Is Less More (Part 2)

Adele Kudish, English

In an article for the Fall 2020 Inquirer, I wrote about my sabbatical experiences as an invited researcher at the Sorbonne in Paris, and, inspired by French teaching and living, I asked whether perhaps doing less could achieve more. As for paring down or finding alternative presentations (tables, slides, graphics) for my handouts, limiting my lecturing, and letting students grapple with uncertainty and the pleasure of the text, the results have been mixed, and pandemic conditions certainly would skew the results. For now, I can anecdotally say that it has led to many valuable office hour and email interactions. Moreover, I wrote that piece in the early days of the pandemic, when we were still adjusting to life in confinement. Today, I am writing more personally about what has changed and how we have adapted since March 2020. Specifically, how could I have known then that my question about doing more with less would be so prescient?

Unlike many friends who returned home to the U.S., we stayed in France. For the first two months, my husband and school-age daughter and I—just like everyone else—would have to make the absolute most out of our 500-square-foot apartment, and out of the smallest pleasures at home: cooking and baking, often substituting ingredients we were out of, reading, writing, binge-watching, crafting, playing, creating colorful calendars to keep us organized, and Zooming with friends and family. In June 2020, our daughter went back to in-person second grade for the last month of school before the summer break. We were beyond apprehensive. But we were also relieved that at least our seven-year-old’s world could grow a little bigger. And in having her go back to school, we rediscovered why France is such a special country and why we were so grateful to stay here.

One major thing we learned from the pandemic is that so much of our sense of reality is fragile. School for our daughter became the more to everything else that was less. While many stores, museums, theaters, and restaurants closed down again when the Delta variant surged in December 2020, and President Macron announced a strict 6pm curfew, education was prioritized in France and schools remained open, welcoming children and adapting to changing safety measures with surprising speed and compassion. Moreover, families here did not completely cut off interaction. While every family’s comfort level was different, many friends continued to find ways to interact while still respecting the rules. The little things—a walk in the park with friends or a takeout picnic, or even sharing a galette des rois or raclette at home with a small group—had become great joys, never again to be taken for granted. Moreover, the ability for all children to return to in-person learning and to maintain and grow their friendships and social lives transformed our pandemic experience for the better. I think the traditions of French conviviality, cultural rules and habits that foster togetherness, and not just pandemic fatigue, influenced this balance of safety and sociability. And despite our fears that the French skewed anti-vaxx, as of April 2022, 79.6% of all eligible residents, that is, age five and older, are fully vaccinated against Covid.

An expression I have used a lot in the last two years is about finding “le bien dans le mal.” That is, the silver lining. For me, this was the opportunity to live outside the U.S. for the first time, and to learn about a culture that on the surface looks similar to ours but in fact is unique in many complex ways. I’ve learned since the last time I wrote for the Inquirer that the French not only make more out of less, but that their resilience is truly admirable. It has not been perfect, of course, but I feel that the government and the people here have managed the virus very well overall.

Now as I look forward to moving back to New York and to resuming in-person teaching, I know that it’s not just the French that are resilient. New Yorkers are famously so, especially in our passionate duty to helping each other. I keep reminding myself, we were so very, very fortunate. The social losses, canceled trips, parties that couldn’t be planned, and the fear of catching Covid again, all of these are real. But these fears and anxieties coexist with the rediscovery of small pleasures as well as with our renewed and clarified sense of values: mutual aid, education, and friendship.

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