Behind The Scenes With "French Debbie"

🇫🇷 I went to boarding school in France when I was 14. That has shaped my life.

🎙️ Listen to this podcast episode!

S6-EP3 Best Of: Debbie and Sam Go Back to France

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And now, Behind The Scenes of this episode…

When I was a shy, introverted, and not very self confident 14-year-old, my parents announced that they were sending me to school in France for a year. To broaden my horizons and so I could learn a second language. And no, not to some posh school in Paris, but to a remote and strict Protestant boarding school in the Massif Central, which is the highland region of mountains and plateaus in south central France.

Despite hating my one experience with summer camp and other short stints away from home, I said “yes” to this proposition. (Though in hindsight I’m not sure there was any question… and saying “no” to my parents about anything was not really an option.) So it was settled. That September, my parents and I made the transatlantic trip. It’s fuzzy, but we must have flown from New York to Paris, taken a train to Lyon and then rented a car. What I do remember is driving with my parents up and up the windy roads to the school which was in the village of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, famous for harboring Jewish children during the Second World War.

14-year-old French Debbie in 1966-67 at lower right. Photos by Collège Cévenol classmate Stuart Musgrave. (I was in the equivalent of ninth grade.)

They settled me into my triple room in the girls’ dormitory, a spartan stone building like the rest of the campus. Then they turned around and departed, heading straight back home to America. I was on my own. 

To this day I marvel over what happened next. With no angst and no tears, I plunged into life at Collège Cévenol, mastering basic fluency in several months, and making a number of friends, both French and American. (It was an international school with a small group of “foreign” students in addition to the French.) I was excited and intrigued by the environment of this no-frills boarding school in the mountains and by the challenge of learning to speak a foreign language. And I was good at it. I seemed to have a natural gift for French and quickly acquired a native accent. More surprising, I never felt homesick. Not once. In contrast, I learned many decades later from my father that he and my mother wept all the way down the mountain – worrying that I would be miserable and that perhaps this hadn’t been such a great idea after all.

I was astounded when my dad told me this. My parents never cried and never admitted to any insecurities. They (and especially my mother) were always on the go and never paused to be introspective or pay attention to the ripples under the surface, especially when it came to understanding their children. But I have to give them credit, because sending me very far away to boarding school in France was a marvelous idea.

So what happened to me in France when I was 14?

It’s very simple: I became a new and different person. Learning to speak a new language opened the door to a new more confident identity. I was now French Debbie, popular and outgoing and eager to engage with my peers. I even got my first boyfriend, Rolf. One afternoon we walked down to the little movie theater in the village. As we sat side by side in the dark, he leaned over and whispered into my ear with his hot breath, “Je t’aime.” Rolf and I never even kissed, but this romance was the most exciting thing that could’ve happened to 14-year-old me.

I’ve always thought it was my own discovery that learning a new language enables you to become a different person. But quick research reveals that it’s a known phenomenon. The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis postulates that the particular language you speak influences the way you think about reality – and hence your sense of self.

And now, [B]OLD French Debbie 

So now we come to 71-year-old Debbie. For me, the luxury of growing old means I have the time, the space, and the perspective to get to know myself, to ask the questions my parents hadn’t: Who am I? What am I good at? What are my values? What is most important? These last couple of weeks in France, I feel new answers starting to emerge. More than a half century has passed since my year abroad, but French Debbie is still there, under the surface. And it only takes a week or two (okay, maybe three) to reawaken her. It’s not so much that I’m reconnecting with my 14-year-old self; it’s the sense of slipping into a new identity that I find so appealing. The aging French Debbie is not worrying about the challenges of getting old or whether she has enough years left to become fluent. This older French Debbie is exhilarated by the ability, in the moment, to think and speak in a different language and to do it pretty well. She’s confident and competent and, well, she feels pretty cool.

So in honor of French Debbie (whether 14 or 71), here’s a re-run of a popular podcast episode about living in France that first aired in 2019. I’ve added a new Intro for Nov. 2023 to give you a bit of context. You’ll find a bunch of useful links in the show notes.

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🎙️This is Season 6 of my [B]OLD AGE podcast. Thank you for listening! I interview authors, experts, and exceptional individuals to reveal the truths about [b]oldly moving from midlife to old age in a society that devalues old people. I also invite my husband on as a frequent guest. He’s a retired physician with a dry sense of humor and he makes me laugh. You can find over 100 previous episodes on Apple podcasts or on my website.

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