toujours ça !'" And so I learned to nag in French.

I've been thinking about this frequently on my morning commutes into Paris. My boss and I take the train in together, get off at Gare Nation where she takes the bus and I the metro. She can attest to you that every morning I trip on the same set of stairs. Sometimes at the bottom, others the middle, the top––I'm always tripping. Friday and today I only succeeded in not tripping because I kept repeating to myself, "Pick up your feet, pick up your feet, pick up your feet."

There are other places I trip, though. And I'm becoming increasingly aware there must be something lacking in my spacial perception. Four times out of ten, I can't manage to walk all the way around a corner or a doorway, I keep clipping my side. It's amazing my accumulation of bruises isn't more serious. My parents asked if this might be saying something about my glasses prescription, my sister suggested my parents didn't throw me around enough as a child, I was wondering if it might be a lingering aftereffect of jet lag.

Or has it always been this serious? I don't know, fais-je toujours ça?

I suppose it's not of much note. At least I appropriately recognized the need for and then used the French infinitive passé verbe form in a text last week.